Good stuff. 

Saves: 

Currently there is no indication what difficulty a save was made under. Perhaps this could be noted somewhere upon the load/save area or title?

This is a nice quality of life feature, but it might be even more better if we could get even more information on saves. That's something that might be coming in the full release though.

Population Growth: 

The formula in Victor is much improved over Lucy as it is more consistent to growth populations. Each pop. added caused the rest to consume ~0.15 more food which made pop. growth a bit too smooth relative to the availability of food. With Pop. growing so smoothly in established cities, the resources gained per pop. (6) felt a bit large compared to what the generic district provided.

Since pops cost around 6 in the beginning, I don't think this is that much of a problem.

Upgrading Units: 

Upgrading a unit causes it to fully heal without depleting its movement points which could be gamed a bit in Multiple situations (similar to Civ). Players were also able to pay to fully heal their units (in their territory) with the cost solely based on the missing HP which made it quite cheap to repair high str units.

Another problem with upgrading units is that you can instantly upgrade them after you plop an outpost. The outpost doesn't need to be built. This makes it so that if you see someone close that you think might attack you and you can upgrade your units, the best thing is just to plop the outpost above you and upgrade them all instantly.

Quarters & Infrastructures:

The increased cost of quarters and infrastructures in Victor felt in-line with what players could earn. 

1. Limited vs Unlimited Emblematic: The 1 EQ per territory felt good and far more balanced. Counter-play is also much simpler because EQs placed in far off attachments will not be provided fortifications.
2. Outlier EQ were generally the unlimited ones, BUT I believe there is ample latitude to have some EQs be unrestricted provided their bonuses are kept in line (relatively flat). The Goth’s Tumulus would be a decent example of what an unrestricted EQ would look like.
3. It was a good change to significantly reduce the number of freely placeable quarters. This helps reduce the amount of min/maxing (thus snowballing) players could accomplish early on (before hamlet). This holds true for removing anchor points where quarters could be attached to on extractors and harbors.
4. Having EQs count for general quarter adjacencies was a fantastic change and promotes additional gameplay choices (especially about what culture to take)

2. I'd rather that all EQ's are limited to 1 per territory and that the weak ones are buffed. It's simple and effective.

3. Harbour losing the anchor point made it a lot worse. There already wasn't enough incentive for players to build them or to invest in other naval stuff. Reversing the nerf would makes sense both historically and gameplay wise.

Religion: 

As mentioned by many other players, Religion is quite pushed (to say the least) in Victor as it provides exponential returns for a relatively small price.

1. Perhaps faith on holy sites could be reduced (20 -> 10) to give faith EQs more presence
2. Procession: Is still inexpensive while allowing players to significantly reduce the restrictions stability places on city growth.

Civics: 

Many civics remained the same from Lucy with only a few exceptions. Incidentally some of the most important civics provided early influence to help with placing and attaching outposts to cities. As religion was soo pushed, Religious Tolerance provided a huge spike of early influence which basically relegated the choice moot. 

1. As many other players pointed out, it was difficult to determine what triggered a civic to unlock

Naval Gameplay: 

Generally this felt lacking due to the absence of harbors and AIs avoiding constructing boats. I would also like to mention that throughout all of my game did I not see an IP spawn on an archipelago or small island to spawn fleets. If IP fleets started to emerge, the ocean would feel much more dangerous and engaging. 

1. Harbors: These are not receiving the attention they should in the early game as they let every ancient culture exploit coastal science. Perhaps the amount of science in the water is low or population science too high, but players are not taking advantage of it. This, in turn, diminishes the value and impact of early naval EUs.
2. With Early Modern naval ships having 4 range, they performed well in combat along the coasts. They still have the issue of not being able to start a siege or start combat with land units adjacent to the coast. I believe providing cannon ships with a “limited bombard” restricted to 1 or 2 range could turn naval game-play into somethign special and done exceptionally well compared to many other 4X games.

IP's not spawning on archipelagos was pretty weird compared to LUcy where they were everywhere on them.

1. Science on the coast was pretty rare in my experience, but I don't think that that should be the main reason why you build harbours.

2. I could see them get a 2 range bombardment, but this needs to be carefully done since there is no way for the land units to retaliate.

Ransacking: 

Generally felt slow as most took 7 turns to complete even with the Army Wages civic and multiple units. I believe an average of 5 turns for ransacking would do much better considering any combat around them causes the timer to reset.

Ransacking was painfully slow and pretty much not worth it in Victor. Between 3 and 7 seems good.

Wonders: 

Without adjacency modifiers or ability to anchor quarters, they were relegated to the shadow realm most out of the way and undesirable tiles.

I agree. There were a couple of good suggestions on discord. I don't think I saw this one, but they could kinda work like the commons quarters by giving you +5 stability on each adjacent district. This would encourage connecting them to your cities at least.

Ideology sliders: 

I enjoyed the new sliders and they were generally balanced. Collectivism vs Individualism & Tradition vs. Progress were the better half as they provided distinct advantages to certain play styles. Homeland was the easier path compared to World as the food bonus was consistent and did not depend on (potentially) fickle alliances. 

1. Liberty vs. Authority is where players only found use for one side (liberty) as influence resistance was already gained by gaining additional influence with Liberty.

Outpost Placement: 

Generally placing outposts on high industry was preferred as it came online substantially quicker. Some players on Discord suggested counting a portion of the food to speed up the construction of an outpost to have it a bit more balanced.

This might be a good change. Can't comment that much.

Outpost/City Center Science: 

Removing the ability to exploit science (and money ) terrain on these was an excellent choice as it helps pacing an immersion with the early struggles of Humankind.

This was a great change for science which made research quarters a lot better with all the other changes to it and it's infrastructures. Obviously, religion pretty much makes this all irrelevant.

Deficits:

A money or influence deficit provided no real consequences for the player as it only reduced stability by 1 for each turn in the deficit. The consequences of this should exponentially ramp up as the situation continues.

Indeed it needs to grow exponentially. When I first saw it, I thought it would work like that, but no.

Osmosis Effects: 

General these did their job and provided a choice for the player. Upon refusal to change, a defiant status that gave  -50 stability to the city kicked in. If stability was a bit harder to come by osmosis events would have more impact. The -50 Stability modifier for 10 turns was adequate and impactful for a choice.

I don't agree that -50 stability is that good of a deterrent. Sometimes it can end up being pretty much irrelevant. I had one city where I was getting osmosis almost every turn and, I just build some stability there and then the stability hit was nonexistent. There just isn't that much of a con to osmosis compared to what you get from it.

Independent Peoples: 

The minor cultures seem to spawn many more units causing the map to be more lively. Their ransacking and wandering around the map put much needed pressure on the play, yet they were not a large threat. It still took a significant amount of gold and/or influence to assimilate them. Patronage was much less profitable then just assimilating them so it was not much of a choice players could make.

Patronage was much less profitable then just assimilating them so it was not much of a choice players could make.

What exactly do you mean here? What is patronage compared to assimilation here?

You need to patronage them first to get to assimilation.

isle9 wrote:

What exactly do you mean here? What is patronage compared to assimilation here?

You need to patronage them first to get to assimilation.

This was particularly geared toward the Mauryans which want to patron many IPs but had too many logistical challenge to make it work. It can be difficult to find many IPs, have enough money or influence to patron them, have them stay around long enough to see benefit, and have whatever was gain be worth the cost.