Hello,

Firstly, let me say that I love what I see so far. I've been waiting for something like this for a long time, as the current iteration of Civ is garbage, and as I've oft wondered just how Amplitude would handle a historical 4x. This is my take fresh off of playing all of the available scenarios, and so I probably missed some details here and there, but I'm trying to give as true a first-impression take as I possibly can. I will probably go back and try these scenarios again, if able, so I may come back with some more ideas/pointers. As I'm a city builder, I'll mostly comment on that aspect, but I have a few questions regarding combat as well. So, in no order-

City-building and empire expansion. Wow. I love the potential, and I'm eager to see more, as the options for wide vs tall and everything in between are huge. I'd like a lot more information available up front on how some of the provincial and city systems work. The ability to assimilate one province into another needs some clarification as to how it will function in regard to provincial lines, whether it is permanent, and so on. Say I have one province with a lot of industrial potential and very little in the way of food next to a garden of eden province- I build a city in the garden and link the outpost in the industry province to the garden. If I lose the 'outpost center' in the industry province, I lose the province, correct? How will that affect things if I built city tiles on the outpost? Does a section of the population live in the sattelite province, in the expansions I built there? If it all remained in the capitol, I feel like that could create some imbalances and would subsequently suck for the conqueror. What if I managed to 'join' the city in the garden by having a city expansion tile adjacent to a city expansion tile in the industry province, touching across provincial lines? Could this permanently join two or more provinces? The potential for megacities this sort of system could create are mind-boggling (imagine if you managed to permanently link 4 provinces???), but I'd also imagine that this should be very difficult to pull off. Adds stability issues due to the size of the land controlled by a single city, maybe. Also, what if I decided I wanted to start out the game with a province or two linked to the capitol province, but long term I would like to split them off for more build queues? Could the newly independent city gain a certain # of the improvements built in the capitol for free? Maybe all or most of the improvements from eras that were two or more behind the current? And again, how would the population split? I can imagine that this sort of a developmental path is actually a bit more accurate to history- small settlements a safe distance away from the capitol slowly growing large enough to govern themselves. Again, I love this system and the possibilities it brings, and want to hear as much as I can about it. Perhaps permanently linking provinces could have an impact on a few World Wonders? 

Speaking of which, please add more world wonders than you usually do. I know it fosters more competition for the wonders to have so few of them, but you can add to the number of possible gameplay choices and specializations by having more. We definitely need city upgrade wonders in addition to tile expansions. Also, religion. I don't know why, but I always loved that system from the Civ series, and I'm really hoping to see something like that in this game. Maybe instead of a resource-based mechanic, it could be a conditions-based buff mechanic?  For example, if you wanted to have a 'sacred architecture' type of religion, you have to build X number of these buildings in your cities for a production or fortification boost. For a militaristic religion, kill X number of whatever to get more attack power or a lower penalty to damage output upon taking damage. After completing X number of religious feats, you 'level up' your religion? This way the mechanic could compliment the player's chosen path, or reinforce a weakness. Fewer districts and upgrades to build that way too, and I think it'd make a lot of thematic sense. You could even have the religion change as the player's civilization takes on a new identity/turns over to another era, and have it mesh with the gameplay that way. Also, plz DEUS VULT.

Combat was the most difficult for me. Sometimes it wasn't incredibly obvious as to what sort of paths a unit could take, how damage was being calculated (Does the 5 points of damage the samurai has over the halberdier really have that much of an impact?? They hit like trucks. BANZAI!), or even how the reinforcement system worked. I'm still not sure I quite understood that last very much at all. In Endless legend, they came in from a spot over time, and you could block that point, and I understood that, but now it seemed that reinforcements could spawn in the middle of the map if the army that is reinforcing you was at that point? Also, the mechanic to just instantly deploy them was very hard to figure out, but those issues could just be me getting used to it. Then there were rivers, which were like magnets to me a couple of times (how do they work??). I had some samurai tromping over them to take and deal about normal damage in one instance, and I had immortals getting yeeted out of existance for standing on them in others. If your unit stands on it, does it always count as crossing it until you move off of it? Or does that effect go away after standing there a full turn, thereby eliminating the possibility for a very stagnant front line? I feel like assuming that the fellows standing on the tile after two or three turns are still trying to cross the river is a little silly, but I would understand if it was kept that way. Plus if you treated crossing a river like embarking, you could have certain units that can cross rivers with no penalty be a thing. Irish corkle boatmen and marines, anyone? Also, are there plans to take unit facing into account, or did I completely miss that and it's already in place? Will there be an 'autoresolve battle' function? 

Misc thoughts-

Tech screen opens to the latest tech available instead of where you are in the tree. Grrrr scrolling.

Empire management screen- I'm pretty sure I saw a button for it, but I just wanted to make sure it's coming.

Population migration/moving pop from one city to another- I feel like that could be an interesting mechanic. It was a very common thing throughout history, too.

I can't see tiles behind city names. Not a big thing, but placement/opacity of the banner in city view was bugging me slightly.

Can you put the resources gained from exploration tiles onto the map the same way razing animal homes works? 

Speaking of animals, will there be a diversity of animals? And will defeating them give different rewards? Killing elk could give a food bonus to the nearest city, killing wolves could give a buff to the victor (domesticated goodbois?), killing bears could give high xp.... etc...

Will we see minor civs in the future? I love that mechanic, and the potential for 'borg' jokes whenever I assimilate them.

Overflow research- if you don't have research queued up, could there be a little 'x stockpiled' thing just to let us know it'll carry over? I'm pretty sure it does, but I just wanted to check. 

Will the city build project be in the city banner? Did I completely miss that? (It's ok to say yes)

What the heck were the knowledge diffusion and public hygene tiered things??? I feel like there were some bonuses there that need to be explained...

The construct by sacrificing population thing- my inner dictator loves it. Personally, I'd keep it in no matter what, but I'd adjust it for sure. If I only had to pay 1 pop, but lost X stability for X turns (stacking) relative to the industry bought out, then you're talking about a real interesting mechanic. You could keep this mechanic through the whole game this way by increasing the stability penalty as you go further along in the eras, as I'm sure sacrificing population to get things done was (unfortunately) a more accepted part of life thousands of years ago, but wouldn't really fly in most civilized countries nowadays. As it stands, I don't think I'll be spending 3 pop to build a fish market, no matter how good the deals are.

Speaking of stability, I'm hoping it's expanded upon. I guess this is the populace's happy-o-meter, and I always love kicking that up for the bonuses. If the people are happy, I guess that's great too.

Thank you very much for the opportunity, and I'm really looking forward to the release!

~Zeb, veteran Endless player, disgruntled SidCiv player, still trying to figure out how to crusade or fight WWII.