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Not to get biblical and all but...
In Genesis, depending on how you read it, Cain founded the first city in the land of Nod. Thus Cain was the first "settler" unit.
And I would argue that most cities are artificially founded, meaning someone, a sovereign of some sort, "placed" them there. My home town, Sacramento, was founded when an alcoholic Mormon duped John Sutter's gullible son into selling city blocks to emmigrants. Not exactly the Settler-Unit model of Civ but certainly planned. New York (néé Nieuw Amsterdam), Paris, Rome and Alexandria are all examples of cities being placed by a higher sovereign at will.
The problem of course is that in the word of Civ we play as an übersovereign who controls everything for all time. That, of course, doesn't exist (unless you're a really strict determinist). Although there are patterns to the location of cities (rivers, resources, etc.) that is not to be confused with their "spontaneous" creation.
I thought we fixed this kind of thinking centuries ago.
In Genesis, depending on how you read it, Cain founded the first city in the land of Nod. Thus Cain was the first "settler" unit.
And I would argue that most cities are artificially founded, meaning someone, a sovereign of some sort, "placed" them there. My home town, Sacramento, was founded when an alcoholic Mormon duped John Sutter's gullible son into selling city blocks to emmigrants. Not exactly the Settler-Unit model of Civ but certainly planned. New York (néé Nieuw Amsterdam), Paris, Rome and Alexandria are all examples of cities being placed by a higher sovereign at will.
The problem of course is that in the word of Civ we play as an übersovereign who controls everything for all time. That, of course, doesn't exist (unless you're a really strict determinist). Although there are patterns to the location of cities (rivers, resources, etc.) that is not to be confused with their "spontaneous" creation.
I thought we fixed this kind of thinking centuries ago.
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