A perk-based system for towns (as in, something a little more flexible than what we had in WoM) would be fantastic. Just think of all the things that could be done with it! I'd prefer a system in which I select the perk at level-up rather than something completely random. It, uh... doesn't 'seem' like it would be a huge amount of work to link city level-ups to the trait/perk/whatever selection that champions get.

On the other hand, I prefer the taxation system in FE (sight unseen) to anything GalCiv-related. Just my opinion, of course.

Just a couple examples, because I have the boredom only comes with being 28 years old and having a 4-week Christmas break.

Harvest Festival:

In the years after the cataclysm, obtaining regular sources of food became a primary concern. The Harvest Festivals that have become an annual tradition in [City] provide a degree of comfort to the population as to your ability to lead them, as well as providing a forum through which the farmers of the town may exchange ideas.

City recieves 20% fewer dissidents and tiles worked by the city provide +1 food.

Rarity: Rare.

Military Culture:

In the face of daily adversity, the peoples of [what the hell is the name of the game world, anyway?] cope in many ways... despair, addiction, and violence. However, in [City name] an ardent military vigor has taken hold of the population. Youth are trained from adolescence in the art of reconnaisance and to endure hardship that will serve them well during subsequent military service.

City gets +2 to Sight radius and all units trained recieve +20% hitpoints.
The growth rate and trade rate in the city are both reduced by 20%.

Requires: Barracks. Rarity: Very rare.

Oh, no kidding? Hopefully they allow modders to add city traits in after release.

Word, thanks for the info guys.

Town perks sounds like a fun idea to me.

However, there's also a possibility of the game becoming hard to follow if everything can have perks and traits. Hard to say before beta whether the game would benefit from more town customization stuff over the level-up thing or not.

For example Fall From Heaven 2 felt like it almost had too many unique stuff to understand how the game played. It was enough work just keeping up with your own civilization's and units' traits, and very difficult to remember what kind of bonuses the AI had. Sometimes less indeed is more. But I like the idea of town perks, regardless.