Well, in general both worlds have their really important cities which their own personality (building style, races, ocupations, leadership style,...), and then lots of "generic fantasy towns".

This reminded me of Dark Sun, not many cities, but each one was pretty different

So here's something important: name things!

The names of mountains, forests etc on the map is great. Why not do the same for cities?

If you have an order of paladins in the city, they need a randomly generated name (Order of the [Pious Sounding Object e.g. Sacred Heart, Divine Rose, etc.]). If you build an inn, it needs a unique name. Yes, for every inn!

Name roads. Name blacksmiths? Name districts?  There is a lot of scope here for generating memorable cities simply by making sure you have a good long list of memorable names.

That last bit couldn't be more crucial to forming a good city atmosphere. It reminds me most of cities described in the Silmarillion and Lord of The Rings. The cities need to form histories, they need to become a part of the land and it's people.

Artificial size limits in cities doesn't sound fun (and realistic? ). Cities being limited by placement and resources, that sounds better.

From all I remember, all population growth is only based on Prestige (aka people coming from the wilds to join you), which by itself seems a bad idea to me.

I0d prefer that during the first X turns (where X is not 10 in roman numbers...) population is solely based on Prestige but after those turns, people coming from the wilds decreases slowly to 0. During those same turns, population can continue to increase in two other ways:

1. Prestige affects people from nearby cities to make them leave their original cities for the one with higher prestige in the area.
2. Baby boom. It's impossible to have infinite population waiting in the wilds (at least sounds silly) so in somepoint, you are going to need to start the reproduction machine.

Goods like food are a critical element and things like Prestige, salubrity or security (just to mention some) have a serious influence too. I always liked the system in Lords of the Realms with crops, cows and sheeps, as well as the inmigration details.

They have limits, yes, but not hard limits, which is what I meant by arbitary. For instance stack sizes: In dominions there's no limit. except you need commanders to lead troopss and they have some leadership, but this can be increased with items. The real limit on army sizes is supplies, as big armies starve, and upkeep.

There was no minimum city distance in civ I/II, which allowed the building of canals through cities and some other exploits, but that was actually fun. I think Call to Power didn't have any such limit either, and this didn't lead to exploits due to the different handling of population (free production in city square in civ).

On number of cities, call to Power gave you a penalty to each city's happiness for each city over a certain number, which depended on your government type. This provided a soft limit on cities number.

I agree that the world setting makes the presence of cities very hard to believe. Unless what we call a city is a central city plus many small farms, I don't see how the game can represent it. I'd rather have cities require many farm improvements before they can build/use non-farmer improvements than have big and small cities.

I'm really glad the devs are working so hard on the "city experience". It's just the sort of oft-neglected, extra-mile feature that turns a good game into an extroardinary one.

Here are my most memorable video game cities:

Ascalon (Guild Wars)

It started out looking like your typical generic happy fantasy city, but then the Searing happened and the place got blasted so hard the entire kingdom turned into a barren wasteland. Green lawns and tan cobblestones were replaced by red rock with black scorch marks and the occasional shining crystal sitting at the bottom of a crater. Even the topography changed; there were a lot of moments where I said something to the effect of, "There used to be a cave here."

Kaineng (Guild Wars)

The main port city of the game's second chapter, and the first place foreign characters see. This was an asian-themed city whose slums sprawled across half a continent. It was notable mainly for three reasons: First, except for a few upscale regions it was almost entirely drab and ugly. Brown roofs, dirty hovels, gray streets. Second, it was laid out like a maze and was extremely difficult to navigate. Third, it was the first time players encountered normal city amenities like merchants and large groups of friendly NPCs outside of non-instanced outpost areas. Overall, I hated the place.

Horteka (Skies of Arcadia)

Mostly memorable for the music, but the unusual verticality of the area was interesting and fun to run around in.

Esperanza (Skies of Arcadia)

A poverty-stricken outpost long ago abandoned by the nation that built it. The rusty metal, blood-red skies, and cheap prefab architecture really reinforce the general atmosphere of despair.

Silent Hill (Silent Hill)

It looks like a normal town at first, but the everpresent fog makes streets and open spaces very frightening and claustrophobic. There are scary things out there, and you won't see them until they're right on top of you. Then there's the Otherworld, where the walls run with blood and you suddenly find yourself in an even scarier alternate version of the town. If that's not bad enough, they made a whole series of games based on this place. This is a town with some bad history, and you just know that anyone unfortunate enough to go there is likely to come home dead or worse.

Nist Akath (Dwarf Fortress)

This is a really good example of how to get a unique and memorable city in a sandbox game. Nist Akath started as a community game in the most inhospitable location imaginable: A haunted, barren, freezing glacier atop a multi-level aquifer. People said it wouldn't even last a year. Fast-forward a few decades, and it becomes the world's strongest fortress ruled by the most powerful mortal in all existence. Everyone who goes there either dies horribly or becomes an unstoppable badass. It is the most epic epic of epicness in all epic-ry. I think the key to its memorability is the combination of a distinctive local environment, a leader with a strong personality, and the fact that events within the city have a tendency to be strange, horrifying, totally awesome, or all of the above.

