Well-written, Diarch. I agree with a lot of your sentiment. In fact, when I first started playing FE and learning the mechanics, I was very impressed with the Faction Prestige mechanic - it's a beautifully simple way to constrain growth without being overly penalizing. I thought it was ingenious. I'm worried if the future direction of FE should take it away in favor of just more unrest penalties.

I'm of two minds with regards to pioneers costing population. On the one hand, it is realistic and helps mitigate city sprawl. On the other hand, it can be a heavy-handed approach to fixing the sprawl problem. Before the change, the best production choice for a city in the early game was almost always a pioneer. Now, the best choice is a pioneer when the city has enough population. The best game designs create interesting choices - pioneer population cost does not really create a choice, so much as eliminate one of the options for a time.

I think the problem can be traced back to another mechanic. Vertical development of cities is not as strong as horizontal proliferation. I.e. many small cities beats fewer big cities.

Why is that? Let's look at the production and research generated by a city as an example. Based on city size, the production and research bonus for each level of city is: 1,2,4,8,16. So it doubles every city level. But to get to level one, you need 50 population - and a pioneer costs 30. To get to level 3, you need to get to 200 population from 50 population - or +150 population for a +2 bonus to research and production. But 150 population is 5 cities worth of pioneers! Likewise, building a study costs way more labor (193) compared to a pioneer (48) and provides the same research bonus.

The difference is even more stark when you look at production rather than research - this is because the city level bonus is insignificant compared to the material yield. Upgrading to a level 2 city takes you from 1 to 2 production, whereas if you settle an average new city with 2 material, you are getting 6x2 production. +1 production versus +12... not much of a choice.

I said that I was pleasantly surprised by the Faction Prestige mechanic - I was similarly perplexed and disappointed with the bonuses that a larger city brings to its yields. No wonder spamming multiple cities is a far more advantageous choice. It would take a lot of penalties in addition to 30 population to make growing a city to level 2 or 3 a better choice than multiple new cities. Rather than taking the game in that direction, I would personally recommend making vertically developed cities much more attractive and making the choice an interesting, deep, and strategic one.

Consulates comes early and fixes a lot of your issues. I like the change so far, it makes towns more usable early game as pioneer spammers. (focus on wells, inn's and festival's) It adds depth to the game and more choices. Before I spammed only Conclaves in my REX for the research,and relied on AI towns for the +HP%. Now I have to mix more and towns are more important for me early game. 

My simcity game was better after the patch, so I feel the current direction is good.

I have to disagree that consulates come early - they are halfway down the Civilization tree. I find that my games are halfway or mostly over before I can even start to build them. Furthermore, now they also cost a pioneer and hence 30 population. You would need 30 turns just to break even on the consulate. On top of the labor and population for the pioneer, they also cost 540 labor, making it one of the most time-consuming improvements. For reference, a Well costs 96, an Inn costs 249. I never feel like I am in a place to be producing consulates until the late game and only when plenty of other higher priority buildings and units are done.

@MarvinKosh - I agree that fully built-up cities are very powerful - but they only become that way after a long investment. The problem is that in the early to mid game, when resources are most tight and choices are most important, the choice to make a new city is almost always better. A player that first expands and then builds a militia or spearman from 4-6 cities is going to dominate a person who builds up one or two level 3 cities in the same amount of time. It is honestly not until only the poorest potential city spots are left that I feel that the time to develop vertically is a better choice than to expand horizontally. Perhaps part of it is the difficulty too, since I have been playing on Ridiculous.

I personally wish this were not the case. I wish the choice between expansion and development were truly a tough choice. I like developing my cities rather than feeling like I have to expand or fall behind. The choice to develop should allow the player to slingshot ahead of the player who expands at some point - but right now that point is way too late in the game and only if you assume that you are left alone.

Destiny's Gift costs 200 mana now, Celerity 250 Mana, Blood Rage 100 Mana and Paragon 90 mana. Where are you getting your excess mana from? I never have mana for improving champions/sovereigns AND tactical spells. 50 Mana is huge when you are fighting AI armies with bonuses. (Mana is power in this game IMO) 

Well, the cost increases, so it's not really halfway down the tree. They are easily attainable once you get research rolling, and until then Town growth buildings makes due if you need pioneers.

If you have enough food to grow early game without the appropriate civilization techs, your start is ridicilous (I want a start like that). Early game food will limit you, late/mid game growth will limit you, and that's where consulates come in.

