Regarding the "three-turn minimum building cap", Seanw3's analysis is so "Dead-on", that it is worth repeating (at least in part - the editing is mine - I'll take the blame for that):

(And given the sharpness of seanw3's analysis, I won't even object to his characterization of me as a "light user" ...  )

In addition, I see that some other folks agree with my overall feeling that the city building queues have just become too bloody slow.   Not just slow enough to force hard choices; but so slow that they cripple some of the *FUN* that we should be having!   Arguably, the slowness of the city building queues is even causing some aspects of game-play (some kinds of strategic choices) to be neglected or abandoned altogether.  In the interests of fostering some other kinds of  balance  the lengthening (slowing) of buidling queues has created new im-balances in other areas.  I really hope the Devs will take one more look at this issue ...             

[ Edit: BTW, some more very astute comments by GFireflyE, and Tuidjy, around this subject, on the previous page!  ... Oh ... and Alstein's very solid suggestion, in Reply #41 - a simple, but significant improvement.]

I'm pretty sure the reason for the 3 turn minimum is to balance early game things versus late game ones, not to balance high production cities. Without it you could build pretty much all the early game buildings in a single turn late game, and this would hurt city differentiation. It would also allow you to spam endless amounts of early game units.

I'm thinking it might be there to discourage razing and maybe city spam.

interesting.

The labor cost should be what balances early game buildings and late game ones. Furthermore, early game buildings that have similar labor costs to late game buildings are much better. Say we build a Lumber Camp, which costs 30 Labor and gives 2PPM (Production Per Materials). It takes 3 turns to build in a city with 100 Production. Say that you build it and are now either able to choose Lumber Yard at 100 labor and 1PPM or Workshop at 30 Labor and 2PPM. Why is a tier 2 tech more valuable than a tier 3 tech that requires a forest? Say you choose Lumber Yard anyhow. Now you are left with Workshop again at 30 Labor and 2PPM or Timber Mill at 300 Labor and 1PPM. You once again are better off with the Workshop over a tier 4 tech and forest prereq. All of these take 3 turns to build. Why are the later game options so much weaker, yet specifically balanced to take the same amount of time? And why are later tech options taking more time then they will give back to the player? We are better off taking 6 turns to get Workshop and Lumber Camp. The rest are never a good choice, since you won't see a return on the time investment for over 100 turns. Even then you will only get an extra turn or two off some really expensive improvements. Upgrading should mean more time to construct, but a bigger bonus than the lower tier options.

Early game production buildings are better than the later game options. It only barely makes sense in this case to balance with a minimum turn solution because of the extreme diminishing returns of these options. A new city can only catch up very slowly, even if on paper it should be producing twice as fast. There are too many holes in the minimum turn mechanic though. A city with low Materials will take too long to construct many production boosting improvements and receive too little from them to call it a good investment. The goal of the player should be to have the highest production possible, where each improvement will take some time, but ultimately increase the power of a city. The 3 turn minimum sets a limit on how high the player wants his production and makes many production buildings useless to both producer cities and cities of low production. This is of course focused on production improvements only, but it is the most affected set of buildings as they are interconnected with the limit.

How, I ask, would completing early game improvements in one turn late game hurt city differentiation? Cities only differentiate with regard to production times in as much as opportunity cost prevents the construction of all options. Early game improvements are not optional for cites, they are essential. You don't build a new city and forgo the Workshop. You don't upgrade to a Fortress and go straight to troop training without building the Training Yard and Barracks. These things are prerequisite in the mind of the player. Forcing each basic improvement to ignore the natural production abilities of a city forces dozens of turns on a new city before it can do what the player want it to. It is really paralyzed by the minimum turn limit. Allowing these cities to function as fast as their natural production allows them does not seem imbalanced to me. I can't understand why it would be seen as such by the devs. If you want to have more time for a city to gain power and compete with more established cities, it needs to come from higher labor costs as you upgrade improvements and more meaningful city levels. The simple fact is that in my games without the minimum turns, it still can take upwards of 40 turns (10 Years) for a city to contribute anything to my empire. More if it is geared to be a Fortress and train actual units.

As to the spamming of weak units, I believe the current mechanics are such that many weak units are not competitive with more competent units. Forcing a faction like Magnar to wait 3 turns for a slave militia is simply unconscionable. The weak versus strong balance is already such that 3 weaklings don't stand a snowball's chance in hell against a properly geared unit. Right now you rarely ever see weak units taking less than 3 turns and more powerful ones are much closer to 10. One legitimate choice the player should have is to train a weak army that is cheap to maintain and easy to rebuild. I again see no cause for the limitation.

