It just occurred to me that he's probably asking this so he knows which setup to make impossible for us to have.

I voted 4/3/1. I really think people underestimate the benefits of an extra point of material. It is literally a 50% increase in production from 2 materials, far superior to 5 production flat from enchanted hammers.

Edit: 3/3/2 is obviously better, with nature's bounty you can make a 3/3/2 into a 5/3/2 - higher if conclave.

You know there's trouble when the warden asks "what's your favorite meal?"

Hopefully Beta5 will more rigorously enforce settlement specialization, providing compelling reasons to not go 3/3/2 in some cases.

City size is completely meaningless. The bonuses are nice, but not NEARLY good enough to justify building even a single food building in the empire/kingdom.

I chose 3/3/2 because it was the option with the least amount of grain (which, as I said, is a useless stat). I Would rather settle 2/4/2 or 2/3/3. In fact, I would settle 2/4/2 before I would settle 4/3/2.

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Population also affects city size, and a city that grows gains unique city advantages as well as new buildings.  But that's a reason for liking 3/3/2: the flexibility of switching the city back and forth among growth, research, and production oriented builds.

I know, but the upgrades aren't worth sacrificing either an essence or a material for.

3-3-2

The thing is, before beta4 I would take 5-2 over 4-3 any day (I love myself some big cities). But using essence to make-up for grain shortfall is easy and there's little difficulty to push to a level 5 city with 3-3-2. Coupled with the notion that once you've reached level 5 you can disregard the grain issue and use essence for other options makes it enticing indeed.

for me, it's essence > production >>>>>>> grain.

Essence makes a city more flexible, city enchantments are really powerful right now. Production increases building time immensely, so that you can construct +food improvement quickly and therefore negate the lack of grain.

3/3/2 - Although the starting city gets those trade bonuses from routes to other countries and u always could use more money from higher population those don't stand a chance to rapid early development, which means materials and essense. More Cities at high level early are always better than one big city that only gives you more money. You can easily reach lvl5 on every 3/x/2-city, even on 3/x/1 if it's conclave. As of now, due to essense, conclaves tend to be much bigger than towns anyway. So i agree with above posts, population has become too unimportant for it to be a real choice.

In my humble opinion I generally go with 3/3/2 as most have stated, but for a different reason. As I generally play on epic research, casting enchanted hammers and inspiration is generally my go to start. I almost always have the scrying pool built after a building or too also which will allow me to put that last point into sovereigns call or specialize. As I do not view the bonus from sovereigns call as significant. For example, most cities level up fairly quickly, reaching their max grain usage and requiring more buildings or enchantments to allow them to progress further. A .5 or 1 increase in growth early game will get me a second tier city a fair amount sooner. But as population has little to no effect, and buildings are not restricted by level, just by pre-required buildings. I often opt for research over sovereigns call.

As of 0.95 (didn't check it in 0.952) city levels beyond 2 awarded 1 research/level and a building, depending on type of city. There is extra commerce from taxes on the population, but that is a minor issue in most cases.

That's it. Nothing really important here. Leveling the city to 5 is nice and helpful, but it's in no way close to having a material/essence rich city. Heck, 0/5/3 is the best possible location I can think of with a sum of 8 points, by far.

Regarding the flexibility of Essence- I believe it's actually a problem. Essence bring more than the other resources, and has the flexibility issue, with little to no cost. I do believe that Essence should see a slight nerf in this regard.

Indeed. I think city enchantments should benefit from caster's magic level (as should all spells btw), not from essence rating.