I know you get flooded with stuff, comments, and suggestions. We all appreciate your work, and if this has been said here or elsewhere excuse my laziness for not reading all of the various civ forums.
1)
Illians: Aside from the oft mentioned too powerful in the end game (I agree) I want to add that the
Godslayer weapon was spawned in my capital every time I got Auric Ascended, making him totally impossible to kill. Intended to spawn there or glitch?
2) Vampire
(Calabim) Hero: Reworking him would be good, as his is just basically a slightly stronger vampire and when you factor in feasting for XP, the Hero promotion is pointless (use Sacrifice the Weak with all farms for one/two cities to feast on), then no real big advantage there, unless I am missing something. Please
someone who thinks I AM missing something:
comment!
3) Although you reworked the
dragonslayer, etc. stuff, it might be nice to perhaps have a couple smaller/weaker dragons spawn in the game since it's very unlikely that the Grigori actually get into a position to slay the ones in the game, I have never seen the AI build the White or Black ones.
4) I'd say the AI should really learn to use
HAWKS. They are
defenceless versus hidden units, they usually dont even try to attack them, even in their own territory. I went through a phase of using shadows to basically clear out a target civ before a war; to the point that both they have nothing, and my shadows might get up to 700+ experience just on constantly circling and killing with hidden + hidden nationaility.
5) Further, on HAWKS. From the
CIV4 mechanic of the
circling fighter to intercept enemy planes, perhaps the same could be done for hawks: circling cities or bird-bearing recon units and
intercepting (thus negating) an enemy's peak. Maybe a hawk could be designated as 'predator' or 'spotter' on construction.
6) Exclusive Promotions: Depending on how you play, of course, you often get these sick (ie: really good) units that are basically
unstoppable with almost all promotions: +80% versus every type of unit, +120% strength, withdrawl, movement, blitz etc. To make it more interesting, perhaps limiting directions of promotions could be considered. Like, if you get City Attack, you
cannot get City Garrison. If you get vs. melee, you cannot get vs. archers or horse, etc. Instead of +20% strength, maybe just + X% attack or defence, but not both. This would force you to specialize your units and make them
vulnerable to SOMETHING, and not just an all purpose killing machine, like when my four immortals basically kill everything with blitz.
7) I think taking cities
without seige weapons should be a little harder, and even with them. Some serious defence bonus should remain if the city had walls. Perhaps a "
moat" improvement or something could make it harder to take and give a minimum defence bonus to a city (assuming you don't have amphibian). This also makes the Lanun more relevant in landlocked games.
8) (As has been said) early barbarians are really tough, some games I get ruined just by one pesky barbarian 5+ strength when I cannot get axemen for another 100 turns. Perhaps an inside your culture a
bonus vs. barbarians would be good, or the ability to "
raise citizen army" leashed to within 2 squares of your city, say 6 attack strength. It stops production/growth while in use, requires a city of size 2 or more, and expires after 2 turns. If it dies, you might lose pop or gain unhappiness temporarily.
9) Further on this point, since it is almost impossible to
attack strong
barbarians/demons in the early game without sacrificing units you don't necessarily have, you have to let them attack your city. If by chance they don't die, they get several promotions and then are unstoppable: you often die. What if
in the early game they should only pillage? Is it really realistic that an endless stream of them would constantly be coming anyway? Wait... just I just use "realistic" talking about Rife?
I know this is a long one, I hope it isn't too repetitive and can be useful. We do love Rife!
