This is a very great mod. Starting this mod felt like starting a different, great Star Trek based game. My thanks to you creators for your vast efforts! I very much appreciate it!
However, I have some issues with the mod. None of it diminishes my overall apreciation, but perhaps can lead to some improvements. My issues can be divided in issues with the maps and issues with the rules (tech and units).
Maps
I started the big map only to discover that on my slow computer the experience was not enjoyable. The small maps, however, while satisfactory fast, seem to not have gained nearly as much attention as the big one. I started with the Federation - seemed appropriate to me as a first try -, so there might be other issues that I have not yet discovered.
1 The 9-civ-map:
1.1 Federation starts in a system with no possibility to get to the next system (before Astrometry), since there is a two-field space gap, and transport speed has been reduced to two as compared to the big map. I personally do not find it enjoyable to sit several dozen turns around doing nothing. Easily fixable.
1.2 Federation has very little space for expansion, especially when compared to the so-called minor races. A simlar problem seems to exist with the Klingons and Cardassians and perhaps others, too. I would expect for the minor races to have little expansion room while the protagonist races have the possibility to found some colonies without Astrometry. (Only 1-field space gaps between systems.) Easily fixable.
1.3 There seem to be ressources for the sole purpose of labeling fields. While I think this idea is very clever, it clutters the Civilopedia up unnecessarily. Especially since these ressources are made strategic ones. I see in the big map this problem does not exist, so perhaps easily fixable?
My first issues have (mostly) been resolved with the 12-civ map, however, by introducing new ones:
2.1 The initialization of the players has not been correctly updated. This leads to the strange effect that there are three slots open for civs when starting a game, and the civs chosen here will gain additional starting units at random locations, additonal to the pre-placed cities. This is easily fixable. In fact I would recommend to introduce not 12 but 13 civs, since exactly that many are pre-placed on this map. First, in the editor, choose 13 civs in the scenario-properties, scenario tab. Then choose the player tab, and go through the additional 4 players. Select colonists and reduce the number to zero. Problem fixed. I played on this map after I fixed it this way.
2.2 The placements of some civs is unfortunate. I understand that here gameplay precedes accuracy, however, placing the Vulcans further away from Federation than Borg or Dominion is not something I can really understand. I am sure this can be solved much better, especially since initial ship movement is quite limited and thus systems (or interconnected clusters of systems) can be placed next to each other without enabling the respective inhabitants to interact and compete with each other.
Nothing of this affects the main mod so far, and I understand that the main focus was on the big map. Unfortunate for me, since I cannot play it.
Rules
I have some issues with the mod itself, as far as the rules between the maps do not differ (significantly, the only difference I found so far seems to be unit speed, which does make very much sense):
3.1 There could be more information in the Civilopedia. You obviously know this, so I will not delve deeper here, except for the following: The tech tree is non-intuitive, so to use everything effectively one has to study it first in detail. A short Readme-file would do wonders here, which shortly points out some basic things like importance of trade ports, Astrometry, the unability to get big cities on early, and perhaps some map specific guidance (in the way of specific instructions for optimal gameplay, i.e.: expand to the east first, build second cities in the same system later, block planets with ground units, etc.) Alternatively, you could change the tech tree, regarding my next issue.
3.2 I find that the tech tree is... impractical, at least in the ENT era (I played until the end of TOS era and have the feeling that the rest is ok). Don't get me wrong, it is very nice, aesthetical, nice tech names and ideas, and gives an appropriate Trek feeling. In this regard it is very good. But it is impractical, because you more often than not cannot use things that you have researched, because there are trade ports needed or astrometry to get to remote systems that have ressources you need to build the things you just researched. Because of the central role that trade ports play, I would place them very early in the tech tree, earlier than all things depended on them. In my first trial I for instance wasted precious time to research biospheres, only to discover that I could not use them and had actually lost time to research trade ports/astrometry. You want that colonies stay small for a long time? No problem, place biospheres at the end of the era. You want it difficult to build NX class ships? Place them at the end of the era. But please make the tech tree more practical. Effectively, the way it is now it could be more or less linear, meaning a fixed order of most techs. There are no good alternatives here. You will want to research atsrometry/trade ports first, which require more or less the same techs anyway. You don't even have to choose between trade ports and research labs, because the latter are on the trade port's way anyway. Here could be done more: Put all things with positive effects on different braches of the tree, away from the road to trade ports/astrometry. Then there are really alternatives. Then you could postpone trade ports a little to get science labs earlier, or the other way around. Incorporates more strategic thinking, more fun.
