On. Now add a link/button to the tile editor and let us design our own buildings for our factions please . Also, I notice on the world map I can't zoom in so close as to see my peasants anymore. I miss that. Seeing people walk the streets of my cities was nice.

There's a togle in the options for that bro. It's the "snap back" one. Un-check it and you have your free cam back, you just can't zoom in quite as far as before. I'm sure that's easily changeable in XML though. Still, not having tried to change it yet I wonder if when I do and I zoom in closer are my wandering peasants still there in my cities?

I preferred the city zoom because it makes it a lot easier to see where you're placing buildings. It will probably also help to draw attention to the fact that you have to actual position the building which could be confusing to new players.

I don't mind either way but I like to have it on.

Just played around with it. Am not a fan. It seems to jerk you out of your normal play experience to much, almost like a cut scene every time you want to build.  I have no problem with the option being included though especially if we manage to make building placement mean something.

i agree with seansw3. i prefer on, just for placement purposes. i second the "scroll at edges" vote.

Personally I'd prefer to see it all go away and just have the game place the city. Let players who want to customize the layout be able to turn it on and such but the default would be to just have no grid or anything but just place the improvement in the queue.

I like choosing building placement. I wouldn't have thought so, but I do. 

As others have said, it would add interest if placement was gameplay governed versus purely aesthetic. Lumbermills in forests, quarries on hills, peat harvesting at swamps etc. Each of those yielding generic Material. For Food there's hunting lodge in forests, gator ponds at swamps, fisherman's wharf along rivers and coast. This may also help with city specialization if there are more building options than any given city could build/afford.

If not for the core game, then mods? 

I've been using off in my latest game & while it is more pleasing visually, it's just to darn hard to place improvements where you want them, even zoomed in.

Elements of the city title get in the way and view angle distorts.

I never use it and find placing building an unnecessary feature. I second Brad's idea to make placements automatically and leave the option to place building in for the people who really want it.

Nooooooo. That's a horrid idea, I'm sorry but I don't agree. I see taking it out as taking away a whole level of detail from the game. For those of us who like it, it's there. For those who don't, it doesn't matter and you can put a building anywhere without consequence because it really doesn't matter what building is next to which.

I do agree of course that any abuse or bugs in it should be fixed, but scrapping the concept is really uncalled for when so many people enjoy it. Why do you think so many people want the Dynasty System back? Because it was another layer of detail, of depth, that made the game fun (to those who enjoyed it).

FE is really Elemental with OOMPH. A new UI, better presentation, better combat mechanics, better just about everything that's present in the game. Now what it needs is to have that same "FE Treatment/Upgrade" applied to the City Building system and the Dynasty System and then we'll have what I think most of us would consider a complete package, combining much of the original intent of Elemental with the awesomeness that is FE.