I agree on your second point, and strongly disagree about your first. The world is dangerous. If you settle a second city fast, it should sometimes come under attack. Its part of the fun in my opinion.

Dont agree with the 1st point, but I do strongly agree on the second point.

You can keep your Sov not too far away (attack monsters in cicles around your cities). Automatically knowing that the second city is safe, would make creating a second city fast obligatory to a good strategy. I vote no. Sometimes you should get a nasty surprise and start over, or at least you should have to be a bit careful.

No.  No we shouldn't.  Good game design shouldn't include "nasty surprises" out of the gate.  That's not fruitful to a company that's trying to absorb new players.  A customer playing a demo shouldn't get nasty surprises...there's significant risk they won't buy the game.  

I identify with what you're saying, and I like randomization for challenge, immersion, and obviously replayability....but when 2 out of my first 5 FE games behaved this way.....it's not right.

Stardock, dial this back.  You want approachable gameplay with balanced difficulty if you want to make a great game with a high adoption rate, high metacritic score, and legendary status with gamers.  

2nd point just happend to me within the hour.

One of the design tenets of the game is that the world is dangerous.  Before you can successfully deal with the other factions, you must reclaim your corner of Elemental.  That's been stated as a goal many times.  How can they possibly achieve that goal and make the world feel dangerous if it is not in fact ever dangerous?

Deciding when and where to expand is probably THE key early strategic decision in the game.  If you're second city is always safe, it's not a decision at all.  

There are already enough areas currently lacking meaningful choice (due to balance or whatever).  Can we please not remove one of the few areas where your choices actually matter?  If you're second city is always sacked, maybe you need to address your strategy and how you make your decisions?  

Weird. I started few games with differend difficulty and never have the failed start. At first the  monster are quite sleepy and not agressive.

As for the UI event managing it's really bad.

I find it annoying that I have to restart a game sometimes 3 times. I also don't like how there's 150-attack stacks that start right next to my sovereign. I make a movement mistake (which happens frequently with the current movement system), and my sovereign's toast before I've even founded my first city! Game over.

Civ doesn't have monsters/creatures spawn for the first few rounds. It lets you at least get a city started in a decent location, though if you procrastinate too long, you WILL get attacked.

So far I've played only on nse monsters and the world is intact one hard mofo. The world is dangerous feeling is indeed quite there and I love it. No failed start but obviously advance with causion and discretion. Side note I have yet to see random events... really Like to see both global events that say per x turn this and this will be happening wether its monster related or some random special mob is out and about during the event (for example something like diablo walks the earth back in diablo 2).Also like to see faction specific events too. Events IMO make the world even more dynamic.

So, just to clarify, the leader makers of the game, the people playing the game, the people working on the game and the people providing feedback on the game are all wrong, and you're the only one who is correct?
See a problem with this particular mind-set?

A "mass appeal" game called Civilization V attempted to bring 4X gameplay to the masses; it ended being more tolerated than accepted by it's own community, and suffered largely as a result, because the "mass market" generally doesn't give a crap about strategy games.  Civ IV is the best TBS game on the market.  And it still didn't sell a bazillion copies.  This is why TBS games have become as hardcore as they have - because it's mostly the hardcore players who want to play them.  You're misunderstanding the appeal of these games.

Generally, the people who prefer 4X games - such as the community Stardock has amassed thanks to their single-player Mecca, GalCiv II - tend to enjoy the real challenge.  These "false starts" can always be overcome through proper thought.  You can't create a pattern of:
Turn 1.  Found City.
Turn 5. Train pioneer.
Turn 25. Found second City.
Turn 30. Win Game.
Your strategy should be drastically altered by your starting location.  Sometimes, this means being forced to stick to one city longer than you'd like to defend it until you can settle a second.

Having to actually work to survive isn't something that makes the game worse - expecting the game will be made in a manner that 100% ensures you will be able to survive, however, does.

First and foremost: this is a proper beta.

I mean, the Elemental beta felt like an alpha at best and when it went in sale I was almost shocked. This time FE feels like an honest beta, mind well a beta that needs a lot of work but still a beta.

I played around 20 games and I also feel that many problem carried over from Elemental, I will talk here mail about the high level ones, the game philosophy ones.

