Mod: Better Independents v2.1

[Loops]

I really like this mod and the idea behind it. Removing these suboptimal choices ahead of time is a great way to make the AI perform better.

Originally Posted by Edi

I've never seen the problem behavior, but if the people who have can think of a workaround, I'd be interested in hearing it.

Right now modded units have a couple of worrisome potential/theoretical issues. If you (or an AI) somehow acquires them, the upkeep on 9000 gold units is ruinous. Similarly, the AI is feared to be (or perhaps demonstrably) foolish enough to clog its queues for practically forever with 800 resource units, if given the opportunity.

This probably isn't a new idea, but another approach to this mod, that removes these concerns I think, would be to remove the bad independent choices by turning those units into clones of a unit effective enough to stay unchanged currently. This means all of the choices would be available everywhere, but none of the units would be totally ill-advised options for AI to pick.

This wouldn't have to be some super creative balance mod to work. For example, just make all the lousy guy-with-a-stick variants into copies of the reasonable Light Infantry w/Javelin. Tribal and light cavalry variants could all turn into cataphracts or good heavy cavalry.

This solution isn't necessarily any better than what you have already. It would change the look and difficulty of a lot of the independent poptypes significantly. Game balance as a whole would change more, since good (or at least ok) units would be recruitable everywhere. Although on the bright side, you wouldn't have to worry about the possibility of clogged AI recruitment queues or bankrupting yourself with enslave.

Anyway, you asked for ideas so I thought I'd throw it out there.