City Legacies: A set of mini-achievements with an occasional competitive streak that add more character to cities and more importance to the starting cities.
Divided into 2 sets: Competitive and Normal.
Competitive are for the city that is best at something, and can be taken away by another city that beats it by a comfortable margin.
Normal ones are harder to get, but effective for anyone, with no penalties based on how many times its been achieved.
Examples:
Competitives -
Trade Hub - First to reach a certain level of trade, perhaps 3 or 5 caravans worth, not fully sure on how trade is measured. Gives a 20% bonus to trade, as it becomes known throughout the world as the best place to go for trading.
Stronghold - Best defended city in the world. Morale decrease when enemies attack any of your cities, as your reputation for defence preceeds you. Perhaps also a bonus to percieved military strength in diplomatic affairs.
Most Populated (Cant think of a better title yet) - Most people living in a city. Minor bonuses to prestige and recruitment. Perhaps also a minor population boost in cities linked by road.
Mystically Charged - Most enchanted, bonus to spell point production and maybe mana recharge within its influence.
Normals -
Recruitment hub - Recruit 25-50-100 units, +5-10-15% to recruitment speed. Maybe rate by unit strength to stop people churning out crappy peasants.
Bastion - Withstood a mighty siege where over 250 combat rating worth of enemies attempted to take the city and failed. Morale/defence bonus to defenders, as they know the city can withstand "anything".
Mystic Focal Point - With 2 or more shards present and built upon, the forces of magic are strong in the area. Bonus to spell point production and maybe mana recharge within its influence.
Efficient Naval Port - Has both a lumber camp and a shipyard, making ship building easier. 10% bonus to ship building speed
These would add a bit more character and value to individual cities, and hopefully help represent the history the games in progress. The competitive ones should mostly be claimed by the earlier starting cities mostly, and as such increase their value, as long as they can hang onto the title. The normal ones should crop up over time, but should remain harder to get.
These would add a bit more to cities without being more complicated to new users on the surface. I especially like the idea of having hidden bonuses for combining special buildings that work together well, like the lumber camp/shipyard example, as itll help players pick special locations for certain tasks they wish done in their kingdom/empire.