What he's talking about, and I agree (Even though it demonstrates my weaknesses as a designer) is that choices need to matter. Don't have lots of choices of ambiguous meaning, have fewer choices that have very obvious meaning.
To this day, the formula in Galactic Civilizations II for determining approval rating on a planet is an incredibly complicated formula because there are so many things that come into play. It's a bad design.
In Elemental: War of Magic, we tried to have too many things have meaning and you end up with bland.
In Fallen Enchantress, by contrast, it's fewer choices but they are distinct and meaningful.
I don't entirely agree with this. First of all, the primary things that made WoM bland were homogeneity and a failure to incorporate lore into the game.
Second, making everything simple isn't always good. You want the core of the game to be intelligible, sure, but that doesn't mean every mechanic should have a clear and simple formula. The core of the game should be intelligible, but the player doesn't need to understand the entire backend. This is a computer game, not a tabletop game. Those formulas are hidden so you can do a lot more with them, and you can divorce the lore from the math. The player understands that building a new entertainment facility makes people happier, and that's good enough for general purposes. If you make everything too simple, there's nothing left to the game - once you understand everything you've already "beaten" the game and there's not much left to do in it.