The player role

The player avatar and the roleplaying element. While I'm a strong backer of the idea of in-game player role in 4X games as I wrote elsewhere here the character seems too much a cheap adventurer, a bully, not someone who is looking for the total world domination (more on this later).

When I think about someone who steers a civilization/race/empire history I think more about the Sid Meyer's Civilization Leaders. Someone with the capability to inspire the player toward building a mighty empire instead of someone who goes around searching for the next brawl.

I don't see why this can't be possible here. It will suffice to have the first helping character as the wandering brawler and let the realm mastermind sit in the center of the developing empire doing what leader should do.

The Leader could even not be the king of the realm: I never managed to have one die and be replaced by his successor and I'm not sure if in Elemental that was possible but it stand to reason that a realm history will span more than one generation of rulers. In that case the link between the player and the character would broke and I, at that moment, question why it was there at all.

The sage immortal helper, the real power behind the throne, the immortal guiding hand behind the history of the realm will not have this problems.

Sometimes he can fake his own dead and take for a few turn the second seat, just for realism sake but the link between the player and his role should never be broken.

The depressing world

I understand the storyline and I can imagine the development advantages of a post apocalyptic world but in Elemental all that brown was just depressing and off-putting. In FE the wasteland is more alive but it still feels like a wasteland.

Is this really needed? is this such a part of the game, the rebuilding of the ecosphere, that can't be changed? For as much encounters can be found here and there it still feels depressing.

The empire seems a good idea, some deserts or other type of wasteland here and there are a good idea but living in a big one is not.

To conquer the world

Maybe I have not understand the point of the game from the Elemental first beta to now but it seems to me that it is basically to conquer the world. Well, from what historical or fictional seeing this come out? 

I do not remember anything in any media outside the gaming one where this was the goal of the good guys and the bad guys usually lose.

What a 4X games is all about is writing (or rewriting in semi historical settings) history. To build a mighty empire of a little happy realm and make it stand the test of time.

World conquest is a red herring that push the game in all the wrong directions.

Quests

I really like quest and events, they make the world feel alive and they are the key to say: this is not a computer converted board game.

Well the Elemental/FE implementation of quests is disappointing at best. Rats? That was wort a laugh the first time and annoying all the others. It is like the anomalies research messages in GALCIV II: good idea killed by the infinite repeating.

I do not know if there is an evolution of the quests at higher level that I never attained but even at the start of the game quests should be something more involving and made by more than one event chained one with another.

Quests should add to the game, not just be something to do to avoid the fact that the realm building is boring.

The opposition

The enemies seems a lot like my character: a bunch of brawling bullies not so much different from the leaders of wandering monster/brigand parties that can be found around.

Never in display any high goals, any philosophycal direction, any link to an overall heroic storyline.

Just a bunch of wasteland brigand party leaders who happens to have a better developed lair.

Conclusions 

FE feels like a proper beta of a potentially interesting game as Elemental WoM felt like a proper alpha for it. I feel that the real game is still far from here and I do not see the development go in the right direction, more than that I do not feel any directions good or bad, just a consolidation of a bland and generic concept.

I sure badly hope that I am not right.

To original topic - there is way too much carried over from Elemental to my liking. Most of all, the flat, machine-like, unambigious design to everything - characters, events, gameplay mechanics. Why specializing on different profession when you can be everyhing - both steel-clad behemoth and casting machine of death. Why ponder over various weapons when one is always clearly best, since there are no significant cons and pros to them. Why think about city designs when the building placement has absolutely no measurable effect other than questionable esthetics? (The cities look like similar insect hives anyway. You cand even build proper walls AROUND the city!). Why playing tactical combat when there are no variation in tactics present - just running forward with melee troops while casters blast away?

Sure, there is initiative now, and more lairs, and monsters, and lore to the factions (which still too much alike anyway), but after the novelty wears off, I still find myself spooning the old, lukewarm stew the old Elemental was that did not sit well in my stomach. One more spoon, come on, it's good for you, stop grinning and eat it!

Or, to use another metaphor, FE is like an old girl from the corner in new clothes and with tons of fresh make-up. Sure, everyone turns and looks when she passes, but once she starts to speak, everyone knows it's still her behind the refurbished facade.

Okay, enough metaphors, rant over. Let's see what the new versions bring to the table.