Can't D/L the mod, which is unfortunate 'cause I want to see the new unit rules. (can SpecOps disguise their nationality? That would kick butt!) However, I can comment from the readme, so here goes...
"...having Scientists who can't read doesn't seem very sensible."
On the contrary, most early science comes from religious guides and mystics, many of whom can't read. It seems perfectly reasonable to discover currency before reading and writing.
I'd argue against increasing the tax collector effectiveness. Tax collectors get the improvements counted in their bonuses, so I'd stick to that. But the Scientist increase is much needed. (Why did they decide a Scientist doesn't generate more output with a University and Research Lab available?)
"Forest value in shields changed from 10 to 15."
This will increase the use of IFE. Do you have a counter for that? Perhaps increasing the time required to plant?
Love the Palace changes.
Perhaps instead of having the library reduce corruption, you should have a bank reduce it? That's my preferred model. Administration of finances makes cheating on them much harder. Plus, I think banks should increase luxury. People tend to underestimate just how important a bank is, but reliable transport of major capital resources, and the opportunity to earn interest is a big deal. The Medici banks were heavily responsible for the Renaissance, but they're trivialized in the game.
Police station reducing corruption -- yeah, I get the joke. But it's still the right thing to do. They *do* reduce crime, and that's certainly a big part of what corruption represents.
Amen on the changes to Leonardo's. In fact, I tend to think the Workshop should be even *more* culture. Bach's Cathedral is 5. Surely the greatest figure of the Renaissance should be comparable.
Wall Street -- how about adding a +50% to luxury or tax output? It's no secret that cities with major exchanges (New York, London, Tokyo, Toronto, Hong Kong) all have massive influx of capital based on trading activity. If I had my way, I'd add *both* tax and luxury from Wall Street. Building a financial trading center for your empire should be critical as of the Industrial age. You could offset the new powers of it by making it require The Corporation. (How do you have a stock exchange without a concept of public companies?)
While on the topic of improvements, I read elsewhere about Factories and Manufacturing Centers having a negative impact on culture. I very much don't like this idea. The game has few enough ways to increase culture as it is. To take away culture based on making a city more capable of producing it is strongly counter-intuitive to me. New York used to be a major manufacturing center, but it's cultural heritage is very strong. What about London? Tokyo? San Francisco? I understand what you're trying to express here -- but the game itself doesn't allow enough cross-city support for this to make sense. You *must* build factories and manufacturing centers in your major cities in late game if you want to build wonders. How can a cultural mecca keep up with out them?
Resources in general -- there's a lot of pushback on this site about resource wars. Personally, I *like* the limitations of the resources and the fact that you can be forced to go to war over them. I think that's a major new dimension to Civ 3. What might make sense, though, is to allow for earlier reveals on some resources, so that you can make decisions about what you'll need later. For example, instead of Steam Power revealing coal on the map, maybe Chemistry should (would make that research more useful, too) and perhaps Steam Power should reveal oil. That way, you can find the resources before they become quite so crucial to unit development. Personally, I *hate* the fact that I can discover Steam Power, then can't build railroads until I've found some coal, too. It's not like people didn't know what coal was before railroads. It simply wasn't important to have it until then.
I think if you made those adjustments, you could refrain from a lot of the other resource changes you've made, because people could plan better. The trade, diplomacy and expansion aspects of Civ 3 are an exciting new aspect of gameplay. Let's not immediately undermine them by reversing the strategic resource concept completely. Let's just allow for better planning by revealing the resources before you actually *need* them.
I like Jungles at 1/1/0 rather than 1/2/0. You should be encouraged to clear and replant them for maximum productivity. Otherwise, they're just forests with disease risks. Real jungles have a lot of unharvestable stuff in them that gets in the way.
Thank you for the civ-specific upgrade fix. That was needed in a big way. The current behavior is very frustrating.
Infantry rubber requirement: shoes. That's what drives it. Ask an infantryman how important shoes are. Don't fight the resource requirements for modern armies -- it's a crucial aspect of the new game. A civ *must* get those resources to keep up militarily. Just make it so you can see rubber sooner. Like, say, with Industrialization or Refining. That will give the resource deprived the opportunity to secure it before it becomes crucial to military upkeep.
I do *NOT* like the approach of making late weaponry available without Oil. You can run a modern mechanized force of any kind without Oil. Not a navy, not an air force, not tanks, not artillery. You just *can't*. Oil is absolutely vital to modern warfare. If you've gotten that far and don't have it, then pick a non-military victory path. Again, if your concern is that you can't see oil until it's too late, then make it visible sooner in the tech-tree. That way you can use cavalry and infantry to secure oil supplies in advance of being able to build tanks. That, I think, offers better game balance.
Transport unit change -- yuck. Put it back, please. *OR* make it possible to airlift settlers and workers. Personally, I'd prefer the latter. The basic problem is that transoceanic expansion requires manually carting settlers and workers across. Sending a transport with 2 less of those makes for a lot more transPacific voyages. And modern transport ships can cart 5000 troops -- that doesn't make 8 game units seem unreasonable.
But really, I'd prefer to airlift settlers and workers. Build a beachhead city in a faraway land, rush an airport, then airlift your further expansion units. Much better approach.
Tangent -- have you considered creating a C-130 unit? Aerial transport unit that you could load up, then rebase far away? That would be awesome. You could make it low capacity for balance issues. The real thing can only carry two tanks anyway. Just give it a capacity of 1. It can carry a single worker crew, or a single tank unit, or a group of marines. But that's it.
Cruise Missles -- the Tomahawk is actually a long-range cruise missle. Earlier models were much shorter range, though obviously much more than an artillery shell. I'd be a fan of 4 or 5 here. They don't have the reach of an F-15. (The part that sucks here is Stealh Bombers -- they should have a range of 16 at least. The stealths over Afghanistan now are staged out of Missouri! Let's hear it for mid-air refueling.)
on Government Types -- I'd love to see a government that increased production, but discouraged war, even more than Democracy. Sort of a Libertarian model, starting with Democracy, but adding 3/unit support cost, a worker rate of 4, very high assimilation and resistance, and no drafting allowed. I'd make diplomats Elite, but Spies conscripts as well. You can investigate cities and steal tech like nobody's business, but you are utterly incompetant at destroying a rival's supplies. Give it some thought.
Was that enough feedback for you?
And I haven't even downloaded the actual mod yet!
This is very much true for gold as even if the AI kill all you road your amount in the bank is not affected.
