In the interest of keeping this on the agenda, I would like toraise again my point about public buildings, construction and slave use.
First of all, we have discussed the potential introduction of such buildings such as fora or aqueducts, that would be needed to expand the cities beyond certain size, instead of slave spam they would require materials and money.
Secondly, an idea of my own, slaves should be required for all of the major businesses beyond certain size, stuff like warehouses, bath houses or latifundia would need slaves to be extended beyond certain point, to represent the manpower input.
Thirdly, with the inevitable expansion of the empire and potential finacial gains of most people, i was thinking whether the limits on trade routes or numbers of businesses could be circumvented or raised to provide appropriate scaling with the fact that we plan to run a world empire. Our status as imperial elite should allow us to have more than one measly business, even upgraded to the max, as it will be nothing compared with provincial incomes and loot that legates and governors will take home.
For that purpose, each senator should be allowed to have a country estate (villa) that won't be counted agaisnt business limit and would be upgreadable to provide profit from agriculture, just like real life patricians did with their estates (latifundia).
Of course, this could be treated as fluff second house too, and one would have to physically settle in an area that supports large scale farming (a province with arable land that is big enough) to prevent all piling up in core province. There are few mechanics i see for it, and that would enable everyone to have that bit of extra income without having to do buiness all the time if one's PC is not of such inclinatiion and yet needs funds for living and politics.