Of course I am not talking 100% of the time, but on average, do you think that coastal starts favour peaceful expansion (given sufficient room to expand) vs. attacking earlier and recovering?

I'm working on trying to win given any map on monarch before moving up to emperor full time. Coastal starts I am fairly weak at. So I am working on it.

I'm playing now with strong coastal leaders. One of my favs is Roosevelt. My logic is I'm fairly comfortable with inland starts so if I play leaders with strong coastal starts, I should balance myself out.

I will describe my most recent game, which is sitting in a winnable position ca. 1300AD.

I got a coastal start that normally I might regen. 3 seafood, but a fair amount of coastal tiles. Decent gpfarm. My strat: GLH and city spam. I got the GLH (easy with Roosevelt) and spammed about 8-10 cities peacefully all coastal. Some of these were on some nearby islands (I play Hemispheres with islands). Basic trade route economy stuff, no cottages early.

I had Ramesses closest and Boudica and Monty to the north (joy). I was able to befriend Boudica at the expense of making enemies of Monty and Ramesses. Fortunately, Boudica hated Monty and they were at war most of the game. That left me and Ramesses to go at it. After I stablized my economy and built the S. Pada to unlock theocracy, I built a large medieval army of trebs/maces/pikes/knights. At 1300AD I was already first to lib (astronomy) and Ramesses has only a handful of cities left. I have 16 cities, which I consider a nice sized empire at this stage of the game.

Thoughts?

I'm the opposite of you...I prefer coastal starts as long as they have seafood. Seafood is solid early commerce.

The main adjustment probably is that you'll tech faster with the early commerce but without the hammers units will come a little slower. I usually make a work boat then a worker to start improving hammer tiles/chop out work boats.

Note that the food will let you produce workers/settlers as fast as anywhere, and run scientists early easily while still growing...take advantage of both when not pursuing wonders.

You already mentioned the nice thing about coastal starts: more passive commerce. you're in solid shape that way as you expand and can keep the slider higher.

I wouldn't neglect a production city or walling of the AI a bit if it's practical though. You can still make an army, especially with the whip :).

I think coastal starts favour peaceful expansion becasue it takes longer to set up when you get workboats instead of having a worker take care of your land. Also there's usually less forests to chop, fewer tiles that could contain a strategic resource. One speed advantage is you need less units for fogbusting.
I much prefer inland starts with at least 2 good food resources and lots of forests though.

Just because you have a coastal start on a continents type map doesn't mean you have to adopt a "coastal" strategy.

Assuming I have seafood at my starting location, I'll use it for fast worker/settler builds/whips and I'll look to expand inland ASAP. Coastal cities have less development potential than inland cities IMO. I'll also want to grab the inland sites first to deny them to the neighboring AIs. Whatever coastal sites are available near my starting location can be backfilled after I've had a chance to build up the inland cities for a while.

Of course it's highly map dependent, and in some cases there are very good coastal sites available near the capital that I'll settle early.

If the starting site is very heavy in food I'll probably make it a GP farm and then move my capital to one of the inland cities, preferably a cottage-spammed one. This will also help with distance maintenance.

I just played a game as Cathy, with six food tiles in the BFC for Moscow: 1 wheat, 2 pigs, 2 clams, 1 fish. It was wonderful once I got Monarchy. Until then, most of the food sat unused. But the city got to size 23 quite easily once I had enough happiness coming in.

I would say in general that yes, Coastal slows me down, because I have OCD when it comes to workboats. Gotta fish 'em all. I will frequently not build anything but workboats until they're all fished, which usually results with the city being at the happy cap but a delay in getting down city #2, which has on ocassion prevented me from settling some prime real estate due to an AI REXER. I would argue, though, that my third and fourth cities are faster having hooked up the seafood early, and I can also get Monarchy researched nice and fast with 3 seafood hooked up.

Put another way: 3 seafood gives you about the same food and commerce output of a gold tile and two corn.

I love coastal starts because I think they are easier to play. The GLH takes care of a LOT of financial REX problems, and using food for production is a pretty strong, easy to use mechanic. One of my favorite games is an M&S with Roosevelt, with islands mixed in. Almost plays itself, and there is usually very little need for war, nor are there many viable threats, at least not early.

