Hi guys! I just ended my first game with realism mod. I played in a medium size-continents-custom map with realistic speed, starting from 4000 b.c. with the Germans. I had to divide the continent where my civ were with only one other civ, saladin. War against him started in the classical era and finished in the medieval one (1200 circa), so I was able to occupy all the continent. This made my civ become the biggest and more powerful one. So I managed all the rest of the game by mantaining good relationships with all the other civs, and by support research and commerce. So I was able to build up the spacecraft very very early (in late XVIII century)!
I'd like to say thank you to anyone who spent their time to create a great mod as this. Civ4 is a great game, but realism mod makes it an awesome experience!
I really enjoyed the contemporary era, and I just wanted to write here my suggestions to improve some strategical aspects of the game: most of all, we should work to give strategy, smartness and diplomacy a bigger weight into succesfully managing a war. by now, winning a war is mostly a question of having a better technology and more militar units than the enemy. If you got more production and a better technology, you got 90% chance of beating the enemy. History taught us the chance should be lower. However...
Here's my proposal for improving some military aspects of this great mod. all these suggestions are about contemporary era. I just wanted to organize a little modders team to envelope it as a mod pack, and of course it would be a pleasure and a honor if realism mod guys wanted to put it into their creature. But noone answered my call, so I can only post my ideas in this forum, wishing they will be useful to anyone.
I'm not an experienced modder, I took a look to the xml files about civ4 unit so I got an idea about how they work. But still I don't know a lot of things about civ mechanics so I could suggest something that there's no chance to make.
The main targets of this mod should have been:
1- Adding units to the contemporary era air/naval warfare to give it more strategical and tactical options.
2- Letting poorer and smaller civs the chance to win wars against more powerful enemies by creating some special units.
NAVAL WARFARE
I got two main ideas to improve naval wafare:
1- improving the ASW and the ASuW aspects of the game
2- creating some cheaper but (sometimes) useful units (this is connected to the target n.2 of the mod)
1. Submarine warfare is a very important aspect of modern naval warfare. Even if in realism mod there are two kind of sub units now (normal sub and nuclear sub) I think that submarine in civ4 is not versatile and powerful as it should been. I'd like to see 5 differents sub units in the game:
A. Early submarine (aka U-boat or II World war). This unit still exists. It's the first generation (at least in Civ4) submarine. Diesel/electric engines, slow, and armed with no-guided torpedoes.
B. Hunter/Killer submarine. This should generally be the post II world war diesel/electric submarine. it should be really better than the early one, and have a good chance even against nuclear submarines. A good options for poorer countries even in the nuclear era (think about a Kilo clas sub), armed with guided torpedoes but without missiles.
C. SSN- Nuclear submarine. "3rd generation sub". Faster than H/K submarine, armed with guided torpedoes and cruise missiles, giving it the chance to attack naval units from distance and to bomb ground units.
D. SSBN- Ballistic missile nuclear submarine. It belongs to the 3rd gen class too. Slower and less powerful than the SSN, it is armed with nuclear warheads that can make a lot of collateral damage attacking an enemy fleet. Also, it can fires its ICBM over enemy territory.
E. Fourth generation submarine (something similar to the Seawolf class submarine). Maybe a faster and stronger SSN armed like a SSBN.
2. Making sub threat bigger means improving the chance to fight it. Just as for H/K submarines, there should be a cheaper but effective unit, good for countries that can't afford to build up huge naval fleets. Here are my ideas for new naval units:
A. AEGIS destroyer (it's an available unit in the realism mod) should be specialized in AA warfare and armed with cruise missiles. So I will add a modern frigate unit, a smaller and less powerful unit but very effective against subs. Maybe we could give it the chance to carry an ASuW helicopter that can find enemy subs on a longer range.
B. Torpedo boat. A II world war era unit, it should be a very cheap and fast - high chance of withdrawing coastal attack boat. It should be a very dangerous unit but making it a coastal vessel should make it just a defensive unit.
C. Missile boat. A contemporary era boat, it should be just like the torpedo boat armed with anti-ship missiles.
D. Troop-transports ship. It should be a big but slow cargo ship. It should carry more units than the actual tranpost ship, but it should be slower and very weak.
So these ideas should implicate the creation of the cruise missile unit and the anti-ship missile unit. A lot of things have been written about the making of these units. The only thihg I'd like to say is that strategy in naval warfare would improve if units could have an attack range longer than 1 square. It would make gun-armed ships useless against missile-armed ships, just as in real world. Also, it would make naval units a dangerous threat for land units and strategical buildings.
AIR WARFARE
Realism patch added the strike-fighter. It's very good, but not enough for my maniac mind. I would add:
A. Dive/torpedo bomber. In the II world war era there are only two kinds of aircraft, the fighter and the bomber. I would like to add something between these two units. Dive bomber should be useful against enemy naval units and enemy ground units, but still able (but not very able) to intercept enemy threats. the ju-87 stuka or the sturmovik could be the model.
B. Long range bomber. With the starting of the cold war era a very expensive long range bomber should appears. B-52 should be perfect.
C. Interceptor. The unit built to fight the long range bomber-menace. Mig-25 model. long range and very powerful against bombers but not very effective against modern fighters.
D. 2nd generation long range bomber. Like the B2.
E. Futuristic fighter. Multi-role aircraft: good interceptor, striker, fighter. SU-35 could work.
F. AWAC. Aircraft with a very long range radar and no weapons that can make recognitions.
G. ASuW plane (or helo?). It can detect (maybe attack?) enemy subs.
H. Transport helo. Just like the Chinhook. Very fast but it can't carries a lot of units.
Maybe we could improve the AA warfare by making other SAM units or AA artillery units.
IDEAS FOR OTHER SPECIAL UNITS
I'm really interested into improving a very important stategical aspect of the game: as most wargames, even in civ4 it's too easy for biggest civ (with more production and money) to win wars against weakest civs. It's all about building up more and more powerful units. As we all know reality is not so easy. I think that weaker civs should get the chance to have their own strategy, for example using para-militar troops with guerrilla tactics, or terrorism, or other kinds of retaliations. I'd really like to know about your opinions. It's very important to know how much effective could be these strategies in the game, and if the AI would be able to use them smartly.
For example, I thought to create a terrorist unit. It could be very similar to the assassin and the inquisitor unit in realism mod, but of course it should be more effective. it could be a cheap unit that causes a lot of unhappiness in the enemies cities where it's used. Maybe the teocracy form of government should be needed to build it.
Another unit could be the partizans. it could be available only in cities with 100% national culture and only if there are enemy troops within your civ territory. they could be free (no support cost) and very fast to build. Is it possible to specify these kinds of conditions to build a unit?
These issues have already been fixed.
Germany has gokturks and samarkand and is now a middle eastern power, it isnt even in europe. Catherine is minding her own business, and genghis is expanding very quickly. This is still before AD and im interested in seeing the political effects. India is crippled by assassins and may fall to the barbarians soon. 
(your sig). Anyway, the game seems to slow waaaay down the further along you go due to the amount of time the AI needs to make all of its turns and such. From what I hear, the next patch is supposed to clear up alot of undefined variables, and finally be 1.61 compatible!
This should speed up the game quite a bit. btw, if your graphics themselves are becoming problematic, try cutting back on a few graphics options in the game.
