Advice needed for my current game

If there is a tile 3/3/3 (with 3 essense) or 4/3/2 (with 2 essense) I build a city there and don't regret to lose a chance of building another city. If all tiles are with 0 or 1 essense I will try to build 2 cities. 6 grains it's too much. You don't really need so much. You can live normally with 3 or more grains. Especially if you have an orchard near.

Will having 6 grain increase the speed at which my city grows (not just it's maximum size) ?

Growth is not the most needed factor. Growth may be accelerated by many factors. But without Essense you will never enchant your troops produced in the city.

Yes, the amount of excess food a city has influences growth. Hover you mouse pointer over the growth number and get a popup that tell the details.

So this will make your city grow very fast for a while. If you want the growth to continue in high speed mode then research and build more food buildings as the game goes along. It can also be a source of multiple pioneers

I would have chosen two 4/3/x over a single 6/3/x. Gives you better total growth, production and research - even considering the additional -3% unrest.

And I also (which may be bad strategy?) make three different city types early (Fortress, Conclave and Town). The tile with the highest essence gets to be a Fortress, so that troops can get more enchant-buffs (Aura of Grace etc). If I can make many cities I want one of each Fortress, Conclave and Town to grow quickly (after the initial Pioneer rush) - to get the benefits from higher lvl city. This means high grain tiles gets different city types on them IF possible. Why do you build 2 (or even 3, it's a bit unclear in your post) Towns first?

And as I play as a mage, I value Essence even higher than Production and Growth for early cities. Secondary I prioritize high production on the first 3 cities, to help build Pioneers and buildings quickly. 
 

Like others said, this city should be a Town, but having 3 Towns is a bit overkill. I usually make my first city a Conclave, for the extra Research.

6 Grain is probably more than you'll need, but the 'natural growth' of the city will be max (=3) for a long time, so that's still slightly useful. If other spots in the area don't have 2 or 3 Essence, there's no point in reloading, imho.

I would consider a 6 grain tile great for 2nd or 3rd city, after that not so much. As mentioned by earlier posters, you can deal with lower amounts of grain as the game goes on. However for the early game,being able to get a quick Oracle, Infirmary or Scroll Scribe up early can be a godsend. (lvl 3 cities) They give 1 more Essence , more HP for troops, and Blizzard Scrolls (imba stuff when playing high level AI's) respectively. 

All except a town. My towns are high production ones since they have great food and growth buildings exclusively. Need Research? Conclave, Need good troops? Fortress. Towns are for junk sites and gildar mostly until later when you want +Faction Food for all your cities. Don't need high food for any of that.

Is there a maximum natural growth? I think I've seen higher values on even 3-grain-cities, but perhaps that is from the +Growth-spell?

Yes, 3 growth is the max you can get from surplus food alone.

Thanks and very interesting info, which the OP should benefit from. Sounds like the growth is important as they decided to max it. Then the +Growth-spell is good to use early on (if you have it), probably better than hammers.

To OP: yesterday I founded a city on a 1/5/1-tile and found it worked well. It sure grew slowly (even with Growth-spell) but it produced very well. I'm not afraid of settling low grain-tiles anymore, if I can get otherwise hard found essence. 

I love to make fortresses on high food count tiles. You might pass up a good essence spot, but getting to prison and then onyx throne (both for global unrest bonuses) requires less food support from other cities, and 6 food helps the town grow at a healthy rate.

So I would make a 6/3/0 a Conclave or Fortress not a Town and here's why.

1.  One factor of Research bonuses is based on population so the bigger you can grow a city, the more research you can get out of it.

2.  I think the "prison" upgrade is one of the best city upgrades in the game (-10% unrest for your entire faction).  Since I usually have lots of cities, the "prison" upgrade is a must.  The difficult part is that it is a Level 4 fortress upgrade and it takes a long time to get a city to Level 4 so having 6 grain would really help speed up the process.

Please explain? Do you mean that higher city-levels gets higher research? Or do you mean that, given the same city-level and type, a Town level 3 with high population have better research than a 3-Town with lower pop?

Yes it is possible for a high population town or fortress to generate more research than a low population conclave.

Uhm, that's not my question.

I thought population (within cities of the same level) did not affect research in any way. But that city level affects research directly, = city-lvl x city-type's research bonus.

To explain/repeat better:  Can a level-3-Town with high population have better research than a level-3-Town with a lower population (given they have the same buildings and wonders also)? And if so, what calculation/bonus/building makes that happen?

Not directly - but city level does, and city level comes from population. Every city level past 3 brings big research gains for any city type. Thus, you want to juice up population fast, to blow past the city level markers. Especially on a fortress so that you can get prison. 

Oops, sorry... you said it better.  City level (not population) x bonuses and unrest affect research.

Man when I think that I just build what looks good in my games and I never really worry about stats...

Maybe I'm missing out on something cool.

I'll have to keep and eye out for all the growth essence and high goody stuff.

Thanks Davronava and Trojasmic (I misinterpreted your text).