*EDIT:
Until I got some time to come here correct this, do not take into account all battles with the attacker having Combat ups (it seems one function on the calculator is working wrongly, so I'll need time to correct all the info I displayed on the SPOIL tag). Everything is corrected now, no worries anymore.
Indeed we have totally different gameplays, I'm solely focused on Totestra, Huge, Deity, Marathon, with most standard options on (plus Permanent Alliance, Barbarian World, Start as Minors and Raging Barbarians, but the last one is being reconsidered because it facilitates us players, and normally open the path for a single AI superpower). And I may be saying some things that sound strange to you, but with thousands of LoR games behind my back, and a few hundreds on Deity (I started playing on Deity for 2-3 years), I did some research about those things I said. So I'll try to be more clear about what I stated, following your answers:
1 - The fact for BRs to be almost useless is the number of troops that an AI has on Deity (mostly for the beggining of the game, when the difference is much more absurd then on the late game). Making it weaker only increases my desire to forget about them. The AI has no idea how to use them (actually the AI has no idea how to use Siege weapons at all);
2 - Ideally CIV wouldn't give the AI 4 starting techs, 8 warriors, 2 archers and 2 settlers, plus all facilitation on the support cost and the extra decrease in cost the AI gets if your difficulty is above noble (and it gets worse to you as you go harder). LoR even goes beyond that: Minor civs which pop from barbs start with 15-30 units (after the event of forming the state, which comes a small time after the popping), from archers to swordsmen, passing through spearmen, axemen and chariots (normally it even gets a GGen). As the AI always know where everyone else is, it doesn't matter if it starts right beside you, or far away: It'll come, sooner or later. The only two ways for that not happening are: Start on a small island or use the Shield Glitch. So if you can't use the shield glitch, you're doomed. With OP Nomads things get even harder (mostly on Raging Barbarians). But the other side of the question coin remains: Why a 2
Nomad with 5
coming as early as barb archers (3
) to be replaced by a Horseman (6
) by the time of barb swordsmen (6
)? I still think they both are too close in
, one being the evolution of the other and each appearing with such a big gap in age between them (barb horsemen are rare, most of my games I'm full of neighbors before I see one, normally I only see them if I border a desert, and a long time after barb swordsmen have arrived);
3 - About Grenadiers, I have no idea how you did these countings, but in your first scenario (which is the same of mine
) a CRIII Grenadier attacks a CGIII Musketman fortified and gets 30% chances of winning? I assume you're talking about the former LoR Grenadier because you put CRIII on it. Previously I have made a mistake doing the math of it, but now I'll give the real numbers (thx to Raize's Odds calculator):
As we can see the Grenadier got worse against Muskets (Old CRIII got 12.01% more then New Combat II & Pinch, respectively with 78.21% and 66.20%) and extremely better against Hvy Foots and Pikes, what creates a vacuum of city attacking unit for this age. Without City Attacking Grenadiers, the next City Attacking unit will be the Marine or Armor, because all mounted units will perish to this new set: Cuirassiers will face Grenadiers while Cavalry will face Riflemen. The Grenadier now becomes a defensive unit with a good bonus against melee attackers (which is pointless, because a musketman was already well armed against old melee units) and the possibility of achieving CGIII, becoming itself the new unbeatable defensive unit. Not even riflemen will be able to win against them, and by the time they arrive, they will become the best defensive troop, so we will enter a non-conquests age from the advent of Muskets to the discovery of the Armor/Artillery. Of course Siege units may change this scenario, but as of now, when we needed a few, we will be needing a lot, because cannons will have a hard time against CGIII Grenadiers. I think original LoR did great to change the Grenadier to a melee unit because it plays better this role. They were the leading lines of the army, not city defenders.
