Some Issues & Suggestion

[Zoonp]

I have been enjoying the game but it still has some issues. Here are few of them:

1. Farmers & Workers vs Merchants, Artists and Scientists.

Currently there's no point in using merchants, artists or scientists because farmers & workers produce more valuable goods that you can sell for tons of profit. You can then use all that money to purchase all the culture and science you need.

2. Defense minister's power can be easily abused

The defense minister can remove all friendly units from the battlefield and that way force his own country to lose the war. There's no way to prevent this from happening so I suggest you replace his power with something else. Maybe something like a leadership bonus that can affect one unit.

3. Small Civs vs Large Civs

Currently larger civs can steamroll smaller civs very easily which is why everybody always wants to join the biggest civ because that's the only way they can earn lots of fame points. I think the small civs should get more bonuses to prevent this from happening. Maybe even allow them to form alliances with other small civs.

[DanM]

To point 1: Artists make you have more art puzzle moves, so their art production/harvest is actually far more than advertised. Scientists give you maze moves, which again makes their science production/harvest is far far more than trying to sell food and buy science.

To point 3: once your small civs figure out how to use "wonder events" (Golden Age, Voyage of Discovery, etc) optimally, I think they're going to crush the big civs in both technology and economy.

[peter grimes]

Point 2:
Seems pretty ridiculous on its face. Call me naive, but it sounds like if that happens the team as a unit has a motive to prevent that person from rising in the ranks.

[JulieG]

+1 to what DanM said, particularly with regards to point 1. You don't get puzzle swaps or maze moves from the culture or science you buy. If you get a good string of puzzle swaps going, you can get hundreds of points from a single maze, sometimes over 1,000. Certainly more than you'd usually make with just harvesting artists. Similarly, when you finish mazes, particularly later in the game, you can get tens of thousands of science points, much more than you could from harvesting scientists, and WAY more than you could get buying science, unless you were richer than God.

[ampozdol]

I actually agree with point 2. I was in a game (136) where the defense minister withdrew all troops and defected to the other side (and earned a military medal, go figure!). There's no control over who gets those positions and that ministry in particular can be exploited

[Joe-Z]

Point 1: Merchants are still pretty much useless. You can get tons of money buy selling another resource, and completing the caravan game doesn't earn you that much gold. Don't know if having merchants even affects that in any way.

In my recent game (#131), you could sell any Great Person for over 1 M gold. There were dozens of millionaire players in the game, and many more that had Great People so they were potentially millionaires. All the resources cost thousands of gold, even more than 10 k gold per 100 units. DerekB even overflowed his gold surplus at 2^28 = 268 M gold. Absolutely no point in having merchants.. and absolutely no point in building wonders only to lose them to someone else.. well it was just silly. DerekB had 1 M production too after winning the Sphinx auction w/ 5 M gold in his pocket, and he was unable to join any civ due to some bug. Anyway he was able to supply insane armies to the battlefield anytime there was a battle (2500 Cruisers in one slot, for example). Kind of got bored with this game after all this happened..

[VinceM]

Point 1: Merchants are still pretty much useless. You can get tons of money buy selling another resource, and completing the caravan game doesn't earn you that much gold. Don't know if having merchants even affects that in any way.

In my recent game (#131), you could sell any Great Person for over 1 M gold. There were dozens of millionaire players in the game, and many more that had Great People so they were potentially millionaires. All the resources cost thousands of gold, even more than 10 k gold per 100 units. DerekB even overflowed his gold surplus at 2^28 = 268 M gold. Absolutely no point in having merchants.. and absolutely no point in building wonders only to lose them to someone else.. well it was just silly. DerekB had 1 M production too after winning the Sphinx auction w/ 5 M gold in his pocket, and he was unable to join any civ due to some bug. Anyway he was able to supply insane armies to the battlefield anytime there was a battle (2500 Cruisers in one slot, for example). Kind of got bored with this game after all this happened..

The hyperinflation that happened in 131 can happen in any game if a couple of players who understand the market mechanics set out to do it. There are a lot of moving parts, but I think the short answer is that it's easier to raise the price of something than it is to lower the price. I think if the flaws that allow hyperinflation were fixed, merchants would become useful, too.