@Enevhar Aldarion
I don't mind the challenge. My problem is the fact the amounts needed will have a detrimental effect on the FS as a whole.
We have a very mixed group. I have over 500.000 points, our smallest member just passed the 10.000 point mark and we have players in every range in between. We have always liked having a mixed group and are pretty supportive, but its going to be hard to be supportive this way and that's going against the idea of the game. As well as against the pleasure I have in it.
Sure, we could all just form a FS with people at about the same point of the game, but that sure takes away a lot. Also, I like seeing people avoid the mistakes I made when blazing the trail, and that kind of thing is not exactly happening if everyone forms a FS of roughly the same place in the game.
As for the expansions, true enough. The question of course is how many people are crazy enough to buy the last premium expansions. As they are priced at about $70,-. That's a lot of money for a very small piece of virtual space. Even the 10% discount AND the 20% extra diamond offers won't even come close to tempt me. And I'm a premium player who always pays for games. (And yes, I know there are offers for even greater discounts. However, they seem tied to some algorithm based on size, since my testcities get offers up to 100% bonus, but my main account has not seen an offer for more than 20% in over 2 years).
I bought premium expansions waaaaaaay back when they were at a more aceptable price. And even then I didn't buy the last few because they were too expensive. And let's be honest: they have added several columns and rows of expansions in the past. No reason to expect that will not be done again in the future. Most buildings will take up more space each time. The residences are the ONLY exception, and then only in the dwarven chapter and now in the constructs. No other buildings have had space-reductions, ever.
So unless the plan is to start on reducing the needed space for all kinds of buildings in a more structural manner, they won't avoid the need to expand the grit at some point. Simply increasing the size of the buildings can only have that outcome, unless the boost in production suddenly is so high it would be more advantageous to have fewer factories. And be serious, that wouldn't happen as it would also open up a way to overproduce and just blaze through tourneys. In fact doing that would only benefit the small group of players who already only have magical residences and workshops and all expansions.
By adding the free-to-gain-expansions now, they MAY lose some money for the last few expansions not being bought now, but most players who do so already will have gotten them. And the offer can stay valid after expanding the grit, so when looking at it not 'just now' but looking just a bit ahead instead it doesn't matter one bit.
Edit :
Additional problem: it's not a realistic strategy to replace more regular factories with the ones for sentient goods. The sentient goods production requires seeds and the sources for those are very limited. There are a few event-buildings, but since getting those is depending on chance they cannot be part of any strategy.
With a total of something like 465 completed provinces and about a total of 140 lvls of AW, the trader doesn't provide enough seeds to keep 1 factory of each tier running all the time. That's not counting the seeds needed for quests/upgrades/building. Even with the Elvenar Trading Post at lvl 7, I have a hard time keeping up the seed-production. So replacing more regular factories with sentient good ones is a waste of time and energy since I won't be able to keep them running.
There definitely is a need for more structural ways to get seeds outside buildings one only can get by chance.