I don't have anything close to a lack of quests. In the game I was playing though at least 80% of the quests generated at start were epic quests rather than a variety of strong, deadly, epic, etc.
City spam vs pioneer spam - it is a good distinction, that with the current mechanics is almost impossible to seperate. Perhaps there could be one kind of pioneer for outposts and another more expensive one for cities?
I'm also of the opinion that something else the game might really benefit from is eliminating the bottom two warfare techs. Make the spear and wood shield a default technology that everybody knows and the +1 soldier can be incorporated into another technology. The warfare tech just starts off too slow Having the option to build spearmaidens at the