Hello!
Work is moving forward on the next update. I've started adding in additional tweaks to difficulty settings and also came across a bug that reverts difficulty set in the main menu when loading a city. This will be fixed in the update next week!
I've also reworked the free roam startup logic, so that clicking a template no longer launches a standard normal mode city, but rather allowing players to select a template and set difficulty and weather etc. Making everything customizable so to speak.
I'm also finishing up on the remaining 1x1 ideology decorations and will move onto the next size (2x2) afterwards. I'm hoping to be able to speed up production on these, but design ideas have been a bit thin.
In terms of difficulty settings, I've added additional simplifications to the easy mode. Crashes will no longer occur on easy mode, meaning that recessions are shorter and the shift from a positive economic state to a negative is less dramatic. This is on top of the general boost given to the economy when playing on easy mode.
I will also be going into increasing the likelihood of receiving gifts from conglomerates.