Harbors

I have a question for experienced players:

How often and most importantly, WHEN do you build harbors? Because I generally find that they're among the last things I build (well, obviously it depends on the city). I was just curious if you think it's wise to start building them as soon as you get Navigation? Because usually when you get Nav it's right in that time frame when you're trying to build up knight armies and markets and libraries and...etc... Plus, 100 is a BIG fu kin g cost in the early going. You could be better off going for Magna Carta or something, in my opinion.

So again, I'll ask it in three parts: When should I build it for: (assume each has a courthouse in it already)

1. A city that has 4 sea tiles?
2. A city that has 14 sea tiles?
3. A city on a border that is probably going to be a battleground but is located next to 10 tiles. It's also a chokepoint city and you're at war with the enemy on that side of your continent.

soprismb said:

I have a question for experienced players:

How often and most importantly, WHEN do you build harbors? Because I generally find that they're among the last things I build (well, obviously it depends on the city). I was just curious if you think it's wise to start building them as soon as you get Navigation? Because usually when you get Nav it's right in that time frame when you're trying to build up knight armies and markets and libraries and...etc... Plus, 100 is a BIG fu kin g cost in the early going. You could be better off going for Magna Carta or something, in my opinion.

So again, I'll ask it in three parts: When should I build it for: (assume each has a courthouse in it already)

1. A city that has 4 sea tiles?
2. A city that has 14 sea tiles?
3. A city on a border that is probably going to be a battleground but is located next to 10 tiles. It's also a chokepoint city and you're at war with the enemy on that side of your continent.

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A city that isn't in the battleground, a city with at least 7-8 population, and using japanese or greeks. Other civilizations can wait and get them for free unless you really need it.

Granaries & Aqueducts are the economic bonuses, not Harbors.

It really depends upon the city. The more you want the sea trade and the less food tiles available elsewhere, the more the city will need a harbor. That extra food can also push the population up - great for culture.

ericball said:

Granaries & Aqueducts are the economic bonuses, not Harbors.

It really depends upon the city. The more you want the sea trade and the less food tiles available elsewhere, the more the city will need a harbor. That extra food can also push the population up - great for culture.

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I know, I was thing about Acqueducts but I answered about Harbor. It's worthful after 7-8 population

Harbors are almost never needed. The only time you would really need to consider them is if you are going for a non-dom win, and then they are only truely needed if you have your highest producing trade city that has difficulty growing. Maybe it's a city with your only university or Trade Fair or something, but there are no whales or fish to get it growing well.

But otherwise, it's kind of a waste of hammers and efficiency. They cost 120 hammers to build, which is 600 gold in the modern era, and probably won't amount to get it's worth back in science, hammers, gold or culture, when you could be spending those hammers or gold on markets, banks, libraries, univesities, courthouses and other more useful things in other cities, or even a factory, which is the best late game building

They aren't useless, just not so useful when you're talking about what wins games faster. Harbors almost never make a victory faster.

for the economic win, all you need is markets, banks, and courthouses

cultural win, temples, factories, wonders

tech win- university, courthouses, factories

all wins you'll need to start out with spamming settlers, then libraries, then go from there.

**here's where someone chimes in and tries to convince me of the power of Japan getting a harbor and getting +2 food per sea square **

And no, you are not ever better off building Magna Carta. Maybe better off if you built Magna Carta over a harbor, but Magna Carta should only be considered way later in the game, or if you are just collecting wonders. MagC requires courthouses and then makes them double function like temples, which is not really that helpful unless you are going for a cultural victory, or a rare case when you need to be in communism but still want your culture to be coming in, but that's rarely needed that late in the game.

Whenever you get navigation, you should still be focusing on expanding for a while, getting to those islands ASAP, because that's where the bulk of your trade will come from. In single player, you should be able to get 5-10 really great islands, if not way more than that if you have the patience to build that many cities.

after that, libraries, and hopefully you'll get your free market from currency, and then maybe a barracks or two, and then start rushing or looking for a non-dom victory path if you so choose.

hammering out wonders early in the game is rarely a good idea, unless you are the romans or have some freakishly high production city that early in the game, maybe with free workshops and oak giving you more than +10 production per turn. Otherwise, don't waste your hammers and get thing that will make your empire grow, either in size or trade.

i start building them when im getting good money, when im going for the economic win

Market-Bank-Courthouse-Harbors

its good if your greeks of japan..

