The Atlantean Township trains Villagers, provides population room, and acts as smaller city hub than the Town Center. You can only build Townships on Settlements. There are enough Settlements on most maps for every player to have 3, but the more Settlements you have, the less your enemy can use. If your team claims all the Settlements on a map, you win the game under standard victory conditions.

The Atlanteans sent people forward to help start these smaller Townships in order to gain geographical advantages in resource gathering. These Townships became smaller centers of manufacturing, population concentration points, and centers of trade, but allowed the Atlanteans to increase the boundaries of their population and controlled land earlier than other cultures. Gaining and holding settlements also how the Atlanteans gain favor <link="topic:Favor">Favor</link>. 

The destruction of the Town ship does not have quite the impact as the loss of the Town Center but getting them up early and defending them well gave the Atlanteans a seemingly unfair territorial advantage. 

After getting a strong foothold in the area the Atlanteans would move in stronger forces and eventually rebuild Town Centers in the place of these Townships.
