Well, here's an idea I'm going to propose, just because it's 1 am and I can't sleep.  Feel free to tell me it's stupid.

Perhaps what's needed is a more natural way of limiting city spam and city size.  In the real world, the limiting factor is the land.  It simply can't support more than a limited number of people, be they in a handful of metropolises or dozens of small villages.

Proposal 1: Each city has a "food footprint."  This is much larger than a large city itself, and larger even than the proposed +3 radius for harvesting resources.  Each type of terrain then produces a certain number of points.  The best types of terrain are plains and rivers, lakes/forests/coast are medium quality, and mountains/deep ocean are worst.  The size of a city is determined by the number of points in its food footprint.  If two cities have overlapping footprints, then they have to share the points from the shared squares.  I know it's very Civ-like, but that may be okay.  Civ allowed city spam because the food footprints were too small.  Developers can fine tune how much city spam there is simply by adjusting the radius of the food footprint.

Proposal 2: Just a variation of the above.  All land within your borders produces food based on terrain type.  This goes into a pool of food which gets distributed among your cities weighted by how much the terrain around a particular city is contributing to the overall total.  However, you could "lock" a particular settlement, indicating that you don't want it to grow beyond its current size.  This would cause its extra food to be diverted elsewhere, to cities that you were allowing to grow freely.  The total population of your kingdom would be limited by the land you control (as it should be) but you have some control over where you want to encourage that population to reside.

The problem of limited tiles for cities isn't still taken care of.

Cities are spammed because :

• You need more resources 
• You need more gold, then you create more cities for the roads that are created
• You need to control a chokepoint on the map
• You need to expand your zone of influence

So, if for all of those reason the player has a better way to achieve that, he won't spam cities.

What cities are for ?

• More population, in order to get more research points, more units to train
• Zone of influence

So, some ideas :

• More resources and zone of control : you can only tap improvements that are within your control borders, but you can only expand your control borders with a special building that you can only build a limited times. BUT, you can expand that number with research (infinite research). Each new city would only control the city hub and the 8 tiles around it. You couldn't build on a land that isn't revived, but you have no cap to the number of buildings you can build around a city, thus YOU can decide how big the city need to be. Or maybe a soft limitation like number of housing and population like now.
• Gold and caravans : Caravans shouldn't be created for every new city hub you build. But only from cities with at least : 2 housing, 1 market and 1 building that produce thing (like a farm, a wood, a forge, something that can create things you can sell). Automatically only cities that are well developped would produce enough gold, then city spamming would hurt your wallet. Morover, with the "you can only build on revived area, but cities don't expand automatically without a special building (limited in number)" you can't have a lot of well developped cities.
• Chokepoints : What about improvements that player can create ? A fortress ? An outpost ? Walls ? Maybe engineer units could create "defensive place" or "offensive place" where you could then place an improvement (if at the right distance from a city) like a fort, an outpost, a trebuchet, a magical gardian, a firethrower, a lightning tower, a magic hub, etc. Defensive improvements would need a "defensive place" and offensive improvements woudl need an "offensive place"

My 2 cts.

Right now it seems like they're spammable because players have nothing else to do with essence. What we really need are competitors for that.

On the governor system boogiebac proposes: if you can assign heroes as governors - which is something I like very much indeed - I also see a system where you can assigh heroes not only as governors but also as count - or whatever noble title may be more applicable - of an entire region. It would be very nice indeed to have bonusses to overall stats to an entire region if you can assign a hero as lord of a region. Maybe this should have drawbacks as well, for example in the sense that you can then only tell a region what you want it to do in terms of paying taxes and delivering swords or troops, but you lose full autonomy.

I am unsure if this would be a very good idea or if it carries a bit too far to go that way, but it sure would be fun to have options like these.

I don't really know how many times people have to repeat themselves on this. City spam doesn't require essence, because restored land radiates outward from existing cities. Rushing cities quickly requires essence, after that in the restored area you can build as many as you want without essence.

As always a nice structured and well thought out reply from vieuxchat. I approve.
On the governor system boogiebac proposes: if you can assign heroes as governors - which is something I like very much indeed - I also see a system where you can assigh heroes not only as governors but also as count - or whatever noble title may be more applicable - of an entire region. It would be very nice indeed to have bonusses to overall stats to an entire region if you can assign a hero as lord of a region. Maybe this should have drawbacks as well, for example in the sense that you can then only tell a region what you want it to do in terms of paying taxes and delivering swords or troops, but you lose full autonomy.

I am unsure if this would be a very good idea or if it carries a bit too far to go that way, but it sure would be fun to have options like these. [/quote]

And why not creating a system of regions ? After some times you can create a region : it would be composed of some cities and some area you design around it. then you can sassign governor not only to cities but also to regions. you could have then some more options to control your towns : give them general orders or get a synergy bonus or some wall around region, or lesser maintenance, better resistance against enemy culture spread, things like that. Mid or late game you would have a map divided in regions like in total war for instance (or hearts of iron)

You would have country borders that would slowly be set in stone (like todays countries) and get more option to govern your cities. Maybe options where you can "attach" little settlements to big cities and control them as one entity.

