Okay, so I tried to go into the OpenDev with the right "generate some feedback" mindset, instead of just enjoying early access to a cool game. After playing through the scenario twice or so, I went back and played a game of Civilization 6, Endless Legend, of Stellaris; and I finally think I've put my finger on what left Lucy OpenDev feeling so "empty" for me:


A distinct lack of "placement play."


One of the strongest aspects of Endless Legend for a player like me, was the puzzler-game aspect of contending with a randomly-generated map, and figuring out how to combat it by placing your cities 'just so' — thinking in the long term ahead, creating those infamous snakey-city-lines, working around resources that spawned in the way of your perfect plans. Similiarly, one of the *biggest* strengths of Civilization 6, in particular, is the "district and improvement game": settling a new city, and spending fifteen minutes without even hitting the "End Turn" button once, because you're painstakingly examining the surroundings and dropping down map-tacks, planning ahead around adjacency bonuses to maximize that city's eventual development.


I want to call particular attention to the Germany/Frederick Barbarossa civilization in Civilization 6, and its specialized "Hansa" district. Playing Germany in Civ6 is famously a placement-game: you lay out your cities just so, and in return you receive absurd mid- and late-game production boosts that just cannot be approached by any other playstyle:


Now, it may just be due to the game being in active development and this being something y'all haven't gotten around to yet - but having finished the OpenDev period, I find myself very afraid that this omission is in fact, intentional, and that there's a business-development goal here around the 'type of player' you're looking to court. I recognize that not all players may find what I described above fun, at all (I'm very aware of the game-design-community meme about "optimizing all the fun out of a game"), but I want to push back against that notion. Guess what? For a lot of us, that sort of thing is *exactly* where the fun in these games lies!

Anyway, I'm here, wanting to make an impassioned plea: bring back Endless-Legend-style borough-placement / adjacency rules. Better yet, pull a Civ6 and make them *really* critical to one playstyle/culture/civ, so that players that don't like placement-play don't have to do placement-play, but those of us that love it can use it to great effect.