I'd just stop the poulation growth in the small city until you get another settlement (either by capture or founding one).

I'd counter that with morale penalties whenever one of your cities is razed (more if you do it yourself).

Although I disagree and believe that this would work as an abstraction in a strategy game I do agree that this would not be suitable for this specific game.

I'm surprised as all strategy games have arbitrary limits on some level (be it unit or stack sizes, minimum city distance, number of unique buildings and units etc.). Without these abstractions the games would be unplayable and not fun to play.

Expecting many big cities without supporting villages and hamlets seems even more weird to me. That is the reasoning behind my suggestion in the first place. If anyone finds a nice method to achieve a more realistic (or better: interesting) distribution of city sizes without artificial limits I'd be more than happy. Prestge could achieve that if it were used as a empire wide population attractor that would keep "unattractive" settlements small.

I second that.

The quality of the tiles could cap the total population in one given region unless that city is properly integrated in a trade network, exchanging local goods for the food surpluses of more productive lands. However, if the trade network collapses (the enemy takes control of one major route), the artificially expanded town population will decrease until stabilizing at basal levels. The player could also get the "famine" event, in which he is made aware people in his realm are being forced to eat each other to survive, so to speak.

They have limits, yes, but not hard limits, which is what I meant by arbitary. For instance stack sizes: In dominions there's no limit. except you need commanders to lead troopss and they have some leadership, but this can be increased with items. The real limit on army sizes is supplies, as big armies starve, and upkeep.

There was no minimum city distance in civ I/II, which allowed the building of canals through cities and some other exploits, but that was actually fun. I think Call to Power didn't have any such limit either, and this didn't lead to exploits due to the different handling of population (free production in city square in civ).

On number of cities, call to Power gave you a penalty to each city's happiness for each city over a certain number, which depended on your government type. This provided a soft limit on cities number.

I agree that the world setting makes the presence of cities very hard to believe. Unless what we call a city is a central city plus many small farms, I don't see how the game can represent it. I'd rather have cities require many farm improvements before they can build/use non-farmer improvements than have big and small cities.

Something on the topic of cities that sprung to my mind recently while looking at the rules for the Serenity/Firefly RPG.

 

The RPG features ships at characters, with similar stats and skills as "normal" characters. I wonder if that could be applicable to a game like Elemental and its cities? It starts with a set of attributes that can be improved over time, with improvements acting like equipment.

Whenever a city grows over certain thresholds (i.e. "levels up"), the player could distribute new skill points to the city - give it more defense (the citizens are warlike folks), have higher happiness (the city is renowned for its ales and wenches), increase quality of equipment created there (the smiths are the best in the realm), etc.

Mad idea?

I'm really glad the devs are working so hard on the "city experience". It's just the sort of oft-neglected, extra-mile feature that turns a good game into an extroardinary one.

Here are my most memorable video game cities:

Ascalon (Guild Wars)

It started out looking like your typical generic happy fantasy city, but then the Searing happened and the place got blasted so hard the entire kingdom turned into a barren wasteland. Green lawns and tan cobblestones were replaced by red rock with black scorch marks and the occasional shining crystal sitting at the bottom of a crater. Even the topography changed; there were a lot of moments where I said something to the effect of, "There used to be a cave here."

Kaineng (Guild Wars)

The main port city of the game's second chapter, and the first place foreign characters see. This was an asian-themed city whose slums sprawled across half a continent. It was notable mainly for three reasons: First, except for a few upscale regions it was almost entirely drab and ugly. Brown roofs, dirty hovels, gray streets. Second, it was laid out like a maze and was extremely difficult to navigate. Third, it was the first time players encountered normal city amenities like merchants and large groups of friendly NPCs outside of non-instanced outpost areas. Overall, I hated the place.

Horteka (Skies of Arcadia)

Mostly memorable for the music, but the unusual verticality of the area was interesting and fun to run around in.

Esperanza (Skies of Arcadia)

A poverty-stricken outpost long ago abandoned by the nation that built it. The rusty metal, blood-red skies, and cheap prefab architecture really reinforce the general atmosphere of despair.

Silent Hill (Silent Hill)

It looks like a normal town at first, but the everpresent fog makes streets and open spaces very frightening and claustrophobic. There are scary things out there, and you won't see them until they're right on top of you. Then there's the Otherworld, where the walls run with blood and you suddenly find yourself in an even scarier alternate version of the town. If that's not bad enough, they made a whole series of games based on this place. This is a town with some bad history, and you just know that anyone unfortunate enough to go there is likely to come home dead or worse.

Nist Akath (Dwarf Fortress)

This is a really good example of how to get a unique and memorable city in a sandbox game. Nist Akath started as a community game in the most inhospitable location imaginable: A haunted, barren, freezing glacier atop a multi-level aquifer. People said it wouldn't even last a year. Fast-forward a few decades, and it becomes the world's strongest fortress ruled by the most powerful mortal in all existence. Everyone who goes there either dies horribly or becomes an unstoppable badass. It is the most epic epic of epicness in all epic-ry. I think the key to its memorability is the combination of a distinctive local environment, a leader with a strong personality, and the fact that events within the city have a tendency to be strange, horrifying, totally awesome, or all of the above.

