Ideas needed for very high Fantasy city

In my work in progress there exists an ancient city made by the living gods that rule there. This city lies in a nation that partly fills in the role that china filled in to the people of medieval and renaissance europe. In other words it is a fairly unknown and mysterious place with a radically different culture and ideology than the nation my story is mostly set in. Its culture however is only vaguely china inspired and is instead more a mixture of various cultures.
What i want to ask is for ideas to make its capital city, which is the political, religious, economic and geographical centre (basically like rome to its empire), more magical and fantastic.

Thanks in advance.

 

To both Heliotrope and Fifthview

I suppose i should have given you guys some more information so here we go.

1 What powers and abilities do they have?
There are 12 gods who combined are powerful enough to manipulate numerous things in the world. There is a god with dominion over agriculture who can bring good harvests to the entire nation in times of need, there is a god of pre life who guides the souls to their new bodies, there is a god for afterlife who guides souls from their past bodies to pocket universes created by these gods and so on. They are powerful enough to severely manipulate the existing world but are not the ones who created it and can only change the world at the expense of significant energy used.

2 What types of personalities?
They were all mortal wizards or created by mortal wizards and have only been gods for a few Thousand years so they still have human emotions and desire to please their followers.

3 What are their politics, the types of conflict and cooperation among them?
Amongst themselves they are mostly amiable except for one god who is the corrupted god who rules over the undead and destruction of society. He is their common rival but they see his presence more as the necessary evil to their supposed good.

4 What sort of economy exists in this city?
As the centre of the nation and the bridge between the western and eastern world this city mostly relies on trade. Besides this resources from all over the kingdom are brought here (they have a king who is appointed by the gods)

5 What sort of artistic endeavors, culture, etc.?
About what you'd expect from the capital of a major empire. They are comparible to Louis XIV's France, the emperors's Rome or China's Beijing.

6 Are there non-gods living there (normal mortal, humans, other creatures), and what are their numbers relative to those living gods and the relationships between them and the gods?
Yes there are millions of humans living here and some other similar races. Most of these humans are free citizens but there is a top layer of magic users and a bottom layer of slaves. They all worship the gods but choose one patron god.

7 What kind of magical materials and structures, transport systems, communication systems would these living gods be capable of creating and utilizing?
This is partly what i wanted to figure out in this forum but i can say that the gods and mages could create some rudimentary transport system with their magic and maybe some specialists could communicate telepathicly over a few kilometer distance and function as a communication system.

8 Why and how would they be utilizing them, in order to fulfill those other things (their personalities, politics, economy, art, relations with any non-gods living there)?
These gods believe themselves to be better than their subjects but also feel responsible for them. They shaped the people's identity and culture and wish to protect and enhance it to fulfill their own desire for entertainment and devotion.

Onto Heliotrope's questions

9 I'd also be interested in knowing how their technology might be different from that of other lands… like for instance, how do they use their obvious godly powers to make life easier for themselves?
This society is supposed to be far more advanced in magic than all other nations but have not catched up on the industrialization that the west has been going through.

10 Do they have enchanted lightbulbs instead of candles?
Not until now! But now i want them

11 Do they have ways of getting around that are different? Like flying? If so, then think about how the architecture would be designed differently.
The gods can fly with ease and some mages as well but normal humans can't so maybe i could make a partially flying city with a magic ferry system. That would be a good idea i think.

Thanks for the questions!

 

That does indeed look very cool. Especially the vaguely Istanbulish theme in there is what kind of fits with my city.

 

That's a great idea.
I think i will modify it a bit so that only the palaces of the gods are like this. They look like large, lavish palaces on the outside but on the inside there is a pocket universe big enough to house a private city for each god.
Thanks

 

Haha i can already see the serious, stonefaced king of this great nation fly away on a fluffy cloud. But i really like this idea of an inverted pyramid city or at least part of the city. I think i will make something like this the central district. It also makes a lot of sense because the gods i've created are fallible and desire most of all the respect and adoration of the people so it makes sense for them to spend time on making the most extraordinary and impossible of structures simply to express their subjects.
The glass bridges are also really cool.