The Trial
I'm about 40 turns in

- Culturally Linked disrupting balance of civ culture types could be made less of a problem by having alternate culture type that can be swapped to in order to make balance better.
There would also be a swap priority that would make it so some civs would swap culture types depending on what would be more or less jarring- for example in medieval scenario Spain and Arabia/Ottomans would always be Christian / Muslim unless they absolutely had to switch culture types, while other civs would be more likely to switch if it would be fitting

- If player has too many wonders to preserve balance when moving on to next scenario, itd be nice if they could decide what wonders were maintained and which fell to ruin and/or were forgotten

- Having cultural presence in a city state should raise influence resting point and slightly increase its recovery when below resting point / decrease decline when above resting point

1. Cultural presence within city-state tied to some influence reward was in plans at one point. I think the reason it was not implemented were issues about how to handle multi-cities city-states or city-states that lost their original capital (well, conquests in general). I will try to come up with something simple, intuitive and bug-proof.

2. I will check golden age ideological tenets for balance. '+2 turns' is definitely an odd one.

3. The AI supply case. It might be that I am playing with dynamic AI handicap, my end-game graphs did not show any concerning data. Most AIs have positive supply. What is more there are logics that stop AI from making new units while on low/negative supply. Negative supply also increases AI aggressiveness and chances for AI to disband units. I will be monitoring an issue. If possible, please send screenshoot of your graph.

Most abilities that provide free units are right now triggering only if at positive supply (I believe it affects even gifts from city-states). It may be that some left-over unit-spawning ability (or events like Crusade project) messes up an AI ability to control unit supply (however it would be still only singular anomaly).

4. Glad you enjoy QoL from Master of Construction so much. :) One of my favouirtes as well.

5. Hmm, food-focus during resistance is a serious ommit from my side. I was never into such min-maxing.

Thanks for feedback!

Yeah construction advisor is very convenient, even if you don't always start with many cities. Also nice that I can set buildings even if I don't have the techs for them. I always set it to auto construct all buildings that provide more production.

I would use it even more if scenario generator could handle bigger maps. Currently it seems making map larger past default maximum just results in more empty space. Even currently on sleep of reason scenario for example, though the empires are larger, it seems this generally translates to a similar amount of cities to prior scenarios controlling loads more land- most of it well outside their working radius. I wish industrial and modern scenarios would place more cities in all major civs. This would also make population count and productivity of later scenario civs at start larger, which feels more fitting anyways. And of course, means there are more cities to conquer!

Also In particular scenario generator could add support for maps from Yet (not) Another Maps Pack. Both for map sizes that are larger than default maximum (right now if you go any larger it just results in maps being partially empty even on SoR as I said earlier, rather than filling it with more cities for each civ) and also an option to use True Start Location if it is provided by map to place city states and capitals of major civs, with only locations of major civs other (non-capital) cities being auto-generated.

Even if this is not possible, then itd be nice if slightly lower civs counts on large maps would make it so in earlier scenarios civs are closer together and in later scenarios each individual civ gets more cities in order to make the map not feel empty. Itd be fun to play with only like 10 or 12 major civs instead of 22 but have each civ be larger n more powerful and also have room for lots more city states

Speaking of food focus for example, only a few turns ago epidemic swept across my empire. Setting every city to food focus while it was happening allowed my population to bounce back a smidge faster than my neighbors. It isn't much, but when cities can't produce anything other than food its still advantageous.
Alternative way it can be fixed, instead of making so all cities that cannot work auto set themselves to food focus, is to make it so cities that cannot work automatically stagnate in population growth no matter how much food they are making (which would render the "exploit" pointless). This is more realistic on second thought, if one is reduced to subsistence living in the countryside in order to protest authorities / escape plague, starting a family probably isn't on your mind.
Only issue I can see with it is that it would make epidemy / riots even more punishing so might require some counter balancing. I have an idea for that:

I'm tired of rioters completely razing buildings to the ground. I'm pretty sure there is already policy/tenets that change this (i think there's one called "personal responsibility" which makes it so destroyed buildings get 25% reconstructed automatically?).
But it would be nice if it was also more likely they would damage buildings instead of destroying them. Damaged buildings would still need to be "rebuilt" to become operational again, but they would start already halfway completed (by default, effects would also be able to stack, like aforementioned social policies/tenets).
Rioters would still be able to destroy buildings but this would mainly occur in the bigger stronger ones that provide more happiness.

