I think placement is most important. I also don't think the other town types (other than town) are very useful in the long run. The town has 2 things that improve every other city you have 1 that improves every unit. It does just fine with research and with the bonus to production from you towns and proper play in general, you won't need a fortress. 

Hello!

I had the same problem as you when I started playing the game, now rocking in expert soon in ridiculous!

I think the choice of your city location is the MOST important thing if you try to build up something that look like an empire/kingdom (no pun intended)

- Fortresses: 2 grains+ and 4 materials + (anything above this in numbers will make a greater production center for your troops obviously). Anything with 4 material or above is a potential fortress site.

- Towns: ANY tile with 4 grains+ can become a town. Don't worry about materials or essences, they come as bonuses. If you have already founded or have enough Fortresses, don't hesitate to allocate a 4/4 tile to a town, as production is good, especially if you want to crank up economic/food/science buildings quickly.

- Conclaves:  Basically any tile can be used to build a conclave on, but I would recommend to use tiles with 2 essences on them and any grain/material. You get buildings and spells that boost research/mana production according to the number of essences in a city. Although if you can snatch a 3/3/0 tile to build a city on it and you miss on research and mana production don't hesitate to pop a conclave there.

With a bit of experience you will be able to assess what you need at any given time. If you see a 5/2/1 tile with wild grains or bees then slap up a town there, but you might as well make a conclave if you only have one conclave among your cities. What i mean is according to your strategy (early war, might want to pop double fortress and early barracks), expansion ( 1-2 fortress, and ton of town and conclaves), self-centered empire for magic victory ( more conclaves than towns to build up the mana for the SoM).

Hope it helped!

Have fun

I try to making simpe map, but I don't see how I can add or mod grains, marterial and essences in map maker in the game...and put land spot one by one is way too long, there had to be easier way to making map.. map maker isn't good and not very simple in this game.

Try ecomental Mod, it improves the tiles significantly.

It also sets the distance between cities to 5, so you will be settling many more cities. I stopped using it because of that...I went from few cities to too many....but maybe you can mod the distance to 6 again.

apologies crimsongekko.

thanks for the reponses

I usually try to turn my first high-essence city into a fortress. Give it +material and +growth until it gets the blacksmith/barracks/etc built, then go all for unit buffs. In a Pariden game I had one with 4 essence (after the scrying pool) and it was amazing turning out units with +4 fire attack, +4 initiative, +4 defense, and +4 something else. After one or two fortresses, I usually go conclave if they have essence, if not, town.

The vast majority of my cities are towns simply to increase food and cash production.  Any location that has no essence, usually becomes a town, unless it is in a key location, or if it has a super high production.  Saw a location that was a 2/5/0.  I still built a Fortress.

I put Fortress in key locations, but I always try to build a primary fortress on a 3/3/2 or 2/4/2 or better,  Best Fortress ever was 2/5/3--also had my Great Mill.  The city built up super quickly and then built units just as fast.  I still like to have at least two essence in my main troop training center because of the enchantment buffs.

Conclaves go on any place that has three essence or more once I have a primary Fortress to build troops.  I don't care the location, first city or anything.  If it has three essence it becomes a Conclave.

The food bonuses from the Grocer line of town bonuses stack. Note that the bonus isn't a grain bonus, but rather a food bonus, and food is [(food_per_grain)*(grain) - (city_population)], so if you don't compare the maximum population of a city before and after you build a grocer it's a little difficult to see the effect. Thus, a grocer allows you to support five people in each city you control.

You can see the total bonus to food production you have by going into the city details screen, hovering the cursor over the Food item, and reading it - it will tell you your faction-wide food production bonus (from Grocers and technology) as well as your local food production bonus (from Gardens, etc). It will not tell you how much of your faction-wide food production bonus comes from what, though.