As it stands now, cities are bland. This is a discussion to make them interesting. This post will include ideas for topics to discuss. I think an all encompassing thread is needed for the subject so a unified system can be thought out. (my own ideas will appear in later posts, and it will be later today befor I have time)

Buildings:

Variety: As it currently stands, there is not a lot of variety in cities other than resources and a few with with unique structures. The simplest solution is to add more buildings, both unique and common. You should have to think about what you want to build. Ideas for new buildings please.

Building Repeat: More buildings than just houses  should be repeatable. Of course some mechanic would need to limit it, discuss.

Upgrades: It would also be good be able to upgrade the effectiveness of building and maybe even select diffrent upgrade paths.

Placement: Placement currently only matters for influence buildings (e.g. town halls). Building irrigation next to a farm should provide more production than one that is surrounded by comerce related structures. Also some improvements (wall) should not be placed, though they could still count against the building limit.

Housing: Housing as it is right now is has little meaning that I can see because usually once it levels up it can support about as much population as it took to level up even if you remove the housing. Remembering to build it is a bother, so an adjustment to how it is handled is needed.

Maintainance Cost: It has been suggested buildings should have an upkeep. But which ones and how much? And is it even a good idea?

City Types:

Beyond just increasing buildings, there should be specialized towns (not refering to the current mechanic) that are more limited in building options but can get relavent buildings at lower levels (e.g. a military base that get unit production, fortification, and equipment prerequesites at at lower levels than other towns), go up fewer levels, and might have specail rules (e.g. a military base would not collect resources, it would just be to place in an area of military importance).

Economy:

Food: Food is currently used by buildings, it should be population based (and maybe affect population growth). Then positive food lets the population to grow (rate for each city determined by other factors), no food would halt population growth, and negative food would cause it to shink.

Basic resource production: I consider the basic resources to be food, gold, and materials. All cities should be able to produce some, though only those with resource tiles would have significant production. This is needed because losing access to these will cause serious problems for you and the AI (who has trouble holding cities). Therefore the ability to always have access to some is needed. Discuss, but be sure to include methods of keeping it from encouraging city spam (e.g. make it scale with city level and require research before becoming availible) and be reasonable. 

Resource trading structures: Stardock is adding buildings that allow for a shift in production when you make too much of X and too little of Y. I would like to see ideas for more buildings.

Market System: Sins of a Solar Empire had the black market. It would be interesting to see something like that in EWoM. Anyone have thoughts on how it would be implemented?

Resource Tiles: Currently they are everything in the early game, and by the late game aquiring more does not help much. Some people also feel that you are handed too many at the start. Should they be changed? How? And what should you really start with?

City Spam:

Current comments indicate Stardock is going to use the uncreative and uninteresting route of simply making cities without resource tiles or strategic positioning worthless. I have seen many ideas that seem far more interesting and would like to see more. Alternatives to making spammed cities worthless are those that make having too many cities a burden or make founding cities harder.

Rebellions and Loyalty:

Currently you can do nothing that makes your people hate you, and captured cities are quick to get change sides. Having city loyalty / happiness might be good, though it can be argued that without a channeller, the nation cannot survive. Ideas and opinions would be appreciated. Talk related to civil wars and family members revolting and such belongs to a discussion of diplomacy and dynasties, so try to avoid it unless needed.

Civic Victory Condition:

There is a military victory (Conquest), a diplomatic victory (Diplomacy), an adventure victory (Master Quest), and magic victory (Spell of Making). Where is the civic victory? The intro mentions restoring the land to what it should be, so something related to that should be a victory condition. Ideas please.

Other:

Thought of another related topic? Post it and I will see about adding it.