Just read through this thread and have a few comments... Firstly, RE: Food resources, I think what would be the best is to have a huge variety of food resources available, all with different advantages and disadvantages, as well as suiting different players and their playstyles, ie. I really like micromanagement so something along the lines of complex farming, farmland and maybe an introduction of irrigation would suit me very much, HOWEVER, other people seem to much prefer an easier, simpler option, that means they can just run off with their armies and KILL KILL KILL! I don't think there's a right or wrong option or playstyle, people should be able to play how they like, and I think this is a great project to give people that opportunity. I really like the idea of a development of fruit and maybe orchards, one idea I had while reading all the above conversation was fruit trees/bushes will regenerate if placed inside an orchard, a player designated area, the idea being that the workers in the orchard "maintain" the trees, (I mean this as more of an explaination/excuse for the unlimited food resource, rather than something that would necessarily be visible.) I think the idea of "farmland" is a great potential limiting factor for farms, especially seeing as they are becoming unlimited. The way I imagine it the farmland would be a lot more relevant in a desert map, where we only see grass around water, whereas in a more temperate map there is plenty of farmland, but maybe a further limiting factor could be introduced here?... Another idea I have is RE: Animals respawning, why not have the animals "breed", so we have a herd of deer, who wander around together and every now and then offspring are produced. It's what happens in the real world, and is a simple solution to the problem of the resource diminishing. It may lead to players having to think a lot more when they are about to wipe out the entire population of deer (or whatever other animal), possibly leading to more micro-gameplay but we can just come up with ways to make that more optional. After writing all that I think I've forgotten a load of stuff, but I can just add it later if it comes back!!