That is not true. I quite sure nothing changed about the total number of settlements.
But there is a large range how many settlements a county will have; see Q&A below.
You confused duchy with county.
Kingdom -> duchy -> county -> settlement
Last Q&A Transcript
QUESTION: For civilian settlements we know that a county could have something like:
4 towns and 4 villages 1 city,
2 towns, 2 villages, and 5 hamlets.
How many and which types of military settlements could a county have?
RESPONSE: We really don’t know the answer to that yet since not all Counties are made equal. A very large County could end up with vast amounts of free range open space while smaller ones could have back-to-back settlements where it can become difficult to tell the difference between them even though politically they can be different.
And this:
Posted By VictoriaRachel at 3:39 PM - Tue Jan 31 2017
The amount needed will vary. As all Baronies are made through agreement with the Duke the number might well vary as circumstances change.
There are only settlements at land selection.