Some of my thoughts

[Friblurks]

First off, I want to say that this is the most amazing modmod ever. So thanks for working on it and allowing us to play this masterpiece!
I thought I'd give some feedback, so here it is, and I hope it's useful to you. If not, so be it

OoS errors are very annoying. With two players and around 4 AIs, the game runs fine until 200-250 turns are reached. Then we get OoS errors every 5-10 turns or so, and the only way to fix them temporarily is to rehost the game, but then we get another OoS a few turns later. We sort of gave up on playing online because of that sometime in may. A few days ago we tried again with the OoS hotfix DLL replacement. It did not work at all. In fact, the game crashed for me during or just after loading the map in a new game, and then it was an instant OoS after I reconnected. We tried it twice with no luck, so we gave up again. I hope online play can get some more attention, but I can understand that it's not the main priority and that it's a pain to debug.

Anyway, on to in-game stuff. I'd like to see future tech changed. Right now it gives you +1 happyface and +1 health, but what good does that to the most evil civs out there? As far as I know, calabim citizens work harder when they're unhappy with a governor's manor, for instance, and why would any thoroughly evil civ want to improve the life of their pitiful minions? So I propose the following:
Future tech gets split up into 4 techs, all with infinite stages, just like they are now.
The first increases happiness for ALL civs. The second increases health for ALL civs. The third decreases happiness for ALL civs. And the fourth, you guessed it, decreases the health for ALL civs. This would make the future tech a lot more interesting. For example, the evil guys with sacrifice the weak can focus on decreased health, causing all the other civs to slowly wither and die, forcing them to invest in healthcare, the health future tech, or perhaps even force some neutral civs to go evil so they can also have sacrifice the weak.

Now, I know that future tech is something you won't reach often, but this change does open up some interesting new strategies. On top of that, if you play a game where you're allied with a bunch of others (in a 6 vs 6 good against evil game, for instance), then research goes insanely fast, and you can be forced into future tech at 400 turns or so. But in general, future tech itself isn't that interesting either, and this change might make it more attractive to go for, for both offensive purposes and as an insurance against it.

Also, hawks. Hawks everywhere. I've seen cities with more hawks than any other units combined. Not very efficient, and quite useless. This happened on my current game with the Doviello, and if I remember it right, the Clan of Embers as well. I haven't slaughtered any other cities from other civs yet, but there may be more birds out there.

I also wish the AI dealt with the armageddon counter a bit more. Some of the evils do go for Ashen Veil and all that, but they're not aggressively trying to destroy the world enough. Maybe I am part of the problem, but still I'd like them to be more aware of it, and have them try to increase it in any way possible.

There's also a few balance concerns. These aren't very important at all, as I can just choose not to use them in future games. But still, I'd like to mention them.

Blood of the phoenix is WAY too powerful. Every unit you own at that point gets a second life, including heroes. As if one leveled Eurabatres or any other endgame hero wasn't enough. They're practically invincible, and if they do happen to die for some reason, then you just get it back for a second chance as if nothing happened. I don't really know how to balance it, though. It takes a long time to research, which compensates for it, but maybe the ritual cost itself can be increased 3 times or so? Or separate divine essence into two, one for the ritual, and one for the dragons and other units that it gives. Or perhaps give it a turns limit, so that it only lasts for x turns.

The first strike promotions are practically my favorite. 4-8 first strikes, and blitz at the end. This makes your weak units able to sting and perhaps cripple enemy strong units, and it makes your strong units practically invincible unless you encounter a stack of units that ignores first strikes, but you rarely see them.

Anyway, that's it for now. I hope this post is in some way useful to you devs. And again, this mod is amazing and it's caused me many messed up sleep schedules, so please keep up the awesome work

 

[Rainbow Sand]

The way i see it, future tech is there because no one really know what to do beyond the omniscience. What about something truly epic like infinite unit level progression (recursively coded, i believe it wont overflow longint anyway) and researching that tech, lets rename it into "Infinite Power", giving your units 0.1% of your research points in xp every turn? Combat promotion renamed into Power, nerfed in half and also recursively coded into infinite and no one would listen whatever.

 

[Folket]

I do not really agree with what you say. Except that OOS is annoying but since I play hotseat that is usually no problem for me.

But it sounds fun to play a 6 vs 6 civs game. I will have to try that.

With you changes to future tech I would never research it. But then I never do anyway since I usually win long before that. I also doubt that a sacrifice the weak could go for more healthiness. Give that if you are unhealthy a sacrifice the weak civ will loose one pop for each two level of that tech while an other civ will loose one pop per 3 levels. Also since the sacrifice the weak civ is evil it likely have hell terrain and very little health resources so it will be more easily hurt. It is probably a better strategy for a good civ to research unhealthiness. Still the gain from investing that much into research seems negligible.