Continuing the absurd length of this post, I really like some of the ideas in here about how to make cities in a TBS more interesting and memorable.

Dagoth's idea of having a city's architecture reflect the local environment would help in ways that are functional as well as cosmetic. There have been times in GC2 or Civ4 where I've mistaken a particular city or arrangement of planets for a completely different place on the map, and gotten very confused as a result. Making cities visually distinct would help prevent this. However, the cities should still look like they belong to the same kingdom even though they use different materials or styles. That can be tricky to do, but I think the results would be worth it.

Erik's idea of giving newly-settled cities customization options interests me greatly. It lets you make cities more unique, and the more time you spend you designing something, the more you remember and appreciate it. It's interesting from a story perspective, too. It's not unreasonable to imagine a Sovereign sending a hand-picked military expedition to fortify a strategic location, or offering good mining equipment as part of an incentive package to encourage hardy citizens to populate a resource-rich mountain town.

I wouldn't leave it all up the player, though. Later events should also affect the city, and a small amount of unpredictability keeps things interesting. A city that is frequently attacked might have lower production, as citizens spend more time fortifying their homes. They could probably offer some of the best military training in the kingdom, though...

Having the game save the names and characteristics of legendary cities/battlefields/whatever for use in later map generation would be awesome.

Goodgame also mentioned having neutral cities on the map that you could interact with. I'm imagining sending a diplomat or spy unit to a neutral city full of cutthroats and mercenaries, and negotiating some "unofficial" action against my enemies. (Or allies!) There are a lot of interesting things you can do with non-aligned cities and forces; much more than GC2 ever did with Minor Civs.

Wow, there's so much you can do here. It's almost surprising that BoogieBac was the first one to ask this sort of question before.

Well BoogieBac memorable rpg cities for me would be Gondor, Rivendell, Minas Tirith, Greyhawk(It had a castle at the top of a Mtn I think that had a never ending style of dungeons underneath it.  The Castle and city overlooked a bay and had a large harbor and port)  You could get anything(almost)there.  Greyhawk also had several successive walls around it.  Neverwinter, Sigil, Homlet(not a city but still needs to be mentioned..)The city(name eludes me, oops)from Judges Guild City State of the Invincible Overlord-It was massive and had huge successive ring walls also.,that game also used the same type of hex map types that our 2d map seems patterned after in Elemental.  I think the harbor in Melnibone, which has a labrynth in it to discourage wouldbe ursurper nations from attacking the city, was a good city planning/defense characteristic of that city.  Giving it a unique look as well as usefulness.  Even though Moria is underground and the dwarves were overrun and I still think this would be a good setting for one faction/Soverign. 

I echo KbT's request for unique and memorable names for the cities, factions, etc..Really helps with the immersive aspects of the gameplay. 

I think others have asked for unique looks between the factional cities besides just a change of the "Coat of Arms" and/or Sigils.  It would be nice if every Soverign(s) city(s) had at least a few or more! unique buildings that gave different bonuses, upgrades, troops, items, etc. and were visually/culturally different from the other cities.                         Looking to architectural features like Towers, Minirets, Portocullis, Moats, Harbors, Docks, Castles, Flying Buttress's, Statuary, Churches, Abbey's, Cathedrals, Stained Glass for one faction and no glass for another, Sewers, Privys, Blacksmiths, Stables, some faction might have windmill's and create more food for there subjects while a different faction would get a copper mine and would get bonuses in wealth; both factions could trade their extra reserves.  Copper mine Soverign buys 100 loaves of bread from Soverign with windmill for 10 copper ingots.  The Soverign who bought the loaves of bread can now feed his troops for that week(or whatever) and the Soverign who received the copper ingots can either use it convert to his coin economy through blacksmithing or use it instead to help create an item of magical power. 

We could also have a Soverign/faction which might emulate plains indians.  TP's or lodges.  Shamans, Druid worship maybe?  If TP city then can be unique mobile city.  If lodges(city would be fixed site) then maybe good bow and arrow tech with Animal Totems might be appropriate.

How about a faction/city in a setting like Edinburough where you have cliffs on one side and a Castle at the top.  I can also see a setting where a huge waterfall(like Niagra)was the backdrop. 

Age of Mythology has the best city creating ever. Any game with walls is good in my book. A lot of strategy games make walls and towers too weak though, they should be a viable defense option.

This made me think about ruined cities and their prospects in Elemental (with regards to this discussion). Lots of possibilities for when a new settlement is established on or near city ruins or even a recently razed city?

Just a thought.

Just for the fun of possibilities...

Borderlands features an AI specifically built for the weapons alone.  The in-game manufacturers have different "personalities" and random guns are assembled based upon those personalities.  The result is a game which features millions upon millions of weapons that "make sense" to the game.

Now, parallel that into city building.  The races and leaders of the cities would be the personalities, and the city develops during the world creation, based upon those personalities and the resources and neighbors around them.

Yes, this is how it is typically done, anyhow, but it has always been primitive at best.  This could be enhanced greatly with talent and imagination, and it would definitely add flavor to each city you encounter.  Anyhow, it was a passing thought that could potentially apply.

Amen. I second that. Skies of Arcadia was the best RPG I have ever played, hands down.