City that can't level up

City stuck at level 1, despite having positive prestige and enough housing

from Elemental Forums

Anyone ever found a city that can't level up? I just recently captured another player's capital city at level 1. Now that I have it, when I mouse over it's population bar, it says "this city has reached it's maximum level." It has 40 citizens and won't increase, despite earning 1 prestige per turn, and on the city management screen, it says "This city will level up when it reaches 0 citizens." Is this a bug or some city quirk I don't know about?

elemental
1,587 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

happened to me. The city kept increasing in population but not influence or leveling up.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

if these cities belonged to a minor faction.. these can never level up... however they often have special npc units  you can recruit if they are aligned to you faction.. for example ogres for empire...

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

These are probably what are called 'minor civilizations'.  They only get one city with (from what I've seen) one or more special creature resources around them.  They don't expand their city or try to found new ones.  Generally the sovereign for the civ will be standing outside right next to the city.  In theory the only benefit of conquering these is to give you access to that creature resource.  However, I noted in my last game that both of the minor civs I conquered the city produced +1 Crystal without any special buildings or resources, so they may be worth not razing and rebuilding if you need the crystal.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Ah, thanks for clearing that up.  Definitely a minor civilization.  I only captured the city because it was right next to a gold mine, a forest, and some horses.  Unfortunately, its area of influence doesn't quite reach, but I don't want to raze it because it's giving me one crystal per turn, and I've never actually seen a crystal resource on the map yet.  I managed to increase its influence radius after I built a town hall (I think that's the building, anyway), but it hasn't increased in a long while since then.  What exactly determines influence spread anyway?