I wish the specialized versions of anti tank gun unit all got 3 movement, they do change into Armoured units after all

I wish I could set some sort of reminder for legal actions when they stop being on cooldown, which would remind you to save up enough legal power in advance a few turns before cooldown ends ( depending on action's cost and how much per turn legal power you make) and remind you again once the cooldown has actually ended. I never want to forget to pass an edict again!

Got a relic issue: for muse of eternity's bonus when combined with muse of spirit, that allows spending 300 Art to boost wonder production and gain 50 relic points, the action appears as a charge in the top of screen but it seems clicking the button has no effect

In a lot of cases I get issues where after I take a city or integrate city state I cannot buy with gold or faith anything, can only build with production. I assume this is an intended mechanic bc it always eventually goes away, but it varies in how quickly, sometimes taking just a turn or two and sometimes taking many more. Why?

I can only assume the oracle relics prophecy system is just completely random? in which case wow do i have bad luck lol

When great people ascend or migrate to my empire itd be nice if the notification told me which city they now reside in

Kailasa Temple description says "buildings are built within one turn in a City" i assume it means only the city the wonder is built in. Also, that might be a little unbalanced lol

I wonder if it could be possible for cities that rebel to become new independent city states if the barbarian rebels lower the city's hp to 0. I assume thats not possible though but it would be neat to see some other consequence of rebels "winning"

Itd be cool to see the sacred law relic bonus "see the most popular option of each law" also appear with some innovations in later scenarios

Forts and citadels seem to show "+xp" yield gain when they range attack and/or get kills even though they cannot gain xp

Noble Privilege isnt something i would want to waste an edict on but it might be more interesting if it was just a separate legal action, even if itd have to be more expensive

I have now finished medieval scenario

I wish I could have a diplomatic advisor that automatically says "no thanks" to other civ's requests to declare war together on another civ. It's the first turns of the renaissance scenario, I am not prepared to go to war yet

I will reread it all once I start preparing next update.

Quick answers:
1. City cannot purchase if damaged, can attack or make an attack this turn.
2. I believe great people migration notification mentions both cities (from and to).
3. 300 art into wonder points. From a quick glance it seems that it works but do not refresh top panel. It can cause some issues. Will fix.
4. Hmm, I think forts and citadels still contribute to Great General points (that's why XP floats).
5. Kailasa Temple's effect only applies to a city that has this wonder.
6. Hmm, I believe 22 civs, 40 city-states on huge maps should fill the world pretty nicely. I might make some runs and attach somewhere recommended num of players per map.
7. I will indeed most likely make cities stagnate (at best) when they cannot work - will also check if any other basic/special yield is not collected.

1. Maybe the part about removing purchase ability if ur city can make a ranged attack could be loosened up bc it can be a problem if your city has an extended strike range. medieval african Grand Citadel innovation gives this i think(or is it forts im thinking of, i forget bc im on renaissance now). Maybe make it so if enemy unit is within 2 or even 1 hex of city rather than just within strike range

2. yes, but not for great person birth notifications far as i can see

3. Ah, i clicked it many times yet i still ended up on top of the art period a couple turns later, so i thought it wasnt working. Seems i just generated lotsa art lol

4, 5: alright

6: I don't usually see too much unclaimed land, its just that cities can claim enormous amounts of land around themselves, so a lot of the land is in dead space outside of range city can work.

7. I miss exploiting cultural heritage process to increase cultural presence even when my cities couldnt work, i could easily make my empire super unified... now there are always too many foreigners to deal with!

Is there anything that makes it so offices of inquisition can be purchased? Itd be neat if I could get them with faith somehow

Why would i spend 300 monopoly to improve relations with a city state when i can spend just 1 legal power?

