I've noted on a large map the distinct lack of wandering monsters and ruins/goodies. As in three hundred turns and no monsters whatsoever. Have started half a dozen different large maps on this build. Maybe the smaller ones are populated...?

Yeah food is tough, but I'm sorting out the system and like it.

Refugee camps are working fine for me. But there are plenty of other things not working, for example, I can't demolish any buildings in my city, keeps saying this will make the city non-contiguous. It does that for every building I try to demolish.

Yes, yes...I know. I just posted about this, because it is an important stuff, and the release date is close.

Happens to me too.

Remember Brad also said this game isn't geared toward multiplayer. Multiplayer is just an afterthought and an addon to apease those that want to multiplay for the fun of it. But, the core game is single player and there's not going to be much deviation from that just to apease a handful of multiplayers like yourself.

Having excellent multiplayer design is usually an indicator of good campaign/singleplayer capabilities. I would go as far saying that a strategy game can only be judged on how well it was made by its approach and implementation of multiplayer. So hopefully you are wrong and multiplayer is not an afterthought

Guess you never played Master of Magic or Master of Orion I & II. These games proved you didn't need a multiplayer element to make great, classic, epic games. ~

Yep and since we/you are dictating what Brad MEANT he's not going to sacrifice balance and playability of the single player game to apease the multiplayer element. All things considered the SINGLE PLAYER game elements, changes and balances will come FIRST and FOREMOST! ~

I don't think you understand what you wrote. In order to "sacrifice balance" of the single player game, there has to be balance to begin with. A random generated map inherently has no balance. There's nothing to sacrifice. Making a preset "start point" where there's always a patch of fertile land is *introducing* balance to both single player and multiplayer, not sacrificing it. In single player, starting without fertile land is okay for someone who doesn't care about cities, but very bad for someone who wants to focus primarily on cities. And in Multiplayer, all players start out on even footing regardless of their playstyles. Win-win for all.

I don't mean to offend, but I don't think you fully understand what Elemental's multiplayer is supposed to be. Yes, it will supposedly include some odd variations like arena mode, but it will also support the same epic empire-building game you enjoy in singleplayer, with up to 16 players online. This may not be important to you, which is O.K., but it's important to the guys making Elemental - they do consider large-scale multiplayer one of their "must-have" features, this is not Galactic Civilizations 3-with-magic.

All that aside, singleplayer/multiplayer is completely irrelevant to the balanced-starting-position discussion that spawned it (alas, internet forums..). Good game balance may be more obvious and important in multiplayer, but it's hardly a bad thing for singleplayer - this is not a case of 'sacrificing' the singleplayer experience for multiplayer, it's just a good idea that helps the experience whichever mode you're playing.

For example Civ4 does this, starting positions are "sweetened" (have extra resources added, more for worse positions) so every player gets a carefully balanced spot for their first city. One can hardly claim that Civ4's singleplayer was sacrificed for multiplayer based on that, it's still very much a singleplayer-focused game just as Elemental certainly will be; balancing starting positions is simply good game design (which happens to be more important to the multiplayer crowd, but is still a very good thing for singleplayer).

Meant any strategy games.

Putting a large scale multiplayer element into the game has nothing to do with sacrificing single player experiences for it. Anyone can put a huge multiplayer element into a game just to increase sales. Much like Creative Assembly lies about improved AI with every new release of their Total War titles. It doesn't mean they DID put any effort into improving it which they didn't as it has been seen time and time again the ai is still the same crappy opponent. All I'm saying is if you're a multiplayer fan don't expect a whole lot of balancing for your favor as the game goes gold. I expect the majority of balancing and improvements to be for the single player game not multiplayer whinnings that ruined Age of Wonders Shadow Magic game.

It would actually make sense to have some fertile land nearby.  If the Sov was going to restart civilization, he most definitely would find some good, fertile ground to start with instead of a patch of dead ground.

About multiplayer spells, how feasible would it be to mod in spells solely for multiplayer?

I think the OP was asking about food, not MP, so on that subject, in Beta 3a you can build farms only once you are adjacent with your city to the resource (e.g. fertile land). Truth is you will struggle to feed your cities if you don't build some of them near food producing resources. I think the plan is to loosen this up again in the actual release (or at least in 3B). Personally, I feel that once you get a little used to the shortage of food, it does seem to add to the strategic overlay rather than subtract from it.