3.3 The unit system seems slightly impractical as well.
3.3 a) First, playing the Federation I have had for a very long time an inferior fleet. In part, this is accurate, given the representation of Earth in the ENT show. However, this does not really improve for a very long time. The AI seems to start (!) with the ability to build 3(3).3.3 ships, while the Federation (and I guess the other protagnists as well) has at the beginning none, and later on only inferior 2(2).2.2 ships. Here the player is at the minor race's mercy. Once the Andorians decided to attack me my colonies were gone faster than I could watch, and I had the feeling that the rules did not allow me to do anything against it. (Albeit the ability to simply buy the enemy after the war was comforting.) I would wish to build ships earlier on which are not as useless aganst the AI as they are now - especially with regards to the AI's ability to amass units at higher levels quite quickly which is a double disadvantage for the player. Generally it can be justified to have weaker units if you can have more of them. But here I do not see that it is really practical or possible to actually have more of them. Especially since the Minor races do not have significantly fewer cities than the protagonists. And they build faster (Emperor/Commander level).
The Federation (and I guess other protagonist races as well) has extremly weak ground units. The 1.1.1 is only half as strong as the minor's 1.2.1 defensewise. Since the technology to upgrade these is very far away, this leaves them quite vulnerable if they do not wish to build many of them in every colony - which paralyses the economy, but a necessity given the central location, to fend of possible agressors from all sides.
I was unable to conquer a Vulcan colony (size 4), defended by three base level infantry 1.2.1 with two level 2 infantry 3.4.1, accompagnied by 8 4(3).2.3 ships. The idea was extensive bombardment and finishing them off with my infantry. However, I never got the infantry below 2 hit points. The vulcans on the other hand arrived - in multiple instances - with only three 3(3).3.3. ships and a transport with two 1.2 troops and finished off one of my my colonies (outposts, but nevertheless) defended by 2 1.1 units in a single strike. In my view this is out of proportion. If I have units from the next technology level, I should at least have roughly equal combat chances. I broke off my siege, stopped the reinforcements that were underway, made peace, and then bought the Vulcan colonies. In a way this is appropriate, but I like to have the option to make war - efficiently. The aforementioned Federation unit was the spaceship class that the Enterprise in TOS had (sorry, forgot the name, Constitution?). In that era the Federation was considered to be a significant power, this ship being their strongest design. But the units in this scenario do not reflect this.
I would suggest to make the unit value changes/racial differences smoother by slightly raising the minimal values. Unit values are extremly small at the moment which means that the value grid is very rough. With very small values even an increase by 1 means a big percentaged change. Increasing 1 by 1 means to double it. Increasing 2 by 1 means to obviously only increase it by 50%. At the moment base values for ground troops seem to be 1.1 (att/def). To give the minors a slightly better stance their defense is raised by 1. The Klingons have 1 more on attack and so on. Gives values 1.1, 1.2, 2.1 respectively. If we however start with 2.2, we would get - after applying the same modifiers - 2.2, 2.3, 3.2. The differences are not that important, the advantages/disadvantages not so vast. A situation like which I described earlier not so likely to occur. Since the relative differences are not maintained with more advanced troops and ships (i.e. Klingon ground troops don't generally have double the offense value as Federation ground troops, only slightly higher), this seems for me to be appropriate. The maximum values for spaceships are as I recall not significantly higher than 10, so even doubling base values and adjusting all other values proportionally would not lead to ridiculous high numbers. But I think smaller changes would be even better - i.e. increasing all base unit values in the ENT era by 1, in TOS by 2 and so on. I can give you a complete list as proposal if you wish.
3.3 b) The idea to utilize shuttles as bombers is witty, but I am not quite happy with it. First, I imagine Star Trek shuttles mainly as dingis, not as bombers (In the cardassion neutral zone they were used as fighters only because hey had nothing else, Sisko used some bombers against the Dominion for similar reasons). Second, their role is limited to ground bombardement, as far as I can see, because they are not strong enough to hurt other vessels effectively. For this limited purpose they are simply to expensive; I prefered building more ships here. In short: While I am intruiged by the idea to use shuttles as bombers, I think this idea is impractical and should be removed completely. No reason to open up an option that - as I think - is inferior to the alternatives.
3.3 c) A minor point. I would expect that all shiptypes which had once one ship named Enterprise would be upgradeable into each other. That is, NX class into Constitution (is that correct? Kirk's Enterprise?), not Miranda class. I understand, however, if different design principles prevent that. Small diagrams for each Race would be helpful, however. I recall that Kobayashi's Dominion War scenario had this done excellently.
3.4 The idea to use a race ressource to build different ship types is really very clever. So if for instance the Romulans conquer the Federation, they would be able to build Federation ships, perhaps at a higher cost, perhaps not as well, but they would be able to. It almost hurts to say the following, because this mechanism IS quite clever, but: I am not sure if this is really useful. I have a hard time to imagine a player who plays the Romulans in order to conquer the Klingons so that he finaly can build Klingon ships. If he wanted to do that, wouldn't he have started with the Klingons in the first place? Aditionally, I have a hard time imagining a Romulan senator who embraces the idea to build not their superior Romulan warships, but those of one of their inferior enemies... So in short, I think this feature, as witty as it is, is uneeded. In fact, it complicates things without giving a substantial benefit. The Civilopedia is cluttered with useless double entries only to implement this doubtful feature. It makes changing of unit statistics harder, because almost every unit has to be checked twice. It requires an additional ressource which has no (ok, one, but see below) further use.
