Here is a rebalance to the early game that buffs war civs AND culture/faith civs while punishing zergfest wars. All changes are based on real world history. Not personal opinion.
1. Warmonger penalty - works completely differently early game now. Will remove warmonger after 45 turns of peace. (pre-renaissance)
The reasoning behind this change is it appears that civs are scared of invisible forces early game even though you have 2 archers and they got 16 units and 3 siege towers...
2. Razing cities now enslaves the citizens and gives temporary gold per turn per citizen for 45 turns. Any population killed in the initial conquer gives 45 turns of 1 gpt per citizen. Razing cities gives a huge diplomatic hit
This allows civs that build massive armies to have those armies pay for their campaign. Additionally all puppeted cities require no gold maintenance for 45 turns.
The classical and medieval periods were known for MASSIVE CONQUEST and EMPIRE BUILDING. Why not give them a way to do it.
3. Army maintenance - Army maintenance is halved in friendly territory. Honor makes maintenance free in friendly territory. Normal maintenance outside of friendly territory and puppeted cities. 2x normal maintenance when over 15 tiles from friendly territory.
This rebalances unit maintenance, punishes far wars as history clearly showed, rewards conquering as history clearly showed, alleviates the cost of new cities to the people conquered AS HISTORY SHOWS. This change helps keep change 2 in line.
4. Roads - Roads can now connect to forts, transforming them into citadels. Soldiers can have their maintenance reduced by half while in a citadel. Upgrades to units can be done at citadels so long as a road connection exists to the capital. The upgrade now happens on the final turn of the upgrade and the upgrade is increased to a minimum of 2 turns + 1 turn for every 10 tiles away from a friendly city.
Roads connected to puppets and citadels are now maintained by the citadel and temporarily by the puppets. 45 turn limit for puppets, unlimited for citadels.
5. Science - having non - period units costs science from the player and AI. Now having basic archers in the medieval period will hurt 2 science per era. Want a reason?
Historically, civilizations with militaries and people with extremely old traditions suffered from it and it conflicted directly with their advancement scientifically.
This means, people that focus on war but go zerg mode must make sure they can upgrade their units with their science because not doing so will slow them down scientifically.
This change is a buff to non-war civs vs the zerg civs. You still must have a modern army though otherwise you will feel the pain too.
Last change
6. Culture and religion now generates modern military for your civilization at no cost but only when DoW'd by someone else. You have to have a high generation of faith or culture to get these bonuses and be in piety or aesthetics. These units have no maintenance cost and disappear after the war is over. They keep their promotions and inbed themselves in culture or faith buildings until the next crisis.
This allows peacful civs to gain volunteers to defend the faith or culture like history taught us. Greece became unified because their culture was in danger. Enemies became friends and no one fought for profit, but for honor. When a culture or religion is in danger of annihilation, heroes will always defend the weak.
These are my changes to make the early game balanced with the new economy system.
1. Warmonger penalty - works completely differently early game now. Will remove warmonger after 45 turns of peace. (pre-renaissance)
The reasoning behind this change is it appears that civs are scared of invisible forces early game even though you have 2 archers and they got 16 units and 3 siege towers...
2. Razing cities now enslaves the citizens and gives temporary gold per turn per citizen for 45 turns. Any population killed in the initial conquer gives 45 turns of 1 gpt per citizen. Razing cities gives a huge diplomatic hit
This allows civs that build massive armies to have those armies pay for their campaign. Additionally all puppeted cities require no gold maintenance for 45 turns.
The classical and medieval periods were known for MASSIVE CONQUEST and EMPIRE BUILDING. Why not give them a way to do it.
3. Army maintenance - Army maintenance is halved in friendly territory. Honor makes maintenance free in friendly territory. Normal maintenance outside of friendly territory and puppeted cities. 2x normal maintenance when over 15 tiles from friendly territory.
This rebalances unit maintenance, punishes far wars as history clearly showed, rewards conquering as history clearly showed, alleviates the cost of new cities to the people conquered AS HISTORY SHOWS. This change helps keep change 2 in line.
4. Roads - Roads can now connect to forts, transforming them into citadels. Soldiers can have their maintenance reduced by half while in a citadel. Upgrades to units can be done at citadels so long as a road connection exists to the capital. The upgrade now happens on the final turn of the upgrade and the upgrade is increased to a minimum of 2 turns + 1 turn for every 10 tiles away from a friendly city.
Roads connected to puppets and citadels are now maintained by the citadel and temporarily by the puppets. 45 turn limit for puppets, unlimited for citadels.
5. Science - having non - period units costs science from the player and AI. Now having basic archers in the medieval period will hurt 2 science per era. Want a reason?
Historically, civilizations with militaries and people with extremely old traditions suffered from it and it conflicted directly with their advancement scientifically.
This means, people that focus on war but go zerg mode must make sure they can upgrade their units with their science because not doing so will slow them down scientifically.
This change is a buff to non-war civs vs the zerg civs. You still must have a modern army though otherwise you will feel the pain too.
Last change
6. Culture and religion now generates modern military for your civilization at no cost but only when DoW'd by someone else. You have to have a high generation of faith or culture to get these bonuses and be in piety or aesthetics. These units have no maintenance cost and disappear after the war is over. They keep their promotions and inbed themselves in culture or faith buildings until the next crisis.
This allows peacful civs to gain volunteers to defend the faith or culture like history taught us. Greece became unified because their culture was in danger. Enemies became friends and no one fought for profit, but for honor. When a culture or religion is in danger of annihilation, heroes will always defend the weak.
These are my changes to make the early game balanced with the new economy system.