Move Civ Settler to Coast?

Maybe it is silly, but the biggest thing I miss when not having a coastal city is not being able to build a caravel to unfog the map.
 
LordBalkoth said:
And a game I was fooling around with as Venice last night really drove this point home to me -- I ran out of tiles to work like halfway through the game due to a coastal capital. Stopped running food ships to my capital because I'd just be working 2 food ocean tiles. I also had some decent starting resources...but I didn't have a river OR mountain and thus both my late game production and late game science were noticeably worse than I'd prefer (which was compounded by the whole "I don't have any more freaking tiles to grow into" problem).
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Couldn't you have simply changed those food ships to production ships when their 30 turns were up?
 
shaglio said:
Couldn't you have simply changed those food ships to production ships when their 30 turns were up?
Click to expand...

I did.

But...

A, the hammers don't get adjusted by city multipliers (that includes everything from Workshop to Tradition Wonders to Forge unit bonus).

B, that means I stop growing and thus my science is lower (on top of lacking the observatory part that I mentioned)

C, except for wonders, with Big Ben and Mercantilism I was actually better off running external routes for gold and buying units/buildings.
 
Would it be worth it to go coastal even if it'll give your capital something like 9-10 water tiles with no resource? I used to always want coastal but now I tend to move my Settler inland unless I see a see resource right at the start.

Would you still go coastal for your capital if you can see no sea resources?
 
Depends entirely on the surrounding terrain. I wouldn't go coastal for a section with pure grassland or something. But river, mountain, and/or bonus resources? Absolutely. 9-10 water tiles isn't even so bad, problem is more when something like 18+ tiles are coastal (meaning half or more out of your possible 36).
 
mnf said:
Would it be worth it to go coastal even if it'll give your capital something like 9-10 water tiles with no resource?
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Yes, because the ability to run cargo ships is just that powerful. But I am assuming you only moved a couple of hexes to pick up the coast. I would be very reluctant to plant an expo on a coastal spot without sea resources. Even a couple of fish are pretty strong.
 
mnf said:
I see, thanks for the replies!
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Keep in mind that to exploit cargo-ships you need at least 1 other coastal city, and if there are no good spots then settling the coast isn't a good idea. Of course you don't know this on turn 0...My advice is to try a coastal start bias civ like Spain, they're sure to have at least 2 good coastal locations.
 
phillipwyllie said:
...and if there are no good spots then settling the coast isn't a good idea.
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I don’t think that is true. A coastal cap with no coastal expos is no worse off than a non-costal cap. A coastal cap is still strong for the ability to run cargo ships: to AI (for the extra gold) and to CS (some of which might not reachable via land routes). Plus, if you found and stack EITC with GT you will get some more of your founder benefits, without worrying about losing your religion in your EITC city.
 
Yes, you can benefit from just having your capital as your only coastal city (additional gold from sea trade routes with other civs), but you know that the "exploit" he was referring to is sending food cargo ships back to the capital, which does require a coastal expo from which the sea trade route originates.
 
I've had many games on Emperor/Immortal (Epic, large) where having a capital not on the coast had huge strategic value (defensive) from a military perspective, so I think it depends on many factors. In the beginning a hill on a river is more important to me than a costal spot (although as someone said earlier, either move totally away from the coast or to the coast -- one tile away is the worst of all worlds, including being bombarded from the sea).

After all, you can always found your *second* city there, so why is the capital being there so important? That second city can also be the hub of your trade routes with the East India company, etc. etc.
 
I prefer more defensive starting position over coastal tile.
 
DizzKneeLand33 said:
I've had many games on Emperor/Immortal (Epic, large) where having a capital not on the coast had huge strategic value (defensive) from a military perspective
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IkM said:
I prefer more defensive starting position over coastal tile.
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Are you guys talking about MP? One or two exposed hexes should not be an issue for SP. I agree that the AI can exploit 3+ sea facing hexes.
 
beetle said:
Are you guys talking about MP? One or two exposed hexes should not be an issue for SP. I agree that the AI can exploit 3+ sea facing hexes.
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Both, actually. At higher difficulties AI can be really dangerous and keeping your capital safe is more important than settling coastal tile, IMHO.
 
I don't agree, IkM, not unless you're using mods that significantly improve the AI. The AI is awful at naval combat especially.
 
Deity difficulty is pretty hard for me and if there is an agressive neighbor you need really good place to repel early enemy wave. Otherwise, they wipe you out easily.
 
I don't necessarily disagree with that statement overall -- I'm just pointing out that applies mostly to land wars, not naval wars.
 
Even on deity, AI is horrible at naval war. You can easily use ships or even land units to block them from capturing the city and they're too stupid to destroy the obstacle first. Instead they just focus on the city.
 
Sclb, I wasn't pointing naval war but land war. Coastal tiles are -mostly- more vulnarable than hilly tiles. If you have a mountain or two you can defend against many enemies but coastal tiles are really open target for any land armies.
 
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