I'm with all those saying the food mechanic is the best way to address city spam. It fits the setting and the mechanic is already there with the intent to stop city spam, it just fails because level 1 cities don't cost food

• Pioneers and settlements cost 1 food
• You start with 1 food
• Caravans don't give you food - gold is a better fit and will help with gildar being the limiting resource outside of monster farming
• Nature's Bounty maybe needs to be modified/removed if too strong early with this setup
• No need to be able to grab resources outside of your influence - better to have to make tough decision as to city location

At the very least this stops city spam in the early game. It may still be a (lesser) problem later on, but that has less impact and each nation wll have had the chance to go and grab a few good spots. Any late game spam issues can be addressed once the early game is sorted

Pioneers should NOT cost food. Level 1 CITIES should have a -1 food modifier (except for your capital, which should naturally produce +1 food or whatever).

That way, if you lose a pioneer, you aren't out 1 food for the rest of the game :/

Caravans should not give food, but give gold instead.

The "Cheaper Pioneer" perk drops the food cost for level 1 cities from 1 to .5.

I have some thoughts on some of the ideas put forth and some possible fixes.

First, I agree that there are too many cities with no drawbacks, especially in a downtrodden world.  I also think that the current ZoC is just right, especially early on, and maybe a little too fast later.  It would seem odd to me to have small cities somehow controlling large swaths of land. Sure, as you gain power and research the right techs, you ought to be able to control more land with small cities, but I don't see ZoC increases as making more sense than city spamming.  It, for me, is a lore-breaking mechanic to increase ZoC very much.

My suggestions (some of which have been suggested earlier):

A unit or modified caravan that can harvest resources outside the ZoC at a decreased rate compared to building the structure within the ZoC.  Creatures should aggressively target these, particularly food.  I think it would be great if certain creatures target certain resources (like trolls might go after gold) but that's an AI issue and not crucial.  It would just add depth to the game play.

No level 1 cities besides the capital produce prestige unless (in order of game-appearance): The sovereign or a prestige generating hero is present in the city - meaning all sovereigns are at least +1 prestige, unless the player choices not to as a penalty -- people will follow sovereigns anywhere, I would think; a building is placed to generate growth; passive prestige-generating technology is researched (or some other benchmark for a base +1 prestige to kick in).  The reason for all this is that growth in a new, out-of-the-way city will be very slow, I would think.  Scary and dangerous.

Level 1 cities can only build resource structures, houses and 1 of the basic +1 structures.  This would limit the usefulness of cities in terms of resource generation unless well-placed and also encourage city specialization.

Each city generates a build cost.  It could be a -1 to the food total, which might severally limit expansion early on.  Or it could be a gildar cost per turn in a form such as x*(n-1), where n is the number of cities and x is some multiplier.  That way the capital is free,  and if x=1, the second city has a cost of 1 gildar/turn, the third has a cost of 2 (bringing the total cost to 3), the fourth a cost of 3 (6 total), etc.  That would also limit early expansion especially because not all new cities will get a +1 gildar unless that's the only thing they get.

I think also tying the level of unit training to city type might be something worth thinking about, assuming the tech has been researched.;  So the first two training tiers would be available level 1, then next at level 2, the final at level 3+.  That would reduce the effectiveness of troops coming from small, undeveloped areas where you're less likely to have master trainers, but I'm not sold on that idea.  Just something that would reduce the desire for level 1 troop-producing towns.  However, the lack of population growth discussed above would also have the same impact initially.

Finally, perhaps increasing the 5 tile nearness limit to something more like 7 or 10.

I think it is obvious. Spamming cities is bad because it may be the best way to win the game but the purpose of any game is to be fun. Having to manage 20 cities - own and captured from the AI (and you cannot raise them coz the AI will rebuild them ASAP) takes away all the fun. Not to mention there is no warnings when enemy/brigands/monsters enter you teritorry so you will have to disable the "auto end of turn" feature and manually check each of the cities each turn. Or just put every research on "war", spam 2 squads of militia and wipe the map.  

This is the best reason against city spam I have read so far. Having too many cities starts to take the fun away...longer turns. Imagine a 4v4 multiplayer game where everyone has to wait for the city spammer because it takes him 20 mins to manage his numerous cities.

