Good mod, would buy this free content again 5/5

Bullet Point Summary -
* Not being able to chop trees early may be too big a penalty than intended.
* Related to above, not being able to exploit visible resources for a bit longer makes higher difficulty AI bonuses more pronounced.
* Boats. Boats with barbarians on them are terrifying.
* More aggressive AIs? Might be due to how fewer choices encourage them to make military units instead.
* Beelining compensation feels off sometimes, both as player experience and AI behavior.


I just now finished a full game with this mod on and Extended Eras as suggested. Present content mods were limited to the Urban Complexity suite, Real Strategy, and Terra Mirabilis alongside a pack that adds resource types so that larger maps have more stuff. I wasn't using the content mods that this mod itself is meant to support, so some of my impressions might be off for that reason!

This mod itself adjusts tech/civic trees and shifts some stuff around them. I don't think it *adds* new content directly, but Civ VI does feel like a whole new game. I had to find new early strategies and some solid ones simply did not pan out with changes to when new features get unlocked.

For example - my very first try was with Japan. I got dropped on a flat island with a heap of forests and rainforests. I thought I had a good start but as it turns out, not being able to chop forests and rainforests messes early city planning up. I'd have to look up the new tree again but chopping trees was 3 techs deep and chopping rainforests was at least an era after. What is Japan without three cities with three districts each right next to each other until the third era? The answer is "the button that says 'restart' on the game menu".

This ended up being a consistent issue with Japan and I had to give up on them. With Inca, things were much easier since the core early game kit is only two unlocks away even with the new trees. Still, the very early game feels far more intense... perhaps beyond what I expected? I can beat Deity and play at Emperor for reliable fun. Emperor games this time felt more difficult than Deity, honestly. Having to wait several critical turns to actually use resources I see was somewhat frustrating and outright deadly for several.

Sea barbs are terrifying. Galleys don't get unlocked for a whole era, but barbarians can spawn them right away. This feels like something to consider since these made coastal cities nigh untenable. Getting attacked is one thing, not being able to actually work sea resources for a whole era is another.

AIs also seemed far more aggressive. Ambiorix coming at me with 10 Gaesatae at the end of Ancient Era is within the realm of imagination, but Shaka also came at me with 6 archers and 6 warriors at the same moment in the game. They were beating everything up more gladly than usual. Perhaps it's because more costly infrastructure and districts get unlocked a bit later that they end up producing more units. I've used different era-extending mods before, so I don't know if that's a quality of Extended Eras itself.

Changes were apparent even at later eras, though to lesser impact. They weren't as drastic, but with changes to when new stuff gets unlocked, I had to improvise more than usual. Beelining was (as intended) less useful since intertwined techs/civics and increased research-ahead penalties made it far costly. Though, I've noticed that AIs didn't seem to care. It made them far less effective as time went on, actually. I had a Level 3 research alliance with Germany and I noticed he had advanced military units without having unlocked resources to make them. Half of the techs from two eras ago weren't even attempted. I'll have to verify that, though. Hm.

Anyways, as intended, I appreciate how earlier eras are more complex and later eras are more dynamic. Some oddness I noticed may be due to how I'm unfamiliar with the game progression so I'll give it more whirls.

Technical stuff - Clicking a tech/civic to research sometimes resulted in trying to research them in a weird order. The game would try to research a tech/civic forward in the tree without attempting the prerequisite. Also, the Caracole tech has a eureka that requires two Pike & Shots, but the tech to make them comes *after* Caracole.