Well, this IS Despotism, Barbarism, Tribalism, Decentralization and Paganism, very much indeed. This is how this world looks and works. Triad truly represents all these civics, so it feels appropriate for the time period. Openness was not the order of the day, but still, this game is quite open. The game is actually quite dynamic, I would say.
My lengthy, yet viable proposal for the Dye City, you merely disgraced by stating "I was in love with the dyes", then I see several Triad members citing you afterwards with the very same argument ("Provo is in love with his dyes"). Such a suggestion would be given more attention and courtesy in a private forum than in here, where metagame politics and old animosities is the order of the day. If someone else proposed to develop 5 dyes and 1 silk within a short period of time, I guess they would be labeled as brilliant, interesting, fair or whatever. Anyways, the Dye-line lost, and you seem happy about it, 25 gold per turn for a city out of the window for now. The Paradise Hills city is not that bad either, but too far away to help the war effort, where Dye City would have given us a direct highway to the war, significantly helping both healing, reinforcements and logistics, as well as gold.
Well, utilizing 6 Calendar based luxuries 2-4 tiles away from the capital was labeled as naive and silly, without a real counter-argument in detail. If that is the kind of lazy rejection my long proposals will get in here, I rather influence by other means, where someone at least give me the courtesy to weigh my arguments and even support them.
That said, all city location proposals I made, lost, so did my technology proposals. I happened to have full control over our scouting warrior and scout, and that worked out fine. I honestly think you exaggerate the Warlords influence a lot, where both your city proposals outside Arete has now become reality (almost).