I just read how dumb the computer is to not build directly on the coast.

I've been building my first cities upriver, away from the coast by maybe 2-4 squares, in order to gain access to inland resources. My question is, should my workable area touch the coast, or should my city center itself be on the coast in most cases?

Also, if I build upriver, can I lessen the problem by building my second city on the coast?

My question is, should my workable area touch the coast, or should my city center itself be on the coast in most cases?
Ocean squares give you (With lighthouse) two food and two commerce, which isn't bad. Not as good as a grassland cottage, but still not too shabby. Generally speaking, you don't want to have any ocean squares within your two space around your city fat cross, unless you are directly on coast. Because if you are not on the coast, and are one square away, then you can't build the lighthouse, and each ocean square is only 1f/2c, which is not good at all.

Cities with a lot of ocean in their workable areas can become very good commerce cities, though, especially in the early and middle game, before all your cottages become towns.

Also, if I build upriver, can I lessen the problem by building my second city on the coast?
I'm not sure what you mean here. If you build your other city touching the river that touches your coastal city, then you can get a trade route between them.

You should try to build cities either on the coast, so they get the benefit of that (i.e. can build lighthouse and harbors, and the two coastal wonders), or fully inland (2 tiles) so that they don't get any sea tiles. Having a tile or two of sea in a landlocked city is OK; just be aware that you'll never get the 2 food, so those tiles are basically low-value like tundra.

When the term 'coastal city' is used in a Civ4 context, it means a city which directly connects to the coast.

There are many advantages to coastal cities.

Early:

Water tiles provide lazy commerce. A worker doesnt need to build anything to get this commerce. Its sitting there waiting to be collected.

All of your coastal cities are automatically connected to each other. This means early trade routes (more commerce) Again, no worker moves need to be used.

You can't build any ships if you dont have a coastal city.

Middle game:

They get extra trade routes.

They get a harbor that directly multiplies the trade route commerce (+50% if I recall) and this bonus *stacks* with other multipliers (library, bank, etc..) The harbor also provides +health for the city with certain resources.

You still can't build any ships if you don't have a coastal city.

Late game:

You still can't build any ships if you don't have a coastal city.

Coastal citys can be very powerfull.

Get Great Lighthouse and Collosus for a financial civ and you can get 2F/4G, this is easilly achieved early game using oracle for metal casting, if you start with fishing or research it early you can get 4F from a tile or two earlier than any other way to build workers before BW and chop.

So, more resouce earlier than any other way, and more gold earlier than any other way.

Do this and you won't need to build a cottage before medieval times.

Apart from the correct observations of the others, coastal cities also get BETTER trade routes than inland cities.

Plus, if you have a really good coastal city (here good usually means "productive", because the main problem is to find hammers for these cities) then the two wonders mentioned (Great Lighthouse and Colossus) really rock because the competition isn't so tough with them, especially in "pangea type" maps.

To give you a picture about how strong this can be, in one of my last games at Immortal I happened to have a great coastal spot for my 2nd city, coastal spots for my 3rd and 5th cities (it was a peninsula in a Pangea map), plus some more coastal cities for the future (it was a large map). My second city built the two wonders and, for the first time in that level, I was ahead in techs from the time of Metal Casting - AI never recovered. Effectively, it was like if I had Corporation from 2000 BC.

Some one mentioned it, but did not stress it enogth.
Harbor provide additional health with sea resources, Making coastal city better health wize then fresh water city. Coastal city on fresh water is all you need for healthy city.

Also because Coastal Cities give 'lazy' commerce, they usually pretty much 'pay' their own upkeep which means you can build coastal cities, just to fill up the map (civ3 style). City spawning is pretty much dead in Civ4 although in my experience you can come a long way when spawning all your cities at sea and building the 2 coastal wonders (as mentioned, the competition for these wonders is much less so chances are good you will actually build them). All that commerce should be sufficient to keep your inland cities as production cities (i.e. no cottage spawning) which makes for a nice balance.

Also, with the Financial trait, a sea tile provides 2f/3c. If you're 1 tile inland they give 1f/1c. So it makes even less sense to build 1 tile from the coast like the AIs like to do.

The Sea City, usually built on a small island or, occasionally, at the end of a thin peninsula, with only 1 or 2 land tiles in the fat cross, can be a *very* strong commerce city as every tile generates good commerce. Though individually they're weaker than a grassland cottage the fact that there's few/no wasted tiles makes up for it.