I'd do something like :

- All production buildings move up one rank in city level. Meaning all those buildings require a city rank 1 to be made

- Initial town starts at level 2 with some kind of Palace structure that acts as an house that uses no food.

- No more food production out of thin air. Food production buffs improve an existing resource tile only.

That way, you can make as many "outposts" as you want. An outpost is a level 1 city that produces no resources by itself but can house troops, maybe produce more of them and can be used to link existing resource tiles.

Drawbacks : since food is SO important, your first city will always be build on top of such a source and such, it means your first capital city will always end-up specialized as a food production town.

Regarding increasing influence / zone of control, I don't pretend this will solve the issue of too many cities. People who still want to spam them for economic reasons still can and will. It may solve one subset of city spam though, i.e. little outposts purely to make one's border's coherent, to fill in the gaps in the wilderness.

It's occured to me that it's also a scaling issue. I typically play large maps and on those you can often have large wilderness areas between resource node clusters. In this case, I definitely feel the need to spam cities just to fill in the gaps so I can run caravans and only need strong defenses on my outer borders. On large maps then, I'd definitely like to see larger city influence rings / zones of control. However, the current rate of influence spread seems pretty balanced for medium maps, while you could probably make the argument that it spreads too quickly / is too large on small maps. Is there any reason this scaling couldn't happen automatically in game set up, when people pick their map size?

Again, I don't think this will solve city spam, but it's a legitimate balance issue in its own right and it seems like it would be a pretty quick / easy change for them to make.

As for making level 1 cities all over the place undesirable, that will be a more complicated problem to solve. It seems to me the key is some sort of maintenance mechanic, however they want to implement it. This is a harsh world where people struggle for survival. A level 1 city should be a net drain on resources (except for your first city) and need support from more established cities to survive. 

To me, that sounds like the need for a defensive building, like a fort or something that can fill a defensive role. I think the "defensive" use of cities is born out of a lack of any other building that can house troops and block areas.

Yea I'm not a big fan of the "Lore" but in a sandbox game this LORE should not get in the way of playing the game. I like the ZOC and would not want it slowed down at all.

I've thought about this a little, and if I was a modder I'd probably try and design this system (if it was possible) just to see how it plays out, but ... here was my rough idea:

• You can only build on land that is "reclaimed"  (In my mind, reclaimed land looks more lively than it does now.  Either by making the unclaimed land look even MORE dead, or the reclaimed land more bright and obviously alive -- think of how Disciples3 had obvious differences in terrain elements depending on which kingdom was in control of the lands)

• Your Sovereign can start the process by building the first settlement (and the ZOC grows around it and reclaims land).  You can then only build new things within that ZOC. (The Sov are, after all, the only ones with the power to make the world nice again.)

• ZOC would have to grow rather quickly, and probably reach further, instead of the current system - resources would have to have a set distance they added bonuses to the city, or like now, have diminishing returns (balanced of course) so one city nations aren't really all that feasible. --- Think, like the Civ4 Culture system, resources are useful close to the city .. but the cultural borders will expand beyond that.

• Perhaps if your Sovereign is stationed in a city and channeled power in some way, the ZOC of that city grows faster?  That would force a trade off between using your Sov to fight, or staying in town/defending town to push ZOC faster.  If the Sov-push effect was per-city, it'd also have you running around, deciding which city's ZOC you want to boost, making a spamming mechanic harder and adding at least some level of strategy to how ZOC work beyond "spam it".  If channeler children pushed ZOC or not would depend on balance issues. --Again, think Civ4 ... the Sov can boost the cultural border to expand faster, like certain Wonders in Civ4.  Your Sov is a walking wonder, after all.

• Pioneers do not create new pockets of ZOC (no more running around spamming cities).  New cities must be build within the reclaimed ZOC.

• Shards can be made important in this system.  Maybe they spread their own ZOC when tapped, or boost the speed your Sov's ZOC expands.  Maybe they can only be tapped by your Sov (it has to stand there and channel at them for a while, or fight strong guardian monsters utilizing the quest mechanics) and it'll start reclaiming area around it for your kingdom.

• I'd like to see the shards influence the world even just cosmetically.  When tapped they should expand their influence to the area around them.  Fire shards turn a few tiles around them into desert ... water would spawn swamp ... earth would grow hilly or something, or forest ... having them even just remotely alter the landscape and make it instantly more "vibrant" and colorful around them gives them a "wow" factor.