FE/TRE's are pretty strong. We all know how the AIs suck at using navies, early and late in the game. Barbs are rarely a problem, other than defending your seafood from those galleys that pop up. Expansion is natural, and usually pretty simple. Seafood tiles start with great commerce, and in the hands of an FIN leader or with the Colossus, they become wonderful REX support, even if you only work the actual seafood tiles and no coast. Sure, you dont have as many forests, but the whip makes up for that pretty quickly. And as a worker/settler pump, not many cities can compete with a 3-seafood city.

I used to be an inland purist, but once I got a taste of the GLH + Colossus combo, especially with a couple specific leaders (Hannibal, Willem, Roosevelt, Isabella), its converted me.

I usually regen if I start coastal unless I'm playing at emperor (not comfortable yet..) because I tend to find myself winning WAY too easily using FE/TRE.
Also, I love games where a close AI starts coastal with lots of seafood because they waste endless turns making workboats before expanding.
My main problem is that I rarely get the colossus due to the fact that I don't hit the bottom of the tree until the mid-game (Guilds/Banking/Chemistry/Mil. Sci./Steel) and I almost never build the Oracle for an MC slingshot.

A nice Synergy for coastal is Great lighthouse and Shadogwan Pawa (or whatever it is called) you get GL for the commerce and the S P for vfree religion which allows you to stay on everybodies good side. Gift your excess resources to get relation points and prosper from the trade.

it's so funny how different people have different experiences. the mark of an excellent game imo :)

schwartz, you'll have to give me some tips on winning coastal starts easy :) payback for those zeus-training days in aom ;)

Heh, after reading this thread, I went ahead and started a Roosevelt Emperor game, its a nice one too, M&S, standard, standard AIs, a killer start, and a nice terrain feature that will help a TON as the land gets chewed up. I will attach it here, in case anyone else wants to play it, here is the start:


http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Bleys_bucket/Civ4ScreenShot0140.jpg

If you wanted to do an Emp level RPC focusing on the FE/TRE style, I would gladdly participate, hermit. If there is one thing that Monarchist Cookbook showed me, its that we are ALL pretty well ready for Emp. The thing I like about the TRE is that its far easier to get the GLH than the Mids. I think the TRE has a more macro-management style as well, as opposed to the total MM style of an SE.

Another really cool map with a solid TRE leader is the Hannibal NC-V game. If you play that one at Emp, its "Emperor Light" since the AIs dont have their Archery bonus tech. Another great TRE map for sure.

I am also very weak on coastal start, because of the need to build workboat(s) and that screws up my early tempo.

it's so funny how different people have different experiences. the mark of an excellent game imo :)

schwartz, you'll have to give me some tips on winning coastal starts easy :) payback for those zeus-training days in aom ;)
I guess I owe you :p

This is all from experience on Monarch and 1-2 Emperor games:

My main goals in coastal starts are to first find a few suitable coastal city sites, then build the GLH and expand aggressively along the coast. The big advantage here is that you can usually find a solid GP farm with coastal locations, you need to get to Caste ASAP to get GSs out and tech along the path that allows you to bulb astronomy (IIRC, avoid meditation, tech MC-Compass-Machinery-Optics-Calendar-Alphabet and astronomy should be open, even if I'm wrong, it's easy to look up) At that point you need to see how the diplo plays out overseas and get OB with as many overseas AIs as possible. I can usually use the HUGE commerce boost from trade to build a tech lead and then go conquering :D.

If it's an archipelago type map with other islands in galley range.. Then it's cake. In my experience, you can expand very fast in that situation (making liberal use of :whipped: for courthouses/other infrastructure (libraries always make sense with the commerce that every city will have.))

It's funny, because compared to what I've seen from games that many people post on the boards here, I seem to play a sloppy game and somehow manage to eke out victories anyway..

I'll put up a couple saves from games like this later, if you'd like to take a look.