I disagree with the comments people are making about harbors only being useful for the Japanese and Greeks. So much so that I would say that because Japan and Greece get 1F from sea squares that they are the ones you don't need a harbor for. Granted, harbors are a nice bonus to these two countries, but because they are already getting food for each sea tile, harbors are the last thing I build with these two countries.

When playing with the other 14 countries, I will often prioritise harbors above courthouses. The reason being, harbors only cost an additional 20 hammers above a courthouse. Once you have a harbor, your city will grow twice as fast and every population point above 8 adds to the city center. Which, as you know will provide you with at least 1 hammer and 1 trade, allowing you to build your courthouse that much faster.

I disagree with the comments people are making about harbors only being useful for the Japanese and Greeks. So much so that I would say that because Japan and Greece get 1F from sea squares that they are the ones you don't need a harbor for. Granted, harbors are a nice bonus to these two countries, but because they are already getting food for each sea tile, harbors are the last thing I build with these two countries.

When playing with the other 14 countries, I will often prioritise harbors above courthouses. The reason being, harbors only cost an additional 20 hammers above a courthouse. Once you have a harbor, your city will grow twice as fast and every population point above 8 adds to the city center. Which, as you know will provide you with at least 1 hammer and 1 trade, allowing you to build your courthouse that much faster.

REDAF said:

I disagree with the comments people are making about harbors only being useful for the Japanese and Greeks. So much so that I would say that because Japan and Greece get 1F from sea squares that they are the ones you don't need a harbor for. Granted, harbors are a nice bonus to these two countries, but because they are already getting food for each sea tile, harbors are the last thing I build with these two countries.

When playing with the other 14 countries, I will often prioritise harbors above courthouses. The reason being, harbors only cost an additional 20 hammers above a courthouse. Once you have a harbor, your city will grow twice as fast and every population point above 8 adds to the city center. Which, as you know will provide you with at least 1 hammer and 1 trade, allowing you to build your courthouse that much faster.

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I'll agree with you that Japan and the Greeks do not need harbors, because they already have the growth from sea benefit, so it's usually better to focus on getting other areas up to snuff. But I still say harbors are almost never needed, and they are just a luxuary building more than anything. yes, they serve a function, but really not that great of one if you are looking for a quicker path to any victory type. If you are looking to just build a huge empire for the fun of it, then they can help you with that, otherwise, they aren't really needed at all.

You don't need that many courthouses either, just in your largest cities will do, and really only if you are going for a non-dom victory. If you need a huge production city for wonders, then courthouses help, and are usually easy to hammer out.

If you are going for a domination victory, you don't need them at all, and it's often just a waste of hammers. You could build 2 barracks for that price and then go kill others.

If you are going for eco or tech, you should only have maybe 1 courthouse by the time you get to the modern era, and that should be in the city you have either a bank or university in. That's all. Later, if it speeds things up, you can get a few more courthouses, and if you have nothing else to build, you can consider building harbors or whatever else, but really these aren't essential at all to winning any victory type, unless you don't expand enough, then you'll need those.

If you have less than 10 cities, then yes, going without a courthouse will be hard, but you should never really have less than 8-10 cities, or you're just making things hard on yourself.

GGrayson
Couldn't agree with you more in terms of harbors being luxury items and large empire vehicles. If domination is your game, or what the times demand, one shouldn't bother with courthouses or harbors.

Personally I prefer the empire method as I find it more rewarding to pawn the other civs and toy with them before I go for the kill. After playing this game for a while even deity loses it's challenge. And multiplayer is so incedibly slow between turns I don't bother.

But now I'm drifting off topic for this thread, good luck all...

In the simplest scenario, take a size-4 city with no food available, and 6-8 sea tiles. Typically, a 1-tile island with a couple of Dye adjacent but no food specials, or a peninsula with 1-2 forest tiles adjacent but no food. Assuming we're working 4 sea tiles, a harbor increases the city growth rate from zero to 1 citizen every 10 turns. Unlike normal city growth, it's constant because each new tile produces food, so food surplus keeps pace with the population.

The return on 100 hammers is nothing for 10 turns, 20 trade after 20 turns, 60 trade after 30 turns, 120 trade after 40 turns, etc.

If the city has 4 food already from fish or a whale, the return is 0 for 5 turns, 10 trade after 5 turns, 34 trade after 20 turns, 72 trade after 30 turns, and 130 trade after 40 turns.

