The Bounty of the Sea: More like Kleenex; the handicaps of the coastal city

[whyidie]

Submarines are great for defense. If I'm turtling up on islands my defense is primarily submarines.

 

[g3istbot]

I agree about the workboats; the one time use of them makes them pointless and rather forgetable at times.

Aren't they changing coastal cities to give a bonus to tourism in the next expansion? Could have had sworn I read that, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

[tomtom5858]

I never get off-shores quickly. Submarines are weak against the most common boat, the destroyer, meaning I rarely build more than a few, and never rush to get them. Hence, I almost never build off-shores unless I am completely desperate.

I take it you play multiplayer, then? Because a single submarine can obliterate half of the AI's navy alone. Why? Because unless they see it at the beginning of their turn, they don't react to them at all. Ever. Moved a destroyer so it could see it? Nope, won't react. They're so good that most of the time, my late-game navies on Continents consist of this: 3-5 missile cruisers, loaded with promotions; 1-2 destroyers upgraded from Privateers; 10-15 nuclear submarines. The submarines patrol for enemy ships, and sink them the turn they find them. The missile cruisers and destroyers are exclusively for taking enemy cities, and rarely engage the navy, because subs are so good at attacking. Did I mention their ranged strength is doubled when they're attacking?

 

[kaspergm]

Or just give me 10 hammer / 50 gold work boats and call it a day (or a mod). Then you have an actual worthwhile trade-off with the worker, which costs a lot more but can work many tiles in its lifetime.

It's about finding the right middle-path. Remember that a workboat creates the improvement instantly, plus you will generally only need about 3 for each town. A normal worker will easily take 10+ turns to build in early game, plus you need for wait several turns for him to create the improvement. I play with a mod that cuts the price for work boats down to approx half normal cost (iirc. from 75 to 35) and that seems like a reasonable level imo.

 

[Halcyan2]

"Fishing boats are too expensive to build, way too expensive to buy, the tile yields aren't as good as in Civ 4 and the sailing tech path is an expensive early game detour that limits the effectiveness of pretty much every early game strategy (CB rush, NC rush, building the GL, rushing to your UU...)."

I agree that fishing boats for Fish resources is often uneconomical. I have plenty of games where even by the time I win, I have unimproved fish tiles in my core cities.

However, fishing boats for pearls, whales, and crabs are fantastic! The fishing boats work instantly (compared to the turns it takes to build improvements on land luxuries) and you can often chain them together. Rush buy a boat for 240, improve a lux, sell it for 240, to use to buy another boat to improve another lux. You'll be breaking even to set up all the fishing boats (which still net you extra tile yields) and then after those initial deals expire, you'll be raking in profit.

It gets even more ridiculously strong if you choose God of the Sea, because you can quickly generate an additional 2-4 hammers per turn by improving and selling all your sea luxes. That's a major hammer advantage at the beginning of the game.

It is generally agreed that the Colossus is a pretty terrible wonder.

Really? I think the Colossus is great! It's a base 5 gold, which is great in of itself. The extra gold for ocean tiles is nice if you are working resource tiles.

Furthermore, the only strategic resource available from ocean tiles comes very late in the game and is available earlier and cheaper on land. Since land-based Oil mostly shows up either in deserts (where Petra is strong) or marshes (where clearing them makes the tile self-sufficient in Food anyhow), coastal oil is rarely worth it.

Offshore platforms add a really nice production bonus, and IIRC, it stacks with Harbor and Seaport bonuses. As a result, an improved ocean oil tile can offer some pretty nice tile yields.

The Great Lighthouse is like God Mode on Archipelago, and if you play Elizabeth and go Commerce, it's basically unfair. But if there are no coastal cities to assault, there is virtually no benefit to building it, and if coastal cities continue to suffer these various disadvantages, no one will want to build them.

The Great Lighthouse is very situational. There are plenty of games where it is fairly useless.

However, one subtle but often valuable use is that on some Archipelago and Continent maps, the extra sight will allow you to make contact with major civs or city states that you otherwise would not be able to reach (due to ocean barriers).

