So, it boils down to mass genocide, if I cannot support the number of cities. I guess I'd have to be an evil evil man when conquering the world.

I suppose there could be a mechanic to say that the populations could transfer back to your cities... of course the slave trait would have to be adjusted to give a larger production bonus for larger cities, indicating slave labor.

I like the current system the best. I never really have a problem with high unrest. I just don't go out and conquer a dozen cities in a row. I take 2-3 and then build up my infrastructure to support them. Prisons and Oyx Thrones keep my global unrest down, and putting governors in new acquisitions allows me to develop them while their conquest penalty drops. Then I just move on to the next 2-3 cities. I think its a great system. If you can conquer dozens of cities in one go the game is probably over and your just messing around. Just force the AI to surrender and play at a higher difficulty. 

I do not mind the general city cap, although it does limit a playing style. This of course could easily turn out to be a boon for certain civs. Civ X has double the number of allowable cities. Civ Y has about half the allowable cities... This could play very well in making a unique game world. Although, on the whole this would feel very gamey on the whole of it.

The goal of global unrest is to balance tall versus wide empires and help prevent steamrolling.

Edit: Issue of original post has been somewhat addressed, so I've changed topic of my post.

I don't think unrest is a huge problem, it gives you a reason to build fortresses with high food. The problem I see is one of pacing. I often get to a place where the area around me has been cleared of quests and monsters, but I don't want to fight a war because I don't want any more cities. I end up not really having anything to do while I wait for my fortresses to level up so I can expand more. Then, by the time I am ready to expand again, it's much easier to go for a quest or spell of making victory. This is especially problematic on the larger map sizes. 

Here are a few ideas that might address the issue:

1) More options for reducing unrest. If playing empire or men, I can create "mayors" (sion or henchman commanders) to address the issue, and that helps quite a bit. More options, whether through buildings, tech, or units can give multiple options to allow you to continue expanding.

2) Quest maps for everyone, though more expensive. This might devalue the wanderlust trait too much, but I really like the quest maps because they give you something to do after monster lairs have been cleared, but when going to war isn't a good option. Perhaps instead of quest maps, an item that spawns monster lairs. Not quite as fun, but would serve much the same purpose.

Also, I don't like the idea of a hard cap on number of cities, I think penalizing in much better that outright forbidding. I do really like the idea of a feudal system though, where cities are assigned to a champion, and unrest is based on number of cities assigned to a single champion rather than in the kingdom. This not only adds a bit of story-telling depth, it also allow you control over localization of unrest (if you have a particularly valuable city you could make sure its lord is only assigned to it.) Also, it gives a good reason to want more champions even if you don't have an army available for them to lead.

This is off topic but I just wanted to say that you made me remember of one particular map where I played in my early days..

That map where I somehow managed to acquire eight storm dragons through luck of geography and events.

Then I was like, eh, send all the storm dragons in every direction, just one per city was enough. Razed everything in a hurry for lols until I all converged onto procipinee's capital.. which was also the last city. Since its the last city and had most powerful army i've ever seen to date so I merged all eight storm dragons with my sovereign to make an full army.

Have u ever seen eight fears in a row? Yeahhh. Every single enemy unit was feared Then I let loose multiple fire breaths as my sovereign cackled like a madmen and it's over. Whole world became a wasteland with exception of people who was lucky/smart enough to be loyal to me.

That actually sounds pretty damn awesome! 

Still no release date stated for 1.7?

Where is this coming from?

The first one, I don't like it- it sounds unfun to have hard caps

The second one, I'd like as part of a more comprehensive improvement system to placing roads period- I don't like how LH does it currently.

Roads should develop over time and not instantly, and be dependent on city sizes and trade.  (with bonus for certain factions like Krax)

so is this dead? 1.7?

In all fairness that was two weeks ago and we have not heard an update on how it is moving forward or not.

Look ma! I'm in the picture!