Settling Coastal Cities just for Cargo Ships

What map type are we talking about here? I pretty much only play Continents and not having any coastal cities mean no navy, which is suicide unless your planning to attempt a peaceful victory which is not easy on Immortal. I prefer at least 2 of my 3-4 Tradition cities to be coastal to allow for a healthy navy which usually does most of the heavy lifting combat wise.

Athenaeum said:

Why do you even need a Navy if you're not coastal or vulnerable? Only reason I can think of is to build carriers for nukes. True, having a Navy makes it a lot easier to conquer civs on other continents, but it also makes YOU easier to conquer by civs on other continents.

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Even on pangaea a navy is usually useful. Just being able to put out a caravel is worth it! But you are questioning utility for continents? Madness! Your coastal spots should not have more than one water hex, and the AI is terrible at invasions. If anything, your coastal cities are more secure than the inland ones!

There can be a barb camp ten tiles from your borders that's on the coast, and it will barb galleys into your territory. Your trade route doesn't have to be in the fog to get pillaged by barbs.

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Yes, it happens. But asserting you need 2-3 triremes to counter is silly when the city+archer deals with any barb problems for the vast majority of games. The main reason I don't bother building triremes is because I have a hard time leveling them up against barbs -- there are not enough of them for my tastes!

Yes I acknowledge this.

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Okay, so why did you raise it as a problem?

I'm saying what's the point of settling coastal if you're not going to build cargo ships or take advantage of sea resources?

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Obviously you will want to be building cargo ships, but they don't have to be particularly early. You want to attract trade routes too, open trade with multiple AIs, and have more options for CS trade route quests. Sea resources are a nice bonus, but not required to justify settling the coast.

Athenaeum said:

I had only 2 Iron on my ENTIRE continent. A guy frig rushed me and I could only have 2 frigates at a time because of this.

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You mentioned Aztec player moving to the coast. So is the context of your question more about MP than SP? I would see that as a very different set of circumstances! Two frigates defending a city is plenty though. One in the bay, one in the city.

Luckily my cap was in an extremely defensive spot, tucked away in a coastal pocket surrounded by land so he couldn't get to me with more than 2 frigs or 1 frig/1 melee at a time. But if I wasn't so lucky I would have been screwed.

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One water hex is usually all you have to worry about, so you just needed average luck. One melee ship per turn is all you have to face. The AI is hardly ever a problem, even with how they spam units. With a land attack, the AI will be throwing units in the water, so your coastal city is even better defended.

When you settle coastal, are you not taking a bet that you will have access to Iron later on?

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It is not like iron is rare, but no. Building coastal cities does not require building a frigate-oriented navy (or even much of a navy at all). In your example above, a privateer in your bay might have been enough to let you laugh at the attack rather than sweating bullets. Certainly an Ironclad would have done it!

I think multiplayer naval combat is pretty competitive, and it's totally different from single player (mainly because the AI is completely terrible at naval and you can easily clear a map with 3-4 frigates and 2 privateers if all capitals are coastal). Defending from a naval invasion would require a significant naval force, but I think 2-3 frigates and 3-4 privateers should do it in most cases. The enemy can't heal and you can use that to your advantage. In the beginning you might require a couple of triremes, to protect your trade routes but they usually are a good investment to do some initial exploring and later you can instantly upgrade them to caravels and explore the world, so they are not really a hammer loss.

What is really annoying to a coastal start is building all those workboats, it really slows you down, but in a way you get the extra food from internal routes to compensate this.

beetle said:

Even on pangaea a navy is usually useful. Just being able to put out a caravel is worth it! But you are questioning utility for continents? Madness! Your coastal spots should not have more than one water hex, and the AI is terrible at invasions. If anything, your coastal cities are more secure than the inland ones!

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I'm not worried about AI's. I hardly ever do single player.

beetle said:

Yes, it happens. But asserting you need 2-3 triremes to counter is silly when the city+archer deals with any barb problems for the vast majority of games. The main reason I don't bother building triremes is because I have a hard time leveling them up against barbs -- there are not enough of them for my tastes!

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It's not about killing barbs, its about keeping them out of my trade route path. A barb galley has what, 4 movement? It can come between your cities and pillage the intersecting trade route before you have time to kill it with city and ranged land units.

beetle said:

You mentioned Aztec player moving to the coast. So is the context of your question more about MP than SP? I would see that as a very different set of circumstances! Two frigates defending a city is plenty though. One in the bay, one in the city.

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That's exactly what I"m saying. I was lucky to have such a defensible coastal spot. I won't always be that lucky when settling coastal. Thus not having Iron will be a much larger problem.

One water hex is usually all you have to worry about, so you just needed average luck. One melee ship per turn is all you have to face. The AI is hardly ever a problem, even with how they spam units. With a land attack, the AI will be throwing units in the water, so your coastal city is even better defended.