 

Continuing the absurd length of this post, I really like some of the ideas in here about how to make cities in a TBS more interesting and memorable.

Dagoth's idea of having a city's architecture reflect the local environment would help in ways that are functional as well as cosmetic. There have been times in GC2 or Civ4 where I've mistaken a particular city or arrangement of planets for a completely different place on the map, and gotten very confused as a result. Making cities visually distinct would help prevent this. However, the cities should still look like they belong to the same kingdom even though they use different materials or styles. That can be tricky to do, but I think the results would be worth it.

Erik's idea of giving newly-settled cities customization options interests me greatly. It lets you make cities more unique, and the more time you spend you designing something, the more you remember and appreciate it. It's interesting from a story perspective, too. It's not unreasonable to imagine a Sovereign sending a hand-picked military expedition to fortify a strategic location, or offering good mining equipment as part of an incentive package to encourage hardy citizens to populate a resource-rich mountain town.

I wouldn't leave it all up the player, though. Later events should also affect the city, and a small amount of unpredictability keeps things interesting. A city that is frequently attacked might have lower production, as citizens spend more time fortifying their homes. They could probably offer some of the best military training in the kingdom, though...

Having the game save the names and characteristics of legendary cities/battlefields/whatever for use in later map generation would be awesome.

Goodgame also mentioned having neutral cities on the map that you could interact with. I'm imagining sending a diplomat or spy unit to a neutral city full of cutthroats and mercenaries, and negotiating some "unofficial" action against my enemies. (Or allies!) There are a lot of interesting things you can do with non-aligned cities and forces; much more than GC2 ever did with Minor Civs.

Wow, there's so much you can do here. It's almost surprising that BoogieBac was the first one to ask this sort of question before.

Thanks for this. Im on page 5 at the moment with tears of laughter in my eyes.

Well BoogieBac memorable rpg cities for me would be Gondor, Rivendell, Minas Tirith, Greyhawk(It had a castle at the top of a Mtn I think that had a never ending style of dungeons underneath it.  The Castle and city overlooked a bay and had a large harbor and port)  You could get anything(almost)there.  Greyhawk also had several successive walls around it.  Neverwinter, Sigil, Homlet(not a city but still needs to be mentioned..)The city(name eludes me, oops)from Judges Guild City State of the Invincible Overlord-It was massive and had huge successive ring walls also.,that game also used the same type of hex map types that our 2d map seems patterned after in Elemental.  I think the harbor in Melnibone, which has a labrynth in it to discourage wouldbe ursurper nations from attacking the city, was a good city planning/defense characteristic of that city.  Giving it a unique look as well as usefulness.  Even though Moria is underground and the dwarves were overrun and I still think this would be a good setting for one faction/Soverign. 

I echo KbT's request for unique and memorable names for the cities, factions, etc..Really helps with the immersive aspects of the gameplay. 

I think others have asked for unique looks between the factional cities besides just a change of the "Coat of Arms" and/or Sigils.  It would be nice if every Soverign(s) city(s) had at least a few or more! unique buildings that gave different bonuses, upgrades, troops, items, etc. and were visually/culturally different from the other cities.                         Looking to architectural features like Towers, Minirets, Portocullis, Moats, Harbors, Docks, Castles, Flying Buttress's, Statuary, Churches, Abbey's, Cathedrals, Stained Glass for one faction and no glass for another, Sewers, Privys, Blacksmiths, Stables, some faction might have windmill's and create more food for there subjects while a different faction would get a copper mine and would get bonuses in wealth; both factions could trade their extra reserves.  Copper mine Soverign buys 100 loaves of bread from Soverign with windmill for 10 copper ingots.  The Soverign who bought the loaves of bread can now feed his troops for that week(or whatever) and the Soverign who received the copper ingots can either use it convert to his coin economy through blacksmithing or use it instead to help create an item of magical power. 

We could also have a Soverign/faction which might emulate plains indians.  TP's or lodges.  Shamans, Druid worship maybe?  If TP city then can be unique mobile city.  If lodges(city would be fixed site) then maybe good bow and arrow tech with Animal Totems might be appropriate.

How about a faction/city in a setting like Edinburough where you have cliffs on one side and a Castle at the top.  I can also see a setting where a huge waterfall(like Niagra)was the backdrop. 

