.

Maybe it's the featured Weekend Impulse Buy.

Well, I suppose that counts as a workaround.

I'm going to try and take that as tongue in cheek as possible in the spirit of charity, but these longbows seem to be the tip of the iceburg.

The new attack strengths? good.

Metal weapons with no metal requirement (empire Knife)? not so good.

The more transparant damage information on spells (and other mechanical fixes)? damned good.

Kingdom padded chests being 1def higher than Empire? odd.

Horses and Wargs for empire on first equipment tech? confusing.

Unexplained discrepancies that were previously resolved have crept in with this one, or at least that's how it looks from where I'm sitting.  Annoying and if I'm honest, patience draining.

The only thing that has frankly pissed me off is by seeing how much fun I was having (and explaining that I trusted stardock to start improving things) has resulted in two and possibly a third person I know buying this game.  They're adults and it was their choice, but I still feel like I've let them down by letting my enthusiasm overwhelm my caution in recommending this game.

Short version: Mistyped values snuck in with patch, Confuses poster. Poster's mates see game before new patch, Buy game, Patch comes out, Poster feels like an arsehole.

This is just getting ridiculous.   I might be done with the game.  There's clearly a lack of real QA, which pisses me off, because it shows an arrogant disregard for their customers.

Any chance a look could be had at the costs I mentioned aswell?

It's about 4am where I am and I haven't had the chance to make a comprehensive list, but... well. you can see some of them mentioned in the previous posts.

Short bows were supposed to go down to 3g from how I understood the revamp. I think its just an oversight on the short bows. Course this is still detrimental either way, as now you are paying an arm and a leg for shortbows but a fair price for longbows. guess it means research advance archery right after archery if you are kingdom. No sense even buying a shortbow.

note the "don't use it and pretend it doesn't exist if you think it is too powerful" mentality is pretty normal for single-player developers. Bioware has a similar stance.

hey I know, lets over react at an obvious joke and become weirdos.

.

now if ya'll would just lower the cost of STICKS(staffs) from 90gp to say...1gp, i would be thrilled.  take all the gold from the game = suck.  take all the gold from the game + make ALL shop items cheaper = effective balance (considering AI limitations). 

The way bows are handled is an astonishing example of how so many of the game mechanics are way off the mark. 30g for a shortbow is just a bug, that's not the problem. Even at 3g, the longbow is nearly twice as effective as the shortbow! As the unit figure counts grow and fighting strength decreases as a unit takes damage, the effectiveness difference expands out to more like five times more effective. You want to lose that to save 1gp?

So when I research the technology 'piercing weapons' I gain access to both shortbows and longbows, so the decision I must make is.... Do I want the good bow or the CRAPPY bow! That is not at all what Sid Meier means when he talks about 'interesting decisions'. Who decided that both items should be unlocked with the same tech? Has this person ever played a strategy game? Why waste your time including items that any rational person must reject?

It might make some bit of sense if the shortbows were an early game weapon and longbows introduced later, or if shortbows were an auxiliary weapon used only when you couldn't get into melee range fast enough, but in fact they are just like longbows but half as good. Why throw away content by making it useless? Why insult my intelligence by pretending to offer a variety choices when in fact there is only one?

The whole game is riddled with such false choices. I feel like no thought went into the design of this game. There should be real trade offs every time I get something new. I apologize for the rant if there is some advantage to shortbows that just hasn't been communicated to me. Please let me know if I'm missing something here.