Why do so many city builders end up feeling like city-states instead of nations?
One thing I've noticed is that many city builders eventually let a single city produce almost everything it needs. It works well for city management, but it doesn't quite capture the feeling of running an entire nation.
When I started designing my game, I wanted every city to depend on others. My first step was distributing resources across the map so no city could be completely self-sufficient. That immediately created another problem: cities became little more than pins on a strategic map, similar to Civilization.
My solution was to split the game into two layers.
On the nation map, you decide where cities are founded based on geography and available resources. Each city then generates its own buildable map, where you design residential districts, industries, and the road layout.
This way, city placement becomes a strategic decision because geography determines what a city can produce, while each city still feels like a real place that you plan and optimize rather than an abstract marker on the map.
I'm curious what strategy fans think about this approach. Does a two-layer system sound like a good compromise between nation-scale planning and detailed city building, or would you prefer everything to happen on a single map?