I haven't seen the huntsman as an option for me to build, but I know I've lost a decent amount of my "El cheapo" units to em. El cheapo=units I throw against city defenses/fortified positions first to weaken them before I send in the actual units I expect to win... usually they're "El cheapo" because it's cheaper to just build the newer units and they don't have the XP to justify the upgrade cost. Oh, also I noticed some oddities while watching my brother play last night:
1. Tool-tip for Crusaders states they can't be upgraded, but all his crusaders had an upgrade option to grenadiers.
2. On the custom-map AI loop, it didn't behave the way I would expect an AI loop to work. Granted, I'm not a programmer anymore (did some stuff in college before I joined the Navy), but when I expect an AI getting stuck in a loop in Civ, I'd expect that your turn would never come and you wouldn't get control of anything. The following info might only be really useful to the original civ programmers, but still might help: After a short bit in the "Waiting for other civs state", any associated video lag from the AI players was absent, which leads me to believe whatever loopstate it's in, is not locking down the CPU... which from what I remember of my programming courses, is not a conventional loop. Sounds to me like some function might be waiting for input before letting the game advance a cycle/stage/whatever, and it never gets that input. Guess I'm being nitpicky, but that's my understanding.
Also, mouse-based zoom function and unit selection was disabled, however you could still use keyboard zoom, click your advisors. and mouse over stuff for tooltips. Additionally, if you went into the city advisor, you could select your units on the pop-up garrison bar... once selected, you could not move them, but you could issue upgrade orders which were followed.
Dunno how much that helps, but hopefully it does.
Re: merc upkeep
Turn 1: @home, upkeep: home
2: hired, upkeep: home
3,4: in-transit, upkeep: free
5: Arrive at employer, upkeep: free
6: Fired, upkeep: free
7,8: In transit, upkeep: free
9: @home, upkeep: home
I figure: When mercs get a contract, that contract includes cost of travel and estimated cost of contracted operations (that way the employer doesn't have the opportunity to shaft them out of their travel and upkeep).
The more I look at it, it makes more sense to give a unit-promotion for successful merc contracts, because as a unit gets more successful contracts, they'll have more personal cash on hand as a unit and individuals. If this "Merc-XP" buff were to keep to merc-specific type stuff, another point of note is that mercs have a vested interest in staying on top of their game and would probably spend a decent amount of their own money to make sure they had the best weapons (both individually and as a unit) and training.
Of course, it could get out of hand, so you'd have to limit how many contract buffs are available, and how the benefits would scale from each one... thinking something like:
(assuming everyone's mercs get hired about as often as mine do, which is almost never)
Merc XP L1: -25% upkeep, -5% upgrade cost
L2: -50% upkeep, -10% upg. cost, +5% STR
L3: -75% upkeep, -35% upg. cost, +10% STR
L4: -90% upkeep, -50% upg. cost, +15% STR
L5: Free upkeep, -75% upg. cost, +20% STR
Where upkeep is justified by their pocketed cash, upgrade cost modifier is self-interest + cash onhand, and +STR is based on them having the cash to afford better training.
If the merc-hire rate is quicker (ie. I might be dumb with my mercs), then you might want to cap the upg. cost mod around -50% so that you have to spend more than $75 to upgrade from warrior to mech inf
Bleh, at this rate, I should probably just look at the FAQ, see what the reqs are to volunteer and see what I can do to help out
Post patch notes:
1.2rc2 Made internet proof (copied to notepad and edited changes for rc1 in)
1.2rc1 Remembered a quirk, edited in; also fixed spelling. Added patch notes. Eaten by the 'net
1.1rc2 Summarized 1.1rc1 quickly.
1.1rc1 Added reply to merc unit upkeep because I hate double posts -- This post eaten by a grue. Took too long to type, login timed out, and the page ate it.
