Awesome work!
Just tried it out, it looks really nice! You weren't kidding about those neutrals and League units! Very impressive so far.
It seems that most of the new worker units are strictly income-generating, with only the commissioned architects and League-procured engineers being able to construct roads and cities. While commissioned architects are easy enough to unlock tech-wise, the fact that they can only be built at the Palace will definitely limit expansion. Resource-wise, this is not too much of a problem (if anything it encourages conquest of enemy cities and trading with the League) but research will suffer without easy ways to build a lot of labs.
Conventional unit construction takes a hit as well, especially since early economiks techs provide access to a lot of powerful mercenary units (Dreadnought, cheap Star Fighters, infantry, etc). For this reason, old-fashioned production will likely become overshadowed by a heavy focus on Starports, especially since Firebirds required to pay for the troops are now provided by income-generating units (typically have around 100,000 around the first election).
Extra income for the League might prompt them to declare the Third Republic sooner (though I reckon this might be an intended feature).
An interesting side-effect of negative upkeep is that you can actually boost it by increasing unit pay, giving both increased unit morale and greater income. This probably works in 1.4 as well (but less visibly, since few units provide income there).
Also, I think the Questing Knights and Phoenix Guard were implemented by Emperor Alexius after he won the Emperor Wars, so in this timeline they should not be around yet. Could be wrong of course, I am a bit rusty on the lore. Still, might free up unit spots to bring back Cyber and PSI Nobles, they were really nice for flavour and quite useful as well.
Ultimately the game plays very differently from 1.4, it's fresh and fun, and large navies should be available very early, but it will definitely take some getting used to.
For this game, do you reckon we should use the new version or stick with the old one we are more familiar with? Personally I would prefer 1.4 for now, but if you guys want 1.5 I could definitely go with that as well.
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All fair and good to me.
We have decided the version that we are going to use? I'll freely admit that I'd prefer 1.4. If we are going to use 1.5, I kindly request a day or two to run some test games (Vertab Nukks , do you have any revised documentation that I've missed from your site? I checked the old Reality mod pdf to plan stuff. I know I can check directly the txt files, but they are weirdly formatted and I'm kinda lazy
The income generating units are quite peculiar. In 1.4, they were few, but here the freely recuitable serfs in 1.5 create a weird alchemy. Are you trying to put up some kind of alternate economic model were the serfs units represent taxable income? In other terms, they are under the direct rule of the Nobles and provide resources that can be used for mercenaries and trades? And they can be targeted and captured in war?
It is an interesting concept, but I fear that it's going to be a hell to manage properly. I'll need to test it a bit more, though...