You know what would be neat for RP and also be interesting strategically? Taking, and possibly giving, gold loans. I found myself running on empty in early game after a nasty couple turns of anarchy, i had little options other than to run scouts everywhere to get gold from ruins and suck it up till i got Banking. Oh, and extort tribute from city states with my army, too.
There is already aspect of this in renaissance scenario with the emergencies system but i'm european culture so it's not accessible to me

Anyway borrowing could be a new thing accessible through economic overview. In order to borrow money there has to be someone willing and able to loan it. Borrower gains instant sum of gold and loaner loses it, however the borrower pays interest for 30 turns afterward by transferring a portion of their currency bonus to the loaner. It would also be possible to become a loaner (you're only able to give loans if you actually have gold to give, of course). Similar to emergencies system there could be other ways the loaner could choose to have their borrowers pay interest (in form of cultural presence, colonies, great works, religion spread, etc, depending on scenario). It could also be made possible to borrow from non major civ actors, like from mercantile city-states, independent merchants belonging to religions, corporations, etc, also depending on scenario. If you had previously borrowed and are still paying interest (whatever form that interest takes) you can also "pay off" your interest straight back with gold (cost reduces if there are fewer amount of turns left to continue paying interest otherwise), if you are now out of the red and have money to spend. You could also be able to pull out of repaying a loan, but it would face hefty penalty both diplomatically and in trade terms because you would become considered financially untrustworthy.

i wish that the great people with random % chance of doing something special every turn were generally a tad more likely to do things across the board. Or if it varied depending on charm migration progress etc. Not much, just 1 or 2% in a few cases (like creating great works for example)

Why cant I see my progress towards great admiral or great general bonus in the top bar? Yes, I can see it in military overview but itd be nice to be able to see it without going into a menu

i wish ships could pick up ancient ruins on islands or coastline...

Wish that national days felt a bit more permanent by making them less likely to be forgotten in exchange for costing some more legal power to establish

Some law options are just bad. For example food distribution adding unhappiness makes it a bad deal. Specialization loses more yields than it gains. Food distribution should give happiness to the city that is receiving the food, and the unhappiness/happiness change should be 2% instead of 3% both ways. And specialization (ive said this before yeah) should either give +30% of the gained yield instead of 25%, or instead of both yield reductions being -15% should be a mix -10% for one and -15% for the other, for example it could be
Cities with Academy gain +25% Science, -15% Production and -10% Gold
Cities with Customs House gain +25% Gold, -10% Production and - 15% Science
Cities with Manufactory gain +25% Production, -10% Science and -15% Gold

the Guilds from Arti Maggiori would be kind of cool to see in other scenarios. Writer's Guild could appear in The Trial under the Christians culture innovation Antiquity (because the image looks to be a philosopher and student / scribe, it could have different name and stats and do something small related to increasing Great Philosopher chance? Just make sure to buff the Glassworking innovation as well if u do this) And all 3 guilds could reappear as well in Industrial scenario too, randomly from innovations?

For some bizarre reason demographics claim Persia is making 44 legal power per turn, i have an agent set to intelligence so its supposedly accurate. I will add save file "Nebuchadnezzar persia_has_44legalpowPT" to google drive folder in case this is something really wrong lol
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CAdK5su7ZB8bhhd-PZObVM6s60fFw78Y

Ok wait correction about the above: I don't think persia is actually making 44 legal power per turn because they just got surpassed by the ottomans making 0.58. But the interface has mixed up and is displaying 44 when it should be 0.44

I havent reached industrial scenario yet but itd be cool if Corporations system was still around in Light of Hope, just less relevant. After all irl colonial companies remained important during that period

Idea: Secularism innovation in Renaissance should also make Shrines maintenance free if the city they are in had a Office of Inquisition before becoming secular

There is political turmoil in (city state)! emergency does not show what resources you may gain from colonial zone, even if city state definitely has them

As a result of getting science bonus with Innovation as one of the options, and getting free Innovation from a Corporation emergency on the same turn, I could get Secularism and Volta do mar at the same time breaking their mutual exclusivity. I have added the turn start save (Autosave 1818) to the drive as well

Resources from political turmoil's display may vary from information available in diplomatic overview. It includes only resources that can be made into colony (therefore excludes city, adjacent plots, existing colonies...).

Corporations, Great Game and Relics were introduced to add each scenario unique flavour (kind of like World at War in modern scenario).

GG and GA are hidden in military overview simply because that's how it was in base game. I will add them to top panel.

I am gonna be frank, I consider laws' system a failure. I wouldn't include it if I were to start new project. Decisions degenerate in either no-brainer options or irrevelance (no point in changing them). Balancing laws is a low-priority.