4 - Actually the military oriented players will keep going for Military Science because of the following path:
Military Science opens Grenadiers, Cuirassiers, Frigate, Ship of the Line and Ironclad Cruiser, 2 great units for the time they come and 3 needed ships to survive in this era. It needs Civil Service (which gives Hvy. Footman) and Muskets (which gives Musketman, Pathfinder, Cannon and Privateer), and this needs Gunpowder (which gives Bombard and Galleon) and Engineering (which gives Pikeman and Trebuchet). Engineering needs Construction which gives War Elephants and Catapults, and Gunpowder needs Guilds, which gives Knights and Galleass. Guilds and Engineering also need Machinery (which gives Crossbowman and Hvy Footman), and Guilds needs Feudalism (which gives Longbow) too. This is clearly a Military path, and if it's intended to keep on it'll go to Chemistry and then it may choose if it's better to get Military Tradition + Rifling or Steel. But in this case, Military Science comes later as it'll only make later units available, so it will start this new era's trait of not having a defined military path, as from now on everything will be hardly mixed.
To reach Military Tradition, you have to take this path:
Military Tradition needs Nationalism and Music, and Nationalism needs Civil Service (the only tech of this path which liberates a unit, but this unit needs Machinery too) and Divine Right. From Music and Divine Right to the beggining of the tech tree there is no possible path that has a single tech which liberates a unit, besides the Legends, which are liberated by Polytheism, Monarchy and Divine Right.
So if you're really interested on units, you'll keep going for chemistry even having to forget about cuirassiers in Military Tradition. And the Techers will have a powerful unit available for them. So it'll be a unit better for techers then military focused players, and may have a really short lifespan (or not a lifespan at all). I still disagree with the change.
5 - Try a game with the Iroquois and focus on doing espionage things. When you discover you can put all your commerce on espionage and use it to steal gold and tech from your neighbors, spread culture to get tiles, influence and enemy cities revolting for you and spawning troops, settlers and GGens for you and giving you a momentary discount on troops maintenance cost, you'll never forget about doing some espionage from now on. It even allows you to remove a city's entire defense in 1 turn, nullify cities with unhappy, unhealth or revolt missions and change civics to provoke instability (nothing better then to change a free religion AI into a theocracy of a minority religion within its empire, specially if that minority has its shrine on your land and is your state religion).
6 - I think the numbers I told didn't impress you as they did to me. Maybe it's because I already lost uncountable times in the beggining of the game because 30 troops suddenly popped right outside my known area. It doesn't matter if they pop near you or far away, nor if you used your initial troops to get woodsmen III and Guerilla III. If you have 8 troops (some archers and some warriors), what can you do against a massive stack of swordsmen and chariots? Let's say 20, a standard number for these situations. Remember that one is always a General, so some of them got some ups too. And I didn't try the collateral damage option because I'm sure the AI will fail to use this correctly and it would be easily exploitable. But even with such a bonus, a shield would be required for the time when you still hasn't catapults to train.
The AI knows where you are, and maybe I'm not correct but I guess I am, on the fact that it targets not exactly the closest, but something between the closest and the weakest. And as a small dose of EPs already gives the AI info about my military prowess, I don't think it's coincidence it normally targetting you instead of another AI, just because you can't have the same number of troops as they have. The same 8 troops are the maximum required to make a shield around a single city, so the AI simply ignores you as a target for its armies (it seems the AI has a Full Army script and some skirmishings scripts, the full army targets cities, the skirmishing just wander around, which may fight against your shield eventually).
7) Then I would put them only in Legends, and the rest would be put in a city. Maybe if I couldn't make an early Legend I would make one General. An uber unbeatable unit is always nice to have, but to produce powerful units is even better. 100% withdrawal rate changes this drastically. The snowball effect of making more and more generals like this is stupid. And in the end breaks the war engine of the game. I think that my current game on LoR multiplayer with a friend of mine will reach the time where we will fight each other with 100% withdrawal Helicopters. After this game I'll have a better opinion about this, but maybe it should be reverted to have a cap.
For me it's sad to need to use the shield glitch to survive on deity, but that's expected from a game which compensates higher difficulties giving unfair bonuses to the AI, because they can't improve its overall abilities as players. If the AI knew how to use Siege Weapons, the need for so many troops would be drastically decreased. But it keeps leaving all siege weapons at home for defense and attacking with SoDs without a single siege weapon. I hope I can give you some inspiration for your work, I love this mod and it's good to see its community being alive again. Great Job!
