The new build is much better than anything that has gone before. Cities, money, food and population all feel good now. You actually have to think if/why you're going to expand and what buildings you are going to build.
The big glaring problem now is the numbers used in tactical combat. Basically it isn't fun because the balance is so far off. I'm not going to go into terrain, line-of-sight, etc. I'm not even going to go into weapon types (blunt vs sharp vs impact etc). While it would be awesome to have these in tactical combat, we need to get the balance right first. If this is the model we have to work with then fine, lets get this humming along as best it can.
I've had numerous times now with this build where two glass cannon units kill each other in the same combat round. So what isn't working and what needs to be re-looked at?
Attack scale of weapons is ridiculous. If you are going to have units with 2 or 3 hit points, why have lumps of wood such as the war staff so over-powered. A group of weaponry-tech level 1 units cannot compete with a single weaponry-tech level 2 unit
I can't remember the actual numbers involved but please make the benefit of better weapons much much much more subtle. Please!
And don't start with such a low number scale unless you are going to allow decimal points. So, for example, if you have a cudgel with an attack strength of 20 points, then make a staff 23 points but just add a slight defensive bonus. Spears could be 30 points, War staff could be 35 points with a slight defensive bonus. Daggers could also be low, say 25 points with a combat speed bonus, swords going up slightly with the best weapon in the late game at say around 70 points.
By having a higher number scale balancing the game would be so much easier!
Of course, you would also need to boost hit points as well, so instead of starting at 2 hit points, a unit might start at 40. Once again, bonuses would be easier to scale if the number system was larger to begin with.
Similarly, armour and defence values should have subtle increases but a much larger scale. Padded leggings could be say 18 defence points and leather leggings 22 hit points. Etc etc.
The slight increase in numbers will move the odds in your favour a bit in your favour, but battles would be much more interesting. And it would promote a real quality vs quantity emphasis. At the moment quality is the key to tactical battles because even large numbers of weak units can't compete with a single unit with weapons or armour the next level up.
And following on - by making numbers much more subtle it would not make the tech tree all about studying the Weaponry field.
This is a really important side benefit because tech is such a game-killer at the moment because of the weapon level imbalance.
If your tech level 1 units have a chance against tech level 2, 3 and even level 4 units it allows you to focus on higher quantities of low level troops while you explore the other tech trees. It would allow a player, as an example, to spam out a large peasant army while he/she focussed on researching magic and spells. While another player with metal deposits might still specialise in a well equipped but smaller army.
This would make much more sense of the tech tree AND promote different ways of playing the game.
The game is so much less than it should be because there is really only one good way of proceeding. That is, by focussing heavily on weaponry tech.
Multiplying attack numbers for groups is shit. Make the benefit of groups mainly about survivability with a slight attack bonus - not a multiple of all the attack strengths in the party.
Lets say (using the larger number scale mentioned above) a single unit has an attack factor of 30, make each extra person in the party add 10% to the base. So a party of 4 would have an attack of 30 (for the first unit) + (3 x10%) = 39. The next size up party (8) would have an attack of 30+70% = 51 etc. But the real benefit is that the larger units would be able to survive for longer.
By doing this it would also give opportunities to have certain weapons boost or penalise the group factor. A spear wielding group could provide a +12% boost per party member instead of the base 10%. While a battle axe with a high initial attack value could penalise large groups and only give a 6% boost. Once again, it means the player needs to plan out his army much better. The larger the group of spearmen the better, but for axemen it may be better to have many small groups.
Ditch simultaneous combat if you are going to keep the glass cannon units. Better yet, ditch simultaneous combat AND don't have glass cannons.
I have tried to only list do-able adjustments to the current system instead of talking about a big wish-list of things that couldn't be added in the short term.