3.5 The idea to build a Colonization program to get settlers is neat. It allows direct control over the expansion speed of a given Civilization. I have three issues with it.
3.5 a) Why is this ressource not directly located on the homeworld? Come on, connecting this ressource is really not even a small challenge. No need to put it illogically further away.
3.5 b) Why do I need a ressource for the Colonization program? Being a small wonder it can only be built once anyway. Needing the ressource of the homeworld ensures however that it cannot be rebuilt once the homeworld is lost. But how relevant is this? I gather that losing the homeworld will occur, if ever, late in the game. At this point in time I am sure the respective civilization has spread out enough so that it can be easily rationalized that it can colonize from another colony. Removing this ressource makes the Civilopedia less cluttered.
3.5 c) Why do I need a Colonization program at all? I see that it has four functions:
- It frees the capital to build other things. I consider this to be actually an disadvantage gameplaywise. One challenge of Civ is to find the balance between settler building, unit building and improvement/wonder building. The Colonization program simplifies this challenge, which means that the game loses a (small) part of its substance and appeal.
- It ensures that only the capital can build settlers. But at least until biospheres are discovered any other colony (which is not connected to fresh water, but fresh water could be removed) is limited to size 2 and thus unable to build settlers.
- It fine-tunes the speed with which every Civ can settle. But this is controlled by other factors as well, namely available sites and competion. The size of an Empire can be controlled by making city sites available or unavailable to it. The Colonization program is not strictly necessary for this.
- It prolongs the expansion, making site selection more important than without Colonization program. The more ressources are needed, the more important is it to place cities strategically. However, the relative small number of available sites negates ths effect for the most part. The not so small number of civs and thus competitors negates it even more.
I am not saying that the Colonization program should be removed. I just think it is not necessary to achieve what is achieved with it, and not using the Colonization program raises the challenge (and with it the fun) a little bit.
3.6 I think there are too many strategic ressources. It's difficult to get the overview. Let's see: The function of these resources is to settle on or conquer cleverly and finally hold terrain in order to build much needed units or improvements. If however there are lots of ressources then almost every part of the map becomes important - or unimportant. Additionally, if in abundance then new ressources mutate for the player to "yet another ressource" and lose their special meaning. Especially if they have similar names (Titanium, Tritanium) and properties (element, mostly metallic). The strategic importance of a ressource is further diminished, if it is located in the core of the empire (namely the homeworld) which is unlikely to ever get contested (and if, then you have problems of bigger dimensions). Ressources there make only little sense (or special sense in the case of Colonization program). Thus my proposal:
As far as I can see, ships need regularily two ressources, one of them always one of the dilithium ressources. I find the idea with the five levels of dilithium quite appealing: It is simple, easy to understand that better ships need a more refined dilithium variety and it fits the Star Trek theme very well. Quite a good idea! It also does make sense to often (but please: not always) require a second ressource, so that the task is not too simple. But I would restrain the other ressources to perhaps two different kinds. I would remove anti-matter as it is now: Located in the home-system it is no challenge to get or hold it. Perhaps relocate it, make it more difficult to aquire it, but let the more basic ship designs be built without any ressource requirements. Think standard game ancient era, which is extremely well done: only swordmen and horsemen need ressources, who are the best units of their kind. Then take one ore perhaps two other ressources, i.e. (I choose randomly) Duranium and Neutronium, and make them required for the best ship designs (together with a dilithium variety) and for some low to medium level ship designs (w/o dilithium). Make some ships require only a dilithium variety. In this way, a civ will be able to always build ships, but the better or more specialized ones only with the given ressources. (I.e. Transport/Scout/Cruiser need no ressource, destroyer needs a metal ressource, hvy cruiser dilithium variety, capital ship and warship need both.) This design is more easily understandable and I doubt that you lose much of the strategic aspects if you distribute the remaining ressources to challenging positions.
3.7 an odd thing: I discovered that the Federation had the innate ability to bribe other cities. This was both fun and appropriate, perhaps it is an even too strong feature for them, because I was able to buy almost all colonies of the minor races and even the Klingons. Which leads me the following: Is it possible to make sure that the federation can only buy the cities of later Federation members, but not Klingons or romulans? It seems the Borg are already appropriatly immune against bribes.
I hope that after this long criticism one thing is not lost: That I enjoyed the mod so far immensely - otherwise I would never have been motivated to write such a long post. Hopefully some of my thoughts are useful to you!
[edit]Oh, I forgot. One idea: Planets are very valuable, esp. foodwise. This value is lost when a colony is situated on it. This could be prevented, when cities could not be built on planets, but only asteroids (at the moment it's the other way around). This way is is, however, more difficult to block other civs from settling (but not impossible). Also perhaps existing maps would have to be checked inhowfar their balance and playability is still maintained. Just an idea, if nobody else already proposed it.[/edit]