Good stuff, but I say it again: The cities are way too close to each other. The whole map is covered with cities. There is almost no open space between the settlements. It just looks wrong, but maybe it's just me who finds it annoying.

That being said, I hope that we can modify the min. settling distance.

monsters are cool

also the influence looks promising, hope we can test it this week

Looks awesome!  Nice work, cant wait to test it out.

I also really like these changes, and agree that forts and watchtowers, methods to exert control as distinct from cities, are now a must!

Also, I am curious if trade has been changed with this new system?  For example, you build a city to specialize in trade, magnifying the effects of all trade routes to and from the city?

That's good in theory, but in practice what happens is people get the wrong kind of start, think it's a "bad start from the random map generator", and just start a new game until they get what they want.

edit - Hopefully there's enough stuff out there that people don't need to do that. The preview looks good overall, can't wait to try it.

Agreed, when I start a game I'm going to have a path I want to follow in mind already, nation and sovereign choice will reflect that as well. If I get a horrible start for that playstyle I'm going to end up regenerating the map repeatedly until I get the things I want for the type of game I want to play. How the game plays should be my choice, not the choice of a RNG.

I just recently pre-ordered EWoM and downloaded Beta 3A, can't quite describe how excited I am for this update!  (and even more so, the final release)  So glad the resources have been changed.  In my few play-throughs that really bothered me.  I like to play games aesthetically, not placing my theaters near my slums etc..  But also, with the whole research thing, I found I almost ran out of things to research by turn 200.  I guess not all the research trees and stuff are in yet, but I like the idea of maybe quickly gaining lots of basic stuff in each, but to get to the really good improvements or spells you have to actually devote some time and resources.  

Can't wait to see tactical battles, somewhat new to this genre of games (usually RTS/RPG player) so I want to see what they're like.  Also, I like the idea of being able to fortify your border with forts and walls and such... maybe they expand like cities, or maybe just have border cities built and fortified at key points.  

Ohhh, and I hope there is more to the character customization at some point, be fun to be able to change the body type.  Have options like a slider bar for height and "weight" and maybe a few options for how the fat/muscle is carried "body shape" (like how you have different face structures).  I've always wanted to play myself in a game, but I'm a big dude, NFL football lineman big.  Anyway, just a thought.  Can't wait to see everything yall've put in Beta 3B.

I always like city specialization of its production.  However, this design begs a question, is production specialization the only way?  If yes, that means gamers do not have a choice.   There should be 2 ways for us to choose, specialize vs generalization. 

In the game, can generalization (i.e. most of my cities produce almost the same stuff) provide some benefit that specialization don't? 

Maybe, generalization do not provide the quantity and quality of a speciallized empire; but generalized production provide great flexibility because products are always spreads evenly across the empire, so supply line is short, products are usually close where it is needed.  Thus it is more tolerant to disruption of supply line.

A carefully designed pros & cons of generalized vs specialized production model is crucial.

===

Another crucial missing piece from the video is that there is no mention of how 'area of control' is determined.  Is it by a contest of 'prestige'?  

===

Agreed with Tormy that the map look crowded.  And it does not have a  'fantasy' look.   

===

I see that there are building can be built on steep hills.  Pls make sure there tall mountiains should be very common in most maps, so that there are plenty of natural choke points.

One way to make forts/outposts used (I see them working like they did in Kohan) is to make  their cost stay the same.  You'd use them early game to claim territory, and build citiies later when your econ can support it.

Keep cities escalating cost in, but make the forts a flat 50 or 100 for each one.  A city's ZOI would override a fort's though, though an enemy fort in the ZOC would be a combat bonus for that civ. 

This is a an interesting and promising direction on cities and resources. I can't wait to play 3B and see how it plays!

So will we be able to deny an enemy a resource in their area of influence by stationing a unit on that tile or do we have to beat the city down enough to remove the influence?  I would think that if I can garrison a unit--even in your area--on a resource you shouldn't have access to it.  This would add to the ability to siege a town.

This is going to make the game hugely more enjoyable and interesting for me, great job!

As for the idea that players will reroll maps constantly to get the perfect start, well that is their choice. I used to do that but committing yourself to play the game with whatever start you've got is much more challenging and interesting, and means you will be playing varied games rather than the same one over and over with a similar awesome start position.