As I understand it, both from reading the forums and a fair bit of gameplay, the difficulty of map locations and random mobs scales with your adventure research level (if I’m wrong about that, some of what follows won’t make much sense).  This has led me to adopt the strategy of delaying researc of adventure techs (except for a few early doses to find new resources) until the mid to late game when I have sufficient war tech to destroy anything that pops up.  Here’s one thought for reforming the system a bit (developers, do with it as you will).

Rather than linking mob-level and location level with research, those could advance as turns pass.  That would change the incentive for researching the adventure techs and make them more relevant earlier on.  Once higher level locations start appearing, it will make sense to research the questing line to get access.  At the same time, decoupling mobs and locations from research will eliminate the disincentive to research adventure during the early game and make an adventure-focused strategy more viable. 

It also strikes me that a nice tweak would be to have new locations spring up only outside the zone of influence of each civilization.  Even better, it could be much more likely for new locations to spring up in unexplored areas.  This would create an incentive to explore (apart from searching for new city sites) and also be a good counterpoint to early expansion.  The faster you expand, the further you will have to go to find higher level locations that won't appear until later in the game.  As it is, I spend a fair amount of time with miscellaneous champions wondering around my cities to pick up all of the new locations.  This feels like work to me, and also strikes me as a bit odd – where did all of those treasure chests come from that suddenly appear around my cities?  I don’t have the same problem with the appearance of resources.  It makes sense to me that as you develop technology, you would come to recognize the value of resources that previously you had ignored.

I got thinking about this because my optimal strategy has involved a fair bit of staying close to home – except when I go to war with neighbors.  I’d like to see bigger rewards for exploration.   

This has the makings of a great game, and I’m already enjoying myself.  Thanks stardock.