After a lot of thinking whilst playing the game of ways to fix this exploit, I have come up with an idea. This would involve altering 2 gameplay features to fix what I believe are 2 problems that make this exploit so popular.

Honestly, I'd be fine with those techs just giving access to a special project that would allow building all the missing infrastructure in one go at a massive discount. I'm a bit afraid that meddling with it too much would maybe stop exploit, but also those who didn't really use it could suffer from it.

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online iq test wrote:

After a lot of thinking whilst playing the game of ways to fix this exploit, I have come up with an idea. This would involve altering 2 gameplay features to fix what I believe are 2 problems that make this exploit so popular.

The first thing to fix is that unless you have focused heavily on production, it takes many turns to build all the infrastructures up to the medieval era level tech (the ones included in the colony model project unlocked with the feudalism perk) So it is more beneficial to the player to raze the city and plop a new one down once they have unlocked feudalism. Part one of my suggested fix is that once the feudalism tech is unlocked, all the infrastructures included in the colony model project become significantly cheaper in both production and buyout costs. (the exact reduction of this would have to be tested, but I'd suggest that it brings all the said infrastructures down to around 200-300 production, allowing all cities to build them in only a turn or 2.
This alone wouldn't make it better than doing the ransack and rebuild trick, but hence there is a second part of the proposed change; a slight nerf to the city creation projects. How I envision this possibly working would be as follows; when you create a city with the colony model unlocked, you can select from 3 of the 7 infrastructure categories to include in the package (eg. food, science, and money, or stability, production and military/ defence) This would not only balance building infrastructure vs doing the exploit, but also add an additional element of player choice into the the equation, giving you the choice on how to focus your new cities from the get go.
i'd also suggest that this allows for the future city creation projects to become exponentially stronger to allow them to still be relevant. eg.
Colony model (can pick 3 from food, production, money, science, influence, stability, military/ defence)Colony plan (can pick 4 from food, production, money, science, influence, stability, military/ defence)Colony blueprint (can pick 5 from food, production, money, science, influence, stability, military/ defence)Colony grid (can pick 6 from food, production, money, science, influence, stability, military/ defence)
additionally, the pattern of the production cost being reduced for infrastructures included within the city creation projects once the techs are unlocked would continue past my example with the feudalism perk in the first paragraph, for instance once you have unlocked the colony blueprint, all infrastructures from eras I-IV would be reduced to a nominal cost.

This is a well-thought-out proposal! Reducing infrastructure costs after unlocking feudalism could definitely encourage players to build rather than raze. The idea of selecting infrastructure categories for new cities adds strategic depth and player choice, which is a great way to enhance gameplay. I also like the idea of scaling benefits with future techs. Overall, these changes could create a more balanced and engaging experience!​