Oh yes, though you can still rush Shared Projects with Population, aka Food.
Yeah, the rush buy is too easy right now. But honestly the production costs are too low for how high production is, too!
Even more with the fact than buyouts were unstoppable in Lucy. Buyout four districts in a row, after that eigth, after that why not a wonder with some pop and a lot more districts.
I wonder if changing the current "instant buyout" into "reducing building time to one turn", could slow down this "quick buy everything" and the snowballing.
I think this summarizes the major problem with the game now: the cost in whatever 'currency' doesn't match the rapid increase in amounts of that currency - whether it is Production or Gold or Influence or even Religion - that you get in the first 2 - 3 Eras. Not even playing optimally (I was having too much fun building 'pretty' cities!), my Gold income (Faction-wide) went up 500% between the mid-Ancient and early Medieval Eras. None of the costs went up by more than half that. Production per city was similar: it at least doubled in every city, and went up by almost 400% in my Capital, in that same time frame, with no corresponding increase in production costs. This is going to have to be balanced before Release or the last half of the game threatens to become a Snooze Fest in which you Quick Buy everything and cruise to victory.
I feel that this should be balanced not by increasing the costs, but by putting a limit on the expansion. If they increase costs, then you'll HAVE to urban sprawl to meet those costs. If they instead just restrict how quickly you can grow, then you'll want to be efficient within that limitation, but can otherwise explore other things (little bit of exploration, little bit of war).
They should probably still increase the costs a bit though, so that you might actually want to pick a specialization. If you meet the limit without putting any effort into reaching it, then there's no economy specialization.
I think your idea of "quarters can only be placed adjacent to Main Plaza/Administrative Center, or adjacent to *those* quarters" is a pretty reasonable restriction. Then Garrisons provide something else to build adjacent to in Ancient. Then Harbors provide something else to build adjacent to in Classical. Then Hamlets provide something else to build adjacent to in Medieval. Then in Early Modern you are allowed to build adjacent to Garrison/Harbor/Hamlet adjacencies, to enable colonies. Then in Industrial some tech allows you to ignore this requirement in Administered cities. Then in Contemporary some tech allows you to ignore this requirement entirely, perhaps with some resolution in the UN restricting this sprawl once again.
Rules like these change the entire play of the game from era to era, which is important for the feel of advancing through history. Just getting more/less of some yields (or increasing/decreasing costs) makes for a straightforward game, which feels more abstract and less dynamic.
I‘m not sure about the 1 turn-minimum build time. There are so many things to build in Humankind that you never get around to do and your build list would just prolong into eternity. Also, it makes it more difficult to get New World Cities up to speed.
What is definitely needed though for me personally is a rework of the City Building List User Interface. On my laptop screen, I can only ever see one row and have to scroll all the time. Annoying. Also that the window shifts downwards when you add a new line in the building queue. But also Colour-Codes or filters or I don‘t know. But I would like something to change there.
Also, the built infrastructure doesn‘t show up on the map, right? Or did I just not notice them? That would be neat.
While you can place extractors on strategic or luxury resources early on, they only act as hubs for attaching quarters later on. Question mark whether those extractors should immediately exploit all resources around it (as it is now) or just the tile they are built on (as was the case in EL). The latter might be confusing, in particular if it's not consistent with how other external expansions are handled, e.g. harbors. The former may be overly powerful.
Because then it wouldn’t be a placement limitation but a number limitation, it would be more flexible in letting people shape their city. And it would help it to become more of a trade off than a hard limit.Why do you think it would be better to increase the stability cost per Quarter, and maybe add upkeep?
Absolutely not. You are choosing initial city placement, and every single district adjacent to that, very carefully. And if you really feel that is too strict, then you adjust the restriction. That is far more interesting than adjusting the values and costs.
Should also note that you have two types of choices in Initial City Placement. On the one hand, is a Region worth settling for Economic or Political reasons? Then, Where in that Region is the best place to start a City/Outpost? I found in the Lucy OpenDev that almost every Region had enough variety of biome and terrain that there were real differences in output from various Initial Sites, and so it was almost never a "slam dunk" single possibility. There are also what I call Secondary Considerations, such as needing to connect two Regions that are economically important (like, they have Horse/Copper Resources) by settling a Region in between that doesn't really have much going for it intrinsically. Or planning to exploit coastal resources or do ocean exploration later and so starting an Outpost/City on the coast when that region has a much better starting site inland.