I'd like to propose an option for the expansionist cultures. Don't nerf other cultures to make it easier for the lesser ones to catch up. Rather, lower the cost of territories for expansionist cultures by a flat 20 percent in order to make attaining all the territories possible, or, lower the number of territories needed by the expansionist cultures by 20 percent (or other) as a buff for that culture. It makes sense that if they play as expanding cultures they shouldn't have the same cost for territory expansion. That way we can leave cultures like the Huns alone and appreciate their awesomeness. 

I feel like expansion is too heavily tied to influence. This is particularly a problem on bigger maps, as the number of territories for stars is related to map size/land percent. On the face of things, that makes sense, if there is more land it should be easier to get territory. However, number of territories isn't the only limiting factor in expansion, influence costs are hugely important as well.

The numbers for expansion stars are completely broken and need to be fixed. The problems:
1. I can't find a setting where the expansionist 18 expansionist stars is even possible. To be possible, the number of claimable territories must be at least one more than the number needed for the 18th star. 

2. On maps with a lot of territory (i.e. larger maps with more land percentage) the required influence is unachievable in the timeframe you have for early eras. Maybe if you have 10 players and you take every city that every other player makes and go way over the city cap you might have a chance. 

I think that maybe there should be a decay on the cost of outposts/cities, for all cultures not just expansionists. Every turn you don't expand there is some reduction. 

For expansionist cultures, I think their affinity action should allow claiming of unclaimed territories as well as outposts/admin centers and should tie up the army building the outpost for the same amount of time it would take to convert.

achaemenids do feel much too slow when stealing a territory... they pay quite a lot of money for it, it takes double the time than to do a ransack and they need to start over if interrupted by an attacker

HumanKid wrote:

achaemenids do feel much too slow when stealing a territory... they pay quite a lot of money for it, it takes double the time than to do a ransack and they need to start over if interrupted by an attacker

Worse than that, they need to start over if they are even in the range of the battlefield, even if you don't/cant join the battle because you don't yet have organized warfare researched.

worse, you need to pay again