Wow, I should stop dreaming.

Just let us for one moment take a look how other games (e.g. CIV 4) solves similiar situation:

- each cities cost a certain amount of money to support and each add. building increases this amount => this reduces the risk of spaming of cities in the starting phase of a game

- later on there is the corruption in CIV 4, but I don't think that that concept works...

So how about the following:

every city you want to found will cost more essence (something in the way that the power of evil is concentrated in a smaller area and needs more power to remove from the land)...I think this will take out the city spamming issue in quiet a good way.

The second way is to have regions of control, e.g. a new city can not be founded for 10 tiles around an existing city center.

So how about resource grabbing: how about the concept to be able to build a Fort, which will not grow, be will cost quite some money to support and has a fixed number of tiles for improvements.

Then in the end you can decide for yourelf what you need more: control or lesser maintenance + other bonusses for having grouped regions.

I think that we could be really be on to something here. Domintation victories would be really easier if there also would be some system where you could unite non-nationcapitol regions under your banner, so that creating a region of your own would get you two regions, the one with your capitol and the new region. The one region you created might then be assimilated by another nation so you theoretically run the risk of losing the region. That way you may really spread your efforts and influence to unite regions rather than spreading your power by the sword.

IN the end for the system to be cool and for it to work, there is a need to really encourage the player to create regions because it has some major benefits, and also there should be drawbacks like running the risk of losing the allegance of the region and reduced control over the region.

I like the idea where there is an option to grab a resource without building a city. Call it a fortress or a mining colony or what have you, but the option of grabbing a resource without building a city is solid. It quite naturally avoids the issue of city spamming.

Psycloak started to make a really good point on the tie to economic model that city planning has.  I'm still not 100% sure how the economic model works (beta doesn't play for me past a few turns); I thought we left this at "cities produce a small amount of resources, and having a resource node attached to your city increases that production rate".  Is there perhaps a benefit to a resource for being connected to a city, whereas a resource node that is unconnected (but still close to a city) does not gain that bonus?  This ties into caravans, of which I'm also not sure of the mechanics.  If you're harvesting a resource in a city, it doesn't need a caravan to move it.  Does a resource unconnected to a city require a caravan to move goods to the city?

Asked another way, there's many ways to limit production; limit the resource itself (which is our current model), limit the transport of the resource, or limit the rate at which the resource is converted (also part of the current economic model).  Where do you want to have the throttle for production exist?  I'd argue that, in the real world, that limiter, until the last 50 years, was transport. 

This sounds awesome, however throw in family trees for Heroes so if the Gov dies his first born takes the Gov title, even without your consent, then the only way you get to choose is if he has no children.

As many mentioned founding of a city on transformed land does not cost any essence any more.

Still the funding of a city should cost something and not be free of charge.

This combined with some way of scaling the costs for more cities...would also help to remove the risk of city spamming.

Thumbs up on the OP idea.

I like the 'Heros as Govenors' concept.

I like the 'Lose the Gov and the city flips if you cannot replace him/her' idea very much.

Simply reproduce all you can and have excess heros available to both replace your losses and to govern the cities near the edges of your neighbors' kingdomes once they cannot replace their govenors.  This makes the dynesty system even more powerful, if you can get claims to neighboring cities thru marraige and then, um, see that your neighbor's heros are unlucky then you can cherry pick their cities without war.

This is logical.

So, we would be able to place on the map:

-cities (size/etc. dependent upon administration skill of governor)

-resource tappers (upgradable to increase efficiency of extraction?)

-fortresses (upgradable from outposts --> somethings --> fortresses, requiring specific building units and building technologies) to hold territory (in and of itself, such as mountain passes, etc.), guard resource tappers, etc.

-roads/etc.

Add in an essence cost for cities (as the idea of continually expanding the reclaimed land for 'free' seems wrong -- especially as games can last a long long time) to limit their being spammed and to allow small/powerful empires to compete with larger and necessarily less powerful empires, and are any of the points in this thread left unresolved?

A note one Essence and reviving the land...

Right now the part of City Building that takes essence is the re-habilitating of the land. By spending you essence and breathing new life into it (or twisting it) you make it livable for your people and a city can now be placed there.

Cities also radiate this healing (or twisting) power, so as the game progresses you see the world come to life (or, again, twist) to your will. This transformation (hopefully) provides a significant emotional tie between the player's actions and the world they're inhabiting and greatly affecting.

That said, one suggestion to prevent an overabundance of cities has been to decrease the spread of the healing/twisting effect your cities have on the land. While this has been debated internally, we fear the net result would be a world with consistantly small pockets of life spotting the desolate wastes, and the player would lose that feeling that they're 'winning the war' against the effects of the cataclysim.

