Well, my latest game with my edited version has been flowing smoothely. I'm getting up to the fall of Rome now (just entered the 4th century). I was forced to abandon my fortifications up in N. England because of frequent attacks from the booming Pictish area (I beefed them up a bit). Nothing much from Germania and Sarmatia, except some invasion around 200 AD that I easily fought off with my fortifications on the Gallic-Germanian border. Persia is still weak and doesn't pose much of a threat, mainly due to the earlier wars that completely crippled Persia. My technology (with a minimum tech rate of 12) has been keeping up with the time period almost
perfectly. It's been an awesome game.
So, here's some thoughts to make the end portion of the game a little better:
- Via Ad Orientum costs a ton for having to be built in a city that will have a huge amount of corruption.
- No idea why, but it seems like once the Praetoriums go obsolete, their effects still work -- the corruption is still reduced in the city and they still cost the 5 gold per turn. Not sure what you can do about this.
- Speaking of Praetoriums, Diocese, etc., maybe make anchors on certain cities so that the Praetoriums, Diocese, etc. can only be built in certain cities? Just so they can be built in historically accurate places.
- Ecclesias: From the description from the scenario, they're churches. Are they churches for Christianity? If so, why can they be built so early, before the Roman's conversion to Christianity? From what I know, the Christians had to worship secretly down in the catacombs & etc. and often had to hide for fear of being persecuted. So why would they be allowed to build churches during that time period? Maybe instead, make them available with the "Conversion of Constantine"?
- Renovatio Diocletiani: Since these buildings represent the order that Diocletian's reforms brought back to the Roman Empire, can they also remove a large amount of slave unrest as well? Once the Custodia Urbis improvement goes obsolete with the Soldier-emperors tech, slave unrest becomes a huge factor again -- one that isn't curbed until all the slave improvements go obsolete shortly after. So, these Diocletian renovations can cut down on the amount of slave unrest that pops up as well.
- the Absolutism government doesn't really have any appeal to it that makes you want to switch to it from Imperialism since, if you've conquered most of the world by then, you won't really be at war much at all. Perhaps make the Diocletian Reforms and the Diocese require Absolutism as their government to provide some incentive to switch to the government? And then move the Christian Imperialism government to the Division of Theodosius so that people will switch to it once the Diocese & etc. go obsolete.
- to then provide incentive to switch to the Christian Imperialism government (that I have changed, will explain later), you can make all the buildings that become available for the rest of the game require Christian Imperialism: Basilica, Claustrum Speculatoris, etc. etc..
- the reason why the player will need incentive to switch to Christian Imperialism is because it's going to dramatically weaken Rome's power. The corruption will be Problematic (Communal doesn't work; it's just way too powerful for so large an Empire); support will be cut to 0/1/2 so that the player may have to cut down on their Imperial Legions and other troops and make Mercenary Legions instead (which don't require support). Maybe lower Christian Imperialism's War Weariness down to Low to provide some more incentive?
- the main reason that Germania and Sarmatia aren't accomplishing much is because they have to declare war to attack me (which, of course, they are afraid to do because of my Empire's massive size). To fix this, some changes:
- Disruptores, Equites Disruptores, and Sarmatae Cataphractii are made to have no nationality. Reduce their population costs by 1. Make sure that all the other barbarian units (Bellatores Loricati, Equites, etc.) upgrade to their appropriate type of unit (footmen to footmen, horsemen to horsemen) and allow them to be upgraded for little to no price (and make sure the barbarian tribes have a barracks-like building in all their cities that allows them to upgrade units).
- Hunni Equites Sagitarii & Incursores are made to have no nationality. Again, population costs reducedby 1.
- Equites Loricati cost 1 less pop to make, hidden nationality
- the Warmonger government, the Attila Dux small wonder, & Incursio Magna great wonder are all available with 270-371 AC tech to start the momentum of the barbarian invasions earlier
- another technology needs to be added somewhere between the Conversion of Constantine and the Division of Theodosius (if you're going to use the 12 turn min. research setting) to slow the Roman's research and keep them in the right time period.
- possibly split up Germania and the northern part of Illyria (Aquincum & Savaria; both have Marshes under them to prevent Rome or anyone else from conquering them) into more barbarian tribes so that you can be invaded by more than 2 countries? With only 2 barbarian countries in Europe, the barbarian's numbers are seriously limited, and their attacks are not very concentrated and this fairly easy to fight off. Splitting them into more tribes will (hopefully) make the barbarian invasions much more of a threat.
Will add more as I go along the time line. I plan to go almost all the way to the end this time to see if the 12-turn min. research setting works through the entire game.
By the way, I'm continually updating my .biq with some changes and other things that I may not have listed here. If you want the .biq to look through it and see my changes, I'll send it you pink. I'm not going to release it publicly since this is your scenario, tho.