long estuary
I bought the founders edition as I have faith, but I am starting to regret it.
Patch 1.2.0, another step, consists of bugs/balance fixes and brought back a share of features that should have been in the base game (one more turn button, research queuing, MP teams) at the same time delaying the promised and paid DLC.
Missing Information
I can't see an overview of trade routes, independent people, or any information about what the other players are doing. I need 20 mods that make the UI bearable.
Missing Interaction
You can leave the AI or go to war. Sometimes you get an endeavor and some times not. You can decide to suze a city state, after which it is locked. You can convert cities or get converted, but you cannot prevent it.
Optimizing a city is very linear When you build a city find best spots for sci/prod, Cul/Hap and Gold/Food. Shuffling resources around is the only way to specialize a city. It comes down to adding camels and production in a town until it's built up, and then move these production resources to the next town. Add gold/culture/science enhancers if you have them and click through the age.
Missing Strategic Choices
Winning is not really a trade-off There are no real strategies to go for one victory/legacy over another. You just kind of do all each game/age almost naturally.
In Antiquity, build/conquer lots of cities (mil), to get resources (eco) and build wonders (cul). If you can get some good science spots for codices (sci) you should complete all 4 legacies.
In Exploration you expand on distant lands (for Eco & Mil), specialize some tiles through adjacencies and natural growth (sci) and get some relics (Cul) if you want to
In Modern it's not too hard to build factories (eco), focus on science and projects (sci), run around with explorers (Cul) and take some cities (mil) at the same time. Then you can choose which goes fastest or decide which one to go for, as you can't go for all at the same time.