Meanwhile, the Sydney Opera House comes very late in the game. If you are playing for a cultural victory, particularly on higher difficulties, you should desire a defensible location with a lot of production for wonders and defensive military units. Coastal cities typically do not meet this goal. If you find one with a long, snaky, single-tile connection to a larger water body with only one hex from which to attack your city, maybe consider it. But the map scripts I've seen don't produce such places often.

Sydney Opera House actually tends to be more useful for Science or Diplomacy games. If you're actively trying to win quickly, Cultural games are often over well before you reach Ecology. (You start the final sprint once you get Radar. You'll lucky if you can reach Plastics. But Ecology is still quite far away most of the time when I am ready for Utopia).

With sea and river tile gold going away, I'm beginning to wonder why anyone would bother settling on the coast at all. This goes counter to the almost universal human tendency to settle on the coast.

Access to additional trade routes.

Ability to build sea units. Having a landlocked empire really, really sucks!

 

[Glexarn]

I miss Civ IV's Moai Statues, though. A new wonder that gave a strong production bonus to a coastal city would be a nice addition.

Easy: the Venetian Arsenal. (obviously requiring a miniature rename, but that didn't stop the Great Wall from being implemented).

It'd come in during the Medieval era, possibly tacked onto Compass which currently lacks a wonder (also giving a reason to rush Compass, for which there currently isn't a major reason to rush unless you're headed to Astronomy). It could even expand on the Harbor (as a wonder that provides a free Harbor) like the Great Lighthouse expands on the Lighthouse.

 

[Homusubi]

I often find myself building almost no work boats unless I'm on Tiny Islands for that reason. Land improvement is more cost effective. The only time I go in for them (unless I'm sitting on some whales and have a happiness problem) is when I'm playing as either Toyotomi Hideyoshi (+3 food from fishing boats) or Corvo Attano (+2 culture from fishing boats after steam power), both of which are leaders for my modded civs... the flipside to which is that they're probably the weakest civs in the game on inland pangaea, especially Toyotomi.

My proposal is that Work Boats should be like prophets - they can create, say, 3 fishing boat improvements before disappearing.

 

[Seabastian Civ]

I take it you play multiplayer, then? Because a single submarine can obliterate half of the AI's navy alone. Why? Because unless they see it at the beginning of their turn, they don't react to them at all. Ever. Moved a destroyer so it could see it? Nope, won't react. They're so good that most of the time, my late-game navies on Continents consist of this: 3-5 missile cruisers, loaded with promotions; 1-2 destroyers upgraded from Privateers; 10-15 nuclear submarines. The submarines patrol for enemy ships, and sink them the turn they find them. The missile cruisers and destroyers are exclusively for taking enemy cities, and rarely engage the navy, because subs are so good at attacking. Did I mention their ranged strength is doubled when they're attacking?

Yep, usually!

Submarines are awesome in SP, you're 100% correct. Even in MP though, they're worth stationing in cities that are vulnerable just for that sweet double attack bonus. While stationed they're 100% safe from destroyers and just wreck any ship stupid enough to end its turn within 2 tiles of the city.

But anyway, yes I meant in my previous comment that I never rush for offshore platforms alone, and the other two things that tech gets you (subs and stadiums, i think?) aren't critical to rush for. All my island/small continent games end before subs really start showing up.

Offshores do make nice tiles, that stack with bonuses, as someone before pointed out ^, but rush to get them? Nah.

P.S. Can subs get a +1 range promotion? I've never gotten one... hmm.

 

[smileyy90210]

Ethiopia, Prince, Islands Map, I ended up with no iron. None, zero. No frigates. But submarines aren't hard to get to. My 3 submarines sunk 3 Ships of the Line per turn for about 5 turns in a row, when England was getting a little snippy with me.

 

[smileyy90210]

Also, it must be the fact that I play on Prince, but I love Work Boats, and I love coastal starts with resources. I try to have the gold to buy a lighthouse, a harbor and a workboat whenever I pop a new city on the coastline.

 

[ahawk]

Also, it must be the fact that I play on Prince, but I love Work Boats, and I love coastal starts with resources. I try to have the gold to buy a lighthouse, a harbor and a workboat whenever I pop a new city on the coastline.

