It’s very simple: mechanics with passive resources that don’t require map control are often problematic, and I also find it unfair that your shipments enrich the opponent without them making any effort.
That’s why I propose that the amount of customs duties collected be proportional to the trading posts you control (whether on routes or minor factions). This also makes the mechanic much more sense because you’re only supposed to be able to collect duties if you control that region. In other words, without trading posts, you don’t receive customs duties.
Don’t get me wrong, the customs mechanic is great, but it could be broken. Also, you have infinite resource shipments that scale proportionally with age (I think they should be limited by default and unlock infinite crates with some upgrade). Furthermore, there’s currently a problem with this: you can send crates in transition during the age upgrade, and then automatically receive more resources when they arrive because you’ve just upgraded. (Similar to the Spanish logistics system). However, I’m not sure if this is broken and should be left as is.
To me it would make sense to have the age 2 crates upgrade for free, and have an upgrade to increase them later. Without the age 2 ones coming in for free I’d be concerned you’d be too slow. I think it’d be worthwhile to consider keeping the free upgrades but lower the value in later ages to compensate somewhat for the free infinite cards slots. They could absolutely do:
300
700 (or 650)
800
900
1k
While I understand the logic and would often agree, I rather like the mechanic and fear requiring building multiple TPs to get a decent yield might slow them down too much. Idk.
From what has been said about civilization so far, it is strong enough, and I believe that even without customs duties, linking mechanics to trade would be a good start to balancing it.
Having played some with them on the Beta, idk how good they will be on the 1v1 ladder. Their eco bonus will outperform vs civs like Spain and Aztecs, but underperform vs Germany and other civs with a slower shipment curve.
They also felt like you could either get a really fast age 3 with really bad eco or a good eco and roughly normal age up time. I’d guess maybe slightly op in 1v1, but the easiest fix is probably slightly reducing the tax income.
For Treaty and Team I think they are quite a bit stronger, but I expect some nerfs will be incoming for that.