Useless, Worthless, Stupid Water ;)

Hakan-i Cihan said:

My concern towards the new Trade route mechanics and removal of gold from riverside and coast tiles is how the AI will handle the situation. If the new system require too much micro would the AI earn enough gold? And it shouldn't be a new method for he player to benefit from the AI.

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Uh well, I've seen AI use the USA's method of federal banking reserve....

AIs can go as down as -800gpt and still not get units/buildings disbanded while maintaining world's largest army magically.

It's pretty safe bet to say that AIs cannot handle gold already the way it is atm lol. And this has been the case since civ 4, I cannot remember my civ 3 days anymore xD

Sea trade routes seem to give about four or five times more gold than land trade routes, so it should balance out once they kick in.

The video shows 2 gold on the fish tile. Unfortunately the city management screen was closed so couldn't see what non-fish tiles were worth. It did indeed show river tiles without gold though.

I'd like to see the ability to build ships from 1 or 2 tiles away from water, as a city doesn't actually need to be right on the ocean to build a port/shipyard irl.

Halps said:

I'd like to see the ability to build ships from 1 or 2 tiles away from water, as a city doesn't actually need to be right on the ocean to build a port/shipyard irl.

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Hopefully they implant a mechanism for this. Maybe it should be possible with an improvement (coast town/dock city ??).

Halps said:

I'd like to see the ability to build ships from 1 or 2 tiles away from water, as a city doesn't actually need to be right on the ocean to build a port/shipyard irl.

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Yeah, it can be annoying to have sea resources within reach, but you can't get a workboat out to them.

I really don't like the idea about removing gold yield from coastal tiles and compensating with higher trade route yield. It would pretty much affect gameplay so that you need to found coastal cities with the least number of coastal tiles around it.

Imo coastal tiles should have the yield potential as plains/grassland, which is 4. Adding bonusses to all coastal tiles have been suggested in this thread and I think it is the best way to fix a broken tile.

I would suggest the following:
-1 food base
-Lighthouse gives all water tiles +1 food (and +1 food on fish)
-Harbor gives all coastal tiles +1 coin (+1 production on fishing boats)
-Seaport gives all water tiles +1 production (+1 coin on fishing boats)

Coastal will be better than ocean tiles and ressources will be improved more.

With improved trade routes this would perhaps make coastal start too strong, but that depends on the trade mechanism, which we don't know the specifics about.

theis81 said:

I really don't like the idea about removing gold yield from coastal tiles and compensating with higher trade route yield. It would pretty much affect gameplay so that you need to found coastal cities with the least number of coastal tiles around it.

Imo coastal tiles should have the yield potential as plains/grassland, which is 4. Adding bonusses to all coastal tiles have been suggested in this thread and I think it is the best way to fix a broken tile.

I would suggest the following:
-1 food base
-Lighthouse gives all water tiles +1 food (and +1 food on fish)
-Harbor gives all coastal tiles +1 coin (+1 production on fishing boats)
-Seaport gives all water tiles +1 production (+1 coin on fishing boats)

Coastal will be better than ocean tiles and ressources will be improved more.

With improved trade routes this would perhaps make coastal start too strong, but that depends on the trade mechanism, which we don't know the specifics about.

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Why not give desert the same yield as grassland as well? /s

Calouste said:

Why not give desert the same yield as grassland as well? /s

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I see your point and I don't suggest every tile should be equal, but it makes sence that coast is valuable it doesn't with desert. In my suggestion I differ between coast and ocean, so I'm not trying to make everything equal.

The best solution (if indeed coast tiles are seen as too weak) is to slightly increase the number of fish that spawn as mentioned by a previous poster.

Fish tiles are great, plain coast not so much.

For the desert example it would be like how there are usually floodplains or oasis thrown in to compensate. Rarely do you get vast spans of desert without any access to water (random maps, some of the historical maps have large deserts)

Hakan-i Cihan said:

Hopefully they implant a mechanism for this. Maybe it should be possible with an improvement (coast town/dock city ??).

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A tile improvement that would allow an inland city to build naval units and buildings? Long overdue With Great Tile Improvements it's crying out for it.

In fact it could be 2 separate improvements
- Seaport (can be worked for gold and culture, trade route terminus, built by Great Merchant, allows construction of civilian naval buildings and workboats by city, 'Seaport' building becomes Shipyard)
- Naval Base (worked for hammers and science, built by Great Admiral adjacent to coast, allows construction of warships by city, has a high defence value and shore batteries which can fire at enemies, must be taken by a melee naval unit like a city, has the Medic 1 promotion).

