I have been watching this game for some time and have started to play the game heavily since beta 4. I am by no means an expert on the best strategy to use but I have a decent grasp of how it plays. From what I have read on these forums and from being decimated by the Pioneer spamming AI, outposts and city spam are currently vital in the early game.
I have a hard time understanding why the focus is not on developing your first city and making decisions around the resources in your immediate vicinity. Thematically it just makes no sense, who sets up camp then has the sufficient resources in a relatively short time to do the same anywhere else in the world?
I have seen a lot of discussion around changing the cost and construction time on pioneers, but I haven’t seen anything on having this fixed using research. I feel the game needs an “Expansion” section to the Civilisation tree that is used to enable certain expansion perks.
For example, Pioneering could sit as a Tier 1 research (the same as Civics and Knowledge). It provides access to Pioneers and Outposts. From their subsequent research can unlock other interesting elements such as Outpost Upgrades, the ability to build cities, etc.
This could even be used to expand on the current functionality of outposts. For example, let’s say an outpost was 10 squares away from the closest ZoC. There should be a distance penalty with the income that is generated from resources linked to that outpost. Using research the penalty is reduced. Or possibly by mid game you could research the Settle and Outpost abilities for Sovereigns and Champions (over powered?), that give them a once per x number of turns to perform the action.
By linking Outpost and Cities to research it will at least delay the pioneer spam and give the player some tough choices to make. Should you rush the expansion tech at the risk of falling behind on the other essential techs? Are there sufficient resources near your starting location they may give you a better advantage over a faction that rushes the expansion tree?
What do you all think?