The cities that stand out most in my mind from RPG's are the ones from Elder Scroll's III.

I remembers pending many hours playing this game and I liked the contrast between all off the cities. Be it the grunginess of Ald'ruhn, "your" house in Balmora, the temples and intrigue of Vivec, or the vines of Sadrith Mora all where very unique and reflected the differences of the controlling nobles. I would love for Elemental to be able to convey similar differences in architectural style and feel.

I also have fond memories of, when I had more time to kill, playing WoW. The cites where well layed out for some rather scenic screenshots.

Arcanum cities:

-Tarante, with its museum and its fake two-headed cow and clever orc, the thugs waiting for you at night near the university and the train station which wouldn't let you in if you were a magic user.

-Shrouded hills with its bank robbery quests and the stupid thief at the bridge which you could get around by either helping him, talking to him or fighting.

Arcanium was a brilliant concept executed only sufficently. I can count the number of steam punk games on my hands and that is a shame. Depending on how flexable this game is for modding I think it would have great potential for a steam punk mod.

Athkatla from Baldur's Gate 2 was absolutely replete with little nooks and crannies begging to be explored. I doubt you could ever really find everything there was to find in Athkatla. I loved that city, I wished that component of the game would go on forever.

Gotta second this. Nothing like stepping off the silt strider to Balmora for the first time to see this awesome adobe style city on a river, with guards dressed in armor made of giant insect shells and molded bone. It really grew on you as time went on, it was centrally placed so even if you didn't do the main quest you often stopped there to shop, and if you did do the main quest it ended up being your primary safe house, which gave it a nice homey feeling.

The one I remember the most is probably the first city you come to in Assasins Creed, whilst standing on the mountain trail, looking down on that enourmous city, seeing people milling about, and realizing, I could go there, and do whatever I wanted.

Now, I think that what makes cities/places unique for most people, is interactivity - the ability to *change* the city, and put your mark on it.

I was actually thinking about the first CIV game last night, and how each time you progressed significantly, you got to make a sort of building, unique to your style and how you wanted it to look. I'd love something similar in elemental, the ability to redefine and make your capital unique!

Boogie! If I were a woman, or gay I would have just fallen in love with you.
Those are all amazingly well done cities in what can be argued as some of the best games ever made.

What about the Opera House in FF6?(It's been a long time but I still have a hard time using 6 when talking about it)

Man those are some good memories. I remember the day I got FF3 quite vividly in my mind, same with Crono Trigger. Those were probably two of my all time favorite games ever. FF3 was Epic beyond belief, and Crono Trigger had SOOO many endings depending on who was in your party and how you ended the game. It just doesn't get any better then that.

For more recent gaming, one city I liked was the ruined Aircraft Carrier on Fallout 3, can't remember it's name right this second. The other town I liked in Fallout 3 was the one that had the super hero and villain fighting when you got there.

Ratchett City, Raven

As for my favorite city, Sigil from Planescape Torment is far and above my favorite city.  For those of you who haven't played this cult classic, it was the successor to Baldur's Gate 1.  It won drammatic and resounding acclaim, but sold few copies.  No city in RPG history had more character than Sigil.  It was essentially the crossroads of the planes of the D&D world, with portals connecting to random places throughout the plane.  Portals are invisible until they are opened and they can be anywhere.  However, a key is required to open it which can be anything from a thought to an object.  Most of Sigil's denizens arrive there by accident and are unable to leave.  For instance, a peasant could be walking along in their native world one day, whistling a jingle in their house when a portal appears between the legs of their favorite chair (or just as likely a minor devil or archon from the Celestial or Infernal planes).  Those with power, however, use it as a gateway to the rest of the planes. 

It was built inside of giant doughnut shaped natural structure atop a nearly endless spire and is guarded by the anti-diety "The Lady of Pain."  She is as powerful as any God herself and wards away other dieties that attempt to penetrate her city.  She slays anyone who attempts to worship her.  Her minions rearrange the city on a whim and the city inhabitants can do nothing but watch lest they "fall beneath the Lady's shadow."

There have been few cities in RPG experiences that have been able to generate such a sense of simultaneous grandeur and hopelessness.  Anyone who hasn't played Planescape Torment should find it.

I agree that TES III:Morrowind has amazingly good cities.  Vivec was incredible.  The major cities in WoW are well done visually, especially Ironforge.  They needed houses though.  Those will be tough acts to follow within the context of a TBS, I think.