In general, the larger the city size and the more food it had initially, the larger the return. This is a bit counter-intuitive, but run the numbers and you'll get a similar result. However, the difference is small, never adding more than about 25% to the simplest case.

As a hammers-to-cash conversion, with a bank and democracy it's about 3:1 after 30 turns. This is on par with many Caravan returns.

It's the only remaining hammers-to-beakers conversion after you've built a University. A University will net you about 4:1 or 5:1 on typical cities in 30 turns.

- Gus

Gus_Smedstad said:

In the simplest scenario, take a size-4 city with no food available, and 6-8 sea tiles. Typically, a 1-tile island with a couple of Dye adjacent but no food specials, or a peninsula with 1-2 forest tiles adjacent but no food. Assuming we're working 4 sea tiles, a harbor increases the city growth rate from zero to 1 citizen every 10 turns. Unlike normal city growth, it's constant because each new tile produces food, so food surplus keeps pace with the population.

The return on 100 hammers is nothing for 10 turns, 20 trade after 20 turns, 60 trade after 30 turns, 120 trade after 40 turns, etc.

If the city has 4 food already from fish or a whale, the return is 0 for 5 turns, 10 trade after 5 turns, 34 trade after 20 turns, 72 trade after 30 turns, and 130 trade after 40 turns.

In general, the larger the city size and the more food it had initially, the larger the return. This is a bit counter-intuitive, but run the numbers and you'll get a similar result. However, the difference is small, never adding more than about 25% to the simplest case.

As a hammers-to-cash conversion, with a bank and democracy it's about 3:1 after 30 turns. This is on par with many Caravan returns.

It's the only remaining hammers-to-beakers conversion after you've built a University. A University will net you about 4:1 or 5:1 on typical cities in 30 turns.

- Gus

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Spending so much in a harbor is not good, and 30 turns is too much probrably. However, with an harbor and 4 pop, you should need less then 10 turns to grow. From 4 to 5, let's say after 1025 AD. You would need 30 food to grow, then, only 8 turns. I can't remember about other years, however, rushing an harbor is too much unless you have already got enough population. It's better using that gold for 2.5 libraries (or 5 with China/Greece).

Harbors in my fishing villiages are pretty much a given, especially early in the game. When better builds like library and university or market and bank come up the harbor waits, but usually before courthouse unless the city is allready pretty big.

It just occurred to me reading this thread that I'd be much better off going ICS than courthouses. Invariably, every time I play, I rush for courthouses and Magna Carta. But the payoff in terms of great people really isn't worth it when I think about it. It has helped me flip a few cities, but overall I could have just used the hammers to capture them directly. Walls are 100 compared to the courthouse 80 and definitely more useful. I guess I might still want some for my island cities, but mainland empire... wow have I been wasting my time.

erislover said:

It just occurred to me reading this thread that I'd be much better off going ICS than courthouses. Invariably, every time I play, I rush for courthouses and Magna Carta. But the payoff in terms of great people really isn't worth it when I think about it. It has helped me flip a few cities, but overall I could have just used the hammers to capture them directly. Walls are 100 compared to the courthouse 80 and definitely more useful. I guess I might still want some for my island cities, but mainland empire... wow have I been wasting my time.

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Don't build a wall! 100 hammers for a little extra defense really isn't that great. Especially in your cap, since it only gives you 50% defense boost in your cap, compared to the 100% in other cities. Walls are really not useful. There's so many more things you can do with 100 hammers, beakers, or food.

But, yeah, going for a courthouse and then Magna Carta isn't great. If you are trying for a culture win w/ the Indians, then it may be ok, as the Indians have 40 hammer courthouses in the modern. Courthouses should be rarely used anyway. You should pretty much only have libraries, markets, barracks, temples, factories, universities, banks, and wonders. You don't really need temples, but they can help.

To play this game better, you'll need to be more efficient. Most buildings aren't worth it, most of the wonders really aren't highly useful. The basic buildings I listed above and units are are all you need to build, with the most important thing you need to be focusing on is more settlers. Every now and then, you might find something like a granary useful, or maybe a cathedral, or a wall if you are about to be flipped. But, for 100 hammers, you can often have an attacking force large enough to take down a city, or build spies to destroy buildings or steal GPs.

Walls, harbors, sdi defense, and cathedrals are some of the worst buildings in the game, and you really need to have a good immediate reason to build them. Not saying they don't have their uses, but for thier hammer costs, there's little point.