That, to me, makes the lore fit (Sov is very important to fixing the world again) and instead of city spam, you'd have a more gradual domino effect ... as first city ZOC grows, you place further cities to grab resources and push their ZOC, expanding your bubble outward.  No more random pioneer "plops" all over the map to eat up space as fast as possible to deny the AI resources and remove monster spawns.

It also makes the mini-factions more important, since they come with a built city and ZOC.  Capturing them gives you a new map area to expand from (if there was a way added to increase the ZOC from their outposts ... or maybe just by utilizing the Sov-push method above).  They'd probably have to be beefed up to avoid people rushing them to expand faster, but that is another gameplay balance issue that is up in the air.

Taking over the big AI factions is also more important, as absorbing their ZOC gives you more to work with.  <-- This also helps explain why enemy ZOC, cities, etc .. just "vanish" if their Sov dies.  Without a Sovereign to keep the ZOC bubble going, the world collapses back in on itself and everything/everyone winks out of existence.  By taking over their cities and ZOC you are basically protecting the resources/cities/people from inevitable nonexistence when you banish their Sovereign from the world.

All the sudden .. lore fits better .. game is less "crank out pioneers" and more "I'm pushing back the darkness and remaking the world in my image".

It'd have to balance well for game speed to be fun at all levels ... you wouldn't want to force players to sit in town for 10 turns doing nothing while the ZOC expands, for example, but it could be less exploitful' than the current system.

Just want to quickly comment on this point:

I have been successful in implementing and testing a "Balanced Starting Point" mod that spawns a tech library, stone pit, and goldmine at the starting location for all factions using a mod of the existing "Iron mine" ability for sovereigns and adding this trait to all sovereigns. Thus, every faction now starts will all the things it needs (although some still gets luckier than others and get two, lol),

The reason I don't like the inflation mechanic is that it set a hard limit to the number of cities you should own. So if you go over x amount of cities, you'll start razing everything, even if it was a nice lv5.

Perhaps cities cost a combination of gildar, material, and food to build, maintain, and upgrade (money to pay, materials to build, food to feed). But also, if you are lacking in a certain resource for a city, the city will convert resources into the other needed resources at a loss (2 to 1 or worse), first from local than from global resources (at an even greater loss).

For instance, I build a new level 1 city. It needs, per turn, -1 food, -1 material, -3 gildar, or whatever the case may be (pulling numbers out of thin air to illustrate the concept). As it is a new city, it doesn't have any resources linked to it. So it must draw from my global income at a loss. So to pay off that -1 food, I need +4 food. To pay off that -1 material, I need +4 material. To pay off that -3 gildar, I need +12 gildar.  So building the city costs me, initially, -4 food, -4 material, and -12 gildar. Per turn.

It's built near an Old Growth Forest, grabs it, and links it for +2 material per turn. The city is now making a positive growth on material (+2 from Old Growth, -1 from city maintenance). So I jump from from -4 material a turn to +1. However, I'm still at a loss for food and gildar. As I have a positive income from a local resource (the Old Growth Forest), that +1 material gets converted into food or gildar with any left over being taken out of the global pool. So the city now requires +0 material, say -3 food ( converting from the extra material and global), -12 gildar. Per turn.

Many turns later and through other mechanics, the city is now producing - locally - many goods. For now, we'll assume it's still level 1 and just happens to be really really lucky with resources. Say it produces +4 food, +2 materials, +15 gildar. It's net production that it contributes to the global pool is +3 food (4 less 1 for maintenance), +1 material,

In this set up, things like Lost Libraries, Scenic Views, and so forth would be considered resources that can be converted for maintenance. Consider this like tourism money or research patents.

The key point in this method is that resources are liquid. You don't -need- a certain resource but you're encouraged to find them. Overly aggressive expansionism is tempered by the fact that if you have too many undeveloped cities, they're hurting your entire economy but they're also not even getting you a benefit. This also benefits efficient cities since a high level city can more readily overcome it's cost while also allowing for expansion. And, if you happen to end up with an high excess of a certain resource (say you found a lot of old growth forests), you don't have all this stuff that you will never be able to fully use. It still helps - you can use it to pay off per-turn costs as well as sell off excess for lump sum trade payments.