ENDLESS Legend 2 cities
ENDLESS Legend 2 cities grow from a single humble city: you plant camps, spend Influence to found more, and specialize districts for Food, Industry, Dust, science, walls, or military. Steam's about-the-game copy and the 1.0 changelog both treat district placement and adjacency as the empire job, not a one-click settle button. Tidefall does not delete those districts; it only changes the land around them. This page is the camp-and-district briefing, not a coordinate dump of a sample city.
Camps, Influence, and the city cap
Wikipedia describes camps claiming regions before a city is founded. Influence is the currency that turns a camp into a city and that also buys minor-faction protectorates. Spend it on a second city and you get a new district web. Spend it on Ametrine and you get an Industry perk. You rarely have enough Influence to do both on the same handful of turns, which is the actual opening tension for Aspects and for anyone racing Tidefall land.
Order of Zelevas is the exception that proves the cap: Amplitude's rogue notes say max rank removes the city cap, using the Kin kit as a conquest engine. Every other side still feels the cap. Kin of Sheredyn want fewer, harder cities with walls. Last Lords want estates on villages more than they want a fifth raw camp. Necrophage want nests in the field, which are not cities. Sandshapers want claimed land turned to Sand, which can be a city plan or a tile plan depending on the Dreamer/Seeker/Conqueror path.
Plant the first extra camp on terrain that will still matter after Tidefall. A pretty peninsula that becomes an inland hex is a gift. A pretty peninsula that becomes the far side of a landbridge into someone else's army is a trap. The Tidefall primer is the scouting checklist; this page is what you build once the hex is yours.
Districts, adjacency, and the 1.0 retune
Districts sit around the central structure. Steam asks whether you want population growth, industrialization, commerce, science, Influence, or military, then tells you to take advantage of adjacency and terrain. The 1.0 changelog retuned several adjacency buildings so level-2 effects carry the plan: Wood ash pit pays +20 Food and +5 Industry on farms at least level 2. Lubber Yard pays +5 Industry on Works adjacent to Ridges. Alchemists' Commission pays +10 Dust on a Merchant house next to a deposit. Those are concrete adjacency sentences, not flavour.
Fortification districts are the Kin job and anyone holding a future isthmus. Resource districts are the Last Lords and Consortium job. Science districts feed Tahuk Oculum conversion. Military districts feed the army you will auto-resolve or place. Do not sprinkle one of each around a capital and call it done; the adjacency bonuses want clusters. A farm strip with a wood ash pit is a Food engine. A ridge-side Works strip with Lubber Yard is an Industry engine.
Level-2 is the 1.0 keyword. Districts replace city-level scaling with level-2 effects in the changelog language. Upgrading the district you already placed often beats founding a third city you cannot defend when the ocean drops. Custom factions still place the same district types; they do not skip adjacency.
Yields, luxuries, and the changing coast
Cities are where Dust, Food, Industry, Science, and Influence actually appear as numbers. Strategic stockpiles and luxury boosters sit on the map as nodes you then hook into a district. Land of Luxuries asks for five active luxury boosters at once; that is a city-and-map job, not a hero job. Stockpiler asks for 100 of each strategic resource. Both achievements are easier if your districts face the nodes Tidefall is about to reveal.
Last Lords ignore Food, so their city plan is Dust and estates, not farms. Necrophage generate Corpses from fights, so a military district plus burrows can outpace a Food strip. Aspects want Influence districts because protectorates are their growth. Kin want Industry and fortification on the capital so Uwe Rach's Working Capital governor trait has something to multiply. Match the resources page to the district cluster; do not read yields as a generic Civ five-resource puddle.
When Tidefall fires, new land is empty. A camp on that silt becomes a city with no adjacency yet. Bring a district plan with you: know whether the first tile is a farm, a Works, or a wall. The beginner's guide sequences that decision against the first monsoon. The combat page covers the army you still have to raise while the workers place stones.
A workable two-city shape
On a first Kin run, keep the capital as a fortification-and-Industry cluster: walls facing the expected isthmus, Works on ridges if Lubber Yard is in the tech path, Uwe Rach governing until the wall is real. The second city can be a Food or Dust strip aimed at a Tidefall coast, not a third vanity camp. Aspects invert that: the capital wants Influence and coral-adjacent tiles, the second city can sit next to two villages you intend to assimilate.
Last Lords skip the farm strip entirely. Their second city is a Merchant-house adjacency on a Dust deposit plus estates on the nearest pacified villages. Necrophage can leave the second city as a nest hub rather than a pretty district web; the army is the growth engine. Tahuks want observatories in range of the Oculum conversion, so the second city is a science park, not a wall. Sandshapers want the second city where claimed land can turn to Sand without walking a wish across half the map.
If Influence is tight, skip the second city and buy a protectorate instead. Ametrine's Industry perk on the capital can outpace a raw camp that you cannot district before monsoon. Revisit the choice after Tidefall, when new land may make the second city cheaper to defend. Order of Zelevas players who have dropped the city cap should still specialize; more cities with no adjacency plan are just more walls to lose.
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