Thank you for your continued hard work on the mod, it’s such a great improvement on the (half baked) vanilla Colonisation. However I have noticed that most of my games follow a routine, once I have a few industries set up, I can just watch as the money rolls in as I gently cruise to the inevitable revolution, therefore I have come up with some suggestions and ideas that might hopefully improve and add more variety especially to the late game.
The Economy / Domestic sphere
One important thing that seems to be missing, is the overexploitation of resources, this had an important impact historically in the Americas, for example the Beaver-fur trade, Bison and Cotton all necessitated constant territorial expansion to function. Resources could be set to produce diminishing returns rather than be suddenly exhausted. As the mod has so many resources this would be balanced, after exhausting a Premium Fur site you could cut the forest down and start growing Barley for example, it would also encourage expansion which would create conflict rather than the situation now, in which you just need to develop a few key plots and industries, then sit back and grow rich.
Whilst somewhat present in vanilla, I'd like to see more boom and bust events to simulate the economic cycle, this would require you to make the most of all the range of your specialists and all the new resources in the game and add more challenge. For example, if you are constantly building things a building boom event could occur that would add extra hammers of production but would add to the price of materials (lumber, stone etc) and add to the cost of recruiting specialists (carpenters, stonecutters etc). Or say Coffee becomes unfashionable, so you grow the more in demand Cocoa.
Domestic Politics - The lack of internal politics and "friction" from declaring independence. There are no entrenched interests, or defenders or loyalists to the old regime. Historically all the independence struggles were destructive civil wars, however in the game the colonies constantly desire independence with no possibility of support, falling or changing, its simple to get 100% support, and your only penalty is having difficulty with trading with Europe. From watching lets plays of the Original Colonisation it seems like you would face opposition form your own colonists if you didn’t have 100% support, and the King would encourage Indian tribes to turn against you. I would like to see something similar introduced in We The People, to shake up the late game. The Constitution is also relatively useless, as it doesn’t even interact with the unique elements of the mod like slavery.
Banditry, smuggling and rebellion against the local authority was a huge problem in the Colonial and post-Colonial Americas, it would be great to see this recognised rather than just fighting wild Animals. Perhaps the pirates could land troops?
Reform the food mechanic, as it is an easy exploit to get Free Colonists by collecting small amounts of food from each colony and then dumping this large collection of food onto a smaller colony. Its also trivial to have large colonies in inhospitable locations. Also, there are few consequences for starvation, and no food cost for units outside of settlements, historically (quite understandably) food production was the number one priority and many of the early colonies failed or struggled to survive. Perhaps to add more peril to the prospect of starvation, you could receive a penalty like the rebellion that stops production, or lose a percentage of Rebellion rate, this would mean you have to co-operate and trade more with the natives (who would have abundant food resources in the early game), to stop the player being destroyed in the early game you could also add food requests, to the King and Archbishops diplomacy options.
Revise wagon costs. The later wagons are too cheap considering their abilities, as they basically cost the same as the starting wagon, and one of the wagons requires no horses or cloth.
To me there seems to be little point in investing in the other ships, when you can easily buy the Galleon.
Maybe you should take another look at the Lumber-mill improvement. It seems anomalous in both its price and how much it boosts production. To me, it’s the one plot improvement that is overpowered.
This thread:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/north-south-east-west-starts-for-any-civ.499085/ suggests that its possible to have factions enter the map from different locations. I think this would be a good addition, as at the moment the AI factions tend to be at disadvantage as they settle and fight over a small amount of land whilst much of the map remains empty.
War
I feel that war is one of the areas that could do with some more improvement. I think there should be more events surrounding war with other powers, rather than the case now where the King declares war and you just follow, for example there could be more events about war tension, or some indication of the relations between the Kings. This would allow the player and the AI to have more information about the conflict, allowing the colonies to receive reinforcements and allow you and the AI to start preparing war material. At the moment it is often very easy to defeat the enemy as they have very few troops deployed. Of course, you can also have the option of starting a war that is unapproved by your King, this would generate a very negative response from both your own and the opposition King.
As many wars in this period were fought in coalitions, perhaps this can also be introduced, rather than the situation now where Wars seem to be 1vs1. This would also make it harder to maintain friendships with the other powers which would balance the end game, where as of now you receive a great deal of support.
I think that the higher-level fortifications should require cannons just like ships and should also increase the REF, as historically large fortifications were expensive and required the permission of the King to build. In the game they provide a significant counterbalance against the REF.
Blades can't be traded with Natives and Natives don't request them, although historically these items were highly in demand.
Cannons are too easily produced, at the same rate as muskets but they are also much more monetarily valuable, whereas historically they were difficult to produce and rare. To balance this, they should have lower yields, but units should require less cannons.
Reform the Indian raids. It is ridiculous to me that the Indians can gain 6000 gold from a failed raid!?, this is far more damaging than the REF. Also the player cannot defend against it. Make it more reasonable like losing some resources or have them attack colonisers outside of a settlement. Make the fortification upgrades actually protect against this.
I feel there needs to be a streamlining in the amount of military promotions available. Many seem to be very repetitive, for example Forced March is a better version of Explorer. Homeland Guard an overpowered form of Minuteman. The Piracy and Merchant Vessel promotions also provide a negative attribute, which goes against the positive manner of the other promotions, and the Great Discoverer promotion is incredibly overpowered.
I think that the sea creatures should be only visible or (be vulnerable to being attacked by) by the fishing, whaling and coastal boats. It just seems absurd that a frigate would go around chasing giant squid or sharks, whilst there are plenty of shipwrecks to gain experience from. The Animal Hunter promotions should be restricted to Scouts and the aforementioned Boats, as its pretty useless for every other unit.
Leader Traits
The Experienced General trait should apply to all the military units, as of now it doesn't include Conquistadores, European Line Infantry, Cavalry etc. The Experienced Admiral Trait does not include Man-O-War or any of the trade ships.
The Determined trait is far too strong, at 100% against the REF, it should be cut by at least half.
The Charisma trait at 100% is also overly strong
Consider renaming the "Undemanding" trait, it’s definitely not a character trait that would be associated with a great leader. As its boosts production whilst requiring less resources, maybe something like “Efficient” might be more appropriate?
UI / Cosmetic
Is it possible to remove the pop-up asking if you want war, anytime that you land on the unit of another faction?
Change the icon for buildings generating money to something more appropriate, like a dollar sign or gold coins rather than the yellow exclamation mark.
Change the icon for European line infantry as its too similar to the veteran, perhaps add another star.
Please could you create a notification for when a city has stopped resisting / rebelling.
It would be great to have some response or notification from the King when you ask for troops and after you win a colonial war, such as "I have decided to give you etc" would be useful
Russia should not have Jesuits Missionaries, as Catholics and Jesuits were a tiny minority in Russia and did not participate in colonisation. Orthodox Monastics played the largest role in conversion. This looks like a good model for a priest.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/russian-orthodox-priest.16388/
Possibility of changing Russia’s colour? Its very similar to Portugal’s and the colour green has never featured on any Russian flag or state symbol.
Age of Discovery II allowed you to change your flag on Independence. Could this be implemented?