From C-RPGs, perhaps the most memorable city I enjoyed was Sigil from Planescape: Torment. I liked Tarant in Arcanum as well. also I liked the way Tokyo (?) was presented in Deus Ex; in fact, I liked the way most cities felt in that game, even though it wasn't truly necessary; I'll never forget the cyborg dealer you can meet in the subway saying "I'm never goin back to prison, BITCH!" in that wonderful voice acting. That felt so alive, so tangible. A city in which NPCs mill about aimlessly, in which they just seem to have invisible target rings tatooed on their foreheads, where it is obvious that they are lifeless ghosts stumbling around merely because the developers couldn't come up with a way of making a ghost town -- I felt Morrowind to be that way, soulless. (<-- saying that knowing full well that many people here love Bethesda's series.) I never played Oblivion, since I disliked Morrowind so much, and the only city I remember from that game felt lifeless, a conglomeration of dummies.

Age of Mythology has the best city creating ever. Any game with walls is good in my book. A lot of strategy games make walls and towers too weak though, they should be a viable defense option.

I'll totally second both Elder Scrolls 3 and Planescape. I remember some of those areas better then cities I've lived in in RL. Even with WoW, I sometimes feel a certain nostalgia to go back and visit. Don't know if I wanna get back into that though

And not to sound to Fan Boyish, but the big city in FF7 was pretty damn cool as well.

This made me think about ruined cities and their prospects in Elemental (with regards to this discussion). Lots of possibilities for when a new settlement is established on or near city ruins or even a recently razed city?

Just a thought.

Uniqueness doesn't necessarily need to be tied directly to the size of a city, nor does our attachment to cities only come because of how useful they are to us, but it's hard to infer an emotional bond to a city in a TBS game in the same way as an RPG.  In an RPG, characters have specific ties to cities, villages, towns in some way.  Maybe it's a character's hometown, they have family and friends there and so for them, to lose that city is a obviously a big deal.  For a TBS, losing resources is bad news, but it doesn't have the same impact as losing friends and family, because we haven't emotionally connected to that city outside of "It produces 10 gold, 8 wood and 17 stone a turn".

It seems there would be 2 basic schools of thought on how to improve our connection to each city, village or town.  One way is to specialize these towns in such a way that they are useful as more than just base resources, but also a specialized resource.  Whether it be a certain type of military unit, an economic improvement, or a specific producion bonus (Iron Wood instead of just regular ol' timber).  Or maybe one particular village, though small, creates a world renowned weapon that only specialized units of your kingdom can use... like an Uber Bow or The Sword. You lose that village, and suddenly you don't have that specialized unit, resource, diplomatic ability anymore, and your edge is gone.  Now, that still ties that village, city or town to an importance based only on resources, but it is a more critical resource that helps shape and define your overall empire, not only in strength, but in a unique way as well. Still, this doesn't necessarily make that city more emotionally important, outside of the rage and frustration of losing it, or the loss of the benefit of a special unit or resource.

The second way is honestly beyond me, how to create an emotional bond with a city beyond resources, production, diplomacy and "stats".  In many of the cases, it's the atmosphere of that small fishing village, the sound of seagulls and waves crashing against the cliffs that only add depth to the interactions of characters within that village, or the bustle and noise of thousands of people in a huge city adds a sense of scale. Quests can definitely help add depth to a city or village, maybe a mother lost her son and wants vengeance, a village is going to be overrun by some kind of monster and needs your help, or the mayor wants you to kill 10 orcs and get their pelts (just kidding, hopefully those kinds of quests will never exist). The Judge and Jury moment still sticks out as one of my all time favorite gaming moments, they way the characters were drawn, the artistry of the scene, it was just an epic moment in an epic game. It gave the impression that, wow, your decisions really do matter, and there is something going on here that is way beyond me.  Again... those are things more easily suited to an RPG story driven kind of game.

In my opinion, a great part of creating a unique city in a game, is about first creating a theme.  Take Final Fantasy VI(or III) just as an example.  Most of the cities had a specific theme running through it that added to its overall connection to the player.  Narshe was an industrial/mining town with some serious secrets, Figaro Castle was an engineering marvel that could travel under deserts, South Figaro was an Empire occupied town and it showed in the oppression of its people.  Each of these themes helped players get "into" the city itself even outside of any of the personal interactions that took place in them.  South Figaro was improved even more as you take Locke and infiltrate the town and free an Empire General, pretty epic stuff.

Anyway, I'll stop now, I think I just realized that I'm mostly rambling about things that I like in games

Just for the fun of possibilities...

Borderlands features an AI specifically built for the weapons alone.  The in-game manufacturers have different "personalities" and random guns are assembled based upon those personalities.  The result is a game which features millions upon millions of weapons that "make sense" to the game.

Now, parallel that into city building.  The races and leaders of the cities would be the personalities, and the city develops during the world creation, based upon those personalities and the resources and neighbors around them.

Yes, this is how it is typically done, anyhow, but it has always been primitive at best.  This could be enhanced greatly with talent and imagination, and it would definitely add flavor to each city you encounter.  Anyhow, it was a passing thought that could potentially apply.

I'm trying to remember which was Horteka.. The one through the vortex?

I remember Esperanza clearly.

*DEAR SEGA>>> PLEASE SKIES OF ARCADIA2

Amen. I second that. Skies of Arcadia was the best RPG I have ever played, hands down.