1) Spawning closer to the center is just strictly significantly worse, corners are best. It's essentially an auto-lose to spawn anywhere but an edge or corner in a FFA.
2) Getting literally all of someone's armies when you kill them is so good that it pushes players to just try to all-in the first person they meet every single time. There is no way to "fast expand" once you've met another player because of the first factor, and also that 40-50 armies on a neutral castle is very high. I think the "early-game" can be much better designed.
3) Perhaps you should be able to change your capital, which could solve problem 1.
4) There are many ways you could keep the simplicity of play, but boost the richness and depth of the actual gameplay. For instance, more chokepoints that would allow actual strategic use of territory and army positioning. Different tiles which have different advantages to owning. Borrowing from something like civ - forests or hills which have a defensive boost when you're inside. Rivers which attacking across is disadvantageous.
Just some feedback from someone who enjoys games like Chess and Starcraft, and thinks the core gameplay loop of generals.io is really fun, but believes that it is seriously lacking in strategic depth.
