Building an Empire

Re:trains, factories and and other things that'd completely up-end the economy and break down the barriers between individual city economies, I'd prefer they simply didn't exist to start with. If you can't find a way to factor that in that relies on the six or seven noble/prince players not immediately turning around and adopting trains the moment the game starts, I'm not gonna be a huge fan. Especially since we don't know what the church is yet - for all we know, they could be entirely supportive of your idea of progress (though I'd prefer if this entire empire didn't turn into a tech-cult).

Hmmm... Well, one way to put the kibosh on large-scale industrialization would be to make it so that Artifacts and Infusions require the one making them to have a full-fledged soul. Boom, no longer possible to automate Artifact production.

EDIT: And the reason for the 'heretic' issue is that Tinkers are predominantly atheists, which would probably put a major dent in their standing in the eyes of the devout.

MOAR EDIT: Actually, one way to render long-distance rail travel rather impractical is just for the Empire's terrain to be sufficiently rugged that laying track is prohibitively expensive.