These cities tend to be very poor in hammers though, as has been noted, so be prepared to rush most of your improvements. If it's an early city try to site it so you get the most food resources you possibly can, build work boats as your first city improvements, and break out the whip early and often.

If it's a later city make sure you have the cash to build what the city needs.

Also keep in mind that with a lighthouse, your city is guaranteed to grow to a size greater or equal than the number of coastal tiles + 1. And this without any improvements.
So in the end, the city will surely make a profit at some point as the commerce piles up.

These cities tend to be very poor in hammers though, as has been noted, so be prepared to rush most of your improvements. If it's an early city try to site it so you get the most food resources you possibly can, build work boats as your first city improvements, and break out the whip early and often.


If a city is stuck with 1 hammer, that really sucks of course. Adding a great engineer as a super-specialist is a potential choice, getting the city up to 6 hammers with a forge.

Good points above. I'll only add that if you're playing as a leader with one of the following traits, you need some coastal cities to take advantage of the faster build times for specific improvements:

Aggressive - drydock
Expansive - harbour
Organized - lighthouse

Or to put it another way, if you DON'T build coastal cities, you're wasting one of your chosen leader's key strategic advantages.

Also, though less important, several of the civs (America, England, Rome, Greece, Japan, and Spain) start with the fishing tech, which pretty much needs coastal cities to make the best advantage of it. Once you either trade for it or research it, that point is moot, but again, I think it's best to make the most of every starting advantage you're given, especially at the higher difficulty levels.

Also, with the Financial trait, a sea tile provides 2f/3c. If you're 1 tile inland they give 1f/1c. So it makes even less sense to build 1 tile from the coast like the AIs like to do.

Nope, I'm virtually certain that it will remain 1f/3c even if you are 1 tile inland and financial.

The base values without lighthouses and financial for the various water terrains(from memory) are 2f/2c for fresh water lakes, 1f/2c for coast tiles, and 1f/1c for ocean tiles.

These values are not affected by the placement of your city, only the ability to build coastal improvements like harbors, lighthouses, and I think the colossus are affected.

If a city is stuck with 1 hammer, that really sucks of course. Adding a great engineer as a super-specialist is a potential choice, getting the city up to 6 hammers with a forge.

1 hammer is not that much of a problem as long as you have a decent food surplus and slavery. I have been playing small islands maps, and I have found that any tile that is next to a seafood resource (fish, crab, clam) is a good city spot as long as you have Slavery or later in the game Universal Suffrage to rush your improvements.

I don't believe anyone has mentioned seafood. A Fish gets you two specialists, a Crab or Clam gets you one. Much better than farming.

With one of these, you can start with a Workboat as your first build and allow your city to grow before starting a Worker or Settler. I love it when I get Fishing to start with.

The power of trade routes! I often get coastal cities with trade routes like 4-5 +10 Gold Trade routes! thats 40-50 base commerce! Multiply that by (1+0.25(Grocer)+0.25(Market)+0.50(Bank)) thats 80-100 gold! But I only get this with productive (in either hammers or food or commerce) cities on the coast. That's why I like running free markets more than State Property. It depends though. My city maintenance costs aren't that high once State property comes anyways due to already established courthouses.

:king:

City with one hummer is not to bad, if it have a couple of fishes.
Slavery will provide all hummer you need. Later in game I use such fishing villages to Conscript an Army under Nationalism. They allways have a lot of excess happiness at that stage.

well for locating a city there are 3 things to consider

1. FPC values in the 'fat cross'... Here Coastal cities suffer, because if they are coastal they will have water which is only good in the early game and rapidly becomes the worst... However, this is made even worse if you have water tiles and the city is NOT coastal (-1 f from no lighthouse)

2. Trade routes, Here is where coastal cities gain things... +50% commerce from the harbor (which also gives the extra health) that can provide up to ~10 extra commerce

3. culture/military/resource acquisition locations... this is where you NEEd some coastal cities.



The AI is criticized for putting cities 1 tile away from the coast... because that means they are working Water spots (which are poor) without getting the benefits of a coastal city.

If a city is stuck with 1 hammer, that really sucks of course. Adding a great engineer as a super-specialist is a potential choice, getting the city up to 6 hammers with a forge.
Interesting strategy. Honestly never occurred to me.

The other option is to simply wait until you get Slavery and/or Univ Suffrage (or Pyramids), and then poprush or cashrush all your buildings for that city.

Wodan