My personal thought is that there should never be a rule like this that is ´preached´ as a rule because it takes away the conflict and resource part of the game.  Is the resources nearby worth the risk of offending that player?    Is that player even active enough to care?  If they do care, are they strong enough, or have any desire to start a conflict over it.  Those questions should be the bread-n-butter of a game like this.  The more socially acceptable rules that are in place, the more farmville this becomes.

When you make it a rule then the vast majority are going to side with the person who was there first, since, well, that is the rule.  Without a rule in case, then each side gets to make a case for the spot on equal footing and you create a much more organic atmosphere.

TLDR -  The more black and white socially acceptable rules there are, the more boring the game becomes.

Automatic settlement is out of this question, of course. Here I expect mutual respect and a bit of common sense of BOTH players to work it out

My personal thought is that there should never be a rule like this that is ´preached´ as a rule because it takes away the conflict and resource part of the game.  Is the resources nearby worth the risk of offending that player?    Is that player even active enough to care?  If they do care, are they strong enough, or have any desire to start a conflict over it.  Those questions should be the bread-n-butter of a game like this.  The more socially acceptable rules that are in place, the more farmville this becomes.

When you make it a rule then the vast majority are going to side with the person who was there first, since, well, that is the rule.  Without a rule in case, then each side gets to make a case for the spot on equal footing and you create a much more organic atmosphere.

what's important, is that whenever you are being siege, you can move atleast 2 squares away from your original spot. :)

But only because it was the closest. There is no guarantee that just because you asked nicely that 'I'll let you' .... but the chances are pretty good that I would!  It really depends on the square and any valuable resources close by.

10 squares isn't usually going to be a problem, but 5 squares is almost always going to be a no.  

Just not enough room for both cities to claim sov.

There's a related situation I find interesting: when a new settlement appears within your closely-guarded 5-square area. There are ways a mature town can help avoid it, BUT once it has happened, and the player is growing, what would you do?

I've tended towards this approach:

1. Say hello, tell them I'm a nice neighbour and offer help with resources.

2. Claim all the sovereign territory that I think I'll definitely need, then drop them a note to say they're quite unlucky to have spawned next to a large city, and they might want to move it somewhere better (and starting plots are usually not much good anyway).

This is entirely polite and relatively non-aggressive, but I do worry that such players might opt to leave the game rather than continue.

Edit: a situation where they can just start again without significant loss.

It will be interesting to see how this works out strategically and tactically, and if it opens up more options in the game.

...placing towns as near as 3 squares without asking permission (as the alliance profile above states) is completely NONSENSE, given the so far results of this poll!

Just ask, maybe haggle a bit, offer to not touch the sov inbetween, etc... and you will most likely be able to settle there PLUS have a friendly neighbour.

If Anyone, just to proof a principle, pops up right next to me, I'll ask him to move on, also to proof a principle... even on places I would have let him settle if he had asked!