Ok Im playing a game with this mod right now,I have some early feedback for you regarding the early game. Overall I like the changes but needs tweaking.
You got the big army capability down; Im churning out massive armies loaded with every specialist (siege,melee,archery,cavalry). However, something is occurring beyond reduced maintenace costs. My production and food are way out of whack on the up side. Ive never seen a tile produce more than a loaf of bread and more than a bag of gold plus some produciton all at the same time; espeically not in the classical era. It appears that because I like to load up and link up every resource within 50 miles, I am getting insane bonuses to my production/food.
This has left me with a massive score/tech lead over the computer. I have a score of over 1500 in 700 AD on Prince mode and my columns (8 man stacks) of Musketmen are starting to march out of my core production centers. Against this, the most powerful computer opponent has a stack of 5 Archers at his capital city (per my spy-scout) and a score of 496.
At start I blitzed the computer throwing all my production into Archers form the get go (build BArracks until get Archery tech); normally I can blitz 1-2 AIs before the tech differentials force me on the defensive. This time, I blitzed 5 AIs and could have kept going. THe power differentials between Archers and Warriors allowed me to do this ( I know the ratio is the same but the balance is different). On a side note, the changes you amde to Quechachas (INcan Warriors) make them scary in the early game.
The AI is somehow being impacted in terms of its decision making. I dont know where exactly, Ive seen it build some stacks 6-7 deep. Despite being on Aggressive though, the computer is not mobilizing the resources correctly. Its like they arent getting the same bonuses from the resources as I am. At start I poured my tech into military stuff so I couldnt use all the resources I conquered; but after my inital round of conquest, I grabbed the basics and had workers go out and get everything. Prior to the resources being active I was running a nasty deficit, struggling to keep up 40% Research; with resources I was at like 80%, making gold profit, and had 7 cities churning out nonstop units. I am thinking the resources are providing a large difference relative to the AI. Im not sure why.
THe overall impact is that the mod is much friendlier to large early empires than vanilla; it makes a domination strategy more viable than any other. Not sure if this was intended or not.
Also, some of the unit balances need to eb tweaked abit. For medieval and below, the Knight unit is overpowered. THere is not a single unit that was able to stop my Knights with 30% str promos. I was throwing Knights straight at Cities with out even bothering to haul up the Cats (espeically with the movement bonuses, the war goes so much faster). WHile realistic in terms of strength, I would suggest dramatically increasing the production cost of KNights. WHile a powerful force, they werent super common as large scale units due to cost.
Longbowmen vs Crossbowmen. Longbowmen are hands down better than Xbows in the mod. In vanilla they are fairly equal with Xbowmen being the more offensve versions. Here, Im not sure what the role of Xbowmen is; I have found I would almost always prefer a Longbowmen to an Xbow the way you have it setup.
Swordsmen are outdated by the time you get the tech listed. I got my Cats long before my Swordsmen. Could be just the way I do the tech tree is different, but Swordsmen really arent overpowered. They fill the role of early cats as a City takers for the Classical era.
SPearmen should get more of a bonus against mounted units. THey are useless agasint Knights as is, and they have a base strength higher than Chariots (so why bother?). In vanilla, a SPearman had a 50/50 chance of taking down a Knight; I always hurled my Spears at Knights. As is, SPearmen need some anti-mounted love or their anti-Mounted bonus become redundant.
Wonders:
The ORacle needs to be nerfed. It like 10x better than the other Wonders as it allows you to jump up fast into a higher level of tech. In vanaill,a its not so overpowered because there are other very useful wonders; but since you nerfed the other wonders, there is nothing that provides a comprable bonus. I always use this to grab a 20+ turn tech off an advnaced tech I jsut finished and then trade out with the AI to propel my tech well into the next era. Im usually very close to jumping into the next era beyond that; I went from Ancient to Medieval in like 30 turns. I dont even recall what happened during Classical times. ALternatively, consider adding some cool new bonuses to some of the nerfed wonders.
ON a different note, I would love to see you throw in some of the other mods into this one; several mods with new resources, alterantive religion rules, etc. have been put up. Note sure if its as simple as copying over into the assets folders or not, Ill get around to testing that aspect.
All in all, Im pretty happy with the mod, I find this more entertaining with lots of early wars vs the Tech Turtle model vanilla tries to enforce (I hate being forced to tech up all the way to Mech INfantry/MOdern Armor/SBs/JFs before having the resources to mass build heavy stacks). My only complaint is that the computer AI has been scripted to play Tech Tutrtle so even on ahrder difficulty settings all it does is advance faster (as opposed to putting up a good fight). A mod that would be to die for to combine with yours would be a new militant AI script mod; Ill keep my eyes out in case someone writes one.
Shouldnt be too difficult, the Desert War mod that comes with the game has a much better wartime focused AI (still needs refinement ot be more aggressive though).
I'll post more once I complete my current game. THanks for the ahrd work in putting this together.
D
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