Great game. Only thing I *might* improve is population distribution. Either have it be historically accurate, where population tended to come from the center and spreads outward, or smooth out the distribution a bit. By the end of the game there are tons of edge buildings with double the population of some inner city buildings, and while I can understand this distribution may have been done for balance purposes, it's pretty distracting. If I'm wrong and it was just random, that's a whole separate issue that also could use addressing. This is definitely me nitpicking though, it certainly works well enough for gameplay purposes as is.
I am a big fan of being able to find a happy middle ground between historical accuracy and a game being actually enjoyable to play.
Tips for new players (more for normal mode, but some of it applies on higher difficulty as well):
- Know when to cut your losses. If a house just keeps massively overpopulating despite there being almost no water support there, devote resources elsewhere, to the houses that are *just below* satisfied. While houses in the red take away a fair bit of favor, keeping 4 or 5 houses in the green instead of trying in vain to get one house in the red up is a better play.
- Try to keep scribes on hand if possible, the most regular game event is needing to file taxes and if you're particularly unlucky, you won't draw scribes while the event is up.
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EDIT: Have played a fair few more matches, this *may* have just been a coincidence. I'll say it's good to keep resources you don't *immediately* need on standby, to be able to fulfill the odd request that'll come in from time to time.
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- A lot of the time, rather than placing all your carriers on the problem areas, you'll find that placing a bunch *around* problem areas will give you a better overall spread via adjacency bonus. This isn't always the case, but especially before sumps a spread network tends to work better than building up on just a few spots.
- When you move a carrier not only does it show the change on each house affected by the move, it shows your change in favor per turn. If you're unsure if you're making a good change in carrier movement, check how your favor per turn is going to change after all your decisions.
- Pay attention to building projects that increase population growth. While you want to keep progressing down said projects, as they offer a lot of better ways to distribute the water, don't do them before you're ready. It's okay to do some smaller improvements first if you think that'll serve you better. That said, don't wait *too* long either, or the improvements you get from these major projects will be too late to help the population levels you've already hit.
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EDIT: Extra tips after playing a lot more
- Be sure to look at what cards are ahead and already used when decided what projects to use, and if you're just finishing a deck don't finish a project that will add a single card, or you basically burn a turn.
- When in doubt, get rid of builders. While it's good to have some on hand, they are by far the most common draw, so you're less likely to get screwed waiting for builder cards than other workers.
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TL;DR: Great management game, had fun learning about Grudziądz.