Anyways, I've enjoyed reading all the great feedback on the topic (and your 80+ posts in 24 hours certainly indicates we're looking at something that really stirs the imperial passions of players).

Carry on, fellow armchair kings, carry on :)

This seems to me like a good, straightforward way to avoid city spam.  If a city grows beyond its "natural" food limit, it could start receiving food via caravans (letting it grow more, but slowing down the growth of the rest of your empire and making it vulnerable to siege tactics).  Concentrating population growth in larger/more prestigious cities (because people tend to migrate there from the wastes and from smaller settlements) would also help ensure that you end up with only a few major population centers.  But I don't know exactly what the mechanics for this should be (e.g., since resources aren't explicitly shipped around the map, food shipments can't be under the sovereigns control, which could be a bit annoying).

I like the idea of governors too, but as a means to limit the player's growth it feels a bit odd.

Not to derail the focus of this thread,

 

- Have enough essence and you can spend that to bring the Governor unit back to life (with the obvious magical consequences that spending essence results in)

I was concerned for a minute before I finished reading it. The Last thing you want to do is "decrease the spread" to prevent city spam. I think that will have the exact opposite effect and urge the player to make more cities, Not less. If anything, one would think you should "Increase the spread" to allow players to build on resources Near their cities without the need to place another one to get the resource. The number one reason players build cities isn't to get the city its-self, but to Heal/Twist the land so they can get the resource. The way things are set up though, you have to build the city on or next to the resource to get the resource.

By Increasing the Spread and allowing players to capture resources by building on them Near their cities, you will greatly decrease the need to spam cities. Another thing that would help greatly would be for the player to have the ability to cast the spell that Heals/Twists the land independently of building a city. This way when the player finds an area with a lot of resources that is already near a populated city they can bring that area under their control then run roads from the resources to the nearest city. Look at how this works in real life to see it's affect. More often then not people don't want to live right next to a Coal Mine or a Iron Mine as these industries are often noisy and produce a great amount of pollution. These industries are often placed on the outskirts of towns or even outside the town entirely. This does force the workers to have to commute to work and the resources to be shipped from the Mine to the city, but it's worth it for the quality of life inside the city.

Also you need to look at resource generation and how that is handled when the maps are created. If the resources are placed at strange intervals you'll have players spamming cities close together if need be so they can get those resources. If the resources are more evenly spread out then the cities will be more evenly spread out. This how-ever will have a impact on the "Organic" feel of the maps that won't be any good. Resources in the real world aren't laid out with human city planning in mind. We go where the resources are.

One last 'devils argument' attempt...

If all we have to do is plop down a few cities (along with the other Sovs) and wait, how much of a "...significant emotional tie between the player's actions and the world they're inhabiting and greatly affecting..." is that?  Little to no effort = little to no attachment.

If we want the feeling we're 'winning the war' agianst the effects of the cataclysm, plopping down a few cities then waiting is not much of a 'war'.

From what I've seen the cataclysm is pretty moot, and the 'war' is against other Sovs.  The cataclysm doesn't fight back or resist, it just inevitably and without subsequent Sov effort fades away -- or am I missing something?

Assuming I'm not, adding in a resisting cataclysm would add a lot -- a third actor in the Elemental play.  The cataclysm is a big part of the lore, but a very small actor. 

At least make the rate/cost of spread of reclamation moddable please.

Edited in:

We have a battle between life and death (not good and evil).  I see the cataclysm as chaos, and our reclaiming the land as order.  Including an order-chaos battle to the life-death would be interesting.

I like the idea of governors however I dislike the idea of them being mandatory. An outpost for example I personally think wouldn't need a governor.

As with anything, the spread of this magical influence is going to be a balancing act, but if we're allowing a player's environment to be a launchpad for future cities, it has to be factored into the equation (feeling of power vs. allowing too many cities).

We're having a meeting on the subject today..I'll be bringing everyone's ideas to the table and keep ya'll posted!

I am concerned about the governing system in that it sounds very much like That in the earlier Total War games and sometimes your family just didn't grow quickly enough to fill all governing positions let alone be generals as well. May I suggest that you can recruit a governor unit that fills the position (research could be done to increase the governing level of the unit). The unit would not give the city any special bonuses like a hero would and would not take part in battles - in essence it would be a functionary dispatched to organise things. You could also consider not being allowed to level up a city that is under a governor.

No, no. I 'get' that. The problem is that there's currently nothing else to do with essence or your sovereign besides rushing cities quickly.  And nothing to do with your sovereign except building more cities in the areas restored afterward. I wonder what the problem looks like with the rest of the mechanics implemented.

You guys will be playing with the magic system by the end of the week...don't worry, the true purpose (and importance) of Essence hoarding will soon be unveiled.