It all depends. I played game on Medium map and had bunch of cities. Try different world/resource settings at the beginning. And even with the map you described - use outposts to gain the resouces and scouts to find a spot for new but distant city - one suggestion rises - add trait 'cartographer' to unit workshop so it could watch for city suitable spots. 

hi 

1st i want to tell, how great this game looking atm. i did like gal civ 2 too, also elemental. but this last version (0.86) is showing how it will be at end. its great.

imo the next upgrade should be make factions/races unique whit buildings, weapons, base stats of armys/soldiers etc.

thx and keep on good work guys

I couldn't vote for AI as how can it be built for a game which in many purposes does not yet exist?  That's a bit over the top but with drastic changes to come it can be pretty hard.  First a balanced STRATEGY game - then an AI which can play strategically.

(What I mean is that if the AI was built for 0.77 it would be programmed for stacks of doom for the win, if it was built for 0.86 it would be city and zombie spam AI, if it is to be built for a balanced strategic game then that game needs to be balanced and strategic - FE is not at the moment.)

BTW, I voted for city management.  Dearly want to see a viable option to build a FEW cities rather than one or many.  One per faction/world buildings promote one mega-city, the per city buildings promote spam; perhaps some thought can be given to what will promote a few cities?

Agreed.

I am surprised that it took this long for someone to post this.

I would also echo the statements of others:

Faction differentiation

Tactical Battles

City Mgt.

I do love the new (lack of) caravan system, although it would be nice to be able to direct where the roads run.

I would of voted AI if I was not sure already that this part would get love anyhow. You can’t release this game with anything but the best AI you can make. It’s a single player game you can’t have it any other way.

So I voted for the fun factor. I want some great random events. Of course I would love to have better cities and factions changes are a must as well.

Let’s hope that everything gets some love.

This is a real fact. I'm sorry I did not recongnise this either.

It is a bit bad on  customer service side to have stability as something we might work on.

I hope this is not the way they intended the question. They probably meant is this something that has to be doen right now or can they wait a bit before fixing it once and for all. I hope this is all it is.
 

I agree, no good reason start locations should be as random as they are. While we should occasionally get exceptional start locations we really shouldn't be getting the terrible ones (3/2 no forest or river). If it's possible than an AI will be crippled by it somewhere on the map.This ties in with how stage 1 is supposed to be about you vs the environment, this should mean that monsters are a constant threat and if that is true than a 2/2 start would be a death sentence.

Also natural expansions need to be regulated more, some start locations end up looking like the hub of a wheel, while others are just 2 cities in a corner cut off from the rest of the world by ocean and wasteland (enemy city on other side). It takes like 10 min to find this out, which is a little long to find out you need to restart a game.

Indeed.

Having units placed poorly certainly detracts from tactical battles, and in my opinion is the MOST PRESSING issue when it comes to tactical battles.

In my list of priorities I had Tactical battles at a 45/50.

If unit positioning (before battle) was implemented, It would tone down the need for work on Tactical battles all the way to a 20/25.

It'll be at least 4 months before we even start to consider a final release date.  That is, even if people said "The game is perfect right now" they'd have to wait at least 4 months because that's the minimum development schedule. 

Maybe faction difference is the way to go right now before AI. If we have 4 months, you can really build things in the order they need to be built. Faction difference is the thing on most people's mind right now. Seems like a good time to add it from a development standpoint too, since you guys are looking at buildings. 

The question I would ask is what are the features you want a given race to have? Then you can add those features through the various mediums the game offers. Buildings as much as Techs, as much as Traits and Quests.

I would like to see each fraction play differently in tactical battles and attacks on their level 4 or 5 city.

What would I like to see?

Tactical battlefield's for an attack on a Wriath, Trog, Mancer or Tarthan Level 4 or 5 city should be dramatically different, and if possible altered by improvements built for that city.

Tactical battles with each fraction should feel different.

Each fraction should have early access to spells and weapons that are specific to that fraction. Other fractions can uncover these spells and weapons; however, it will take research for other fractions to gain access to them.

Yea ... you know. The thing with a Numerator (the leader) and a Denominator(the people).

I blame version number. It can lead to false expectations. I do still remember those crazy beta numbers back in WoM though.