Relative prestige determines how fast your towns fill up.

When you start getting wars going, having a net prestige of 1 (meaning 1 new citizen per turn) is going to be quite problematic.

Improvements that provide "jobs" in the generic sense are what tend to provide prestige. Part of the underlying game is about fighting for a very finite # of people.  

Moreover, if there are nearby enemy cities that have much higher prestige, you can see your cities losing out to them as people move to those cities.

That is not what is commonly meant by "global".

What you want is a trading system where resources flow from source to destination. What they're talking about with "global" is a what is commonly used in RTS games where you have "vespene gas" in the corner of your screen and watch it go up over time as it harvests and then down when you build units.

I just realized it is kind of ironic that we just got rid of the various mana bars created by shards to replace them with various global resources.

Except if you are a Master Necromancer. In that case, being the absolute ennemy of all that lives actually make sense on a strategic PoV, and you aren't doing it only for the Evillzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I like the idea of Global Food as mentionned by Frogboy earlier, but I have different opinions on different ideas. I personally disagree with the idea of diminishing food percentage farther you are from the city that produces it. The main reason for my disgreement is that if my caravan is able to take 500kgs of wheat from city X to city Y which is 10 tiles away, than that caravan should be able to take that same amount of food to city Z which is 10 more tiles away, although it would take more time. But the time I'm refering to here is only a factor at the beginning of the trade. When you first connect your two cities, it should take X turns (Based on the distance the city is away from the production center) before the city is able to use the newly generated food. After that time is elapsed, it should be implied that caravans are sent at good intervals so the city always has access to the food generated from the production center. With this method, the idea of a "Food Network" that was presented earlier works pretty good. The food from a given production center should ONLY be accessible by cities which are connected to it by trails/routes of some kind. And depending on the "level" of roads you are using, the time to first access the ressource could be changed. With a trail it takes X days and with a paved road it takes X/2 days.

Like I said, I love the idea of Global Food is nice, but it is extremely unrealistic without some kind of network between cities. That way the food used for housing is imported only from other cities to which you have had a connection with for a certain number of days. Which is pretty realistic IMHO.

More on the main subject now, I really liked the idea of Outlaw about the population's mood to be more and more evil towards you if you do not build enough housing to host the citizens of a given city. Frogboy, you did not talk much about it in your previous posts that solutionned a lot of issues and it would be nice to have your opinion on that, if possible.

I would love to see some kind of distribution system where even though there are 'global' resources, things like distance and terrain effect how cities recieve resources. Which of course is upgradeable through research and investing money into it.

You'd do well to take a lesson from Master of Magic and make things simple like just applying % portion of the population to farming or production and growth based on certain buildings being built throughout the game. Of course there would be a base growth rate based on where the city was settled just like in MOM.

MOM has been great for all these years for a simple reason. K.I.S.S. Keep it simple stupid. The game doesn't need all that micromanagement for HOUSING. The game should put more emphasis on building upgrades for better units and building huge armies for battle. I play games for the wargame in them not playing dollHOUSES with them.

More like when two choices give nearly the same result choose the simpler one.

That might be true [complexity/heavy micro is not an acceptable option for the "masses", but we have talked about this already], but we are different you know. Thankfully everyone will have their fun with this game. Hardcore/complex TC mods will be made.

The first thing I notice about 1Z is that I could build a workshop right away, but it took advanced research to build houses and farms.  "Hmmm," I thought, "now what is the blacksmith going to eat, and where is his family going to sleep?" 

It feels wrong in 1Z.  We are in an apocalyptic landscape.  First order of business is survival, no rushing the unlock of a marketplace for more gold.  We need to start with farms and houses.  Either place them early in the tech tree, or give them to us at the start of the game.

I'm okay with the suggestion of the original post where houses are automatically built on the periphery of the town.  But it just seems wierd, and somewhat immersion-breaking, that orchards and houses rank on the tech tree at about the same level as things like tax collectors.

I agree with this methodology.  It is akin to heroes of Might and Magic upgrading the town centre to get more money (no population in Heros, but money is the end result for elemental)  In heroes, there was a limit on the  number of the biggest towns/cities/capital's  you had.  In Elemental, this restriction is based on food, and as Cauldyth states, using town centres/town halls etc as upgrading from village to town, town to city, will give you control over where your population resides.

This solution is also more understandable and easier to learn than the zoning system in my opinion.  Also, it seems to keep in the theme of Elemental by building town centres/City Halls, rather than zoning.

It is close. Your very first option(s) are "Workshop", "Garden", "Watch Tower".

The building the SOV placed for his 5 Essence is the "center" of the village. From there we require "Materials" thus a Workshop works logically. Since we know Food is BIG, we Tech Farms right away and while waiting for that we accumulate enough "Materials" for "Huts" etc. etc.

What I think is sort of out of place on the Tree is the Lumber Mill. That to me is the source of the "Materials" to be used by the "Workshop", which of course comes with stock, but it should not hold enough for anyone to Ignore the "Lumber Mill" Tech pretty much without early consequence.

So the very early buildings and Tech are not bad but as I noted above, I would force the "Lumber Mill", which a Pioneer (currently) cannot harvest (the Dev have a reason for that I assume) to be required before Houses can be research or built. (a choice thing really)

Then we have something resembling a Start up Logic in place and the rest can follow in almost any order, based on ones need or plan (Magic, Stone, Crystals, Scenic Views or Gold) by selecting ones desired path through the Tech Tree.

SOV starts up, gardens to feed, "Workshop" (with limited supplies) Watch Tower, to see better with, ( a waste right now really, imo) the Farms, Huts, Lumber and then "Run out of bubble Gum"

I second that motion. I was once on of them brainless 12 year old and I can tell you I would have done my chores and cleaned my room, and done my homework ten fold had I known it would get me a game like Elemental. One does not need to be "brains" ( I use that term loosely) to like Elemental, imagination however that I think is a requirement to have fun with elemental.

Also (I may be wrong on this) but for what I read I thought Elemental plans to make tactical battles that can be either turn base or real time (hack and slash where one can take control of ones favorite unit/hero as an avatar and fight the battle like in Diablo or Baldurs Gate. I also read that this game is/will be available in 64 bit so that would allow for some 3D action to satisfy the more hack and slash oriented player(huge armies and 3D action). When I play NeverWinter Nights ( I LOVE that game) one of the things I hate is having to spend so much time actually walking around to get to the encounters/battles. I wish I could just do what Elemental has put in place and play that game as a PnP table top cloth and only deal with the actual 3D avatar action if I have an encounter should it be fight or RPing or Quest or Town etc.