One thing that could be further studied and tested is: "Should Neolithic tribes be able to settle Outposts?".  I've heard some complains on how it is much better to extend the Neolithic stage as much as you can. Having your tribes not be able to plop outposts (and thus have your Ancient foes be able to easily grab the territory you've set your eyes upon) may be the push towards a more balanced Neolithic since you'll need to more carefully weight your options. Making tribes unable to place outposts would make the "stay in neolithic" strategy riskier and would tilt the balance between "earlier advance" and "later advance" a little towards advancing earlier.

Is this a good thing for the game? Will this slower early game make the flow in Neolhitic/Ancient better? I don't know. But it is an interesting avenue that you could playtest before August hits while you search for the perfect balance for the start of the game.  

Jarke wrote:

I get the "Burning Barn" event before I settled dawn.. I did not realize that nomad were building barns..

Population cost of training military units makes me delay choosing culture as much as I can. Getting above 10 units in neolitic is quite easy

The transition from neolithic to ancient needs a little work on the transitional balance - I keep delaying the adoption of a culture because I want more units for exploration and population then what I can get once I am forced to start a city.
I love the neolithic play, I just think that if I don't have at least 10 pop before adopting a culture, I am at too large of a disadvantage against my neighbors.
perhaps, it would be better to allow those neolithic units to still live and grow population off of the land, even after I have chosen a culture. Only new units produced by the city are supplied by the city.... I don't know - just a thought in any case.

This age is great, well balanced... and may even last longer without major deception for the player. However, the fun is most probably heavily sensitive to the density of players on the continent. The objective in terms of food and influence gain may be a function of this density.

Strategically you can even achieve a lot during this age. If you manage to target specifically an IA player and won the right battles, you may create long term damage to their development.

Neolithic era combat are the best of the game, because of spoils and because it is not exceptional that a significant part of the loosing team survive the battle, which is both "historically accurate" (and should be true for all ages) and a strategic challenge for aggressive players.

docktorkain wrote:

One thing that could be further studied and tested is: "Should Neolithic tribes be able to settle Outposts?".  I've heard some complains on how it is much better to extend the Neolithic stage as much as you can. Having your tribes not be able to plop outposts (and thus have your Ancient foes be able to easily grab the territory you've set your eyes upon) may be the push towards a more balanced Neolithic since you'll need to more carefully weight your options. Making tribes unable to place outposts would make the "stay in neolithic" strategy riskier and would tilt the balance between "earlier advance" and "later advance" a little towards advancing earlier.

I think that eliminating the outpost settlement function for neolithic tribes would require the entire mechanic to be rethought too drastically.  Perhaps limiting the # of outposts is a bit more realistic.  Say, to 3 outposts in co-joined territories.  I am not really sure that it a good idea though.
What I cannot really understand (since I don't have the data, or ability to generate the data) is how the different civilization choices (of neighbors on the map) really play together in the game. It does seem, based on the games I have played - that some neighbors have had boons to shifting out of neolithic sooner than others. Now, if that is due to where they were placed, the civ the AI chose, or some combined function of all the mechanics - I cannot really say.

What if you couldn't gain Influence in the Neolithic and Neolithic outposts cost 1 pop to found? You lose one Tribe to create the outpost (which would begin with 0 pop as usual).