I played this game since the beginning of EA 3000 years ago and every single settlement end up back to “my layout” especially in late game (1k pop+) they’re all almost identical. Town centre next to the trading post with the gold bank in the same wall, these 3 buildings are in side inner wall with their own barrack defending it, there are farming zone, manufacturing zone and resident zone. surround each side of inner wall. you get the picture. or that’s how everyone endgame look like?
Could look at some old layouts here to see what you could adapt.
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Trading post next to vault and storehouse is just handy, because you’re likely to be moving things between all of those pretty often, especially early. Putting them next to the TC also makes defensive sense, too, especially early! Since it’s a final fallback position, I usually used a couple of towers instead of the fort, so I could put my first fort in some other strategic location. TBH, the TC itself would do most of the work of pushing raiders off the walls if they got there, anyway.
On the other hand, these days I have found myself not bothering to build the walls at all and rely entirely on an active defense, which opens things up a little. (It turns out that hunters are extremely versatile, if a bit more micro-intensive than regular soldiers and not particularly well-protected.) It doesn’t open things up a lot, though, because it mostly just means I don’t need to remember to leave space for walls when packing buildings around the TC! The problem, if you will, is that I have gotten so good at growing my town quickly enough that the raider threat (and my population) rapidly outpaces wall durability, to the point where they get in the way of my archers more than they slow the raiders down.
If I’m building a citadel, I usually make it a bit bigger than just TC, TP, vault and storehouse, though, so I can put other “important” buildings in there, like the temple or a school. The TC can shoot out to around 8 tiles, so I’d put the walls just inside from there to get as much space as I could. (It seems to be the same range from the center as a T1 barracks, so I’d use that as a measuring reference when blocking it out.) I was actually inspired to do this by the way that Greek city-states would put their temples on top of the hill they were fortifying as a final defensive position. Similarly, Carcassonne has its cathedral integrated into its citadel’s walls.
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