My take

[-1 Stability Hit]

Just some thoughts on the good and bad:

GOOD: Love the age system, it's engaging throughout the game. Love using improvement points rather than moving builders around. Love how you have to make choices (settler or govt upgrade?)(Do I assimilate that vassal or leave it?). The map is pretty and each play feels unique.

BAD: UI (finding which improvement you want takes ages if you haven't memorized exactly where they are on the menu. UI: Multi-turn moves should be automated, should not have to click to continue move each turn. AI: Novice AI is wantonly aggressive. Game length: Far too long and a barrier to entry, even on faster mode. An even faster mode should exist. Sea resources: Ok fish are OP but some variety would be good. City art: Should be distinct at least to each real life continent. Having Mayan cities in the Latinate style is immersion-breaking. Improvement art: Too many improvements look the same unless you hover or zoom right in.

[shoobers]

You can click the tile itself to bring up a button on the tile infographic to make it easier to choose what kind of improvement you want and then the improvement. It's a more organized way to do it for that tile.
You can also do it inside the region ( click the red construction button ) to select an improvement.

[chaney]

Originally posted by shoobers:

You can also do it inside the region ( click the red construction button ) to select an improvement.

Thanks, didn't notice that one yet!

[archonsod]

Originally posted by -1 Stability Hit:

BAD: UI (finding which improvement you want takes ages if you haven't memorized exactly where they are on the menu.

As Shoobers notes, if you simply click the tile it will show you the upgrades categorised by type, and only those valid for the tile selected. It's the only way to build outpost improvements.

AI: Novice AI is wantonly aggressive.

Novice tends to be a bit less aggressive since it doesn't build as big an army, so it's relative power calculation tends to be skewed. The main problem is if it does think it can beat you it'll demonstrate itself wrong by sending army compositions at you that manage to be even worse than the random barbarian spawns, leaving you in a situation where it's impossible to get peace because it's convinced it's army can crush you ... even though it's comprised entirely of catapults.

Game length: Far too long and a barrier to entry, even on faster mode. An even faster mode should exist.

How fast do you want it? First victory age is available in Age 5, and I can usually hit that within three hours. Potentially of course you can win far earlier via conquest, particularly if you go Raiders.

Sea resources: Ok fish are OP but some variety would be good.

Not sure why they're OP; they're a food resource which can't really be refined much, useful for early city growth but useless at supporting a medium to large population. There's shells available if you go early seafarers, and coral if you end up in Utopia. It could do with some variance though - as is I've yet to find any real reason to bother with utility boats.

[-1 Stability Hit]

Not sure why they're OP; they're a food resource which can't really be refined much, useful for early city growth but useless at supporting a medium to large population. There's shells available if you go early seafarers, and coral if you end up in Utopia. It could do with some variance though - as is I've yet to find any real reason to bother with utility boats.

It's because they tend to be clustered together, so you can rapidly get 5-10 of them going in the one city.

[homem_de_ovo]

Not sure why they're OP; they're a food resource which can't really be refined much, useful for early city growth but useless at supporting a medium to large population. There's shells available if you go early seafarers, and coral if you end up in Utopia. It could do with some variance though - as is I've yet to find any real reason to bother with utility boats.

Same here, it bugs me you can't do any value-adds with fish in later ages, you'd think the Gourmet Kitchen at least would want them.

[archonsod]

Originally posted by -1 Stability Hit:

It's because they tend to be clustered together, so you can rapidly get 5-10 of them going in the one city.

Yeah, but they'll still not be providing as much food as making bread. In fact given how easy it is to keep food at 200% the fact they cluster can be detrimental - docks bring in money, which is somewhat more useful than a few extra food.

Originally posted by homem_de_ovo:

Same here, it bugs me you can't do any value-adds with fish in later ages, you'd think the Gourmet Kitchen at least would want them.

I'm not that bothered by the lack of refining - most resource chains have the short or unrefined resource as a quick, cheap boost and it's fine for fish to do that for food. The main problem is the lack of variety; as things stand every coastline ends up looking the same - covered in docks and fishing boats - because there's no reason to do anything else. Ideally what I'd like to see is more coastal and sea based resources - salt was an essential and valuable commodity in the ancient world, why not have that as a resource? What about pearls or sponges? Likewise where you have water you have a demand for boats, why not a shipyard improvement that converts lumber to money, or a naval depot that converts lumber to military XP? Where are the whales? Of course in later eras you have the obvious - gas and oil rigs, marina's, tourist beaches etc, to say nothing of research vessels.
Basically, just make the sea and coasts less dull ...