You are right about it being there to prevent city spam. If they let you do that there would be no limit to cities. You could have as many as you liked as long as the other ones have stopped growing. A very bad thing. 

I really think this needs be changed in some way. Cities that can't grow anymore should not get a full share of your prestige pool. I understand that to let them use zero prestige would cause a balance issue, but to always allow every city an equal share is silly to me.

I know that that's the point. I just don't think players should be penalized when their cities can't grow. It makes cities with high grain far FAR superior to cities with low grain and high materials.

If you have a ton of cities, your prestige is spread, and because high grain only helps once you're at the cap, it's going to take a long time to get there because your growth is slow. High grain does exactly nothing until then. Even with prestige it still takes awhile to reach higher levels.

High materials are very useful immediately, both for building early game armies, and for rapidly developing a city to its current size cap.

Again, that's the whole point of the prestige mechanic - you're not being penalized when it can't grow, you're being penalized for choosing to build the extra city.

Removing the penalty or softening it would remove the point of the mechanic in the first place - whether it's a good mechanic or not is up for debate (I'm fine with it, it's a simple and elegant way to differentiate between large or small empires), but it's not a bug.

The prestige bonus is _huge_ compared to the growth buildings that are available early (and even mid) game. An inn or pub gives +0.5 per turn, you can be giving many more times that rate if you have just a few cities.

I still suspect that a sprawling empire is superior, but it does make sense to develop a few large cities early in the game, because many cities early can't support the double whammy of troop support and building maintenence costs without going into the red. Whether a few (or 'fewer') cities is viable on larger maps is another issue entirely.

I started to write up a reply, but I realized it's a bit out of scope for this thread. Rather than polluting it, here you go: https://forums.elementalgame.com/415744

Did you try finding grain nearby and using an outpost to funnel it to your city? That is how I usually handle this. I like the prestige system the way it is. Materials are less useful for a capital than grain. But for any other city you have the option to make it a producer city and move on to another area to build a level 5 city. 

Maybe instead of wasting the prestige it could be used to get more diplomatic capital (or anything else that helps diplomatic relations, after all... that's "Prestige !")

I suppose I think of it differently. I always play with the mindset that a great leader needs to use the resources given efficiently. If you can't build level 5 cities due to lack of grain, then build several smaller cities that can reach level 3 or 4. The player needs to be adapting to his or her surroundings.  You don't need level 5 cities. It is only one path to victory. 

The problem I see is that there are not enough improvements that balance the small but many strategy. You get a good bonus to gold and you get about equal troop training (something I have been testing that seems very well designed). You get less research and can't have any of the level 5 citylevelup improvements. I think there needs to be some common citylevelup improvements that favor a bit of sprawl. Percent per population favors large cities. +X to cities favors smaller but many. The Market (+3 Gildar) is a great example of this.

I would say a good balancing mechanic would be to change some citylevelup improvements to percent and other to +X. That way the player is left to decide what kind of empire he or she needs to build according to the strategic situation. Then, adding a few rare +X improvements, being in the range of +2-5 of any resource, will give one or two of those small cities a huge payoff. 

You will never probably match an AI with lots of grain that is turtling and teching up the trees, but you will be able to expand and box them in, forcing treaties and blitzkrieging your way to victory. 

No... I don't think I overthink this game.