PS: aom.. those were the days.. I haven't played that in a loooong time, but before I quit all the top players did so I was top50 at the time :lol:

EDIT: I'd also play in an emperor level game for FE/TRE, it'd be a good learning experience ;)
Bleys:
I may just give that Roosevelt game a try, looks to be a solid start.

settling your second city on an isle (standard, fractal) is a tactic i have tried on many an occasion.
A truly terrible result occurs and you get a slow producing high maintainance city.
I switch this to the capital as soon as the coast is built up to 3 more cities and
things tend to get worse as non inland building allows enemy advance.
However, the tactic is - creating a large army on your mainland bent on razing and pillaging as far as it can go.
Allowing them to come to you and then killing them- (an old civ3 multi-player tactic)
While this has never worked for me, if one were to play as the Vikings or Carthage it would seem, at worst, an optional strategy.

second city doesn't need to be on a different island.. coastal anywhere does just fine, later cities can and should be placed on different islands if possible (less than 3 per island in BtS to avoid colony expenses)

One of my highest score games was as Roosevelt with a coastal start--a very good combo. I generally like coastal starts (assuming seafood) so I can build workboats while growing my initial city. Also, they are excellent for leaders with the financial trait. And using a boat for early scouting is not bad, either, particularly with raging barbarians (they seem to rage alot more on land than at sea, I've found.)

I think a big reason coastal starts and island maps play "easier" is because of the very quote in your sig, hermit. Land is Power, which loosely translates to "If you have enough land to settle comfortably and build/tech without too much fear of destruction . . . etc"

Coastal island starts often offer plenty of locations to build cities, cities that have instant commerce tiles and usually fast-growth tiles, since the presence of seafood often dictates city placements. The water is a natural barrier against even the most aggessive Shaka's of the world, which gives you time to consolidate your land and gain the advantage.

Bleys:

Mids and TRE via GLH are not mutually exclusive, especially not for an industrious leader (I got both as washington on emperor in the LHC game, without stone).

Important to the decision on whether to build wonders and how many is the distance from the nearest AI and whether there are commerce tiles available like gold/gems/fur etc nearby. If you REX out cities quickly without commerce your science will plunge. This is partially offset by running scientists with a library, but the interceding time can greatly slow you down (and with mids those scientists have a nasty research contribution vs when not in rep).

What that boils down to is playing the map. With industrious it's pretty easy to get early wonders without huge expenses. Even if you aren't, if the land isn't good for REXing or you have enough time to take it anyway, picking up something like the mids is a stronger start than quickly settling everything and killing science before necessary.

Starting closer to the AI's means you can go more military to rush or try to box them in if there's ok land to do so. Strategic resources play a role here too. If the land isn't good I'd often just make one city to claim a resource and use the hammers towards a wonder instead of another settler, then take AI land in some instances.

I agree that most of you are more than ready for Emperor...it was a big jump for me since I've been climbing difficulty levels without spending long time periods at them...in the case of noble and prince about 10 games or less, and for monarch maybe 15 (I play games quickly). Most of you play better than I do IMO, at least micromanagement/tactically. You cookbook peoples will probably be pleasantly surprised with emperor once you adapt to the basic changes :).

Seafood -> worker/settler pump -> research CoL and adopt Caste System -> run merchants to cope with high city maintenance because of REXing.

@schwartz: Thks for the tips. I think my main issue is that I like to attack and then build up and what you are describing is more of a build up and then attack approach. I tried it out with Roosevelt last night (GLH + Coastal city spam) and it worked great. I normally never go to war during the medieval age preferring ancient/classical warfare followed by renaissance warfare. However, in two games I abandoned last night because I was in a winnable position ca. 1300AD I GLH + coastal city spammed then attacked with a theocracy-driven mace/pike/knight/trebuchet army. After taking out one large opponent each time I was in a sure-win situation both times. I will have to seriously consider this going forward :goodjob:

@all: Thks for you help as well. I am pretty sure I could win a good % of emperor games, but am working on polishing my game, working with a variety of starts and leaders, before making the jump. I would rather do that than just be able to win good starts with good leaders if that makes sense :)

Bleys: Mids and TRE via GLH are not mutually exclusive, especially not for an industrious leader.
Oh I know, I just prefer to focus in one direction or the other. GLH means I want those hammers for galleys and settlers. Mids means I want to focus on the SE stuff, like farms etc.

