Generally, the economy goes at a pace that seems in line with the progression in the historical ages. However, a significant part of this growth is related to population growth. This ensures that investing in wonders or religion does not stop the economy from growing even if it prevents the player to invest in building and ceremonies. Building and ceremonies could probably provide slightly larger bonuses to incentivise players to choose them more frequently... and boost the growth of the economy.

Adjacency bonuses of certain neighborhoods are huge. This is on the one hand a nice approach to force players take into account other aspects while shaping a city than strategic aspects for possible future sieges. On the other hand, this could lead to stereotypes gameplays because of that port-placement-you-cannot-miss or this way-of-combining-the-byzantine-horse-track-with-the-science-district.

In terms of UI, the description of the options available in the cities should systematically give the indication whether bonuses are per turn while the ceremony is active, by turn forever, etc.

docktorkain wrote:

A thought on gold: I've seen several Victor complaints as how gold was too strong, and how it made trivial gaining not only merchant stars, but also builder stars (specially with the carthage/phoenician discounts), so I'd like to hear your opinion: Should district buyout with gold be allowed? If gold can only buyout infraestructures/units/repeatables, it'll still be strong and useful but would make industry a necessity for builder stars thus reducing the gold exploit potential, not to mention it makes the district industry cost inflation a much more pressing concern. So if you can do it before august, please test a build where district gold buyout is disabled. I don't know if it would make for a better balance between builders and merchants, but only testing can say. 

I think disallowing district buyout is a little extreme and arbitrary. The solution I think is sensible would be to have things take a turn to complete after buyout, limiting the player to one buyout per turn in each city, and slightly delaying the reward for buying out. It's in line with most other 4x games, and while the current system with it's insta-buying tons of stuff is fun, it definitely shows why other 4xes don't allow it.