Wanted to share some 1920 AD screenshots from my most recent Japan game re; late game balancing. Played on Regent/Normal, 3000BC start, on the second most recent commit (i.e. not this morning's commit with the Star Fort changes).
First, as a suggestion/comment, is it at all possible to be able to introduce a sorter to the Diplomatic Advisor screens? It would be nice to be able to sort the civs by gold available for trade and their tech status, but I have no idea if this would be possible.
On the late-game balance topic, at least in my game, the score leaders are who you'd expect: (me, as player, but in an appropriate civ), Russia, USA, China, Germany, and then some colonial Euros. Russia got to Irkutsk and stopped (I did conquer Vladivostok on event spawn as we were at war anyways due to Defensive Pacts). USA is settling well: in 1920 they have every state except Utah, North Dakota, Alaska, and Florida (occupied by some Brits).
I want to note that Japan feels really good now with the Meiji modifier change. After the initial Renaissance modernization push and getting Zaibatsus online, you really accelerate and UHV3 feels very doable. I also continue to enjoy how the Modernization UHV encourages careful diplomatic play and continual monitoring of available tech and gold trades (the latter to help with buying techs). Generally my approach with Japan has been to use Modernization to buy cheap techs (Hermitage is a huge plus to this approach) while then beelining specific techs for leverage. Re; difficulty, I think it's fine now. France was competitive in the Industrial Era and now USA/Russia/France/Germany seem well-staged to compete on
Onto the comments/screenshots then. In terms of player meddling with the Euros/China, I note I had a long-running naval/border war with China for Manchuria and manipulated a war in Europe, but only recently started expanding into Southeast Asia and didn't have Chinese cities for tech (I did secure Korea in 1650ish). My tech trade partners were generally Mali, Britain, Turkey, Iran, Portugal, Kiev, Spain, and sometimes Russia, Germany, and USA for their huge gold reserves. General notes on the others:
- England underperformed. They were a consistent early tech trade/gold partner on my end specifically because they were one or more rows behind the tech leaders and would never compete with me on UHV3.
- France was a monster throughout the late Medieval and Renaissance. They held Italy, got the New World conquerors, partially collapsed, and then rebounded again into the European score leader until the mid-late Industrial Era. On my end, I manipulated Defensive Pacts to get England and Germany to DOW on France, Russia, and Portugal (Germany was already at war with Russia) to keep the European tech leaders a bit busy. I kept this phony war going for about 150 years until I conquered Hanoi from France, but the Euros steadily peace-d each other. There was a lot of movement in this war on the eastern front but nothing on the western end.
- The Mongols also absolutely ballooned until they collapsed. They got Economics in 1420.
- The Moors somehow stayed alive and thriving in North Africa and were competitive with France in the scoreboard for a while.
- The Dutch got eaten, somehow, by Portugal, quite early on. Portugal was in a similar tier to England so I traded a lot with them too.
- The Ottomans underperformed a lot until the Industrial Era. When I got Caravels and checked in on the Middle East around 1550, I saw France had Greece and the Balkans, and Spain had Istanbul, so maybe there was a crusade at some point that staunched the Ottomans. They eventually reclaimed Istanbul but Prussia got the old French possessions.
- China was sufficiently strong at all points, never an absolute tech monster after the Mongols nor ignorable. They settled as relatively stable in the 1850s after DOWing me in the 1700s for Manchuria.
