I think I want to see beta 4 and a better map generator, Pioneers doesn't bother me ATM since  there is so FEW places I can actually put my cities in the first place...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I'm probably in the minority here, but I don't really see the issue atm. I think people are a bit too focused on "claiming land" when there's not that much reason to do it. I play on challenging/hard atm, and I usually don't build more than 3 pioneers until the midgame, and seem to be doing fine.

Sure, the AI spams them, but I don't think it really gets that much benefit out of it.

Pioneering could be started with an outpost created by the settlers. After establishment, you could choose a switch to start migration to the newly created village. All the while the migration from the capital city to outlying villages, not outposts, will cost a maintenance fee and the capital is reduced that amount of population. This lets the players decide how fast the want their capital to grow compared to the spawn cities. Maybe even have race traits that increase migration rates. Added prestige per city level(to that city). Increased maintenance to smaller villages, decreasing as the population increases. Sliders to adjust how much of that city's over all production goes to construction, defense, research.. etc. 

Even still, the outposts could start with a small influence and be grown with the help of small migrations and wages, defenses and such. The more defending it, the more the influence would spread in real life, such as happened to the Romans. Creating a more dynamic influence structure.

Just an idea or two*.

Pioneers shouldn't exist in my opinion. Only the Sov and/or his hero's should have the ability to create new settlements. I also REALLY like Jansious's idea. Just without the pioneers. lol

Totally agree X 10. Pioneers shouldn't be cheap, spam fodder like they are now. They should be considered very valuable units as it should represent a significant investment of people and resources, you know the stuff required to build cities and create Empires with. IMO I think they went backwards on this dropping its wages to zero. We should care about them, guard them like a hawk, and a cry when one gets eaten by some nasty.

I am neutral to making pioneers have maintenance costs. I think there are multiple approaches to balancing pioneers (and horizontal growth). I am eager to see what changes Beta 4 has in store.

The following are some additional ideas/approaches to balancing the pioneer spam:

• Make city size and growth (bonuses/structures) matter a LOT more
• Allow buildings to be built faster and their bonuses to be bigger.
• Allow city ZOC to expand faster (currently, I get more territory under my control faster through pioneer spam)
• Provide movement increase options for Tall Empires and/or change the way roads are handled... 
• Reason: By spamming cities I can move at rapid rates due to roads between distant cities, they cost nothing and are built instantly across unexplored tiles with a low level tech. This is a HUGE reason why I plop cities everywhere, even if they will be destroyed (the roads stay). There is no other road building mechanism.
• Make creating cities costly
• Make creating outposts costly
• Make pioneers cost more population / take away from city growth in a significant way

I spew out pioneers because horizontal growth provides more benefits at a faster pace than vertical growth (city development). Even if there were an economic cost to spewing pioneers - I would still be looking at spewing out pioneers to the extent that my economy could tolerate...

If City Growth mattered (a lot more) and if pioneers cost enough population or otherwise delayed city growth in a substantial way, I would be less apt to build pioneers in most of my cities and a lot less likely to use them as manna batteries, meat shields and scouts... Heck I might even consider protecting them

I like the current mechanic. If you introduce costs and micromanagement to the 'Xpand' portion of the 4X game it will grind the game down (like it did in WoM).

I don't want to see a change. Most pioneers are used to build outposts as you can't create cities just about anywhere. BTW It would be nice to have spells to revitalise the land so that you could build more cities but that is an aside. I have no problem making pioneers cost some money in wages.

I really like this idea. It allows players to expand their influence somewhat easily but when after the benefits of a city requires some investment. The process could also agitate nearby monsters into attacking the new settlement, thus requiring either its surrounding area to be cleared or for there to be a strong force garrisoned while it grows into a city.

I like them cheap. But I think they should have a maint cost.

I agree that the exploration part of the game has been slightly stymied by the increased AI expansion and the more aggressive monster AI. I would argue that both of these AI improvements are essential, and that the scouting units in this game need a buff.

For example, there is already one scouting unit, but it is weak, requires upkeep and does not provide a substantial improvement compared to just using your sovereign to justify its downsides. If you really need to scout out your territory in a hurry, it is actually best to churn out pioneers and send them out as suicide scouts!

My ideas:

(1) Give the existing "scout" trait an additional distinction that allows it to "sneak" by monsters undetected (but it remains easily viewed by the other enemy AI). This might justify the increased wages for the unit.

(2) Add another trait to a later technology in the magic research path that grants you access to "invisible" units that can scout enemy territory without repercussion, but cannot attack in combat (as a consequence of the trait). This allows you to view more of the territory of rival factions and to explore the world. 

I'll quote myself from the feedback thread here:

The game's pacing and feedback are its most glaring issues. The pacing is incredibly stretched out, and yet the gameworld always fills up with outpost/city spam all too quickly anyway. In turn, you have this sense at the beginning that there is a big, scary environment out there, but a short while later it is painted in borderlands. Pioneers should be some of the most expensive early-game units, a la Civ's settlers/workers, instead they're some of the easiest to produce. It is a gameplay fault that affects the game literally from the beginning and infects it right to the end. There is no sense of exploration, of slow expansion. And the game tries to feel epic otherwise-because everything else can take ages to get going.

[...]

- Non-huge monsters should not raze cities. Outposts should repel non-huge monsters at the border. There should be a sense of agency within your civilization; that there are people who live within it, not just inside the walls of your towns. You should feel safe inside your borders from the wilderness of the outside world, but not from the big-bads, if that makes sense. When you send pioneers out it should be as an expensive voyage into a dangerous, untamed world; not the lame, scurrying land grab it currently is thanks to the cheapness of expansion.

- Cities should be difficult to take. Invaders should start far away on the battlemap and face archers and maybe even guard towers.

I feel like the game wants to be quite epic on one hand, but on the other the game world gets utterly spammed by pioneers. This is one of the biggest problems with the game's sense of pacing, IMO, and the devs should definitely look into it. I think expansion should be looked at as an expensive-venture; in return, one's "borders" should feel like a safe-zone -- an extension of civilization, as it were -- from ordinary monsters (but not big-bads, so to speak).