What To Know When Founding Your First City

Your capital is going to be your most important city for a while so you need to pick a good location. However, a good location in EL can be quite a bit different than in Civ. The first difference you might notice is that the map is split up into different regions. Each region is only allowed to have ONE city in it. When you found a city in a region the entire territory of the region is considered yours. If you hate being forward settled by rapid expansionist civilizations then this system will be make you very very happy.When you select your settler and hit the "settle" button a translucent model of your city will appear where your mouse is. If you leave your mouse there for a few seconds then it will also show you how many of each resource that city will get from it's starting location.A city gains all of the resources on all of the tiles surrounding it and bonus resources on the tile it sits on (food for the city tile is actually reduced by 1). Unlike Civ you do not assign the population of the city to work specific tiles around the city. They instead provide MORE resources in addition to the exploitation on the tiles around the city . A city also receives any Strategic or Luxury resources it sits on even without building a tile upgrade so long as you have the correct technology researched. Certain tiles also have extra resources on them called "anomalies." In a way this is similar to Natural wonders in Civ except much more common and (usually) without the happiness bonus.Expansions for your city are called boroughs or districts and can be built on tiles next to your city center or other districts. I'll talk about city expansion more in the Empire and City Approval section. Since expanding your city requires physical tile improvements it is to your benefit to build in a more open area of your region. Also keep in mind that you cannot get resources on any tiles outside of the region so try not to found your city on the edge of the region.A quick note: When building things in your city DO NOT BUILD the item called "Salt the Earth." It razes your city and gives you a settler. If you build your city in a poor location then this can be a useful option early in it's development but if you accidentally build it later then you will lose a lot of your progress.