Somehow, I believe the Fire Shrill Ember skill is not affected by FX volume adjustments. I have the game running with internal volume at 25% for all my sounds. The first time I fought the Fire Shrill, the Ember was really crazy loud. When I tried changed Elemental to 20% on my Windows Sound control panel and increasing everything in Elemental back to 100%, all the sounds become more equal, especially Ember.
To point 7, I'm not sure whether it's because I am totally noob, but for a while I didn't notice that there are stats on top of the mini-map that tells you how much grain and materials the location your mouse is pointing to have. Essentially, your main map might not show anything, but you can read off potential settlement locations this way.
I noticed the first-to-queue-wins system. That's what I suspected when I rushed the Trading research at the start of the game (completed Trading 12 turns from the start of the game). Still wasn't able to build the Bazaar though. Shall try again tonight. I agree that the Wonder system is a bit flawed. Think first-to-complete still makes more sense than first-to-queue. In either case, knowing who started on (and finished) a World Wonder would help a lot. World Wonders under cons
There was no notice of another player building it. Is it possible that some player started with it? I'm playing a relatively casual game with just easy opponents though. I tried again using a civic trait, 10% research bonus from both kingdom and sovereign, plus a first turn Inspiration on my starting town. Went straight for Trading as my first research and still no Bazaar in the build menu. =(
I just researched Trading and somehow Merchantcross Bazaar is not available for building. This happened to a previous game of mine too. Is there some other requirements for the wonder that I'm missing? Cheers.