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Once again, not talking about AI.

beetle said:

It is not like iron is rare, but no. Building coastal cities does not require building a frigate-oriented navy (or even much of a navy at all). In your example above, a privateer in your bay might have been enough to let you laugh at the attack rather than sweating bullets. Certainly an Ironclad would have done it!

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As I had already said, in my last game there was 2 iron total on my entire continent. City-state included (there was only one CS and had no iron).

claudiupb said:

I think multiplayer naval combat is pretty competitive, and it's totally different from single player (mainly because the AI is completely terrible at naval and you can easily clear a map with 3-4 frigates and 2 privateers if all capitals are coastal). Defending from a naval invasion would require a significant naval force, but I think 2-3 frigates and 3-4 privateers should do it in most cases. The enemy can't heal and you can use that to your advantage. In the beginning you might require a couple of triremes, to protect your trade routes but they usually are a good investment to do some initial exploring and later you can instantly upgrade them to caravels and explore the world, so they are not really a hammer loss.

What is really annoying to a coastal start is building all those workboats, it really slows you down, but in a way you get the extra food from internal routes to compensate this.

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How often do you build workboats? There's not a point to build them on fish, only luxuries. For fish build a lighthouse and be done with it.

Athenaeum said:

How often do you build workboats? There's not a point to build them on fish, only luxuries. For fish build a lighthouse and be done with it.

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Going Tradition, the workboats to fish will still pay for itself in terms of allowing the city to grow more (this is way after light houses about the time that happiness problems are permanently solved.) But the best place to build the world boat is usually not the city that has the fish but a more established city that's looking for something to build that takes 3 to 5 turns (just long enough for you to discover the next tech with an important build everywhere building)

Sometimes you get a coastal start with 3-4 sea luxuries, so you need to build the work boats. Even for fish, improving them gives one extra food and gold so it's worth it (maybe not right away, but once you get other things out of the way)

I'd just like to add that there's a difference between having a coastal capital (and then going coastal to support it with better food routes) and having an empire with 2 coastal cities that can feed themselves and/or help with trade routes for gold or CS Quests.

The Capital needs to be serious, and a good coastal capital is great, but often I move off coast if I'm not thrilled and can instead move in 2-3 turns to a river network. River networks often have a lot more hills and will generate a beast production capital with access to plenty of Civil Service farms.

That said, it's easily doable to plant 2 of your 3, 4 or 5 self-founded cities on the coast in order to have them feed each other once you get aqueducts and have teched your way to an empire capacity of 4 trade routes.

Capital placement is a real skill, however, which is why there are various youtube vids and lots of talk on the matter.

Athenaeum said:

It's not about killing barbs, its about keeping them out of my trade route path. A barb galley has what, 4 movement? It can come between your cities and pillage the intersecting trade route before you have time to kill it with city and ranged land units.

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Yes, it can happen. It is relatively rare in my experience, and not worth building more than a single trireme to prevent IMHO.

I'm not worried about AI's. I hardly ever do single player... Once again, not talking about AI.

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Next time, please lead with that detail. Almost everything in General Discussion is oriented towards SP.

Athenaeum said:

There's not a point to build them on fish, only luxuries. For fish build a lighthouse and be done with it.

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Yes, workboats do seem to have a disproportionate hammer cost. But I don't agree with your two points.

Nick31 said:

I'd just like to add that there's a difference between having a coastal capital (and then going coastal to support it with better food routes) and having an empire with 2 coastal cities that can feed themselves and/or help with trade routes for gold or CS Quests.

The Capital needs to be serious, and a good coastal capital is great, but often I move off coast if I'm not thrilled and can instead move in 2-3 turns to a river network. River networks often have a lot more hills and will generate a beast production capital with access to plenty of Civil Service farms.

That said, it's easily doable to plant 2 of your 3, 4 or 5 self-founded cities on the coast in order to have them feed each other once you get aqueducts and have teched your way to an empire capacity of 4 trade routes.

Capital placement is a real skill, however, which is why there are various youtube vids and lots of talk on the matter.

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Early civil service farms with a coastal start is even better for a capital. So much food would be generated from cargo ships, civil service farms and the usual food giving buildings that give food.

reddishrecue said:

Early civil service farms with a coastal start is even better for a capital. So much food would be generated from cargo ships, civil service farms and the usual food giving buildings that give food.

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Ha, sure. But a coastal capital on a river but just 2-3 hills in the 3-ring suffers compared to a river capital in-land with plenty of river and 6-8 hills.

Look, coastal tradition is a powerful thing, but often lack hammers. Production powerhouse capitals on a nice river System are dominant.

Anyway, that's the debate.

Nick31 said:

Ha, sure. But a coastal capital on a river but just 2-3 hills in the 3-ring suffers compared to a river capital in-land with plenty of river and 6-8 hills.

Look, coastal tradition is a powerful thing, but often lack hammers. Production powerhouse capitals on a nice river System are dominant.

Anyway, that's the debate.

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Hills are good for production, with enough food one can get their armies up sooner.