Yes, but towns are easy to get growth in Conclaves and Fortresses are another case entirely, and that is where you need consulates to get them up to appropriate levels ASAP. You can also rush buy if you got the gildar btw, so it's not just a counting hammers thing. I focus on research as my main priority and I'm beelining Arcane forge and the Civilization production improvements depending on essences etc. Research and Hammers is the name of this game (unlike CiV where food and hammers were the main thing)

What difficulty are you playing at? When you play Ridicilous and above, your mana is precious at least for me. It's a totally different ballgame regarding difficulties. If you aren't getting insta declared when you meet them, you are playing a different game (not being Elitist here ok? )

Difficulty does matter though. Elitist or not. Feel free to elaborate with your strategy and how you are playing the game (and how AI's act towards you)

That's just an opinion, we need more depth to discuss it properly. (aka, game speed, difficulty etc.) Share your opener, it will only add to the discussion if you do, mine is biased towards Ridicilous+, but that doesn't mean yours is excluded. (to the contrary, every difficulty and differences need to be discussed to make a great game, and that is what I meant with the "Elitist" comment)

Thanks for the reassuring reply, Alstein.  I'm glad you don't find the Pop cost unduly constraining.  Exploration and colonisation shouldn't take over; but they should be possible and fun and suggest the flair and panache of the Phoenicians or the outpost savvy of the British-in-India.  Your comments make me look forward a little more to 1.2.  And enjoyed your thoughts about high level cities.  The leveling of cities is one of the shining pleasures of the game:  the whole experience could be given more octane and help to make automatic Pioneer building a tougher choice. 

Norseman Viking:  yes, with Fallen Enchantress fantasy grand strategy has arrived.  I feel the same way:  it's a game that just coalesces so many things we look for:  empire building, tactical battles, exploration of untamed wilds, character development (without, mercifully, narrative pasted on from above), magic, and the strategic clash of arms.  It's dynamite, something to be lyrical about.

I'm glad you are not finding the Pioneer Pop cost a drag on the game.  Have you played the new version 1.2 a fair bit?  How does the change affect Outposts?  Is the same delightful cat-and-mouse subgame still available if you want it?

I wasn't sure what you meant by "opportunity cost". 

Bang on the money, excellent post Diarch,

Several replies have stated that the 30 pop cost was necessary because expansion was too powerful and needed to be nerfed. That is a fallacious argument. Yes, early expansion needed to be nerfed, but 30 pop cost was just one way of doing it. There are other alternatives that I think would be better.

This is a really difficult subject, just look at how both Civ 3 and Civ 5 stuffed expansion balance up (3 worse than 5 IMO but both are poor) and those are big budget titles that had the best chance of getting it right. Fortunately Civ 4 exists as a shining example of how it is possible to balance expansion so that expansion hurts in the short term but pays off in the long term (so long as you can survive that long of course).

I'm not saying that FE necessarily needs to go the Civ 4 route but it is the gold standard IMO and any alternative scheme should be measured against it.

I generally like the idea of using population to build Pioneers, but that is only half the problem.  The ratio of vertical development vs horizontal development is what needs additional tuning.  While horizontal development needs to be somewhat constrained, vertical development needs to be significantly encouraged.

My favorite parts of the game are exploration and expansion, and not so much faction fighting.  As such, I don't want to see expansion curtailed too much - especially early in the game.  A good solution would be some kind of game mechanic where I would cut off expansion sooner in favor of vertical expansion, and the benefits that would become available with vertical expansion.

Another issue which bothers me is the population cost which must be paid for building Pioneers.  As has been mentioned earlier, one of the most enjoyable aspects of development is the establishment of outposts which, by definition, would use far less population than creating cities.  I would rather see the population cost be exacted after the Pioneers have been used (i.e., -20 population when they build a city, and only -10 population when they build an outpost).  Bottom line: building outposts shouldn't cost as many population as building cities.

In the final analysis, I guess what I would like to see is a slightly less population hit for building cities early in the game (say, -20 population), and even less for building outposts (say, -10 population), and more vertical building options that would make me choose to slow down horizontal sprawl in favor of vertical consolidation of what I have already built.

Another interesting option would be to have the severity of the 'population hit' be a choosable option during the game set-up.  Why not let the user choose how they want the game to play (to each, his own).

Agreed. If I build a pioneer, I don't want the pop from my mega city to be taken away....I want the pop taken from the city where I build the pioneer.

You are right, Mistwraithe:  this is a vexed design problem with a pedigree of heartache:  in a 4X game we want expansion (which is fun) as a possible strategy, given certain map configurations and player taste, AND we want Minas Tirith (the single magnificently developed urbis mirabilis -- which is fun!) as an equally attractive countervailing strategy.  It's a really hard balance to achieve; and I'm sure Mr Paxton has thought a great deal about this and will find elegant solutions.  FE gets so much so very right; it is worth the polish.  I think it's already a triumph -- just nervous about it moving down an awkward path.

Seems to be a feeling that increased power for highly developed cities would create interesting decisions about Pioneer production; and that, given some form of Pioneer cost, Outposts should be treated differently. 

What if the Faction Prestige mechanic, far from being abandoned, were expanded in epic ways:  Prestige, Clout, Charisma, Panache -- these are exciting as penalties are not.  Just wondering.  The designer spent two years of his life on this and made something really fine:  he knows what he's doing.  I just know how the game feels when I play it.  Guess that's valid.