So, I was thinking about cities. Almost universally, they are useful for one thing - resources. The production and distribution of resources. Not just in Elemental, but in any number of games. Take planets in GalCiv, cities in Age of Wonders, Total War, Alpha Centauri, and other games, and they are useful for the sake of resources.

Then I began to think about some books that I've read. Almost universally, cities in books are not just for the sake of resources. Yes, some do indeed manage resources (a mine city, for example) but mostly you'll focus on the nitty-gritty of cities. Political intrigue, inter-house warfare, nobles having conflict...essentially, cities in novels are living, breathing things. Much as they are in real life.

Thus, I make a suggestion - I'd like to see some more things being done in cities to make them more than just resource management facilities. One idea that I had was the use of limited, randomly generated minor factions.

Noble Houses

As the Sovereign, you can decide to cater to the wealthy nobles of your civilization. Each city will have a number of noble houses, which vary from city to city, mostly based on location - your capital city, being where the decision-making Sovereign dwells, will have more noble families than some outpost somewhere.

• Noble families are randomly generated, and essentially just sit there most of the time, squabbling amongst themselves.
• Each family will have their own opinion on how things should be done - they'll be able of forming a sort of council for the Sovereign. Each family, thus, will offer advice and opinions every so often. It's also a fairly natural way of doing messages about your empire/kingdom.
• Some families will be friends, others enemies. Each will sometimes offer quests and request favors. Quests are straightforward, but favors represent a possible short-term sacrifice for a long-term investment. Some favors could be, for example, to spare some units with high defense for a family's protection. You lose some good units, but the family's opinion of you will rise. Enemy families will look at your support, and their opinion will fall.
• High relations with a noble family will yield a benefit. Maybe one family has a measure of influence in the markets - you get a bonus to gold income from that. Another may own a number of businesses, giving a boost to materials produced by that city.
• Low relations with a noble family will make that family dislike you, possibly even hate you. Sometimes, they may simply offer you bad or late information. They will offer quests less frequently, eventually not at all, and they will not give you advice on matters. If a noble house absolutely hates you, they may end up helping enemies of your faction in exchange for money. (Likewise, nobles that hate another faction may help you for a monetary donation or a promise of favors)
• Another feature of noble houses is the ability, with at least a moderate level of happiness, to request the nobles to yield a champion adventurer. If the fame (level) of the champion rises, then the happiness of the house and allied houses will steadily rise as well. Death of the champion will cause a severe drop in happiness.
• You can request nobles to act in your stead, as if they were governors. By selecting a house you can offer governorship (new word?) of a city somewhere in your empire to that family. If the family likes you, not only will they take the job (leaving your city to go to the new one after X turns) but they will do a better job at managing the city for you. If the family does not like you, they'll either outright refuse or get a boost to their happiness.
• Having problems finding a nice wife/husband? Marry a nobleman instead, making that family VERY happy (while making the others not-so-happy)

If you decide to play the games of politics, there are potential gains, and potential losses. You can net boni for your city in terms of production, possibly have governors for your outlying cities (should governance be implemented), have the ability to recruit new champions, etc. But for each noble family you cater to, who knows what the others are doing?