...that Incidents would only spawn outside the city. (Violates the "makes the game easier" item
Personally agree. However, I am going to use it to highlight my issue with how the DNSL list is being applied to many proposals. SL, this is not intended as a criticism of you in any way shape or form. I know you are trying to strike the appropriate balance. I just thing the meta has gone too far towards literalism.
In order to conclude that this makes the game easier, you have to first accept the premise that it is easier to see incidents that spawn outside the city. That may or may not be true for you or me. It doesn't stand to reason that this is OBJECTIVELY true.
I get it. Too many people come on here requesting an "easy button". But we have become slaves to the most literal interpretation of the DNSL list. Using the same logic, ANY PROPOSAL MADE BY ANYONE would violate the restriction on making the game easier. After all, if they want it, it must, by definition, benefit them in some way.
There was a similar discussion a week ago about neighborhood selection. The guy wanted to go back to the old method of selecting neighborhoods based on relative points, rather than age. I am agnostic on the point, regardless of where you are in age or points, there is always going to be someone in a higher age or in the same age but who has camped there for 2 years. However, the conclusion was that it was on the DNSL list because it would alter plundering. In my opinion, that is stretching the purpose of the DNSL list to an extreme. Any impact on plundering would be, at most, a knock-on effect of a knock-on effect.
By that same logic, almost any change to the game is going to have some impact on plundering. Tweak anything in GBG and people will have more or fewer military units to use to plunder their neighborhood. Decrease the friends list, more neighbors to plunder. Increase the friends list, fewer neighbors to plunder. Etc.
Heck, right now they are voting on changing the plunder icon on mobile. If that isn't intended to alter the frequency of plundering, then a neighborhood change shouldn't be either.
If it directly affects the game mechanics of plundering, yes its DNSL. If its impact is at most derivative, and especially if its situational (true for you but not necessarily for everyone), it shouldn't be. If its a dumb idea, it won't go anywhere anyway.
I agree that there are WAY too many proposals being made. I also agree that most are made by relatively newcomers who lack the proper context in which to evaluate the game balance purposes of various game mechanics. At this point, I am fully convinced the only reason they leave that part of the forum is the entertainment they derive from watching people tear each other apart.
That being said, my proposal would be to include a basic tutorial on probability in the introduction to the game, and require anyone that posts the word "unfair" in any forum to be required to view it 20 times before their posting privileges are restored. Either that, or eliminate the arc.