LHCs are sort of a different animal from "regular" game. KNOWING you are isolated means you can take your time pumping out settlers, and dont have to worry as much about your military other than Barb defenses. That kind of lets you use your hammers for buildings and Wonders. Also, even on Emperor, the LHC AIs are "light", because they dont have Archery. That alone delays a lot of the important milestones in the game by at least a few turns, since most AIs seem to place a very high priority on Archery. Me, I almost never research it unless I dont have a metal or horses.

Lately I have been working on focus. The GLH and the Mids tend to create situations where I want to do too many things at once. With one or the other, my plan gets clarified, and I can make decisions much easier based on which way I went. The initial land/map is what tells me which way to go, and once on that road, I find sticking to it makes the games go so much smoother.

Really, I think that coastal starts are more limiting later in the game than they are in the opening. The late-game problem is that all those non-seafood Coast & Ocean tiles aren't particularly productive. But in most cases, you've also got at least 4 or 5 land-based tiles with reasonable production in your capitol's BFC. In the early game, that's all you need.

They slow me down a little bit if there's seafood and I don't start with Fishing, simply because I'll usually be building something else for 7 or so turns, then switch to a WB once fishing is done. But that's pretty minor, and getting a 4-5 :food: 2 :commerce: tile worked early on is a pretty good payoff for that delay.

The ocean is also useful to channel your expansion and defense. I feel a bit lost if I start smack in the middle of a big continent with rivals in every direction. Exploration takes longer, the barbarian threat can come from any direction, and I've got to decide which rival(s) I want to aim my expansion towards. The sea at my back lets me focus my expansion and concentrate my military on my land borders without having to worry as much about who's back home watching the farm.

GLH is a trade route economy maneuver, while Mids are SE as you say. They don't really conflict. The ideal in such a situation is using seafood to run specialists, and often this is optimal as some coastal locations have seafood and little else, but this way they can still be pretty useful (heavy trade routes, and specialists can bring in amazing science for what would in other situations be a crappy city).

Isolation/long distance to AI/map terrain should be determined before you'd have to commit to this strategy typically. I find myself making a unit like a warrior or scout first more often, and this plus my original unit tend to hug the coasts in zig zags (stealing this idea from DaveMCW in one of his walkthroughs). If you're getting like 18 tiles away without seeing any AI's or their units, it barely matters if you're isolated or not. You have PLENTY of room to whore wonders and still expand, and you're likely to get all the coast you need.

IMO TRE isn't so hot using your own cities. It's ok, but the big bonuses kick in with harbors and foreign trade routes, especially intercontinental.

If you don't have enough room, don't build both of them :p. My general rule is the further away the AI's are, the more wonders I'll tend to build.

If you are Financial, coastal starts are HUGE. Then, you will have to snatch Colossus and GLH, obviously.

The thing is though I prefer production to commerce early in the game. Because I prefer rexing or rushing. I find those two things harder to do, or at least are delayed (every turn counts early game, and I play on normal), when I get a coastal start. But now I see that playing it peaceful and focusing on tech then attacking more toward the medieval era is a strong way to play it as well. So maybe I've finally found the solution to my problem: Patience??? :p

The thing is though I prefer production to commerce early in the game. Because I prefer rexing or rushing. I find those two things harder to do, or at least are delayed (every turn counts early game, and I play on normal), when I get a coastal start. But now I see that playing it peaceful and focusing on tech then attacking more toward the medieval era is a strong way to play it as well. So maybe I've finally found the solution to my problem: Patience??? :p

Patience, or the whip, depending on how close they are and your tiles. Like you say, land is power, use it best you can ;).

Seafood cities can whip units out pretty solidly if enemies are too close. Note that if you prepare the work boat ahead of time they can do so very quickly after being founded too. Usually the capitol has enough hammers, but any crap coastal city working a fish can churn out some axes for you! :hammer:

In Mad's annoying French RPC I built 2 cities other than my capitol, took theology off the oracle, and axe rushed and wiped out a neighbor's 2 cities all well before the BC's turned to AD's. The capitol and 2nd city were coastal with seafood. The capitol worked hammers/had chopping, 2nd city was a junk city settled en route to fogbust and whip out units (later to be used for commerce, it was literally just a fish or clam or something and a bunch of flatland), the third a very nice city near the AI borders where I launched my assault from (9 axes around 1k BC). This was on Monarch/Epic, so it'd be pretty relevant to what you're looking for on monarch before moving up.

