Just wanted to give everyone an update on my progress so they don't have to guess
I have most of the actual changes completed except for the Units, and I have most of the land unit changes and bombard unit changes done. But they aren't complete and do need more changes still.
I haven't done much adding, but I've added 5 ground units at this time. They are Man At Arms, Musket Infantry, Shock Troops, Rifle Infantry, and Assault Troops (in order of their appearance in the game, more or less). (All units subject to change, but that's what I have so far.)
I've also added 4 technologys so far, and they are Sattle (who's name might change...just not sure what to call it), Hullmaking, Squirearchy, and Volunteerism. All are also subject to change, of course.
With the completed download I will also include a modified .html file which calculates combat statistics to make it easy to see what the changes to the units mean. I'm using 2 that are already available, but I changed them to make them easier to use and will also be updated for all the new units/changes.
With exception to Horseman (which will come later in the ancient age, but be more a little more powerful and probably more expensive) and Chariot (which now is alot like the former Horseman) most of the Ancient Age units are currently unchanged. Only defensive units haven't currently changed in the Middle Ages while all other units there have changed alot (they have had their attack increased, mostly). The Industrial age pretty much changes completely, and the Modern Age changes quite a bit too.
As an idea of unit changes, we'll take the Cavalry for instance. Formerly against a Pikeman fortified in a walled town/city it had a 53% chance of winning; with the pikeman fortified in the open the Cav had a 67% chance of victory (that means that the Cavalry wins only slightly over half the time in the first instance, and a little over 3 out of 5 times in the latter instance). However the Cavalry cost 80 shields to build in the game while Pikeman take only 30, meaning you can build 2 pikeman for each Cavalry and STILL have 20 shields left over. And the Cavalry comes at the tail end of the Middle Ages, while the Pikeman comes at the very begining!
Now the Cav have a 69% chance of victory in the former instance, and an 82% chance of winning in the latter instance. This may increase, but I'm still thoroughly testing it. Seems good on paper, but remember the Musketman is available much earlier in the age than Cavalry.
Just as an idea of what percentages mean, in my game I had a 4hp warrior fortified on a hill be killed by a barbarian 3hp warrior that was attacking (on Monarchy level, so no bonus against barbarians). The bariarian had a 13% chance of success.
That's how probability works, after all
So it's not a
gigantic change in probability, but still a significant one and may still be altered upon more testing.
I'm also experimenting with tweaking unit hitpoints a little, and am liking the results. Only a minor change but it does seem to smooth out combat results nicely. Changing the "Normal" hitpoints by 1 seems to swing the probabilitys about 3-5% in the favor of what victory was most likely anyhow. So a Tank is less likely to loose to a Pikeman, while a Pikeman is more likely to win against an attacking Swordsman (when fortified, that is).
The changes.txt file currently lists the changing of 100 different item in the game (changing a technologys cost and requirements would only be counted as 1 change, for instance), and I haven't added any unit info yet
At this rate there will probably be over 150 changes/additions in this release version,

. I also haven't done the governments yet either
So it's probably going to be at least into next week before a release version is ready, though I might put out a late-beta version to make sure all the kinks are worked out and give you all something to play with
This will
definately spice up and improve the game _alot_ in my humble opinion.
One last note: I found corruption totally mangabable as-is, so the addition of the corruption reducing improvements might be all that's needed to keep things going smoothly throughout the game. But this could just be my new strat which builds less citys than normal and gets the capital up to max size so early...dunno
