Actually, a lot of the ideas were for districts to depend on both adjacent districts and terrain / anomalies. This would make every city unique and placement meaningful. Current system is very meh - they just removed most city leveling as it totally broke economy, but then didn't ever come back and put something interesting in its place.

I'm fine with the current system, but I would like more decisions to make. I don't really see much of a point in your proposal, since it takes away what little decisions we have to make in terms of layout.



Minor Factions and Ruins aren't problems, they're part of the solution. There should be much more obstacles for building big cities in standard fashion, where simple flat land is valuable on its own. Do I want to go for the anomaly, or the flat land? I can't do the standard candy bar setup since there's 2 obstacles here...but wait a minute, what if I do it this way...?



At least for starters, I'd make all Anomalies unbuildable terrain. Speaking of natural, building a city right on top of a giant geyser looks totally natural.

Well i like it this way. Its intresting to place a city ,and encourages not to place it just at anomalies to gain an early bonus. Or the other way around, and just gain it , depends if the city should grow early. It lets you play with the happy status too. Plus the "do i need more of that kind of fids, that anomalie over there or do i need districts lvl 2 for researches influence" kind of stuff.



I think those ideal building paths are crap if you look at all factors. And since i like ardent mages i like the mechanic to upgrade less districts to gain more of your spells and research on markets and stuff.



I think they need to change a lot of things too if they simplify that mechanic but i dont know. just guessing. Would like to hear another thought on it.



PS: By the way, i would make accessoires weapon tech too i mean i dont have the numbers but dont you gain a lot more of just researching the def technologies for materials ad just equip the standard weapons?