Hi there, wanted to post a few thoughts/insights of mine
A) City Spam is considered undesirable by the game designers (I'm not saying I prefer it one way or the other, but since it is a stipulated game goal I want to work within that framework).
City Spam is valid because of scarcity of resources VS size of map VS cost. Cities are cheap, and the AI is very likely to acquire resource tiles without thought to any greater strategy other than to deny them to you the player.
C) My personal hangup: having to kill an AI I considered an ally because they setup 1 city within my empire. This breaks my ultimate 4X rule "Thou shalt never trust thy AI in thy territory". Coupled with the fact that I can't buy their crappy little cities with the gobs of resources I don't need.
I think it would be interesting if cities could not be founded outside of territory you currently have influence in, and that cities cost more, and capture significantly more territory. For example, if a City at level 1 cost 30 gold instead of a mere 5, and produced an influence area equal to a level 2 city or so, that would immensely slow down the city spamming. Regardless of cost though, the contiguous requirement would slow the overall usefulness of said tactic as cities and villages must be made to reach useful resources. Furthermore if tiny level 1 cities produced -food, my prosperous cities would have to feed them, and eventually I may not be able to expand until I refine food production via tech or magic.
I also feel that in general, empires shouldn't establish colonies in what seems like hundreds and hundreds of miles away. This makes eliminating the AI empires so gosh darned annoying that I tend to ignore cities and just hunt for their sovereign with my roving packs of 18-24 Umberdroths. I really don't feel like my opponents are other kingdoms (the rather lacking diplomacy system accounts for that too!)and empires, but instead are a virus, needing to be stamped out... or perhaps their sovereign is the head vampire and staking him will set all to rights.
I also want to throw out there, that since my Sovereign is this immortal magic wielding awesome dude, whose magic restores the land to be green and fluffy... that aside from making green land versus brown land, his magic allow for me to spawn resources.
Exactly why adventuring tech reveals food sources astounds me... what were my vast hordes of starving people not looking hard enough in the wasteland??? Oh look we slayed a dragon and fruit started growing out of its devine carcass isn't exactly how I pictured it.
Just some thoughts-
Thanks
The funny thing is, Elemental is meant to be sandbox... so why shouldn't a player be allowed to use whatever tactic within the game they wish? Isn't that the whole meaning of sandbox games?
My sovereign intends to create an empire/kingdom and restore the land. What, I am mean tto do this with only a handful of cities? An empire is meant to be large, and encompass many towns, villages, cities, camps, etc.
But these things (much like organize and sovereign magical armies) don't meet with 'someone's' vision of what the game is supposed to be like... which is itself at odds with the concept of sandbox.
Personally I don't agree with the anti-city-spam, as it is itself already a slippery slope - what constitutes spam? Sure, maybe 5 settlements before turn 100 may be a lot, but after turn 300?
As for the OP, on two separate occasions, I have entirely engulfed another settlement - first it was a minor settlement. This was actually good in a way: I had a protected trading treaty partner. It was like a half-gold mine I didn't need to protect or build or link. This also prevented the AI from killing the minor faction senselessly.
Realistically, Having so totally engulfed them, they probably should have been considered an ally or something.
The second time, it was an enemy settlement. My influence and other settlements had connected and engulfed a hostile town on my border... it had gotten to the point where the visible influence border had been pushed behind his fort-walls and was only barely visible.
Go figure.
But history is a bit at odds with the dev vision. Sovereigns DO take to the battlefield to lead troops, and often are the most successful for doing so. Empires and kingdoms DO establish colonies and settlements thousands of miles away - Does "America" and "the 13 original colonies" ring a bell? The "Lousiana Purchase" (and who bought what from whom?). Global imperialism is the complaint of many lesser developed countries the world over.
Gauntlet03 - I like your ideas! Logical and well thought out... Hopefully SD will take note.
I suggested something very similar to this, it would be extremely welcome. Stardock please consider this suggestion.
Thank you for the feedback.
I think what it boils down to in regards to city spam, is not that I want the devs to specifically ensure that there is no "One tactic to rule them all" so much so, that as of now;
A) Requires allot of cities to simultaneously create the numbers of units I find aesthetically pleasing/game winning.
Lack of automated systems, means that maintaining a great number of cities requires a good deal of micromanagement
(Note: Fairly Meaningless Micro Management, this is not tactical micro, but simply 'Build these 4 buildings', I have been and will always be against laundry list city development, and I really wish they would move away from this. Thankfully most games have a manager that will automate your list... maybe I'm missing it, but I haven't found one)
C) Territorial bounds are so small that controlling significant territory and keeping it relatively monster free for accessible roads requires city spam as well.
I don't think I'm against any tactic of "More cities than the other guy is good", I simply want each city to acquire much more real estate and have more meaning to me as an empire. This will cut down on management on my part, as all the buildings effects should scale appropriately and will mean less lengthy turns, which will in turn aid multiplayer and so forth.
Imagine a City, which at Level 3, had the area of 4 small cities, and had (due to barracks) 2-3 Unit training ques. The strategic importance of each city is increased, and it is easier to manage 1 city (since again, I have no automation) and 3 integrated unit ques, than 4 cities and 4 ques (which I have to find and click extra buttons for, defend, etc.). I really couldn't care less about the validity of making more cities or not as a strategy, I think it is a matter of convenience to us the players if we simply scale the ability/importance of cities.
While I like gigantic maps, I'd rather have 10 giant sprawling cities conquer that map than 50+ villages. Frankly villages could spawn in your territory when cities reach certain levels and represent nothing more than a little gildar production (unless razed by monsters/etc.).
Regardless, they could change nothing else and I'd still want contiguous cities, can't stand those little virus AI.
There are 3 relatively straightforward solutions to city spam that could/should be implemented;
1) Have a unit type that can only settle within your existing zone of influence and another that you can research much later on that allows cities external to the existing influence zone to be created
2) The further away from your nearest city the more it costs to found a new one. Something along the lines of (1/3/5/7/10/whatever: dependant on game difficulty)*tiles to nearest city*volume of existing cities.
3) A direct combination of 1+2
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