And I expect with all the talk about canals over the years someone has already suggested adding the ability to build one to the Great Engineer.

shaglio said:

I can think of 2 ways to possibly make coastal starts better:

1) Currently the Harbor and Seaport only affect water tiles with Resources. They could make them affect ALL water tiles instead.

2) Leave the Harbor and Seaport as is, but increase the frequency of Sea Resource tiles.

In Civs 1-4, I used to work almost all the water tiles in my cities. In Civ 5, I usually only work the 1-3 tiles that have a resource. That's a cryin' shame.

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This highly intelligent person seems to have some great ides. Although, in #1, I think limiting it to just Coast and Lake tiles and not Ocean tiles would be a better suggestion.

I, personally, don't think that all coastal tiles should be great to work. People don't just work the entire ocean making profits and cash from wherever they want.
I think that the sea resources work well.

But I do think that they need a buff, as coastal cities do have benefits IRL that aren't in the game. Namely benefits from trade and access to the water. So I do hope that the benefits from Cargo ships are higher than land based trade. Sea trade is faster and can carry significantly more. So if you get +10 production bonus from an internal land trade, I'd hope a sea trade would be at least +15 if not +20 (just random numbers).

Coastal cities would be fantastic if they were less about the resources directly around them and more about the resources you could send in and out of them via trade and infrastructure. It makes them different to their inland counterparts while making them powerful in a different way. The most powerful coastal city might not have the most resources right near it, but with the right infrastructure and being central in terms of the trade network it could be big.

Considering that the biggest trade hubs of the world were so because of their central locations in relation to the trade networks. Carthage and Venice being obvious examples.


In regards to the internals...
I don't believe they will remove the gold for connecting cities. I think "Trade Routes" will be more powerful things, such as transferring food and resources within your own empire. Or bonus gold on top of the normal traffic that comes naturally from such connections.



EDIT:
Some half formed ideas for infrastructure that I think has potential...
Some buildings that have increasing benefits with more trade routes directed through the city.

Ports +1 gold for every worked ocean/shallows tile when you have 1 active dea trade routes through the city.
+2 gold for every ocean/shallow tile if you have 3 active sea trade routes through the city.

Obviously it's not completely realistic, but it is a generalisation representing increased gold into the city's coffers with all the extra sea based activity going on. Whether it be taxes, seafarers buying things and so on.

Again, just trying to think outside the box to fit with my earlier concepts of seaside cities working a little differently (thus greater player control over their development)

HeraldtheGreat said:

Sea trade routes seem to give about four or five times more gold than land trade routes, so it should balance out once they kick in.

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Four or Five times? Now your just making things up, in the pax video it was x2.

Fummy said:

Four or Five times? Now your just making things up, in the pax video it was x2.

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Then you should watch it again. He selects Ur for both the traders and the land shows two and the naval shows eight.

Edit: And it also shows that the target (UR) gets one for the land caravan and two for the naval.

DemonMaster said:

Then you should watch it again. He selects Ur for both the traders and the land shows two and the naval shows eight.

Edit: And it also shows that the target (UR) gets one for the land caravan and two for the naval.

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The multiplier for a Sea Trade Route is 2x; it's explicitly displayed on the tooltips. The total amount is more than that because it's a different city and the target cities are also different; the factors which increase the value are listed in the tooltip.

I suspect you can get more than twice the gold, though, because you can travel longer distances.

Ok to clear up some confusion I've seen in this thread.

Connecting roads to your capital still provide gold like before

Here is a screenshot I snagged as he brushed his mouse by the Palace.



"Connecting other cities to the Capital by road will produce additional gold."

As far as coastal cities, I'm actually excited about how trade routes can really boost them in different ways. One of the most annoying problems was colonizing a distant island and then agonize at its initial slow growth or it's inevitable poor production.

I wonder how many trade units we will be able to make in a normal game and if we can send multiple caravans to a single city. It would be cool if we could send 2 ships to boost production and food simultaneously.

AriochIV said:

The multiplier for a Sea Trade Route is 2x; it's explicitly displayed on the tooltips. The total amount is more than that because it's a different city and the target cities are also different; the factors which increase the value are listed in the tooltip.<>

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Sorry my bad, I misread the post. I thought he meant yield.

Jman5 said:

Connecting roads to your capital still provide gold like before

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Great news, thanx for clarifying this.