I've finished a long game as the Amurites. Normal speed, huge world. (don't mind my spelling here) So to review. There's a lot of interesting stuff in the game. And I appreciate that. I appreciate all the hard work you and others have done for what is really just a hobby.
That said, I think the player tends to be over powered relative to the AI. And that is particularly true with the magic. Now I really don't know what is possible in terms of programming the AI behavior. But what I would suggest, if it were possible, is something like this:
When an AI stack approaches an enemy:
- Is there siege, if yes, siege reduces fortifications.
- If no fortifications bonus, siege attacks first.
- Stack sorted by spell casters or not spell casters.
- If spell caster can use a spell that will damage the enemy, spell cast.
- If spellcaster cannot use a spell that can damage the enemy, can spellcaster summon a unit? If yes, unit summoned.
- If spellcaster cannot use spell that damages the enemy or summons a unit, can it cast a spell that benifts allies? If yes, casts spell.
- If spellcaster cannot do that either, spellcaster goes to the end of the que.
- Once all spellcasters have casted or gone to the end of the que, all summoned units attack.
- Normal units attack.
If that is possible to program, I think that would balance the game play a bit. As is, the player can learn to use magic effectively, and it makes a massive difference in the combat effectiveness of the game play. I should have lost this game, but I won because I could use magic in a devastating way, and the AI might as well have not had any magic.
Further, I would nerf the magic as a whole. Not only can the player use it far more effectively, but it's just too powerful when used effectively. As an example, I have this stack:
1 Man at Arms casts Haste, and 1 Chanter casts Shadowwalk, and nearly 80 units can now move 6 tiles in enemy territory, attacking on the final move. That means that, with a little patience and good scouting the player can call the battle and always be on the attack, which is the only side that can effectively use magic in a battle. The attacker can move their stack up, cripple the AI stack with magic, and the run the attacks. Each attacking spellcaster can then damage every unit in the opposing stack. What I suggest is that:
- Spellcasters that can only cast level 1 spells can only effect 6 units per spell cast.
- Spellcasters that can cast level 2 spells can only effect 12 units per spell cast.
- Spellcasters that can cast level 3 spells can effect up to 18 units per spell cast.
That would limit the advantage. (If 6-12-18 is too much, other numbers could be picked). I've noticed that when archery units were given ranged attack, it cost them a movement point to use it. I think spellcasting should also cost a movement point. So once the unit has moved and has no more movement, no spellcasting. I was able to use the archmage Summon Rift Gate to move a stack right next to a city, have a unit cast Haste, and then my whole stack can attack that turn. The Kurioates were probably less than a dozen turns from an Altar win, and I was stuck on another continent over a very wide ocean without a lot of ships. And well behind them on the power graph. Yet I punched out all 5 of their cities in 3 turns. And when their stack of about 70 arrived, I punched that out too. I didn't lose anything. So I then went hunting Bassium's stack, and there was some 80 units, and I lost almost nothing punching that out.
So a certain loss turned into a win just because the magic that I could use effectively and they could not was just too powerful.
As you can see, the power loss to me was nothing in destroying their power.
Now this, having so many units defect was too much, and thanks for dialing that back. But this is just weird in having discipline units of the good religions go off barbarian.
One last point for tonight. Are there other requirement for Free Odio that are not in the Pedia?
It only says a tech requirement and level 11. Yet here I had a level 18 and still couldn't do it. And one other thing about that picture. This may only really apply to the Amurites after Govannon starts giving away all those spellcasting abilities. However, as you can see, the information about the unit gets lost behind all of that. I can't see how much damage the unit has, or anything. Is it possible to expand that box to show all the info without obscuring any of it?
Thanks for everything. Despite my nitpicking, I'm enjoying the mod-mod.
![[to_xp]Gekko](https://civfanatics-data.community.forum/avatars/m/74/74677.jpg?1475248346){kind=avatar}
