Just finished my "revenge game". About 15 years ago I started a RAR game as Sioux on huge Pangea with 16 civs, knowing almost nothing about how to play the game at all. Not suprisingly, I was overrun by AI in middle ages.
Now I managed to achieve a cultural victory at first half of industrial era. The ancient grudge is settled!
Now some thoughts on gameplay:
- first of all, 50k cultural victory is very easy. At least, on huge map. There are way more culture-producing buildings and "put in each city" wonders. By turn 320 I was pumping around 1k culture per turn. I think, doubling or tripling the vaue would make it a bit more challenging, but still, AI was nowhere near in terms of culture;
- two (Great Library and Encyclopedia) "gain any advanced known by two civs" wonders makes it a cakewalk. I think, something in lines with "double research" or gain Library/School in each city would be more balanced. Or at least, Encyclopedia should go obsolate earlier;
- AI cities don't grow properly. I see very much cities with just 1-2 pop. One of the reasons - AI mines planes instead of irrigating. A said picture to look at, when a city with single pop has 6-7 tiles of planes mined around it. I remember, for some reason, that in original RAR plains were not mine-able at all, but I may be wrong;
- concerning governments: there are plenty to chose from, and for so many of them, their balance is solid. But there are still some points to look at. Democracy seem to be the best in ancient era by far. It has both commercial bonus+paid labor+highest research rate+still retains solid unit support. If one manages to get Great Library, they can simply put gold slider to max and pump improvements/units at high rate. The rest 20% goes to luxuary, helping with war weariness. Money, tech, war - all included in one nice bottle. I also can't see any point in religious govs. They give up a lot for little benifit, and AI likes Fundamentalism so much for reason unknown. As for late game, it looks like a choice between federal republic and social democracy (didn't reach the latter). Money is a planty, more that enough happiness buildings to fight war weariness, corruption is either minimal or communal. The only problem is army support, but with so much money and proper unit management that wasn't a problem either;
- on unit balance, I like it from one hand, since I needed to choose wisely what to build and never send attack units without support. On the other hand, AI handles it poorly. I managed to fight off huge viking tide in early game with just starting Champions against their swordsmen. Artillery is also very strong and still cheap. Cavalry tide is gone nowhere. One can simply overrun AI with movement 3 fanatic units and reasonable A=4 (the first D=5 unit is mid industrial era). I have a feeling that city defence bonuses are higher now, I am not sure, didn't check. But still, when player reaches Cuirassiers is equal to reaching cavalry in vanilla. Very fast and perfect in current A/D balance. They basically can stay effective unit machineguns are a thing. Dragoons are just Cuirassiers with defensive bombardment, but a bit more expensive. Probably worth it when hussars are a thing, but with D=2, it is not much worth either, unless one fights a really backward civ. Also, I think piracy is a bit overpowered. If one reaches Privateers while AI still have galleassi and carracks, one may simply shut off any naval activities. But it is nothing compared to Pirate frigates. Pirate frigates can destroy AI infrastructure with no retaliation. They are even stronger than basic Frigates. I didn't reach Commercial Raiders, but they look overpowered too. What I would definitely do - remove bombardment abilities from all pirate units. Also would make pirate frigates to be auto-produced by Jolly Roger without being buildable.
These are not suggestions, of course, since I understand that you wanted RARR to be as close to original as possible, just random thoughts I wanted to share.
I want to thank you for all the hard job you've done to complete this project. I had a great time.
and thank you very much for your kind words and interest about RARR.
I will have a look on this.
