Rebalancing to extend attack windows:
• Slightly slower base tech rate from classical era techs onwards for both player and AI. (Increase base costs of classical techs onwards by a consistent amount, say 10%).
• To compensate for slower base tech pace – increase the bonus to teching towards techs already known by others by a comparable amount. This should keep the tech situation a little more even between players than at present.
• Reduce cost of Archery tech to 40 at noble, same cost as hunting. Gives easier early defence for the human, no effect on AI who starts with it.
• Unit upgrades – boost to help player/encourage retaining and upgrading veterans. Upgrade formula takes experience into account, so unit upgrades become cheaper the more experience the unit has. Units above level 4 also no longer drop down to 10 exp on upgrading.
• Enforce limit on number of settled gg’s per city. This may be necessary if we have cheaper unit upgrades with higher experience, to prevent new units built in a multi-settled gg city becoming too cheap to instantly upgrade without earning field experience. Also encourages players to attach gg's, which is more beneficial anyway (see below).
• Make siege more survivable - give all siege a base 25% withdrawal rate. Idea is higher survivability on attacking but do the same damage to keep balance. This means attacker needs to replenish siege less, and so can concentrate on producing units instead. And defender even more likely to use siege defensively.
General rebalancing:
• I’d want to nerf the slavery whip a little bit. It shouldn’t be a players primary source of hammers the whole way through the game! So nerf instead by making 2 pop whip = 2 unhappy, 3 pop = 3 unhappy etc. And also, nerf via moving 20% of granary food storing to walls/castle, see below. Sacrifical Altar would now become more powerful as it has a bigger effect. Maybe take it one step further and lower hammer output from each pop whip. But reducing hammer output to 20 or 25h would require much rebalancing of all build costs, a lot of work.
• To compensate for less whipping by the player, reduce the AI bonus on building things a bit.
• On the other hand, reduce wonder/zero hammer invested whip penalty. Whipping now much more tactically important, whipping wonders/defenders encouraged.
• Nerf wonder fail gold (back down to 50% of hammers invested) to prevent failing wonders beating equivalent wealth building.
• Boost attached gg units: +1 strength promo at end of combat/drill line. (Similar to heroic strength promotion in FFH).
• Boost pillage income slightly: farms, plantations, windmills to same output as mines. To encourage mounted pillaging (especially if mounted receive commando as outlined below).
• Nerf cheesy espionage multipliers (lower cultural + religious percentage bonuses)
• Nerf state religion switch cheese (increase delay from 5 to 10 turns)
• Improve serfdom somehow
Unit rebalancing:
• Boost muskets – 10str, 90 hammers (rebalance uu’s a little to compensate – +15% bonuses for jan, 1fs+drill1 but no drill2 for oromo, leave musketeers). This makes drafting stronger too.
• Boost scouts/explorers - can attack (allows scout worker steal), explorers start with medic 1.
• Boost landsknecht – 8str, 50% bonuses vs cav and melee. (Unit basically becomes a cheaper mace, with pike bonus vs mounted, but can't get city raider promos).
• Boost Ballista elephant - first strikes?
• Nerf quecha – 50% bonus vs archers
• Rebalance praetorians – nerf to 40h 7str with 10% city attack.
• Or, more fun idea – praetorians strength stays same but moves to become a new Roman unique unit that requires monarchy and iron, and regains swordy 10% city attack bonus. Base Roman sword unique unit with IW is now named legionnaire, 40h 7str with 10% city attack, upgradable to praetorian for free at level 4 and above.
• Warriors upgrade to archers/warriors unbuildable after archery (to prevent vassal gift cheese/nerf cheap HR garrisons).
• Boost marine – starts with commando.
• Rebalance mounted units: all mounted units have –20% city attack/defense, but start with commando promo. Makes unrealistic mounted rushes harder, but pillaging and razing unguarded cities easier. Players also now have to minimse/defend road networks to prevent pillaging or capture raids. Commando promo treats railroads as roads to keep cavalry in check in industrial era.
Buildings:
• Boost walls/dun - stores 10% food on growth
• Boost castle/citadel - stores 10% food on growth, obsoletes with corporation
• Nerf granary - stores 30% food on growth, extra 10% with corporation, 10% with rifling so back up to 50% when walls and castle obsolete
• Boost forum +50% gpp
• Boost industrial plant: builds +100% faster with coal, normal slots, 1 free engineer
• Boost stele: hard to balance for creative Zara! Maybe +25% trade route yield?
• Boost Customs House/Feitoria: Additional 1 trade route
Less developed/more controversial/ big change ideas:
• Boost protective trait: all units +10% strength inside own borders (like homeland trait in FFH), remove free city defender 1 promo, retain free drill 1 promo.
• ‘Dismount’ ability for cavalry. Takes 1 turn. Lose 1 movement, lose penalty to attacking city, and lose susceptibility to spears/pikes/elephants. Would be very hard to implement though as AI wouldn;t know when to use it/ would use it all the time.
• Leadership promo has an extra effect which allows units in gg’s stack to upgrade in neutral/enemy territory.
• Reduce AI ability/willingness to tech trade with player AND each other, by making all AIs only trade at pleased. Harder for player to catch up by tech brokering after alpha, but also harder for AI trading whores to run away. This should also lessen inter AI war bribes.
) anymore and the ai is a level of magnitude better than the base game.
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