It feels arbitrary and unnatural. It also obscures some of the core cost-benefit issues with improvements and tile yields. The 3 turn limit causes much more of a problem than anything it could ever solve. It glosses over careful control of labor costs with a sweeping generalization. I can't help but see it as a major detractor from the game as a whole.

I am stern because I want the game to be really great:

Okay, what did you add to Death 1 to balance it with this new mega power for life mages?

I actually believe that Frogboy implemented the three turn minimum build time in WoM. 

I just want Derek to justify its continued existence without using the phrase "because the boss says so..." or something like it.

If this is the case, then the game really has some horrendous balance issues and atrocious AI.

Great changes. I guess there is an option to set the level up speed in the new world options, right?

I think dodge is currently useful IF you specialize into it and dodge will be already nerfed with the new war colleges (accuracy + 25 instead of + 10), which is a great change.

There should be a choice between armor and dodge:

- No armor: dodge + 0

- Light armor: dodge - 5

- Medium armor: dodge - 10

- Heavy armor: dodge - 15

If these are the last features to go in, then sadly I have to say it's pretty underwhelming.

Lots of stuff missing, even considering just the UI issues and requests people have been detailing recently. For instance, personally I think the absence of a no-spells-autoresolve button (which, actually, people have been asking for for an year) is almost a deal-breaker by itself, since it forces you to do a lot of tedious and unnecessary work. I don't mean to imply that the devs should refine an UI to perfection before release, but it's not our fault if said UI started out as a complete "disaster": now it's a lot better but it's not there yet. The developers of Endless Space, for instance, implemented a sound UI from the get go and that spared them a lot of trouble in this regard.

Second thing that bothers me the most: the magic and leveling system is still untouched. So if I want to be a mage, I still have to fight against this system that wants me to be a "randomly generated multiclass" no matter what. This still baffles me a great deal.

Oh, and I agree, the "3 turn minimum" thing is just plain wrong and annoying.

Beta 5 will have UI stuff if I remember correctly

Dissapointing actually - forcing city spam, agressive expansion and making heroes more important than ever instead of nerfing them versus groups of high-end units.

And why the 3rd book of the magi is not always in the game ? Troy was rebuilt many times in the real world

I think you guys are underestimating those accuracy buffs- and this is a stealth buff to assassin school and fortresses.

I really want the minimum build turn time and the while idle stuff addressed, those are the two most annoying/disliked parts of the game for me, and judging by the forum posts I'm not alone.

I suspect once the game is released someone will make a quick mod to get rid of this so not too worried- these features are really unpopular.

So basically we're back to "I consider it ready for release and if others disagree, don't buy our games".

What do you want exactly? You can't please everyone with every feature. You need to understand that not every feature can be tailored exactly to what every player wants.

@ Alstein

Someone probably will mod the 3 turn limit but really it shouldn't be in there in the first place - I just hope the devs realise this is a mistake and change it

Rebalancing heroes versus high-end groups, no 3 turn build/train limit, more unique buildings per faction like the scrying pool, the dinasty system enabled, better road building, random spells like 3rd book of the magi always in game ( like A Dance with Dragons in WoM ), no identical quests in the same game, more aggresive monsters, the ability to recruit high-end monsters like obsidian golems and so on. -

Btw, are you planning a mod or something ? :)

yeah this is another way of fixing it and i kinda like it, it also would give some more reason to be to assassins and archers

but still, dodge in the game is too much atm

the 3 turn limit is just plain bad, there is no logic reason to be there and everyone smart agrees with it

anyway i dont think the "feature lockdown" means they cant fix some game mechanic, they still can, imo

All I can see is that this better be a long beta with lots of versions, or I can well see FE failing at the final hurdle.  It's not that I'm being unduely negative, but don't you want FE to be the best game it can be?  We do!  If both newbies AND pros are virtually universally decrying the 3 turn minimum building/training time,

WHY ON EARTH IS IT STILL IN?

Derek, can you imagine Civ IV and Fall from Heaven 2 with an arbitrary 3 turn minimum for ALL production and road-building problems?

Do you think they would have still been classics?

This will be a bit longer post so be warned

Lots of good stuff, love especially that the AI will take on the pioneer spam and become more dangerous Awesome Will be happy to try that out.

