Well, if i didnt know it beforehand, I would be quite confused by the fact that riverside cities have different names. I would assume some other difference than just the name as well (except the proximity of water, ofc).

Regarding the metropolis - the origin of the word doesnt matter, does it? Current meaning is what is important. Wiki: "A metropolis  is a big city, in most cases with over half a million inhabitants in the city proper,..." Grand city really sounds... strange. Never heard of it (though I am not native speaker...).

And township - seems quite ambiguous - wiki again: "The word township is used to refer to different kinds of settlements in different countries..."

Township and Grand City? Sounds weird imo...

Hehe, I'm just weird I guess.

That should be nice thing on elemental. you probably will be able to mod that in

I'm not a fan of "Metropolis" myself, either, but I don't see anything wrong with "Town" at all. And arguably, "Grand City" sounds even worse than "Metropolis".

Just a quick opening question. Why are cities only limited to level 5? I think that's a bit arbitrary.

Next here is a list of some possible names in no particular order

• Settlement
• Outpost
• Community
• Hamlet
• Village
• Small Town
• Town
• Township
• City
• Grand City
• Metropolis

I figure these names could help better open up discussion on different names and their order since some don't like Metropolis it seems. Also I didn't include names like Port because they simply further describe the city but give no reference to it's size. For example you could have a Port Town or a Port City. Plus I think it would just confuse things having cities named differently based on their locations. Besides it applies more what is in the city then the city it self. As you could have a city near the water that you never build a harbor in.

As for my suggestion there is easily enough good city names there to go up to level 7.

With Metropolis I always think Superman and modern, neon-light cities despite it's ancient origins. I'd prefer-

4. Minor/lesser city

5. Major/greater city

Not be difficult but, I get to name my Kingdom, then I name my SOV, then I name every City(Outpost) I place. From that point forward, I look at the Name I provided, check stats to determine the # of peasants I need to attract to get to the Next Level.

What true importance does some arbitrary name, given to a Cities current level, have to do with anything. The City already has a name. Whether John'sVille is an Outpost, Village, Town etc is unimportant. I know it as John'sVille and anyone who would come to live there, or just wanders by, would be told it to be John'sVille.

Where "on the map" does it say that John'sVille is a Village? 

  Not a fan of metropolis either.  Yes were nitpicky it appears.  I agree with John_Hughes for the most part and this small detail can be fixed/altered later and is not a part of debuggin atm.  Even if its only something you will see or read about in the manual. 

  Currently(just for giggles) I name my world Oerth.  The first city created is Greyhawk and the faction that I use are The Men of Blackmoor.  I just love being able to zoom in an out of the old rpg style map with the names of the cities sticking out.

  Something else to possibly borrow from the old days?  How about City-States and (from PyroMancer2k list) Hamlets.  I like your idea Sir_Linque on naming some cities that have a port or dock to have "Port of Lisbon" , "Longbeach Harbor", or "Pirates Cove". 

I'm almost inclined to go back a different path:

1. Outpost

2. Hamlet

3. Village

4. Town

5. City

I am not liking Metropolis either.

This sounds good.

Cool Frogboy, that sounds better than what I proposed. I just didn't like metropolis to be honest. The other points came as an afterthought, didn't matter that much.

The reason I originally thought about changing Town was that I (as a non-native English speaker) have some difficulty seeing the difference between Village and Town. To me, Township sounds distinctly bigger than either of those two, but smaller than a City. But I do agree that it might sound a bit out of place.

Actually on the contrary. This is the exact time when gameplay terms should be looked at. As more and more content is brought in, it'll be harder and harder to change fundamental terms. For example considering the documentation for the game, since you most probably write some of it parallel to developing, you might have to rewrite parts of it if you decide to change the names of some gameplay terms too far into the game.

Balancing is something you should always leave for the final stages of development. Names of different terms in game are something you and should always keep relatively up to date. At least that's how I roll.

That's exactly what I thought when I read the OP.

And I've been advocating this attitude for quite a while. I'm not clinging to hope, but it would be very nice to see as little modern/tech/gamespeak language in the UI as possible.

Elaborate on this GW Swicord please?  I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, toss me some hypotheticals.

While

1. Outpost

2. Hamlet

3. Village

4. Town

5. City

is fine/okay ... I think I would prefer

1. Outpost

2. Village

3. Town

4. City

5. Large City

I mean, I also dislike Metropolis on a banal level, however I can't see a size 4 as still being "merely a town." To me, a size 3 is a prosperous town, and then size 4 grows into a city, and then size 5 is truly Urbanized.

Maybe 5 could be Urban city? Just something where size 4 is rural city, minor city, or "city" while size 5 is larger city, urban city, Urbanized, ect.

Maybe even having size 4 being considered a Borough? (with 5 being city).

Well to start with, "Research Technology" vexes me immersion-wise. The word technology reeks of the modern scientific world view, which I quite enjoy in real life but hoped to see left out of this particular fantasy setting. Then there are phrases like "reach the next level" in the city report that could easily be replaced with a phrase that didn't push the 5-stage game rules for pop site sizes bluntly in one's face ("The CurrentStageName of X needs Y population to become a NextStageName.").

My twitch here probably boils down to my conviction that language shapes thought and the devs would naturally build a more immersive game if they tried to think like an Elemental sovereign and not a programmer who loves tons of computer games. Still, it looks like text literacy is fast becoming a hobby for weird people so maybe it's wildly misguided of me to think that many players might think UI text should be as carefully crafted as graphics or underlying functionality.

  Sir_Linque, thought maybe it was just a name convention thing that could be edited by replacing the word in the text editor and that all the game links to that word would be synthesized.

  GWSwicord-"I'm not clinging to hope, but it would be very nice to see as little modern/tech/gamespeak language in the UI as possible."

  I agree with that sentiment completely.

"Still, it looks like text literacy is fast becoming a hobby for weird people so maybe it's wildly misguided of me to think that many players might think UI text should be as carefully crafted as graphics or underlying functionality."

  But I don't know anyone who isn't weird.

I like what the Boss likes. But I need to know where to look to see these designations?

When I hear Metropolis I always get a flash of the city being defended by Superman

Meh, I guess its better than most alternatives. I suppose its better to consider Level 4s as a "really nice town", while level 5 is "wow super awesome, its so urban, bread and circus ... yea, only THAT can be considered a city" type of deal.

In this way "Villages" would be level 3, and would have a decent amount of civilization in them, turning into a "real" settlement, as opposed to something rural or backwater (would be the first sign of urbanization). Where Houses and Towny stuff are unlocked. Then Towns could be "really nice towns" with city-type stuff. And then City would be the endless urban sprawl that is the epitome of what you would consider a city to be.

In my opinion 'City' sounds pretty massive for a medieval settlement, so I think it's quite alright for the top level name. If I have understood correct, settlements aren't supposed to be as massive in their scope as in Civilization for example, so it's nice for the names not get out of hand.

The only other choice would be to have some sort of an adjective before 'City' if you ask me. Grand City didn't get much support but there are other choices. How about Royal City?

1. Linqus Outpost
2. Village of Linqus
3. Town of Linqus
4. City of Linqus
5. Royal City of Linqus

vs

1. Linqus Outpost
2. Linqus Hamlet
3. Village of Linqus
4. Town of Linqus
5. City of Linqus

To be honest, I do kind of like the first version better. Of course then there's always

• Towering City
• Major City
• Proud City
• Large City
• Prestigious City
• Famed City