Pace

Difference in pace between the progression of eras and that of technologies. The pace of technology progression seems correct for 300 laps, while the pace of the eras is still too fast. Also, I'm not a complete fan of the current Fame system. The current Fame system relies heavily on milestones to be reached in order to earn stars, which allows you to move on to the next era, but also to gain fame. If I don't mind the milestones to achieve to get stars and move on to subsequent eras, assigning victory points to certain milestones bothers me. Isn't there a difference between someone who builds 40 districts and someone who builds 43 ? Someone who owns 6 territories and someone has 8 ? For me, each "step" must be meaningful. In addition, having to stay old enough to accumulate as many stars as possible also bothers me, and does not fit well with high difficulty AIs.

Ideas

- Keep the tier system to get the stars. But adjust these levels to spread the passage of eras over 300 turns (Increase certain levels that are easier, or carried out much more often than others). - Rework of the Fame system. Each population earns 10 fame points, each territory 100, each district builds 20, each enemy unit eliminated 30, each technology sought 20, then 1 point every 50 influence or gold generated (Value for example). Also added more achievements during a game that earn fame points. 

Increasing certain levels forces the player to stay in each era long enough. But the modification of the fame system no longer forces him to stay in an era to accumulate more victory points, and seems fairer to me. 

Naval gameplay 

Quite boring. Takes time to unlock interesting units. No interest outside of exploring New Continent.

Ideas

- Slightly facilitate mobility around navigation or add strategy when traveling (Weather conditions, winds, rough seas, etc.). 

- Add strategic locations at sea (Treasures, Narrations, Unique Resources, Fishing / Ransack Action, Pirates / Independent Peoples).

Curiosities & Exploration

Rapidly uninteresting. Exploration is very interesting at the beginning, but quickly becomes unnecessary : No need for hunts, unnecessary curiosities (+20 money or science when you gain that *10 each turn), no more territories to explore (except new continent), no interactive elements or events on the map.

Ideas

- Improve the rewards of curiosities as you progress (More science / influence / currency per turn, food or industry boost, population gain, units, boost of certain technologies ...). 

- Add interactive elements to the map, with species of plants or animals to discover, add units of biologists who will be able to excavate the tiles to discover species (science gain), archaeologists to excavate (influence) ...

Civics

A lot of civics look really uninteresting. I only use half the civics at most, even with a huge excess of influence. Also, the gain in stability in ideologies is too great to be able to replace it with production bonuses.

Ideas

- Rework bonuses on ideologies, some civics, and maybe add 3 or more choices on some civics. 

Events

Events are a great idea, unfortunately they are repeated often and the process and consequences are always the same.

Ideas

- Add more possibilities, a little randomness (at least on the values).

- Add narrative events that take place on 4/5 events or more (Exploration for a treasure...). 

- Hide some consequences to surprise the players ?

Problems

UI

Fight prediction windows that remain indefinitely, some clicks that lead to the other end of the map without being asked, some information windows that cannot be removed without removing all of the following tutorial or doing the following. 'action (Buy a tribe of independent people). Some windows that hide information (especially to choose the placement of a district or outpost). During some outpost placement, no information emerges to indicate the best places. Complicated to navigate through diplomatic information, during exchanges, no general information...

Bug

Some problems in certain fights or border crossings. With each action of the units in enemy territory, I had to reaffirm the start of a war against the adversary. Opposing units able to cross my borders freely without starting a war.

Good points

- Stability becomes at the heart of the management of our empire. However, it's a bit of a shame not to have the civic points anymore according to our stability. And maybe add more way to gaining stability.

- Rework of acquisition of independent people.

- General balance of the game seems better

- AI seems better (but have a lot of advantages)

DeaTHZy wrote:
Quite boring. Takes time to unlock interesting units. No interest outside of exploring New Continent.

I believe it was mentioned they're already planning on naval terrain. I would imagine something like EL has is in the works, simply because it's an established mechanic.

DeaTHZy wrote:
Rapidly uninteresting. Exploration is very interesting at the beginning, but quickly becomes unnecessary : No need for hunts, unnecessary curiosities (+20 money or science when you gain that *10 each turn), no more territories to explore (except new continent), no interactive elements or events on the map.

I agree with this, for the most part. I actually found it more useful to bypass bears so the AI violating my borders would suicide into them just so I would stop getting the notifications for someone being in my territory. There does seem to be a gradual increase in rewards for curiosities as you progress, but it never remained meaningful enough to warrant pulling units from actively defending key cities or overwatch on critical chokes. It's real hard to justify the micromanagement costs and loss of a potentially useful unit in return for 5 gold every 3-4 turns, especially when I'm making several hundred gold per turn already.

DeaTHZy wrote:
A lot of civics look really uninteresting. I only use half the civics at most, even with a huge excess of influence. Also, the gain in stability in ideologies is too great to be able to replace it with production bonuses.

I actually think the Civics range from "really damn good" to "mediocre, but worthwhile if you've influence to burn" which actually feels like a really good place. The problem is, as you said, the huge boost in Stability is just too massive. Stability allows you to go wide and tall, which means you can brute force more FIMS (or whatever the acronym is now) than the various bonuses give you. The problem here doesn't seem to be the Civics themselves, just the over-reliance on maintaining that center position for the massive Stability.

That said, I've found that if I'm able to thread the needle long enough Stability stops mattering by late-Classical era and I literally can't build my way below 100%. It may just be early-game Stability balance and a couple late-game outliers that need to be looked at. Probably one of the biggest culprit is attaching regions to cities, maybe the penalty should be reduced a bit and that would free up Civics?