Market : Not sure what you are trying to address with this market system and I didn't had time to explore the possibility and impact of it, but i must say my initial reaction to it was a little negative as it really doesn't fit with the story. My grief is that you can use this market from round 1 of the game : Who the heck are you trading with? On turn one you haven't meet anybody, you don't have a flourishing economy. You just have a bunch of starving settlers trying to survive on a new world and raise a society from the ground. Such a market could only exist if a large private economy exists.
Perhaps market should be opened later on or progressively opened along the tech tree.
Field training : ok it's a little nerf but it doesn't change the bottom line problem. It's still possible prior to declaring war to stake all my army, field train the heck out of them until they all become a bunch of Chuck Norris under steroid, wait a few turn to heal and then crush the world...
Field training should only be able to raise troop level to a certain level. In real life you can train troops as much as you want, until they actually experience real battle they will still be 'green' in many aspect. Also right now field training enable you to overcompensate large technology gap. You can train knights with lance and sword all their life to the top of their competence, they will still be slaughtered by a group of riflemen who just learned to aim and pull the trigger...
A few suggestions of possible change:
- Insert a maximum number of training field ops for each unit (lets say 3 level, then that unit would not be affected anymore)
- Insert a cap of level ( maybe level 5?) from which unit becomes immune to it
- Introduce the concept of 'unique ops" which would mean that a faction could only produce and have 'in stock' one field training at the time. That would limit the overall numbers of training you can do and come with the disadvantage of having to keep your army stacked for a much longer time at the same spot if you plan to do many field training. Now that I think about it, other powerful special ops could be classify as 'unique ops' in order to nerf them ( Nukes, instant heal etc)
- raise the cost of the training field
- Cap the number of unit that would be affected by a single training field
Terraforming time extend : While it's true former quickly become unnecessary as they will do all the necessary land upgrade by mid game, i don't think raising the terraforming time will bring much more to the gameplay. Now you just need to produce more formers and clearing fungus is a pain as it leaves the former nearly dead. I now it's easier to say than to do, but you should keep former busy by giving them more stuff to do...
A few humble ideas / suggestions :
- Nerf the mineral/food buildings in town and introduce 3 or 4 generations of mine and farm to be upgraded by formers on the map ( the first mine/farm would give the tile a +1, second tier +2 etc etc ) That would make former essential all along the game, keep player busy upgrading their land (which i personally love
) and also introduce a strategic value to land as pillaging would become a valid strategy- Create along the tech tree a second (and third?) tier road system to move unit faster. A much needed feature in my opinion and again more work to keep former busy
- Localize the production on the map. Any tile would give 1 productions. Create a tile improvement 'factory' or 'labor camp' which raise that value an make it upgradable along the tech tree
- Create a radar tile improvement which would give vision boost and combat bonus/vs ops defense to unit in surrounding tiles. To compensate that bonus boost you could diminish the strength of the city defense building by the same amount. This would give a way to diminish city garrison strength (other than artillery and nukes) by pillaging those radars while giving much needed ops defense to fielded units.
- Give the ability to former to create mountain, hills or reverse them to flat land
That's it for now, I will play a game and test the market, tax by city and growth productions and try to leave my feedback later
Keep on the good work!