True, but getting them up and running takes more time imo and every turn is so precious early on.

However, on the plus side I just quit another winning coastal start with Roosevelt. I had Genghis close by and I was able to take him out with axes and still manage to build the GLH. I also had a nice patch of islands nearby. So, from there I was able to settle 14-15 total cities, first to liberalism (Astronomy), and I built a large medieval army under vassalage/theocracy to take on Saladin. I took about 1/3 of his empire and then needed peace to heal and restock some troops when I saw a huge stack (offensive, pulled back from earlier war with France) come knocking. Once I finished Saladin though, I would be clearly the world leader in land (is power). Finish France during the renaissance to control my continent, cottage spam, tech to UU, shut down research, and rush buy UU and finish domination of other continent.

If you are Financial, coastal starts are HUGE. Then, you will have to snatch Colossus and GLH, obviously.
For anyone interested in such things, the current BTS Game of the Month (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=274912) is Pacal on a coastal start.

You will need to be using the HoF MOD, and if you wish to submit an entry, you need to follow their strict rules for entries and playing (no reloads, no restarts, etc). Its Emperor level. You can get more info on that format in the link I posted for the game. Once you actually start, you may NOT disseminate ANY info about the game, either, so no discussing it here, please. I am playing it, its a fun format and can really sharpen your game if you tend to be sloppy and re-load a lot. Of course, if you dont wish to actually submit an entry, you can do as you wish, but still, no discussion until the deadline for submissions is over.

The thing is though I prefer production to commerce early in the game.
Heres the thing about that, those big 3-seafood or 2-seafood+rice or something starts are actually MASSIVE production centers with solid use of the 2 and 3 pop Whip. Thats actually why I like them, the production is so good, and you STILL get the powerful commerce that mines and forests just dont supply.

True, I am starting to whip more now, so that is something I have to consider.

Hmm, I played through a quick start this morning and it's not looking so great.. Here's a save, my start was a bit cramped and I'm interested on what you all would have done in this situation.. (Hatshepsut, Emperor/Normal Speed, Standard size Hemispheres, 2 normal continents and normal islands)
I'm #1 in GNP right now but I've hugely neglected military (doesn't help that I have no metals...) Tech rate is not fast in this one, Willem is well ahead of me at the moment but I'm going to pull away once TGL goes up.
So.. What would you do?

Without military the plan falls apart like scattered coastal buckshot weeping with clam. Warchariot and bow should have been enough but lost chances are like netted fish.

If you start with a costal neighbor it favors me getting a second capital since AI will just build workboats.

What does financial have to do with the great lighthouse?

And coastal, does this include starts where you get boxed in, because those make me play coastal starts faster than usual.

What does financial have to do with the great lighthouse?



Well, each coastal square will be generating 4 commerce early on.

Well, each coastal square will be generating 4 commerce early on.

I think you're confusing the effects of the Great Lighthouse with the Colossus. However, no one will argue that the extra trade routes from the Great Lighthouse can bring in lots of bonus income.

At any rate, investing heavily in seafood means you are trading hammers (to build the boats) for food and the ability to grow while you're building them. The catch -- you're not getting workers out as quickly and you can quickly run into the happy cap pretty quick.

If I have a seafood start, I tend to shoot for either an early religion to raise happy caps or get bronze working early so I can chop some hammers out. I really have to force myself to build that first worker, though (and not build yet another boat :lol:).

See, again, I see those heavy seafood starts as an excellent source of hammers, via the Whip. 2 and even 3 pop whips are a solid way to convert food to production. Regrowth to the cap is fast, but a timely settler or worker in front of the queue can buy a few turns to allow whip-anger to fade, just in time to do another 2 or 3 pop whip. I rarely go even 1 turn without SOME whip-anger in a high-food city. And all the while I am working 2C seafood instead no-C rice or pigs.