I do not think I have seen more then four hawk in a city, but do the computer have any use for them?

I think it is very hard to say what is too powerful in the endgame but I have had cities producing units for 400 hammers per turn and that is also way powerful. There are just so many things that are powerful late game that I find it hard to compare.

First strike promotions are the same as in vanilla are they not? But I like them to. I do not know how you get 4-8 first strike and blitz on you weak units =P.

I hope you do not offend you with my criticism I'm just worried that you would make them change the mod in a way I would enjoy less. =P

 

[Friblurks]

I did some math, and it seems you're right about sacrifice the weak

Unless I misinterpret it, sacrifice the weak makes your population only take 1 food per pop instead of 2. It also gives you a fixed +4 of unhealthiness, but that can be put aside. Let's say you have two cities with 30 food each. A normal city will grow to 10, because it takes 2 food per pop and every pop gives 1 unhealthiness. A sacrifice the weak city will grow to 13. With 50 food, a normal city will grow to 16-17 and a sacrifice the weak city will grow to 23. Obviously not including any other things that influence health.

But then with a future tech that globally increases unhealthiness, both will shrink. Let's say 5 unhealthiness. The normal city of 50 food will shrink to 15. The sacrifice the weak city will shrink to 20-21. With 15 unhealthiness, the normal city will shrink to 11-12 and the weak city will shrink to 15. So you're right, unhealthiness affects sacrifice the weak cities more than other cities, and even then it requires a lot of research into it. And of course it doesn't include any health bonuses that civs might already have, from both buildings and resources.

I was assuming that the decreased food usage would affect them less, but the cities are bigger because of the decreased food usage, and they become more unstable. I suppose my future tech suggestion won't work in the way I want it to


As for the hawk, I don't have a save in which I can count how many they have exactly, except for one city. It had 4 hawks, 2 javelin throwers and 1 mage. But there was an army standing next to it, so I want another example. The problem is that I don't have one at the moment, but I'm fairly sure I've seen more hawks than that.

For the production, you're right. I completely forgot about the ability to churn out massive numbers of troops each turn. It's also something I'd like to see toned down. My current main city has 284 hammers, which can be increased to 350 for units if I build a heroic epic. Units cost 120 hammers, meaning I can create 2 units per turn, almost 3 if I get the heroic epic. It could also be the God King civic influencing it a lot, though. I practically always use God King because it allows my main city to grow and build so fast without any drawbacks, so perhaps that's one of the "problems".

As for first strike, any unit created in my capital starts with 14 experience, which is 3 levels into first strike, out of 4 total. I was wrong about 4-8 though. Normal units get 3-6 and archers etc get 4-7. Add commando and it's 3-7/4-8. But it makes them so powerful because they hardly get damaged in fights, unless the enemy is a lot stronger (which is unlikely if you are defending with a fortify bonus and a city walls bonus). And even then they cripple the enemy. Stuff like pyre zombies are still somewhat lethal, though.
First strike heroes are insane, though. Even smaller heroes have base 10 strength. They level up quickly, so you give them 3-7 first strikes with +100% strength, and also give them blitz and some extra movement. They can then attack a few times each turn without getting damaged, unless they're fighting another big guy. Easy level-ups and very powerful units, in any case.

And no, I don't mind your criticism. In fact, I'm happy to receive it
I don't want to change the mod in such a way that you enjoy it less. I was just thinking about some of the things that irked me a little, but even then most of them can be avoided by simply not investing in them. I should try a game without god king and first strike promotions, maybe that will help

 

[Sephi]

OoS errors are very annoying. With two players and around 4 AIs, the game runs fine until 200-250 turns are reached. Then we get OoS errors every 5-10 turns or so, and the only way to fix them temporarily is to rehost the game, but then we get another OoS a few turns later. We sort of gave up on playing online because of that sometime in may. A few days ago we tried again with the OoS hotfix DLL replacement. It did not work at all. In fact, the game crashed for me during or just after loading the map in a new game, and then it was an instant OoS after I reconnected. We tried it twice with no luck, so we gave up again. I hope online play can get some more attention, but I can understand that it's not the main priority and that it's a pain to debug.

Maybe you copied the dll in the wrong folder on one computer? That you get an instant OOS after reconnecting is a sign that the installations are different.

I had the OOS problems in the past as well, but not a single OOS with the hotfix dll and there were no OOS reports either.