Wealth

as long as it does not modify research (research should be seperate from gold/economy imo), then I am fine with a wealth score.

As far as options when taking a city go ... Occupy, Sack n Capture, Exterminate and Capture, Pillage and Leave, and Raze.

Pillage and Leave, or Sack n Capture, would increase coffers (and wealth) the most, while Exterminate (n capture) and Raze would add Dread/Notoriousness/Evil-ness to your general, army, or nation as a whole, and would serve as a negative modifier for friendly nations, but a fear/respect feature, where people would become less likely to declare war against you (unless on some religious holy mission)

I like the wealth idea.  A prosperous city generates more taxes, research, fame &tc than a poor one, and an empire made of several prosperous cities certainly would be at an advantage against an impoverished one.

Yeah, I would like to see some other factor involved with city strength other than population number.  Wealth opens up some other interesting city varieties too.  Think of a desert, oasis city between two merchant empires.  It may not have a an exceptionally high population, but would have very high wealth.

a wealth score would be  nice.    Its more  of managing your in  vs. out  like in supreme commander and a few  (and I mean few, so it would almost be unique) other titles.   However we've already reached the "economy  beta"  which suggests that we've got the basic outline for the economy already, rather than just a possible "place holder" economy structure.   So I feel changes from a "you have XXX gold" to a wealth 'stat' that is influenced by a number  of  factors to be very unlikely and likely unproductive.

Not necessarily. A wealth score wouldn't be a major overhaul of the system, really. Personally I like the idea of trade and certain buildings, for example, modifying the gold/population of a given settlement. Although I suppose whether these things modified gold/population or just added additional income would have about the same effect. But I guess my point is: I would like to see certain types of buildings and trade increase income.

I'm still hoping for trade to be meaningful in this game, but it's seeming less and less likely...

which kind of trade? I hope trade routes for Gold Caravans and Luxury Caravans (for more commerce) to be a viable option for interaction with Foreign cities (such could be done within empire, but to a much lesser effect) .... Probably just increasing "gold" and probably DIPLOMACY techs will grant better Foreign Trade caravans, ect.

Right this is what I'm thinking, especially on the trade issue.  On the topic of wealth, I was primarily petitioning for not only what the empire has and is gaining in taxes, but also the wealth of the people which is being taxed.  I think this could have some vivid effects in regard to making trade relevant.  I mean, it was okay in Galactic Civs that you had trade routes, but those trade routes didn't actually do anything beyond give you some extra cash.  I think trade in certain resources might especially be interesting, but you'd have to keep it relatively simple, otherwise it would become too much management. 

What might work is if a kingdom has a certain "commodity strength" score on the diplomacy screen which represents the total sum of special goods that your kingdom expoits.  This would be accompanied by an "effective commodity strength" which is posted next to the portrait of each kingdom's leader: this represents the bulk of goods that you have that another kingdom actually needs.  For instance, you might exploit a "Diamond Mine" which gives your civilization, amongst other things, 100 commodity strength toward Kingdoms without Diamonds.  A "Run of Wild Game" might give your civilization 20 commodity strength (exotic pelts) toward such kingdoms too.  If you sit on these commodities, wealth will grow slowly from them, but if you open up trade with the right Kingdom, wealth grows much, much faster (and that wealth subsequently is added to tax revenues).  When trade has been established, your total strength will likely fall across the board as the supply of certain goods are exhausted.  If you have a high commodity strength with Kingdom B and they have a high score with you, you develop a very lucrative trading arrangement but a lot of your commodity strength is used up because you are meeting a lot of each other's product demand.  Also, you can never trade with a player more than the lowest of either player's effective commodity strengths (for instance if you simply don't have any more diamonds to trade for their pelts.)  

If you don't want to use up all of your trading strength with a given opponent, you can always set standards by which only a certain amount of your strength can be exhausted.

I think that buildings to modify gold and research income is probably all that is needed, any extra "wealth" mechanic might be interesting, realistic, and possibly fun ... but I just can't seem to wrap my head around a concept of intangible wealth which gives hidden bonuses which is "interesting, and possibly fun."

I do agree that plundering an enemy city should gain you a temporary influx of gold and science proportional to the City Size ... and perhaps gain Research Points towards a random tech that the enemy city owns.

This of course is assuming you decide to "plunder" or "sack" the city, as opposed to occupying it or exterminating the populace. Either extreme would give less plunder ... with occupying giving the least plunder (extermination maybe 30-50% of possible plunder by sacking it)

And of course, with the options of Sacking and Extermination, (neither of which destroys the city, only a spell could do that :D) I think we should be given the option to Leave the city to the wilds/barbs/rebels after we sack most of the wealth or exterminate most of the population. That way a Horde-esque army like Huns (or mongols) could simply go from city to city, sacking, until they grow tired and settle down ... could open up nice possibilities for Nomad nations that could get modded in ... moving as a fleet of people as opposed to settling down into cities (having their own nomad society).

I think trade-based wealth and/or prestige would be an incredible addition, especially if it is done on a per-city basis. It'd open up a whole new potential focus for cities, and it would go a huge way towards making location important. For example, if there's relatively barren area of land (no resources to speak of, not particularly defensible, etc) - there is pretty much no reason anyone would ever build a city there. As it stands resources and perhaps defensibility are the only factors that affect city placement decisions. However, if you notice that there's lots of trade passing through this barren region, perhaps you will want to start a city there - it's contribution to your nation would be trade-based wealth and prestige. Trading hubs, both in reality and fiction, have always tended to be some of the wealthiest and most thriving cities, despite a dearth of actual resources of its own. It's importance is solely due to its convenient central location, where people from all around can meet in a single location to carry out all their trading; or even as just a stop along a longer trade route. Most of the major ancient cities in the Middle East and Asia Minor, for example, existed almost solely because of trade.

It's something that's realistic and, IMO, would be extremely fun!

I was particularly pleased with how Empire: Total War, handled provincial economics, as a closed loop system with some knowledge hidden from the player. (Reference)

Having played some Empire with the latest patch, I think the system is working as intended. It enables the player to stay focused on battles and warfare while keeping to a few basic economic rules to govern most of their "domestic" actions.

Whether such a system would be useful for Elemental, I'm not sure, but take a look at that and see if it's along the track you were thinking of.  I have a couple of thoughts on how such a system could be adapted from a provincial to a city centric system, but that's not too important.