National Days used to have 100% pass and it was an unpleasant "checkbox" to do. In fact I intentionally nerfed a lot of 100% passable legal actions because they made spending legal power unfun. Maybe the solution is the other way around, reduce the cost (it would feel less bad to pay for them "again"), increase max amount of days across ages - though it would be a time-costly redesign.

Corporations' actions are there as an optional sink of Monopoly points, they are supposed to be weak. Acquisition of City-State used to cost around 750 - which could easily lead to 3-4 usages. Corporations are an optional game-mode, fully available to only half of major players, I don't want them to be too strong.

Technically checking 2-range for enemies instead of if city can attack would be a fair and smart change, however an effort required in addition to rarity of a situation (3+ range) is making me pass on it. Right now I feel overwhelmed with planned stuff.

Conditional % for great people sounds interesting. I will include it in either v35 or v36.

Loans, or "early" fund-raising is quite an interesting concept. I can see taking a loan from governor and then executing him. Hmm, though it definitely requires me to recode how gold is handled to have a better control of negative GPT while treasure is empty so I can properly apply penalties for being an unhonourable bankrupt. On top of that add proper note in historiography. Maybe in v36.

Thanks for thoughts!

In case of city state political turmoil emergency, then i would think it shouldnt be offered as an emergency if city state has no resources to make a colony (or be offered but instead as a cheap opportunity to improve relations by 20 with that city state for only 100 monopoly)

Scenario exclusive elements, laws, national days, corp actions etc- I see your points

On conditional percentage chance for Great People actions- it could increase the relevance of some things that somewhat lack in importance currently. More things that could affect it:

Power - your guiding presence and control drives them to accomplish great deeds
Meritocracy - they feel their hard work can lift up more people if it isn't being siphoned off for the benefit of corrupt elites
National Unity - if their civilization moves with united purpose into the future they want to at the forefront of it
Morale - Triumph on the battlefield or even just a bit of good news from home lifts the spirit and invites creativity
Best if it was random for each different great person what their "motivator" is and if there were lots of different options (adding to the current personalities system)

It'd be cool if Great People may also migrate to City States, in which case they would make the city state more attractive diplomatically. Particularly because city state politics is a target to be revamped.
If city state has Ally: all yields and results of actions of the Great Person go to their major civ Ally, anything that would normally be exclusive to great person's place of residence instead go to the ally civ's capital city. For all purposes it is basically as if the Great Person has migrated to the citystate's major civ ally's capital... that is, unless the city state allegiance changes- then Great Person bonuses go straight to the new ally. Maybe with random chance one-time benefits may go to second or third place friend if the ally civ gets unlucky.
If city state only has Friends: more complicated, yields/benefits of Great Person go to whoever has highest influence (super rare ties broken by authority then protection status then randomly i guess), certain randomly triggered bonuses will go to a random civ friend, semi biased towards those with higher influence.
If city state has no Friends or Allies: Great Person becomes more likely to migrate, and if a random action would have triggered if they were in a major civ they instead immediately migrate, cursing the lost opportunity. On migration from a friendless citystate they're guaranteed to choose a major civ city as their target, and tell whatever civ they migrate to that they were terribly bored by their prior home's isolation from the wider world.
Main problem i can foresee with this addition is a lot of aspects of Great Person system are based around them being in a major civ's city and not a backwater city state.
Great People could also in a few cases ascend from within city states, also making the city state more diplomatically attractive, or potentially migrating. RP value!

I never thought about governor bailing you out but yeah that sounds fun. I'm totally an honest man and would repay my debt to them, no executions no sir-ee!
It would also be cool if you are loaning you can set your prices high to wring every last bit of value out of your indebted clients (significantly more profitable but small diplo penalty, borrowers will try to find better alternatives), or low (hardly much interest profit at all, but diplomatically beneficial for helping those struck by poverty). In some cases city states, governors, corporation, religion, even great people may also request loans which do different things if you pay up or don't.

I will move on to Industrial scenario later

Back from a trip, on light of hope now

My starting unit setup is composed of two frigates, one musketman, one lancer and NINE cannons?!!

