Seaside start a disadvantage?

[kirbdog]

In a game that is played out to larger city sizes, coastal starts suffer from hammer starvation compared to inland starts. If you are going for a cultural victory, they also suck for finding places to plop great artists. There are other drawbacks already mentioned, such as their vulnerability (if that can be exploited - the AI isn't nearly as good as a player at that).

Regarding sea resources, yes, having many sea resources, taking god of the sea, and building the harbor and seaport and lighthouse... kind of makes up for it, but also represents a huge investment just to get to good. When getting a coastal start, I hope most of all for 0 (zero) sea resources. This translates into a high number of bonus resources (like stone or sheep) on the land tiles and a stronger early game.

 

[pds3.14]

Seaside starts also rarely block off any land, meaning you can quite quickly be restricted to 3 or 4 cities next to one or more giant empires. On land, this is usually preventable by making sure they don't go around you, but next to the ocean, you could be pretty seriously trapped on the edge of a continent without knowing it.

Also, once people get triremes, they can easily bombard your coast before zipping back and swapping out for another unit and letting that one heal.

In general, I recommend having at least 3 coastal cities per continent and absolutely one per island. regardless of empire size though. but coastal capitals are probably not the best thing in the world.

 

[s0nny80y]

i remember civ 4 when setting up by the coast was preferred due to the gold advantage.