I agree that these three problems exist in EL and that they need to be addressed.



Part 1-

I agree that 4 separate buildings to research bogs down the early turns of research

(and forces new cities to spend so much time building tier one structures).



Why do you feel city specialization or adding city building caps dumb down the game or removes choice?

I think what stifles meaningful choice is the "build everything each city" and "I must research/build this"

(either due to the imbalance or importance of a particular research/building) mentality.



What I really don't like about researching era 1 buildings is it currently creates two non-choices FOR EACH BUILDING.

First, I must choose the research because there is never a time I won't use it. Then, once I have finally researched it, I must build it.

There is rarely a down side, or a time when I won't (eventually), put a tier one building into a city.



Your suggestion of combining the era 1 buildings does free up possible research choices and reduces the time spent building.

However, I think it also reduces the meaningful choices I have when it comes to choosing what structures to build.

So, instead of having 4(8) non-choices, with combined structures I now have 2(4).



Amplitude could nerf the starting buildings to the ground; but then what would we be forced into building early game? Nothing? Military spam?



What other research options feel necessary to you?

Open Pit Mine/Reaping Station/Advanced Harvester? Alchemist's Furnace?

Rookery/Imperial Coinage/Mercenary Market? Conscription Center, Watchtower, Mertocratic Promotion/Signal Corps?

Central Market?

Is that necessary feeling a numbers balancing issue or do you feel like any of these are needed to play the game regardless of numbers?



Part 2-

I would also like to see a reason to choose Search Party. It does seem too weak or random right now.

The militia buff to Stronghold would also be nice to further reduce the effectiveness of early game aggression.



I think with the current limitations on city shape Large Scale Aquatic Center will very rarely be optimal (and to a lesser extent Dust Dredger),

but part 3 works to address that.



Part 3-

100% aggreement that boroughs should have nothing to do with approval.

I also feel the mid game slow down due to being forced into building lots of boroughs,

but I think that may just be because of how they are tied to approval now.

If they weren't I could build 1-2 of them anytime I wanted, not be limited to a midgame explosion.



I don't like the idea of separating boroughs from nearby FIDS collection. It steeply decreases the value of boroughs,

which in turn decreases the value of Food.

I also don't like being stuck with the triangle or linear city.

This limitation on shape handicaps the positional choices I have for a city.

A good FIDS starting location that I cannot take because it would limit my ability to have an expandable city feels like a knife in the gut.

Limiting city shape interferes with choice.

I feel that the Food/Population needed to build boroughs is enough of a limitation on city sprawl.

I can't think of any other reason to limit players choice on city shape.



If Exploitation Towns are the direction Amplitude wants to go, I would consider limiting each city to one of them.

In most normal sized regions I find myself torn between 2-3 (rarely 4) possible city locations based on FIDS/Anomolies alone.

Being able to exploit all 3 of those locations upon reaching 10 population and building 2 structures seems a tad overpowered

and it drastically reduces the importance of your original city's location.

I would rather have your city's tile location be more important than less.



Some related thoughts:

As long as research is the primary way to unlock buildable structures taking that research will be necessary.

Otherwise city's have nothing to build.

I am in favor of having research options unlock multiple structures.

This means that building research is still a necessary research (a non-choice), BUT you gain meaningful choice: what structures to build.



I feel like buildings should serve one of four purposes:

1. Make up for a lack of FIDS due to city location (Expensive flat bonuses)

2. Increase a FIDS based on city location (Cheap tile bonus i.e. Dust Dredger)

3. Increase effectiveness of Population (Cheap because population choices should be valuable)

4. Increase a FIDS your city efficiently produces (Expensive % bonus)



ELs current buildings often fulfill 2-3 of these purposes. 1 solution to 3 different problems.

That makes that 1 solution far more powerful than another research option that only solves 1 problem.

I think you can scale down the power of era 1 buildings by splitting them into several different structures that each serve 1 purpose

instead of applying a simple numbers nerf that hurts a solution to multiple problems.



Increasing the dust upkeep of buildings, reducing the flat dust generation provided by buildings,

and increasing the penalty for a city having negative dust generation would all serve to balance out these buildings in these examples.

Names and number are probably off:



Era 1 Food Production Research:

Orchards (80 Ind, +1 Food per Forest tile, 3 Dust Upkeep)

Fishing Boats (80 Ind, +1 Food per Water tile, 3 Dust Upkeep)

Grain Fields (120 Ind, +1 Food per Grass tile, 3 Dust Upkeep)

Increasing the power of tiles makes city placement/expansion more important.

These options are more of a choice than large cheap flat bonuses because they build on a player's original choice of where to settle.



Era 1 Food Substitution Research:

Seed Storage (80 Ind, +8 Food, 5 Dust Upkeep)

Livestock Pens (100 Ind, +1 Food per rock/sand tile, 5 Dust Upkeep)

You do need a way to make up for a lack of a FIDS if RNG messes with you, but it should be at a steeper price.



Era 3 Food Production

Plows (240 Ind, +3 Food per Pop, 2 Dust Upkeep)

Graneries (280 Ind, +15 Food, 5 Dust Upkeep)

Drying Houses (240 Ind, +20% Food, 5 Dust Upkeep)

These provide options for Mid/Late game when you have more population freed up to produce FIDS and costs start getting prohibitive.



Anyways. There's my two cents plus a buck fitty.