I’m playing on an Iconian Huge map (bigger than standard), Marathon speed on a Perfect World mapscript, as Sweden
31. How about giving 1 free Hunter, once a city is settled, or at the start, but double the cost to build them after that. This is simply to give the player something to do in the first few turns instead of simply hitting “Enter”
But in later times…
There are way too many Hunters being built & wandering the map. I’d suggest either limiting the number that can be built per Civ, or based on Buildings or something, because, especially with them upgrading to Scouts, it’s just way too much map exploration, way too early in the game.
Hunters maybe shouldn’t upgrade to Scouts, otherwise you’re just exacerbating the problem of too-easy exploration in the Civilization series that has been there since Civ 1. Maybe go with Warriors instead?
32. I love the way you diversified the “Fish” resource into various species of fish. I was going to suggest that, but you beat me to it. Cod, Sardines & Haddock come to mind as important species also, at least in later times, though I haven’t looked ahead yet to see if you’ve added those. But, whatever you do, Civ needs way more water-based resources.
33. Flood Plains have a -10% to defense. I don’t see why it should be any different from other flat terrain. Do you have some reasoning behind this?
34. Gaining +50 hit points for killing an animal feels like too much. I’d say half that would be better, at most +30. If it’s a percentage, than no more than 25%.
35. I have now encountered the crash… weird, because it’s so totally random as far as I can tell. It’s happened twice in just a few turns, but then never happened again after around turn 200 (again, Marathon speed)
36. I’d suggest a switch from +1 outputs (food/production/gold/etc.) for buildings & instead use %-based outputs. Since +1 is essentially +100% verses your usual +5% or +10% increments, it makes for absolutely huge increases. Perhaps reserve +1 outputs for National/World Wonders only, and use % otherwise? Obviously, under those circumstances, you would use higher % rates than 5% or 10% and at some later date, abandon the idea completely, when +1 isn’t such a huge deal like it is early on.
Forest Garden is amazing at growing population – too amazing for certainly placed Civs & that’s ultimately what made me give this recommendation, btw.
37. So, I got a free unit from a City-State. It was a Settler. My closest competitor had 3 Population verses my 6. The least competitor to mine was at 1 population. That's an insane variation, so don’t let City-States give Settlers. It’s such a huge population boost.
38. I’m not sure if this is a problem from your mod or from the Passable Ice mod, but I’ve seen Salmon spawn under ice, which probably shouldn’t happen.
39. It’s too easy to Pledge Protection to City-States, without the ability to back it up. Vox Populi or Gaia’s mod fixes this, so you should look into borrowing that from those mods.
Essentially, there is almost zero consequence for Pledging Protection, but you gain all the benefits of doing so. If you happen to get another City-State quest while pledging, you get a huge bonus, while it’s rare for a Civ to demand tribute from a City-State during the time you’re protecting. It’s a no-brainer to always Pledge.
40. Jungle starts are way too powerful. I’m currently at a population of 7 in my capital & my next closest competitor also had a jungle start & currently has a population of 5 in it’s capital.
What if Workers could also build Forest Garden improvements & Jungle Garden improvements. Forest adds +1 food, Jungle adds +1 gold. That might mitigate Jungle starts (note that I’m assuming you don’t change outputs from +1 increases to %-based increases here.)
41. The “Den” should be build-able in every city. It makes your capital way too important as it is now. So, perhaps have it be a building instead and a +1 to every output (or +% to every output).
Also, if you leave it as is & a free Den is given in the Capital, it seems like the Palace should replace the Den, when that is built. I’d still prefer the previous thing though, having it build-able in every city, you just get a free one in the capital.
42. Yeah, again, that Jungle start is way too powerful for realism…
I’m now 450+ turns in & the best civilizations all have Jungle starts, which is obviously unrealistic, based on history.
43. There’s a mod, somewhere, which adds a bonus for circumnavigating the world. I know it because I’ve used it in the past, but I can’t recall it, atm, but that really needs to be included. I’ve just gone far enough around the world (by land) to see a straight line through, which would probably trigger that bonus, which is what made me think of it.
44. Yeah, go ahead and get rid of generalized “workers” & replace them with: Farmers, Masons, Miners, etc. I’ve always wanted that in Civ, more specialized workers.
45. I just noticed that I’d build a Shrine on a Jungle/Plains/River tile & the graphic is no longer showing up. It did at one point, but no longer. I’m thinking that may be due to Spices popping up on that tile after building the Shrine...idk.
46. Get rid of “Spices” as a general resource & replace it with the various historically important spices. We already have Salt, Clover, Nutmeg, etc., so expand on that.
47. Potter’s Wheels & Pottery are build-able infrastructure. It feels redundant – just by looking at the name of the things, not the effects of building them.
48. I’ve got two Irrigation Canals build-able & I don’t see why that’s the case.
49. It’s currently 1215AD & I’m only up to the Iron Age techs. I should be in the Middle Ages, so I feel like the timing is a bit off.
50. Canoes should upgrade to Triremes
51. I saw Wine gets pressed into Vegetable Oil (via the Oil Mill @ Classical Antiquity V) – I don’t think that’s a thing, unless you change Wine to Grape, I can see Grapeseed Oil being a Vegetable Oil & I expect that’s what you were going for.
52. It’s gotten to the point where I have a lot of unhappiness & am getting rebels. This happening, without any warning whatsoever, it was annoying this first time.
53. The Wonder splash screens need to be resized – Take a look at the Heart of Neolithic Orkney wonder, for example, the text runs off of the splash screen.
I’m going to call it quits here. I tried to get as far as possible, but it became intolerable, the disparity between my & the AI civs, so I’ll need to turn up a level or two next time.
