First City?

Fortress if it has essence, if not town.

To me it really depends on what I draw first in terms of square. The best square I could find was a 3 x 4 x 2, and bordered by a forest and a river. I could make anything there, it will have amazing production, but I went Fortress. My next city was a 3x3x3 on a river. That will be a perfect Conclave.

I really like my Fortress to be high production because getting your troops quickly is important. I am playing as Pariden so I can have 3 essence there for buffs.

If you are not Pariden, your first city, well, it depends, Conclaves are really better with essences, so if you don't have a 3 essence square, I would make a Town.

I usually make it a town to take advantage of the economic treaty bonuses.

I would have gone the other way around.  Essence is more important that materials for a fortress, and I usually make my fortress into my best overall tile.  You can add as many conclaves as you need, and their effects add.  You want the one single best fortress you can produce.  Given you are limited by crystals and iron in producing your best troops, and you can rush with Gildar or "Call of Duty" essence bonuses matter a lot more than production.

Conversely, conclaves need a lot of production to build up.

My rule of thumb is: My fortress goes in the tile with the most essence.  I will delay getting a fortress as long as I can unless I can get a 3 essence tile.

But careful, sometime your first city had to be upgrade and you had to choice before you knew all area of map or world map, hmmm it's would be nice to hold and not choice upgrade till you knew what arem of map, and then after that then choice what is upgrade...Sometime you only had one or 3 city but no more in small map...and there is't best one like not much essence....

I usually go with Town, Conclave if it has 2 or more essence. Cities whose zone of control do not join up with your capital cities zone of control have an unrest penalty. I find the extra zone of control distance that a Town provides is useful in this case.

Ok sounds like the majority agree that it comes down to tile placement, So what tiles do you want to look for on the different city types?

Fortress and conclaves your good with a 4 on production and a 3 on essence? Towns are pretty much anything else? So a 3/4/2 would be a good fortress where a 3/3/3 would be a good conclave or even a fortress based on your play style? 

From the argument about production verse essence on the fortresses can't you add a hammer enchantment to your city to make the 3/3/3 a 3/4/2 basically? then still have the additional 2 essences for additional enhancements? 

Also can you add multiple of the same essences? Like can i add 3 hammers to the one city making my fortress a 3/6 after using my 3 essences on hammers? (i'll try it out when i get home today)

First Settlement is a town unless I have both high materials and essence, than it is a Fortress.

It seems the most common tiles are 4/2/2 or 4/2/1.  If that is the best I can get for my starting location than it is a town.  I have started thinking the 4/2/2 would be good conclave for a first city.  Try to maximize my research.

Hmmm, Yes it's depend, I think it's so easy to build town, so conclave is way to go if 2 essence in starting Location, but if no essence in starting location, it's would be town, unless it's only your city in tiny or small map, that is? If something like 2-4-3 or 3-4-3 in starting lcation, I guess it's always fortness in most case?

My general rule is I would rather settle a 2x3x2 tile than a 3x2x2 tile, I put mats over grain unless it is an extreme difference like 5x2. An essence is, by the end of the game, worth more than 1 food and 1 mat, that's because you can get mana per essence, 25% bonus food per essence, mats per essence, gold per essence and research per essence buffs. There might be a grain per essence buff but I always unlock the are/water spell for the bonus food instead. Some of those are pretty late in the research tree.

Depends on so many things.  If you have Enchanted Hammers early on it makes some kind of sense to take advantage of that no matter what type of city you build.  With a conclave you can get those research buildings sooner rather than later.  With a fortress you can start cranking out very basic troops at level 2 rather than 1, so if you have an aura in a second enchantment slot you're making them a little tougher or faster or something.

The important thing is that when you decide on a strategy, like an early-game conquest, don't spend too much time looking for the perfect city site.  Tonight I started an invasion with just some archers I got for completing a quest, sov, champion, and a wolf.  The wolf didn't make it in the end and I lost a few other units as well, but in the end they lost and now I have their cities.

So your first city should be whatever fits your strategy.

I guess I kinda cheat in this sense, as I will generally ctrl-n until I get a starting location and yield I want to play a game on. That tends to be 3 essence, because I like the huge effect per essence spells like propaganda/arcane forge provide. I've been picking conclave as my capital just about every game also. High essence for conclave turns into a really nice early mana income, and I like to play spell caster sovereigns.

Although, I can certainly see why having a high essence fortress would be useful. With the right enchantments on the city you can pump out some elite trained units.

Ok thanks for all the good info guys. 

If I'm playing a magic intensive faction, then my first city is usually a conclave (and my second and my third...).  If not, then the first city will either be a fortress if it has good materials (3+) and essence (2+) or town if it's near a river and/or ho-hum materials (<=3) and essence (<=1).  Clear as stinking mud?