That would have to only affect creating settlements yourself though, otherwise it'd totally cripple conquest style players because they'd have to keep up with the city count research in order to conquer anything.

I personally think a Settler Unit made out of either a small proportion of the City's population or a small amount of *free* population with an appropriate gold cost would be the most reasonable.

Then, the population of the Settler Unit would become the starting population of the settlement. Now, due to prestige, if this is an extensive amount of population (due to gaming or whatever) then that excess population would likely migrate to other cities anyways, so there would only be the incentive of using low-population settlers.

I suppose you could make a settler start with a certain resource cost (a custom settler?) where you "prebuild" buildings along with the settler, up to the amount allowed by the first ring of buildings. In this case, you can use your productive city to "create" a preset hamlet to plop somewhere else. Such an investment might allow a less risky requisition of sizable population into the Settler (yet still a pittance compared to the City's total population). This could be a more expensive, more viable option for settler building in the late-game where much of the land has been somewhat urbanized, or to reclaim lost land, ect. Not sure if *this* would have an unbalancing effect however.

I suppose the simple answer is that, beyond the first city (or two) I propose that Settlers be used (wether pop or gold cost) to create new settlements. I suppose, however, that Channelers could still construct all the cities if he wanted too?? Settlers built in Cities would cost population (unless its decided to be a gold cost), and Cities founded by the Sovereign would cost a certain amount of gold cost, as well as possibly some access to Wood and/or Stone.

Still - settler cost does not alleviate City Spamming in any appreciable way, other than perhaps early-early rexing. Settler cost is appropriate, and might help avoid *some* problems, however in the long run it does not handle city spam, or the "Boring City" dillema found in Civ and Total War. True ways to stop city spam rely in Food Scarcity, Food transport, and Population distribution via Prestige (migration).

Outlaw, I think your solution is searching for a problem, just complete the "New City" research and you're now ABLE to build another city.  No need to worry about anything other than that.

That would be a player choice : If you go deep in the military tree ... and have a little level in civilization, then you'll have to ... conquer. Isn't it logic for a "military" faction ? They get new cities through conquest.

Hmmm, Im not sure if I like that. Feels too confining for the players, and makes it feel like its funneling players into a single predictable path to play the game.

With 'new city' techs the player gets to decide when to focus on cities, and when they can put all their energy into that effort. But I agree, making all their research obsolete if they conquer a new city isn't good or elegant. So, instead of worrying about who is conquering what, simply base the cost into researching a new city on the number of current cities you control. Its basically the same effect, but with no risk of making your research obsolete.

The problem is already there, --> city spam. I just want to come up with the best way to limit its as much as possible. Increasingly expensive "new city" techs would go much farther in doing that than simply a single base price for the tech, imo. But you had to deal with city conquest, and the addition of new cities through that manner... but I feel my new suggestion above makes that a non-issue now.

I imagine the "outposts" would be the things used to extract resources and such.  If small settlements are really desired, essence might be used for that as well.

I like the idea that the land needs to be aligned to you to access a resource.

I like the idea to be able to expend essence to heal/twist the land without building a city (maybe only mana or a VERY small essence cost. Another possibility would be to be able to "direct" to some extent the healing effect of your city. Default is to spread in all directions, but maybe you could will it to focus in one direction at the cost of not expanding in other directions...

I am also interested to see what other uses there are to essence, I think this is going to be the BIG deterrent to city spam.

edit: I also think that being behind "city walls" needs to provide a pretty hefty defensive bonus. There needs to be motivation to get those resources inside of walled territory, and not just within "the sphere of influence".

Because by capturing, you are still gaining more cities. The whole idea is the more cities you have the harder it is to research the next new city tech. This not only limits city spam, but late game 'mop up' snore fests.

Yay for hordes of 1 HP civilians equipped with 2 attack and 2 defense!!! Inspired by a Hero.

Really this is a re-visitation of the Dynamic Population-City defense mechanism. Such inspired citizens would be as effective as the utility of average equipment.

Say there is 60 units of leather available per turn, and 30 units available for steel. Either all citizens have leather, or 60% have leather. OR average the numbers, say hardened leather is 2 and 2, while basic steel is 5 and 5, then the citizens would all be 3 and 3. Either way, all citizens would have 1 HP with the occasional 2 HP person.

It's a matter of different specialties and choices.  Under the right circumstances, one hero might be able to raise an effective army of peasants cheaply and quickly.  But on the other hand, with a long lead time and a big city and plenty of money and resources, presumably any sovereign will have options for raising a dangerous army like those hypothetical veterans.  Sure, if you can have your cake and eat it too, with a hero AND a high-quality army, that's better -- but it's not as easy.  You spent money and resources on the Circlet of Inspiration, or on armored levies.  You had a limited amount of money and resources.  The guy who gets both is winning economically -- more productive cities, expenses under control, whatever -- and it makes sense that he could produce a superior force.  It no more demonstrates that heroes leading peasants are worthless every time than the hero and his peasants being beaten by a much larger hero/peasant army would.  Two dragons might easily kill five archers, but that doesn't mean five archers aren't a useful early garrison, or that you shouldn't bother getting five archers because your opponent will just respond with two dragons.

Variable ease of acquisition, variable utility.

Now that I think about it, if your able to raise a peasant army, with good terrain tactics/ect, you might have a chance to at least give the Invaders more losses than they would otherwise recieve.

Still, no matter what you are being invaded with, having a peasant army hastily recruited would be better than no army at all.

Consider this. Lets assume that all the Weapons you make are 7 attack, and all Armors you make are 10 defense. So you have limited troops because it takes a long time to train for those weapons, or something, or your focused on CHampions and Quests. Or magic. Lets assume you are focused on Champions/Quests. Your city might have 3 Uber-CHampions. THen lets say your Military Heavy opponent invades with an army of 2,000 troops of 10 HP, 5 attack, and 5 defense.

You then have about 10,000 peasants you can equip with 1 HP, 7 Attack, and 10 Defense. (out of an 80,000 pop city)

On pure numbers, its 20,000 HP, 5 attack, 5 defense, vs 10,000 HP, 7 attack, 10 defense. Who will win? Using Pure numbers, the veteran army will obviously win, but using those 3 Uber CHampions, plus Terrain Tactics, City Defense tactics, as well as other useful abilities on the tactical map, you *might* be able to pull a Win or a Draw.

Don't Underestimate Peasant armies just because of their 1 HP. Of course ... that raises the question of how they got so many weapons in the first place ... but this is all hypothetical. (the *reason* for excess weapons was that the Nation's Training times seemed VERY expensive compared to equipment costs ... meaning their Armory Industry was probably rather high)