I would like to revisit a idea i had ways back.

City blueprints.

When you create a new city a menu opens and gives you a selection of
city blueprints to choose from, basic examples would be;

Warhold
(A city that give strong bonus to defence, area wide defence and to creation of troops)

Tradehub
(A large open city, low on defence but has high income and population.)

Arcane Tower
(A tower city, small, with good arcane defences and the ability to attack at range with spells)

Research Enclave
(A small underground enclave, hard to detect by enemy, high defence.)

(Other possibilities would be, Flying Citadels, Mountaintop Holds, Cliff Settelments, and I am
sure more brainstorming would unlock untold possibilities.)

Each of these city types would have a distict look and feel, giving
bonuses largely to its main purpose and future level up buildings
would also reflect this.

Each city blueprint will have strict limitations to how many
buildings you can build and their placement, thus removing the
snake cities the game has now. This opens up a whole new dimension
when it comes to visual outlook and gameplay.

New blueprints could come from research, quest or loot and each
faction should have their own special line of prints.

Also forts could have the same system. Forts would also be able to create
walls between them, so one could create chokeholds where it would be natural
to do so.

This is perhaps a radical idea and im sure it will require alot of work
to pull off, but its my suggestion to make cities and factions more exiting
and diverse.

So what do you think ?