hahaha...
(Edit:my feelings regarding loosing resources was for the "whole world" and the other civs.. not for the pavino. I understand totally that it applies for them, but it is hard on the other civs _ either on being stolen resources or on gaining an empty territory when conquering the pavino. Especially if you can't get any resource back.
Try thinking of the Panivo as a cancer in the world of Erebus. Someone can choose to ignore the cancer and pray to God that it will go away (i.e. hope that another Civilization kills off the Panivo), or take the painful surgery and chemotherapy option, knowing that it's going to take time and leave them exhausted for little benefit other than the actual eradication of the cancer itself.
The Panivo are less valuable targets for a war than most other Civilizations:
- their cities will be positioned in a non-optimal fashion for most Civilizations as the BFC will overlap
- unless the Panivo are caught napping or have already been completely backed into a corner, when a Panivo city is conquered, it will just be a 1 population Off-Season camp
- conquered non-coastal Panivo cities will be surrounded by Desert/Tundra with no food bonuses
In the short term, it will make sense in many cases for a player to choose to conquer non-Panivo cities, as this will give them a more productive city with more potential for further development. However, the longer a player avoids the war of annhiliation with the Panivo, the greater the chance that the Panivo territory (and associated barren deserts/tundra) will spread or that the Panivo units will act to remove bonus resources in other parts of Erebus.
I know that destruction of bonuses is a negative game tactic. This maybe why it is a mechanic which has never been previously implemented for another Civilization. Hopefully, it will introduce new strategic choices for the players.
(the terrain you can upgrade back with magic..)
I was actually considering limiting the effects of Spring for the Panivo. They need to be able to put out fires, especially after all of their Deserts become Burning Sands but I don't like the concept of them sprinkling water on the land and bringing it back to life. It should be a simple enough edit to change it so that a Panivo mage casting the spell will not convert Desert back to Plains. Of course, any other Civilization which conquers the Panivo deserts can use Spring to the heart's content.
I think that my reasoning for the "pillagers" being weak is that it is quite powerful to have +100/+120
free per razed town... so it would be nice to have some challenge to it.
The Relocation/Degrading Improvements already introduces an extra level of management for the Panivo player. I know that this will never be to some players' taste. It does mean that I'm reluctant to introduce even more micro-management elements, which either will not be used or could be frustrating for the player.
I see the Panivo as being able to wage a war like a plague of locusts:
1 Conquer a city
2 Relocate production and culture buildings in
3 Pump out troops from it while Exploiting the land around it and using Conquest
5 Conquer the next city, Relocate production and culture buildings in from the previously conquered city
6 Salt the Earth around the previously conquered city
Repeat steps 3 to 6 until you reach the far side of the continent.
Having to walk the "pillagers" back through land that the Panivo have already abandoned, doesn't really fit with this concept. Given the way the Panivo slaughter all non-Panivo, using a "pillager" unit in the city at the front, to hasten the training of units doesn't seem right either.
Further, in my mind (but maybe it was not well written); you got the "pillager" or supplies instead of getting the gold from razing.
I understood that from your post (maybe my response wasn't well written). If I introduce the Efficient Pillaging to give a Supplies unit, the Panivo will only get the Supplies and no Gold when using Efficient Pillaging. I had mentioned the Gold that could be obtained from pillaging to give an indication of the relative benefit of Efficient Pillaging to get a Supplies over standard pillaging and also to work out which improvements it made sense to be able to use Efficient Pillaging on.