Is it a town, is it a city? No it’s a mystery. Therefore here’s a quick classification guide to defining your cherished settlements once and for all. Let’s get namin’.
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1: Camp.
Any loosely settled area in which players try to have children and develop the settlement further. These can vary from a small collection of supplies to a farming community even with iron tools. The thing that sets a camp apart from a village is that it is not sustainable in the medium to long term.
2: Village.
When a composting setup has been created, usually with the construction of a sheep pen, your camp is able to produce its own soil and can therefore last a lot longer than normal. In order for this to happen a village will need iron tools and these areas are often semi-established societies with several trades that will slowly grow over time.
3: Town.
When your village is established enough it might make the leap towards township. This is defined as when your town has at least one completely insulated building. For this you will need walls and a door inclosing an area. This is a sign of prosperity as walls are expensive, take multiple generations to effectively make, and provide a less than vital use for your village. Towns often take quite a large crisis to rub off the map, with plenty of females at any given time usually.
4: City.
When your town has finished a bell tower, to the degree that it can be rung, your town has become a city. A city is different from a town because even if it runs out of fertile females it can still continue.
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I hope you like my classification system, and see it as something to aim at. Some settlements will not necessarily follow this path. For example you may choose to measure a village’s ascension to a town as when it develops an industrial pump rather than its first building. A town could easily be far bigger and more prosperous than a city. However the city is in a league of its own because of its survivability and its importance for all players in the world.