Also new tactical maps, with lots of obstacels, opening more tactical opportunities for blockers/range glass cannons. Awesome as well

I also like the increased usefulness of towns, making them more important as food/material generators. Once u have a few towns up and running new cities will not need any serious upgrades at all before they become usefull. Only growth. I wonder if that will not make the Sovereigns Call too OP for life only? I assume it is supposed to be balanced by the unrest reduction thingy in the death tree? Well we will wait and see.

On another note I feel that the early game has been prolonged by increasing the production costs as well as removing the possible rushing/incomegenerating production hub strategy (3 turn minimum combined with 25 guildar minimum rush cost). I'm wondering a bit why? Could it be because we have been shouting on the forum that the early game is fun and the mid to late game is slowing down? And that u are therefore trying to prolong the "good thing"? The only direct effect I see is that we as players (as already pointed out by Tuidjy) will focus even more on the hero development as the only viable strategy...not necessarily a good thing. Also a "good thing" will not neccessarily become better by making it slower, chances are it will become more tedious=less fun! (On a side note, this will make the 1000 Gildar option even more OP, as it will allow rushing still for the first 30 to 40 (1000/25=40, assuming a bit of overlap) items - negating all the intended slowdown - a HUGE difference now)

On a side note, my personal favourite approach to the speed is to use the epic research approach. My research is really taking its time, allowing my cities to grow with it in pace, not so much clogged with all kinds of options, but getting things done in time with the next research item being 'thought up'. Once again, it is my personal taste (and something the game allows for in the start-up, which is great), and it makes the game for me much more enjoyable. So why not make the turn limit something to be choosable as well? And not something forced down the players throat as to how he/she is supposed to be enjoying it?????

But ok, let us assume that the goal of the slowdown in production and resource development in combination with a more aggressive Ai will serve to make the start of the game more nailbiting. No more unchallenged expansion without clearing out the mobs.  So if we can assume this is going to be the case, only the starting city for the first 10 or 20 turns and my heroes are trying hard to clear the vicinity, as mobs WILL attack the cities, if defense not enough to hold against weak/medium/strong stacks. (as it should be - which barbarian tribe would leave Rome unpillaged, if only militia were on the walls?). I believe this will be a very good thing. The wilderness should be SCARY! But to return to the production issue, how does it help this expansion reduction? It will not change it at all!!! Only the Monster AI can do that effectivly enough imo.

No even worse, as I'm thinking now, by tailoring the production to a high production powerhouse (making incidentally earth as starting power even more 'necessary'), what about the starting positions with 'only' 2 materials and the Sovereign without any earth enchantments? Starting production will be around 15 or even less, making shrines etc suddenly into 5 to 10 turns 'for ever' upgrades, gimping them even more. The Sov with an earth hammer enchantment (which is now giving materials, making it even more OP - the old was better imo, as it was strong early start-up but not overpowering late game) can double or even tripple the output of the city (2 materials to start, 2 essences, 1 Oracle, possibly 1 with pool). This makes it very hard for not earth based Sovs to evenly compete with the empire building, forcing them even more into the hero only strategy. Please PLEASE allow us the freedom to choose the way to win without forcing us down one path by making it an almost requirement.

To cap it all up in one sentence: Great that the AI will be more aggressive, am highly doubtful of the production 'update'

I understand the developers were inspired by the Sauron/Morgoth type of hero that butchers an entire platoon with each swing, but even they had huge armies, an industrial base and were carefully planning the war instead of rushing.

You do realize that everything in your post except for the dynasty nonsense falls under what Beta 5 is about, right?  That being balance, UI, AI, and bugs.  Unless you think that this next release is the only one in Beta 5 and then they plan on releasing, there is time to test and iterate.  

It's amazing how every Beta release produces its share of "the world is ending!  It's WOM all over again!" crap.  Step back from the ledge people.  Play this next release, offer feedback, and see where it goes.  

Although I too wouldn't mind a nice post explaining the continued existence of the 3-turn minimum.  I think we all get the POINT of the mechanic, but that doesn't stop it from being a shitty mechanic.  

Personally the 3 turn production cap is not as big an issue to me as others seem to find. But each to their own.

I assume its there for pacing and to prevent a high production city spamming what is need when its needed (i.e. defenders) rather than planning ahead.  Or something similar.

What I do want to know is what happens to the excess production?  If a city can build a pioneer in 1 turn but has to allocate 3 turns of production (minimum) then where does that 2 turns of production go?  If it goes into the city's idle bonus then that's cool.  If it's just lost then that is not.

Actually this beta is the last one, and 0.98 is quite close to 1.00. And btw, why is the dinasty system "nonsense" - after all, it was good enough for WoM ?

Let's talk again after the game is released, and please look then at my list.