I'm glad on the use of magic in combat now.  Will likely have to be adjusted to avoid use in unwinnable situations though.

I'm cautious that these changes to research time and studies being reduced in strength will result in even larger cities covering up the whole map. At this point I'm wondering why not simply reduce the research time in half, and double the citizen cost for studies. Or maybe even triple it. That will definitely prevent city sprawl from going out of control, and keep lost libraries and champions giving tech research remotely interesting to find.

In addition, the limit of the unlimited buildings will result in it being very hard to specialize cities. Instead of having a single city with all the arcane labs, and another with studies, and a third with workshops, you'll end up with 3 cities that are largely the same because you have so much population you can't use in the "specialized" city. Keep in mind not everyone puts much points in the improvement tech tree that unlocks new city buildings.

To prevent very tedious mini-city micro spam with level 1 cities with 1 study, 1 lab and 1 workshop, may I suggest that a level 1 city consumes 1 food? And that this food cost is removed once the city hits level 3 (or not at all). This willl also off-set the free 5 population you get from founding a new city with the (now even cheaper) pioneer.

Also, may I suggest that the Empire "monument" building is similarly limited like studies, labs and workshops?

I don't understand the tax change. What's important is not how many people produce how much gold, but how much food you use to produce the gold. With a solution like the one described in the notes, you are penalizing high level cities in favor of smaller cities. Or is the diminishing returns on taxes global, and not on a city level? If that is the case, you must take into consideration the city level up bonuses, and the many gildar-boosting buildings available. This can easily produce a situation where a larger population results in a smaller tax income.

In the 1.2d version on the servers, the unlimited buildings cost 1 citizen and you can build them infinitely, just like before. Must be some mistake somewhere.

Froggy I really much wish you'd rather work on the AI for Fallen Enchantress.... Just sayin

The number of resource producing improvements should be set a lot higher for higher level cities than just +1 per level.  Having the number too low will just result in city spam, whereas having a good number will make higher level cities worth chasing.  You could even dump the citizen system like Sethai suggests and just have a certain well-balanced limit on resource producing improvements for a city of a given level.

Best regards,
Steven.

What about having a max of 1/2/4/8/16 of each study/lab/workshop etc. in Level 1/2/3/4/5?  That would give the player a real incentive to getting fewer, higher level cities, and a better use of exponential numbers than the exponential citizen cost system ever was.

Best regards,
Steven.

It's hard to believe that 1.2d is = 1.2e when about half of the changes in "e" is in the "d" version.

Just a suggestion (haven't played Elemental recently), but perhaps cities aqcuired through the Dynasties system shouldn't count for the prestige penalty.  I mean, if you're going for a couple big cities, and then an allied sovreign dies and you inherit their empire, it seems like you should be rewarded, not punished.

Meh i haven't touched EWOM in a few months. Guess i'll dust it off and give it a go with the newest beta.

Nah i know the deal.. ill post my crashdumps, bugs etc its all good. (tbh the point is more to see if the various changes make any difference in my fun factor.. heck im updating from 1.16 or something lol)

 After game edit:

Okay so.. I place my capital.. pump out a study a beacon of hope and a farm. Weak magic based sov so i turtle up in town. No materials to build any kind of troops and proceed to die to the first bandit who attacked my capital.(i kept thinking "can't I at least build a scout troop that doesnt need material" lol, ill have to check out the troop editor again to see if its possible to design a troop that takes 0 material)

btw a lvl 1 city can still have more than one study so somethings not right either in the notes or the update.

My Impulse is still showing version 1.2a. Is there a way to force update to 1.2d(or 1.2e)?

EDIT: The option in the Impulse menu to check for updates doesn't work, or the one on the splash screen for Elemental itself.