Have read the thread here with some interest, and I wanted to add a few comments from my own game as it stands so far. I am playing at Regent level with the default rules with regicide turned on, as the Khmer(Cambodia).
I saw Kormer's posts that China and India are too big but have to disagree. Yes both are HUGE but neither seems overly agressive...and I went out of my way to get them mad at me
On the other hand it is 1770 as I say this and neither has built up any elephants or knight types so maybe I will be getting a nice surprise soon...
Before I get into how the game went, I want to say a few things in general about the mod and such.(Yes, I am ALWAYS this meandering when I write...or when I play! ) Getting used to all the new terrain values was HARD....the food calculations what with all the terrain that does not provide any, plus all those mega producing squares has just given me fits
Okay I am playing in Cambodia here and I do have to deal with some of the worst terrain on Earth so far as I am concerned but like, ICK! When I feel it is too much I just look north west at what Tibet has to deal with and thank Buddha I am on the coast... I don't know if it was your intent but having such lousy terrain and such High producing specials just escalates positional warfare all out of whack... There are just times when you have to get them to move off that sheep square or your city just...DIES
On the startup I sent out some warriors to see what was going on on my borders with India and China...the silly twits didn't even have warriors up yet so they both lost 2 cities. Only one of them was big enough to survive being captured though (Kunming) but I did get their attention.
This leads to my next comment... Within a few turns of the game starting I had maps from China all the way to England... It was not worth researching anything on my own,everyone else was doing it faster anyway. Interesting note: Around 1600 the Romans somehow got contact with the Aztecs. Now I have a perfect and up to date map with all civs selling it to me and there was no visible way they coud have made that contact...what happened?? I was able to trade maps,contacts and techs to stay right behind the leaders with like NO spending on science. I kept one population working as a scientist and that worked as good as setting science to 10% and saved me money. With 31 civs in play it was obvious GL would be HUGE and I was lucky enough to get it. I had one city working on another wonder at the time but someone finished it ahead of me, I got a really fortuitous switch. As far as tech going too fast this way?? it is 1770 as I said and I am working on engineering myself and have all ancient techs but republic I think but the GL has given me like 5 tech...I would have been able to trade for them but keeping my money has helped me prepare for the coming Monarchy. I have not played much PTW yet so you will have to judge yourself mr. T.
Oh yes! Remember when I ticked off India and China? Well all those early contacts meant I was at war with about 90% of the civs in no time. Now I am not really afraid of France and her mighty Trireme fleet being this far away but China + India + dragging in all of Asia but Tibet (We love you guys!) within say 20 turns of the game starting was umm a bit much??? I eventually made peace with all of these people but it was just CRAZY trying to keep people from buying military alliances against you...I got Tibet , Korea, Japan and Mongolia to Start wars with China with Bribes. Well we caused lots of Trouble and Korea has been named public enemy number one and a bunch of cities in Asia got razed over all this foolishness. My point is maybe something could be done to tone down the Wild MA sprees the AI seems to enjoy so much??
One point about the resources... did they all have to look alike? I am always right clicking away trying to see if indeed that fish is the big one or the BIG one... you know! Also my buddha relics have not popped up yet but how am I suposed to tell the two sorts you need apart?? They have the same icon and resource values in the civilopedia!
Oh yes , The Game! Cambodia is fun and the UU is fabulous! I scare hell out of Chinese Archers with that defense of 4...and so cheap!!! On another note that high defense plays right into the hands of the Khmer when you consider the terrain we play in. I have not seen anyone else mention it but you REALLY upped the defense values on terrain by a ton,what was the logic behind that? Your values are more in line with the old Civ two values, but If I park an army with even a few Khmer Inf. in say jungle /forest /hills the AI wont even TRY.
I did not have Iron or horses but Archers have the same stats as Swordsmen so it made no difference. I used a combination of Archers and some catapults/siege crossbows hiding behind several of the UU and I am pretty much crushing China. They are down to their last three cities so they are no threat but they sure do have a big army for such a tiny empire! That position around Louyon with the 10! silks and 3 dyes is maybe a bit too much for one city?! It is size 12 now and probably supporting his whole army on cash alone with ease.
That is all for now I think...but I disagree that China /India need to be cropped. I am sure India is going to get really feisty when His elephants come on line but a superpower or two is always good to have, we wouldn't want it to be EASY now would we? Also Please don't drop the Celts! I looked at that scattered start position and I knew where my next game will start. That is going to be SOME fun!
Oh and I did NOT approve of those few civs that had access to 3! UU types...no fair! give them one but not ALL!! Couldn't you give the Indonesians a really neat naval UU? They really scream for one being on all those little islands! Maybe a Kon-tiki 2/2/4 with full naval priveledges instead of triremes. For all those people who say naval units are pointless in Civ 3.
Sasebo,daughter of Bear, Queen of Smilies
