Firstly I would like to say that the game is coming along nicely and I can already see the greatness in it. Obviously there are some shortcoming but I believe all of it can be fixed.


Positives:

  1. Rework of expansion and growth systems is really good. I like how progress is really slow in the beginning and then speeds up exponentially.
  2. The way strategic and luxury resources work is good. Although trade routes are not explained well.
  3. Buying wonders with influence is great.
  4. The overall feel of the game is great. This game really feels like you are going through the distinct eras of history with each one feeling unique.
  5. The cultures are done well. You can see and feel the distinctive uniqueness. Choosing culture feels meaningful.
  6. Units costing population is a great mechanic and a natural limiter to early warfare and rushes.
Shortcomings:
  1. The game crashes a lot. 
  2. The pacing of tech and eras feels too fast. 
  3. The UI-s for battle and selected units take up too much space. I believe these can be made a lot smaller.
  4. The city UI is also too inefficient with space usage. There needs to be more room for constructions.
  5. The way trade routes work is very hard to understand. There needs to be a dedicated trade UI and map mode.
  6. Scrolled out map is very hard to read. The territories should be fully colored. 
  7. The option to not show the battle overlay should at least show the borders of the battlefield.
  8. The unit strength caps feel a bit too large.
  9. Neolithic era feels great but also a bit overpowered with how easy it is to gain new tribes. I believe delaying Ancient era might be a too strong strategy. Perhaps make the food cost of gaining new tribes increase with each one. 
  10. Units costing population heavily favours stronger units. The cheaper more spammable units are not good in earlier eras because of very limited population. Perhaps strong units like heavy cavalry and elephants should cost 2 population instead?
  11. Food resource is only interesting in early game. Later on it's very easy to get abundance even in unadministered towns and the small extra stability bonus it grants is not worthwhile. Basically you can ignore food from mid-game onwards.
  12. Quarters are not equally useful. Makers quarters are always good, science quarters would be ok if science wasn’t as easy to get and techs would be more expensive, trade quarters don’t give enough gold and food is already easy to get so a bit of extra isn’t that useful.
  13. Some infrastructure improvements are really bad. Especially the ones that don't scale up. The ones that scale can get out of hand though. Al of that combined with food being not so useful past early game leaves the construction interface cluttered with useless buildings.
  14. Economy spirals out of control in the mid-game. Production costs should increase more rapidly throughout the eras. 
  15. Era star categories are unbalanced. Builder stars are too easy to get especially in later eras even without ever taking a builder culture. On the other hand gold stars are nearly impossible to get without taking a merchant culture.
  16. Era star notification doesn't tell you which one.
  17. Tier 1 religion tenets feel too powerful that early and can triple your science, influence or gold income.
  18. Independent people lack flavour. They are also very easy to conquer and there is very little incentive for peaceful play with them.
  19. AI still needs a lot of improvement. Sometimes they struggle a lot to get out of Neolithic even. The rest usually fall behind by the Medieval era.