Quote Originally Posted by Gaius Magnus

The best way to go IMHO would be to allow you to establish new settlements, and your horizons would broaden as your settlements expanded. As long as I don't have to chop wood and catch fish, of course.
I agree with you. This would be excellent. There are inherent problems with this though. First of all, consider the AI. It just might park his colony right next to yours. What happens to the region border then? And what is to stop you from doing the same thing? The preplanned colony space prevents this and allows the current engine to be used. I strongly suspect that RTW is practice for the next TW game. It is safe to assume that we will see one more game and expansion before CA decides to change the engine. They did the same thing with STW and MTW, making most of the modifications to units, AI, the map, and so on. Bu the engine was the same.

You are essentially arguing a TW/Civilization/Rise of Nations type mix here. It would be cool, but don't expect it in the next game since it requires excessive coding.

Would any mighty CA reps like to comment, please?