Got though a full game, first up review and second bug reports. I'll give my current balance thoughts too.
Map was Standard sized Shuffle (Came out as Low Sea/Hot/Dry I believe). I began rather isolated with access to 2/5 of the sacred stones. This gave me plenty of time to focus on infrastructure. 8 total civs, the AI on Prince. Took the game on Culture (my predetermined goal). The Civics tree was a couple turns off from being completed, while i was just approached info era Techs. All in all, nothing felt broken. I had a lucky start after all.
I had a load of Great Works, ranging from Music to books to artifacts to arts. Had a ton of wonders too.
There were a few bugs, but from what I can tell most of them should be minor/barely affect gameplay.
-You receive copies of Hero of Time even if you don't have Iron Working. I don't know if this was intended or not, but I learned this to be true.
-Hero of Time can crank out 3 Fairy Fountains. Again, not sure if this was intended or not.
-Holy Site graphic glitched out after reloading a save. It still worked fine however.
-Cannot purchases Inquisitors despite launching the Inquisition. Defensive Apostles prevent this from being a total deal breaker at the moment.
-Can construct Temple of Time prior to building Shrine.
-Fairy Fountains do not grant Tourism upon reaching Flight (or whichever Tech/Civic grants Tourism from Culture improvements). This barely matters, fortunately.
-No Background Music, though I won't be surprised if this is out of your hands right now.
-Hero of Time cannot be Upgraded. Not sure if this was by design or not.
-You can still train Warriors after Iron Working, but you cannot upgrade them into Musketmen. Warriors hit obsolensce by Muskets.
-Warriors can upgrade into Hero of Time for obscene amount of gold.
Balance-wise: Woah this was a fun Civ to play. Zelda led Hyrule is a unique mixture of Rome, England and Russia taking small parts from each and incorporating it into a very strong culture game. Of those 3, Russia is the closest comparison, with her Lavras pumping out GPP like nuts. However, unlike Russia, Zelda actually has somewhere to stick those musicians.
From turn 2 you can already see that Zelda is in the game (just look at the GPP), so that does reveal who you are immediately. This is only notable to human players, but I thought it was a neat quirk.
LA: Goddess' Harp: +2 Music Points isn't that awesome, but it does pretty much guarantee you a Musician by Medieval. (Weak)
NA: Sacred Stones: +3 Faith from 5 of the luxuries isn't bad. It won't fuel a religion run, but it can help you protect yours. Also acts as Valletta fuel very nicely. (Weakish)
UU: Hero of Time: Free copies of Link is great for defense, but he can't war on his own. His maintenance is also heroic, but you learn to deal with it. Fairy Fountains rock for early culture boosting and for holding out against barbs. Because of a very high Faith cost, he ain't spammable. (Good)
UB: Temple of Time: This is the sexy that makes this Civ rock and allows it to be reasonably competitive. Having 2 Music slots on top of a Relic slot and then still giving a little bit more Music Points (+1 per turn, each) more than makes up for everything else this Civ is poor at (Science, Drawn out Wars versus competent foes). It makes the Broadcast Center pointless to construct, but then again, you can't guarentee you'll have tons of room to expand like I had. This building alone allows Hyrule to compete with Russia. (Spectacular)
UB: Fairy Fountain: Myriad Culture amounts and a full heals. You'll find yourself ignoring these once your Culture game takes off. Makes it pointless to take the Healing Patheon or build Forts, but most Civs do. (Weakish)
I'd wager that this Civ is pretty balanced. It really only has one Gov't path (Republic, Republic, Democracy) and one reliable victory path (Culture), but to be fair just about all of the Civs. Great job!!!
I'll get a patch out ASAP. With regards to HoT healing, did you notice this with any other units?
