[Gameplay][Cities] Spreading Out to Avoid the 'Blob'

The problem with this is that we can then build huge cities that can block of big sections of land too easy.

I think city building just needs to be made simpler. I won't be playing elemental for a city building game. I will play dawn of discovery for that. I didn't play galciv for it planetary building. I played it for strategy. Devs need to ask themselves what purpose does city building serve? At this point I would be completely happy to see city building completely removed and replaced with simple forts the sovereign could make. Small forts where his recruited champions and quest npcs could have safe harbor, by and sell items, resupply with food, defend themselves from surrounding enemies, etc. Then slowly branch out into city building but with choice involved.

Or there could be two types of cities. A Capital City and then smaller outlying towns. Capital cities could be huge but the rest would have population caps, farming caps which depend on their location. The capital city would be the first city you make and all outlying towns would be made from there.

Either way there are a number of creative solutions and the current city building isn't

Or have max set of farms that can be placed lets say 3. And then each time you build a farm beyond the 3 you have to build it on top of an already existing farm but by doing so it levels it up, they gain better equipment or workers, or whatever. Same with homes. Maybe the home gets a second story, etc. Or combine some similar material producing buildings into one. And just replace them with the the building upgrading. Instead of a whole new building perhaps small doo-dad architecture could represent a new building. Such as a spell academy for spell research. In which a spell whirly-gig would be attached in the courtyard of an already existing building like a town hall or palace.

Right now towns can eventually take up so much space that they can create a wall off or choke point. Which could be strategic. But seriously I think towns should just be represented by simple yet elegant looking tiles that change and grow. One town hall, a couple farms, a couple houses, one market, you get the idea.  

But it begs to ask the question. If every town needs a market - why do we have to build it? Same with a town hall.  Shouldn't the town dynamically make it? Or to build a town the first thing you build is a Town Hall - not a farm or some other building. And in front of the Town Hall courtyard is the market. So you town at the begining your town is producing gold and prestige. And depending how successful your sovereign is - the town grows. The market gets busier with npc activity,etc and starts producing more gold.

If every player will need to tech economics why not make it automatic at the begining. When you build a town you also discover economic tech, or other basic techs.

When it comes to city building once again it isn't even strategic. What if there was an grid overlay that you could bring up prior to building a city to see what the ground tiles could produce. Maybe this particular area would only support 2 farms? Or 3 farms with 1 epic farm? Or 3 farms, 1 epic farm, and a honey bee farm! Therefore city placement would change according where you placed it. 

I think the devs didn't want to do this like civ because they wanted to give the player the ability to do what they wanted anywhere. But by doing so there are no caps or limits or choice in city building.

Simpler?  The game is simple enough as it is!  Sure it needs balancing and refining, but dumbing-down the system is never the way to go.

Homes do upgrade, and I see no reason the limit the number of buildings you can build in a city.

The space problem can be solved in different ways, such as allowing people to walk through cities greater than size 3, unless they meet a minimum size military police force to patrol the city.

But every town doesn't need a market, or town hall, which one you build first has strategic repercussions.  Why take away options?  The one thing that I think should develop on its own is housing.  Currently, housing serves no strategic role.  Huts, and later, slums and houses should pop up on their own, depending on pretiesge for city growth, and food for empire growth, and eventually upgrade themselves with high enough prestiege, and food.

What I said about buildings applies to techs, even if you need to get them all, what order you get them in should make a difference.

And there are caps, depending on the size of your city.

Honestly, I think citybuilding is great, and it would be a shame to lose it.

I like city-building, but I hope the devs can add more decisions to it.  As I mentioned in your other thread, I'd like to see "zoning" -- that is, I'd like to see the location of buildings matter.  As is, you can place most things pretty much anywhere.  

In addition, I'd like a clearer sense that there are tradeoffs.  Maybe there are already, but they're not clear to me.  E.g., by building an archery thingie, I forego the opportunity to build something else, or at least limit my options further.

The problem isn't so much that city building needs to be dumbed down - it's that city building needs to be done in a way that makes it worthwhile. A lot of people have commented on having a number of gardens and houses in their cities, which makes cities mostly those structures - and having little option for anything else, you are restricted. I think that something needs to be done so that houses are not just there, but actually have a purpose - and that gardens aren't absolutely REQUIRED to have a city.

One thing that comes to mind for me is to have fertility naturally come into the land when you restore the land. This makes the current fertile tiles less required for a city. If you build a farm on a 'naturally fertile' tile, you would gain a boost to food production. Building it on tiles that aren't 'naturally fertile' could do nothing, or incur a penalty. This allows you to build a city based around where it is located, and not force you to build on locations that have a nice combination of tiles.

If weather comes into play (being near a coast gives you naturally moist and rich soil, for example) then it would be possible to raise mountains around certain areas to increase their moisture, and thus their fertility. Alpha Centauri did this, and with terraforming you could turn a barren location into one that was perfect for nutrients and, indeed, for a farm-state.

There is a difference between simpler and dumbing down. Your missing the nuance. There needs to be more purpose and decision making. I don't see much right now.