When developing Ideological tenet causes old social developments to be forgotten, it could prioritize developments that have lost all usefulness (like say, that one that makes picking up an ancient ruin also uncover undiscovered another nearby ruin because ancient ruins are no longer around in industrial scenario). Once these are gone it then does the rest in order of age

Itd be nice if Pro-rata building purchase (like that seen in the DLL mod Various Mod Components) was added so purchasing would be cheaper if you have already partially built said building in the city with Production. (Maybe it could be added to mercenaries as well though with the already existing dynamic merc cost mechanics I'd assume not)

Economic yield bonus unlocked from Primal Capitalism tenet could be cool to see in other scenarios. And make the "Adds choices between great people talents" ability more widespread as well because i struggle but have never gained the ability to use that mechanic with how hard it is to obtain.

again please add a counselor that automatically declines AI requests to jointly declare war on someone. im a peaceful kinda guy and the diplo requests are slowing down turn processing. Maybe with filters so if you just want certain requests to not happen (like if you'd be open to other joint war possibilities but take no requests to betray any declared friend or ideological comrade for example)

AI priority of reforming beliefs in their religion should be much lower in Industrial scenario, it is distracting them from more important matters to spend their yield bonuses on

Add option to auto purchase legal power with 400 Faith if you are secular state and it isn't modern scenario

City-states that are not on the coast should not be asking for Great Admiral point handouts at all if they've got no navy. Similarly, city-states isolated on islands should definitely opt to ask for Great Admiral points more often than Great General points.

You can spend gold to "Improve a Resource" for a city state. In certain cases its kind of broken for example you can waste gold to improve Whales in city state waters (it does nothing lol). Maybe this functionality could just be removed

Placing special improvement via a charge should also refund Work Rate if placed on a tile that already is improved and removing a previous improvement

Light Cannon from Industrial Modern Warfare innovation using same assets as the Field Cannon from Renaissance-European Siege Engineering innovation is kind of confusing. It could be replaced by something more modern. Possibly something resembling the model and image used by the Field Gun in Vox Populi?

It could be cool to see a ranged but non-siege "Archery" type unit in Industrial scenario for more variety in its land warfare. Since you have already used Enlightenment Era mod assets, this could start with "Skirmish Infantry" unlocked by Rifling (meanwhile Line Infantry would be moved to Military Science), and upgrade to the base game asset Gatling Gun (unlocked by Modern Warfare innovation).
And similarly, to add more variety to LoH sea warfare there could be weaker but cheaper light ship unitclass that starts with Corvette (Astronomy, similar to Corvette in Renaissance scenario) and upgrades to Monitor (tech Steam Power, assets from that American Civil War unit from official DLC scenario).
In my opinion in both cases they could get separate stacking type, because big combined arms stacks feels fitting of Napoleonic era land and naval warfare. I suppose it might add too much complexity. I dunno, would be really cool though.

And please make it so Modern Warfare innovation also makes obsoleting units much cheaper in legal power amount required (like say half or one third the cost) because of the potential two upgrades in a row one might have to make

Citizens banished by Removal Act should (idk could be random chance maybe half the time) be repatriated to the closest city of the civilization / city state that matches their culture, also adding 200 cultural presence upon arrival, so using it might be unintentionally a benefit to the civ of the culture you expel...

It'd be neat if your counselor settings carried over to next scenario (when applicable, of course)

I almost played entire thing in one day but I ought to go to sleep

Now on Modern scenario, around turn 50

- Ideology league nicknames aren't properly replacing acronyms everywhere- for example the acronyms still display in the Diplomacy Overview screen. And I wish the full ideological bloc names could be changed as well

- The innovations related to Anti Air Gun unit like Plan Position Indicator mention Specialization development despite AA Gun unit not being able to be specialized. Is it planned?

- Public Service giving Palace upgrade should require a bit less Gold stored up (maybe 500 or 600 instead of current 750)

- PLEASE I'VE SAID THIS BEFORE MAKE IT SO IDEOLOGICAL ALLIES (and also probably declared friends as well) WILL NOT TARGET EACH OTHER WITH SPIES. England is pissing me off, I have thwarted three of their attempts to sabotage buildings and they successfully counterfeited my currency. And now they just attempted to assassinate one of my Generals. WE'RE ON THE SAME SIDE CUT IT WITH THE FRIENDLY FIRE!

