In GalCivII, I definitely engage in planet spamming (i.e. colonizing any planet I can land a transport on). However, I do have to keep an eye on those border planets, as overlapping/increasing spheres of influence can cause those planets to change allegiance if left unchecked, and thus boosting influence with influence starbases becomes very important.
While that dynamic is partially implemented in Elemental currently, I don't feel the same 'need' to build influence structures in this game. Sure, occasionally I'll build a town hall or whatever to push an outlying resource into my sphere of influence, but it just isn't the same.
Morale was a BIG deal in GalCiv II. The farther away from homeworld you were, the closer you had to watch your morale. If this dynamic were more transparent/more heavily implemented in Elemental, then outlying cities would be a bigger deal.
I've noticed since recent patches that some cities will not allow you to 'expand' them. These are usually cities that are built in the middle of nowhere (no nearby resources) or are wedged between a nearby city and blocking terrain. I don't know if this is a 'city/population' control measue, but I do see it.
Maybe if there was a new structure, similar to the Starbase in GalCivII, the frontier outpost/inn? This would take up only one square, would have to be built at least 3 squares away from a city, could not be tied into a city (eight adjacent squares are off limits to city building when they grow that big), but could be improved with influence and other bonuses (more rooms in the inn, a stage for live entertainment, stables, guard shack, etc.).
If you feel the need to represent this graphically, the outpost could build in the 12 mini squares immediately around it, but still leave the 'outside ring' of mini squares open to prevent 'linking' with cities.
Pioneers and/or Sovereigns could build outposts at a cost in materials and gold, plus a food resource, and Pioneers would NOT disband in the process. OR, maybe a caravan could build said outpost, disbanding in the process (this would NOT count against the 1 caravan per city limit once the outpost was built). A road from the outpost to the nearest city would be created in the process as well.
To make it more interesting, outposts could be built in non clear squares, with the underlying terrain affecting the initial qualities of said outpost (i.e. building in a forest adds defensive value, for instance). Also, resources would still have to be tied to cities, not outposts. OR, maybe resources COULD be tied to outposts as well as cities, as long as the outpost was immediately adjacent to said resource. This would allow you to exploit a resource that fell right between two cities, where a pioneer could otherwise NOT build due to the 5 tile limit.
It goes without saying that outposts could be taken over if successfully attacked...
Planet quality was definitely a limiting factor in GalCivII. If there was a way to better implement that in Elemental, that'd be cool.
Example: The eight squares surrounding your newly built city break down as follows: 2 'scrub/rugged desert', 2 forest, 1 rocky, 2 open, one resource. Normally, you'd have 8 squares to build city improvements on in this case, plus the resource.
But, maybe some of those other squares might be useful. Perhaps workshops can be built in forest squares, but other improvements cannot. AND, maybe building a workshop in a forest square would provide 1.1 materials instead of just 1.0. Maybe you can still build a hut in the rugged desert, but it provides a smaller population boost. Building a mining guild in the rocky square could make the mining guild more efficient.
Along these lines, building houses and huts would be more important. perhaps they would not require as much food (say .5 for a hut & 1 for a house), but when a city levels up it shouldn't automatically get a huge boost to it's population limit (that's what houses & huts are for). Now that those 'inclement' squares wouldn't be off limits, you have more room for said houses and huts. In this case, I'd recommend faster building times for said houses & huts. Also, maybe building a hut in the forest would lower it's food requirement (.25 instead of .5?), as the peasants can go hunting for game.
Quick addition/edit: Also, maybe when your city grows, you are assigned a number of houses/huts to immediately place, at no building cost, to reflect the increase in population cap.
You get the idea.
I'd suggest a 'constructor' style unit to work squares to make them more habitable/useful, but apparently this was deliberately omitted from Elemental, so it wouldn't be too much like Civilization.
City spam is more 'obvious' at the moment, because you often have to manually click on all of those cities to interact with them. This takes time, and makes it feel like you have a LOT of cities. The new city list menu is helpful, and once it's fully implemented (a la the planet list in GalCivII), you'll be able to more easily manage your cities from there. Right now, when you select a city in that menu, it closes that menu in favor of the city grid. If, once you close the city grid, the city list menu reappeared, then it wouldn't be so much of a chore to check city production.
Also, if using the city tabbing button at the bottom included cities with EITHER an open unit production cue or an open improvment building cue, instead of those with both cues empty, this would also make cities less of a chore.
The way I look at it, the more cities on the map, the more you have to conquer. I LOVE having to fight my way through 8-20 cities to finish off enemy players. It gives them more time to prepare a defense of the remaining cities, and once the AI is beefed up some more this will become a bigger issue.
