Will there be any changes between this and the last beta build before it is released on Monday?  I very much hope so.

And what do you mean by "You need to build militia now"?  Do you mean troops, or do you mean cities will have no inbuilt defenders?  I hope it's the former.

I'm getting very excited about this build. I can't wait to see the enhancements that you are so nicely presenting here. Please keep up these reports because we all like to know.

You write layers the way I write layers for monster lairs.

This is awesome, can't wait to see how this feels balance wise! Gonna be a long wait til Monday.

does this mean you're working on the weekend, or more work done on monday? (no pressure)

edit: also, i'm not really sure what to feel about ai heroes walking around with more than 5 different wounds. Maybe they should heal after some time. This does make the ai considerable weaker doesn't it? (not having the heroes heal i mean)

Could you post a gameplay vid... I really want to see the extra smoothness Plus, all this talk makes me want to see some of these changes, like getting into trouble with monster lairs.

Hopefully costs are such that it only takes 2 seasons to train men to carry sticks.

I am adept at most weapons, but sticks still throw me for a loop.

I don't think that is something they are intending to balance. Insane and ridiculous are more like arcade mode, where eventually you just can't win. Custom factions are also not something that intended to be balanced. 

Sure, whet our appetites ever further. As if the weekend wasn't going slow enough... Looking very much forward to build an early army to back up my sov and heroes. Sure hope trainingtimes are reduces though.

Oh so thats why it takes 5 years to train them!  5 years to train three guys to swing a stick.

Yeah, that really bothers me.  Since as far as we have records, humans have thought that the time to properly train non-specialist troops is three to six months.

I have no problems with equipment taking much longer, and additional traits adding to the production time. For example, there could be a "gorilla chest" trait that gives +2 initiative when using a bow, to reflect the fact that it takes a long time to develop the muscles (not the skill) to use a bow.

And by the way, I believe that any rushed unit should acquire the 'poorly trained' trait, something like 10% penalty to experience. Forever.

But even the most material poor city should be able to crank out bare-ass guys with sticks in at most two turns.

Is there queue time going to be given, or accomodated for, building those early game troops?

Some of the biggest problems I've faced in 0.983 is that troops were at the bottom of a long list of items that need to in that city queue:

• Pioneers
• Resource Improvements
• City Improvements
• City Idling
• Troops

Currently in 0.983 pioneers take at least 50% of the early game queue time in order to obtain those several cities (for multiple queues), the resource outposts (for high priority resources) and the outposts for city cultural connections (to remove unrest penalty). Has this been resolved?

Granted, by increasing the need for troops in the early game, the order of that list will be changed. However, it doesn't decrease the amount of that needed queue time. Has something been done to decrease the overall queue time?

Thanks

alternatively, there could be a "poorly trained" weakness that you could give troops to cut down on production times.