- Sometimes I wish I could set an additional spy to Counter Intelligence, even if having a second counter-intel spy would provide diminishing returns

Why don't I ever see notifications telling me when I have been replaced as an ally of a city state? because the warnings that tell me my influence has almost fallen enough to make me no longer an ally aren't reliable enough (like in the cases where another civ improving relations or winning politics makes them steal the city state immediately). Right now I get notifications saying I have lost a source of (insert luxury here) and have to look thru the city state list for the culprit that's changed allegiance.

I also notice that AI doesn't want to liberate city states and just conquers them for themselves even if they've previously been conquered.

Additionally, going the other way a city-state allied to me just took a city that legally belonged to England but had been lost to the Danish, but the city state kept the English city for themselves. I would think they would restore English sovereignty since they're allied to me and England is my ideological ally.

It'd also be nice if city-states you were previously locked at war with would send you a notification requesting peace once it becomes unlocked

The Great Statesman talent "makes the city able to maintain a Trade process" should make the Trade process convert Production to Trade Route points at double effectiveness if the city can already maintain a Trade process (like for example if you have Logistics tenet, or if it's that particular Great Game competition). I've had two of these guys and its a shame that their talent becomes useless if you already can use trade process

I have some ideas for some changes to Tenets

Primal Capitalism: The addition of economic yield bonus is very interesting but otherwise the tenet doesn't do very much. (if you are benefiting from "Starvation does not cause Citizens to migrate" something has gone very wrong).
I would add "Cities that are unable to work still yield Gold from Buildings." (This Gold income would also still be affected by Corruption, Currency Strength, City Modifier etc). Only gold income innate to the buildings (nothing produced by citizens working tile yields or specialist citizens) would continue to be produced.

Heroic Mission: Both of these effects are kind of hard to use. The chance of a unit taking (basically no) damage instead of lethal damage when defending can often be rendered pointless if the enemy has multiple units to kill yours with, and of course its a 10% chance gamble. And melee units becoming fully stackable after attacking is very tricky to make use of (besides, I don't usually see a need in combat to stack a ton of infantry on top of each other, just infantry+armour pair is good enough).
But I'm not sure how to buff the second part, so maybe just change the first so that your current Morale percentage is added to (or subtracted from but only up to, say, -5%) the survival chance. If you have maximum Morale then your damaged units can negate an otherwise lethal attack at a 25% chance, 1/4 of the time. I can depend a little more on those odds.

Brave New World: What this also made it so every city that can work has your Decadence Factor from luxuries added to their Cultural Presence generation (maybe thatd be too much, maybe half of it).

Crushing Force: Could also make it so enemy units that get attacked have percentage chance to become Demoralized equivalent to the combat bonus (so each attack is both +3% combat bonus and +3% chance for next attack to demoralize the defender)

Are you taking suggestions for additional Tenets? (I assume not)

Past turn 80 now. For whatever reason Global War just hasn't kicked off, i suppose because there's a bunch of ongoing smaller wars that haven't coalesced together. I've completely clobbered Spain with a deluge of R40 tanks, Laffly W15 TCCs and guided missiles. Due to Spain having been fairly large i foresee next 20 turns will be "counterinsurgency whack-a-mole" across my empire, so I'll cut my losses while I'm ahead. Great success!!

Next update I'll start next playthrough over from Age of Titans, probably City-State culture type.

It is possible to play through entire modern scenario without triggering Global War.

Number of ideological tenets is indeed locked.

Trade Process already works that way (stacking).

I don't know the AI logic for city liberation. I don't think City-states liberate at all.

I can't find any notifications about city-state's ally change in the code. It was either removed or was never there. I had planned some City-State data panel for several versions but it just keeps getting delayed.

Multiple counter-intelligence was allowed in the past. I didn't like it. In general spies sitting on "passive" internal missions is an opposite of what espionage should be.

Text about specialization in modern innovations is kind of template (passing class as variable). I will check if it can be fixed.

Social developments (and wonders) are kind of designed to work at least in their respective scenario and following one. Unfortunately by making each scenario unique, with own rules and game mechanics, it is extremely hard to come up with bonuses that will not eventually become obsolete. Developments are removed from the oldest.

Economic yield bonus is definitely available in more scenarios, I don't remember the specific unlocks.

Hmm, improving resource for city-state is indeed a left-over from the base game.

The lack of ranged unit in industrial scenario is by design. LoH has quite a lot of special combat rules to differentiate it from previous scenarios.

Thanks! I am slowly starting work on next update.