I hear you, not so much, "everything must be 100% equal" but let's keep all options more viable.  Like in MtG, if I can summon a 2/2 creature for 1 white mana, why would I ever bother with some generic 1/1 guy for 1 white mana again?

My sentiments as well, plus a few additional words for Frogboy.

And just to forewarn, this is a bit of a gushy post. But, I feel it's worth saying anyways.

Best of luck in future success for Stardock. You're decision to give FE to me as a compensation for WoM was much appreciated, and is a good example of how corporations are not the evil strawmen some leftists like to make them out to be. That is said regardless of what motivated the decision. Profit motive in a capitalist economy is irrelevant, as it is a natural factor in all business decisions. Outcomes are important. The continuing support you guys are doing is great as well, and you've definitely earned some consumer loyalty from myself and undoubtedly many others. 

well, that settles my decision then. can't wait for it!

No, it is not. 

Frogboy owns his company.  Frogboy is a human being who is not a psychopath (an assumption, but a safe one). His company actions are controlled by him, and his company does NOT act as a evil strawman.

A corporation, by law, has to be run by rules which would qualify a human being as a psychopath.  Because of other laws of the land, corporations usually act as high functioning psychopaths, and I will not hear a word against high functioning psychopaths.  Unfortunately, when the laws of the land are lacking, some corporation start acting in ways that... lets say... are not to the liking of many.

I have to second this.

A possible fix for this is to maginfy the food requirement for levels as well as the food output of the resources. Levels instead of 100 food takes 500 food, but each thing gives instead of +5 food more like +50 food. This will definitely make growth more of a factor and the food caps would be less reachable in a short amount of time. Obviously I exaggerate with the numbers, but I think the ideas are sound.

I have been playing Pariden almost exclusively.  I was excited by my initial impression of Resoln, but there's a game breaking bug in 1.02 so I did not get very far. (I had never played a game like this, so I started on easy, I'm up to expert now, and disappointed in how easy it is to beat the AI, now that I am beginning to understand the game and the AI.)

Anyways, I think the topic you raise here is too deep to do justice to without going heavily off topic, but I will agree with you that the frail, magical races do not offer good early game shield walls.

Well, that's your taste when it comes to MP. Then you'll choose a tiny map, 1 vs 1 game, smallest amount of creatures and fast speed. Perhaps you'll also agree with your opponent that all battles vs neutrals must be auto-resolved, but battles between you and him can be played tactically.

For us others that even play 100 hours long Europa Universalis games online, we want large maps, loads of human players, dense monsters, normal or epical speed, the unit builder enabled during game etc, etc.....

It's not like all multiplayers want fast rts action. People don't buy this game for fast rst action in the first place....... Another example: 6 player Civilization 5 games are on fast speed usually completed in less then 7-8 hours and are very popular online indeed.

A multiplayer feature won't force you to play multiplayer.

Another point; I haven't seen on single poster wanting the developers to change the game to make it more balanced for MP, or to remove time consuming features like the unit designer or tactical combats. Most players seem to just want to play this excellent singleplayer game as it is in multiplayer as well.

I'm a bit surprised by this sentiment. I'm finding quite the opposite unless I'm playing Magnar or Altar that have better growth due to slaves or higher prestige.

In my current game I have 8 cities as Resoln. My prestige is around 10, so growth by prestige is just a little over 1 per city. Sovereign level is 12 and I'm midway up the tech tree. I've killed all the monsters I've found and fought two skirmishes with the AI, mostly by the sovereign, so I don't see any easy options to level her up more.

When I found a new town, it will take quite a while even to get to level 2 with just one new population per turn. From level 2 to 3 it's a whopping 140 population more, about a hundred turns.

Are we playing the game differently? Am I not using some ability or resource?

I cannot find sovereign's call in the wiki, but I think it's not available to resoln. But for example if you research consulates you can stack growth on a city using its outposts (if you can defend them).

However, I think the people hitting the population cap might be focusing only on production and are not building any cities for food. So note also that rush costs seem to be independent of production, and that you can get faction-wide benefits from high populations (and resoln is probably going to want a city with slums, if the game is not over by the time that decision becomes available).

A multiplayer feature won't force you to play multiplayer.

 

More and more games are becoming strictly multi-player these days. For example: Diablo 3. My girlfriend would have loved playing that game, but when she heard it was multi-player only, she abandoned the idea. I also hate multi-player only games since it forces you to play when other people are playing.

It very much depend on your play style.  If you look at the dozens of play-throughs I have posted, you will see that I hardly ever come against the food cap after maybe the first 50 turns, and even then, it usually happens for one or two cities at worst.

People who expend quickly are always lacking growth.  People who have a few cities always lack food.  Why?

Fast expansion outpaces your prestige, and multiple towns raise your food cap quickly, i.e. you end up with less growth and more food.

As far as I am concerned, this part is working VERY well.  If player A is constrained by growth and player B by food, balance is just fine.

Disagree. 

This means that having as many cities as possible is the only valid strategy, in the sense of efficiency. I cannot choose to have 1-2 cities hoping first to get them strong and big before expanding, since they will be capped quickly by food limits. There is no advantage to have few cities. Both players, A and B are constrained but one by having more cities has more production/research/mana and wins all the time. 

In v1.02, I have won the game on Ridiculous without a city and on Insane with my capital and two cities, so it's not as if it's impossible.  In the game I had only three cities, I had my fortress at level 3, and I had enough food for level 4.  (Large maps, 8 enemies, I play on nothing else)

Why would there be?  From history, we know the fate of the great mercantile city states, and countries which did not expand their sphere of influence.  It's a self-imposed handicap, and a challenge.  You may as well demand that winning the game without using iron be as easy as when using it.

From history point of view, more cities you have more grow should be there - large successful empires attract more people. Here you can have twenty cities and then you build like well and suddenly twice more people are coming to given city .... They all heard about well, and heck, who cares about capital, this tiny village has a well!!! It is all statistics, you can call buildings as well: growth 1, growth 2 etc.  

Either we are talking about a fun factor - that's why people fight so much against city spam - or we are talking history, and then game makes no sense whatsoever in many respects. For me, I love games where the world is dangerous and each city is a challenge to establish - like in Sean's mod. Yet, then i feel like being punished for having few cities - they are always capped by food. 

Speaking about victories, vanilla is easy to be exploited, so let me choose you a race and i want to see you winning on insane at all, not to mention with only 3 cities.