One key in Elemental for me will be having big cities be much, much bigger than small cities - as opposed to just bigger numbers on the screen.  No TBS I've played has ever really captured the difference very well.

Also I think if you ripped off the "wonders" concept of Civ, but actually had the wonders exist on the map that could give individual cites a lot more flavor.

I like the direction you are going with this line of thinking. Some of my favorite cities are from some really old space games. Two of my favorite games are Space Rogue and Privateer. It was always very satisfying to battle your way into these places knowing that it was the perfect place in the galaxy to sell the cargo you happened to have. Also the city was where you got to buy your ship upgrades or even a new ship! After a profitable visit to a city, it was like playing a new game from then on. Also, it was a nice peaceful diversion from the never ending chaos out in space.

However my favorite city was the colony in Space Rogue(fuzzy memories here) that had lost contact with the rest of the galaxy for some time. So I went there to check it out, hoping that maybe they would have some really cool stuff to sell or a good market for something. I get there and it looks like a normal city so I let my guard down. The thing is there aren't any people around, so I'm thinking "Aha! everyone left. Free stuff!" So I head over to what looks like the market area to stock up on supplies for free, and suddenly this creature bursts from a doorway and is coming at me at greater than normal speed! It took my brain a couple of seconds to realize that I might be in danger, and by now this thing was between me and my ship! So I ran into the city with this thing chasing me around tables and through rooms and the whole thing was pure panic before I was able loop around and hop onto my ship! Aaaaaaaagh!

I love surprises.

Sigil in planescape torment ! No city can beat it.

My favourite city memory comes from PnP.

It was a relatively generic fantasy setting and we arrived in this city only to find the center of it “old town” walled off.   At night screams echoed from the center and everyone in the town refused to talk about what was going on in there.  In fact most of them had been born there after the wall was up and they just did not know.   Well one day we decided that we should investigate.   We climbed over the wall and began spelunking but soon enough shadows peeled themselves off the walls, the howls became more intense, and a violin started to play.   We all got ideas in our heads that the others in the party where out to get us, and started fighting each other, one PC got stabbed to death in the corner by his best friend.  One of the PC's (who passed his willpower check) managed to see what was going on and convinced the other one that we needed to get out and fast, but they had to knock me unconscious and drag me out just as the howls and shadows were closing in.   We never went back and we never wanted to find out what was going on there.  It shook our characters to their cores.

Anyways.  Good time.   For game purposes, perhaps a necromancer could open a portal in a city and try to flood it with low level daemons.   They city could seal off the portal if it would like, if you do not have the magical power to deal with it, but doing so would mean that you lost the buildings that was in the zone and that you had to garrison the walls around it...or they could break free!!!  Perhaps there could be some corrupting influence as well.

Agreed, amazing setting and atmosphere.

Oh god, if you guys can make each city (or at least some cities) in Elemental feel special in some way, that would be a dream come true.  In TBS games, the only cities I feel particularly fond of are ones built in particular terrain.  Cities blocking off choke points between mountains or on an isthmus being examples.  Of course, in a game like Civ, the importance of that fades as the game goes on.

Wonders were, I suppose, an attempt to make cities unique.  In reality, though, the effect was negligible.  It would only really matter if you lost the city containing a wonder - otherwise, it wasn't particularly important which city it was in.  Perhaps with the inclusion of adventurers in Elemental, the geographic location of these unique "wonders" (I'm just assuming Elemental will have something equivalent, I don't know that of course) could have an actual gameplay significance.

I would also like to see deep specialization in cities.  Cities would evolve down different paths, spurred on by a variety of factors (some under the sovereign's control, some not).  Coastal towns may grow to be major trading centers, or they may remain small fishing villages (not every town has to evolve into a generic metropolis!).  The villagers up in the mountains may develop a fierce independent streak, and their town could be difficult to rule by any sovereign at all.

Geographic proximity to certain map features could also affect how a given town develops. Hmm, maybe have characteristics of a town be based on local geographic features (mountains, swamps, coast).  Then add an additional set of characteristics to the town based on local "special" map objects (resources, volcanoes, shards, lairs of nasty beasties).  Then take a couple more things into consideration (isolation vs. being on the crossroads of a major trade route, proximity to borders with other civilizations vs. being "interior") to add a few more characteristics.  Then there are the effects of what the sovereign chooses to build in the city (wonders and such).  Then toss in some town-based random events over the course of the game which can alter or add to the characteristics of just that town.  I think with all those additive but independent characteristics, it would create a huge number of possible cities from game to game.

Sorry, I'm just babbling at this point...