Here are a few items that I want to put up for discussion after LT49.
- Funda was too powerful. Every building producing luxury would also produce gold, turning temples, cathedrals and happiness wonders into gold mills. No gov before demo could compete with that.
- Crusaders were a dead end. They had roughly the same defense as pikemen while being more expensive and a musket-era unit. So they were obsolete from day one, and would not upgrade to fanatics.
- Early land units weren't very useful. More action would have taken place before T50 if the land units had been a bit more powerful. For example, catapults become a defensive unit because they can't be moved between islands.
- Submarines were way too powerful. In an island game with so many sea tiles, subs are basically invulnerable. A navy wanting to check even 50% of the tiles needs many ships, and subs aren't easy targets even for destroyers. But subs also have great offensive capabilities even before nukes since they can eliminate any enemy ship. After Manhattan and advanced flight, they can be used to nuke any city on the map (in contrast with land games where only a fraction of the cities can be reached this way).
Here's an idea for the issue with subs:
- Decrease submarine vision. It makes sense since they are under water. This can render them much less effective at chasing enemy ships: a useful navy would need to use surface vessels for scouting.
- Nukes don't get moves with advanced flight. Instead, they can be carried by bombers. They can still be carried by subs (or maybe transports?) but chains are only possible with bases.
- A new, more expensive nuke comes with rocketry or space flight. This one can move by itself, but opponents had more time to react.
Louis