Coastal starts aren't as bad on Prince. For one, the AI can't expand as quickly, so spending gold to rush-buy workboats is more acceptable because you can hard-build a settler and not worry as much about getting behind building other things (or about the food-stoppage for hard-building the settler).

But already by Emperor, coastal starts begin getting harder and harder to succeed with, because some AIs will expand like crazy and you really need to save gold to rush-buy that first settler (while sometimes hard-building one as well).

Again and again, the main reason coastal starts are a bit of a disadvantage is because no matter how good the start might turn out to be down the line, you still have to normally spend way, way more production or gold to improve just two or three tiles in the short run, which is possibly going to set you back for quite a long time, if not for the whole game.

1 worker = 320 gold, can improve multiple luxes right away
1 workboat = 240 gold, can only improve one tile, requires you to tech to Sailing

The only time a coastal city is good to found is later in the game, when you can rush buy workboats, lighthouse, harbor, and seaport all in the space of maybe a couple turns.

 

[kirbdog]

It's about finding the right middle-path. Remember that a workboat creates the improvement instantly, plus you will generally only need about 3 for each town. A normal worker will easily take 10+ turns to build in early game, plus you need for wait several turns for him to create the improvement. I play with a mod that cuts the price for work boats down to approx half normal cost (iirc. from 75 to 35) and that seems like a reasonable level imo.

It's normally 30 hammers, but it does have an unusually high gold ratio (240 gold). Half would be 15 hammers, not that far from what I suggested.

 

[Dave Hartwick]

Easy: the Venetian Arsenal. (obviously requiring a miniature rename, but that didn't stop the Great Wall from being implemented).

That's really good. Thanks for the link, I'd never heard of it.

 

[kaspergm]

It's normally 30 hammers, but it does have an unusually high gold ratio (240 gold). Half would be 15 hammers, not that far from what I suggested.

Actually it's normally 50 Hammers, according to the game code:

Spoiler :

			<Class>UNITCLASS_WORKBOAT</Class>
			<Type>UNIT_WORKBOAT</Type>
			<PrereqTech>TECH_SAILING</PrereqTech>
			[b]<Cost>50</Cost>[/b]
			<Moves>4</Moves>
			<CivilianAttackPriority>CIVILIAN_ATTACK_PRIORITY_LOW</CivilianAttackPriority>
			<Domain>DOMAIN_SEA</Domain>
			<DefaultUnitAI>UNITAI_WORKER_SEA</DefaultUnitAI>
			<Description>TXT_KEY_UNIT_WORK_BOAT</Description>
			<Civilopedia>TXT_KEY_CIV5_ANTIQUITY_WORKBOAT_TEXT</Civilopedia>
			<Strategy>TXT_KEY_UNIT_WORK_BOAT_STRATEGY</Strategy>
			<Help>TXT_KEY_UNIT_HELP_WORKBOAT</Help>
			<MilitarySupport>true</MilitarySupport>
			<MilitaryProduction>true</MilitaryProduction>
			<PrereqResources>true</PrereqResources>
			<Mechanized>true</Mechanized>
			<AdvancedStartCost>10</AdvancedStartCost>
			<WorkRate>100</WorkRate>
			<CombatLimit>0</CombatLimit>
			<XPValueDefense>3</XPValueDefense>
			<UnitArtInfoEraVariation>true</UnitArtInfoEraVariation>
			<UnitArtInfo>ART_DEF_UNIT_WORKBOAT</UnitArtInfo>
			<UnitFlagIconOffset>2</UnitFlagIconOffset>
			<PortraitIndex>2</PortraitIndex>
			<IconAtlas>UNIT_ATLAS_1</IconAtlas>
			<MoveRate>WOODEN_BOAT</MoveRate>

I think the mod I downloaded cut the price in half, which I found was too low, which was why I set it to 35 (or was it 30?) which seems like a good level. 10 would be too low imo.

 

[Cajamarca]

As was said earlier, Fish tiles are really good by late game, but they tend to be too spread out.

And yeah, building on the coasts is almost always a trade thing. I always laugh when I see Tyre or Singapore spawn completely landlocked.

 

[TractorBoy]

I agree that workboats are too expensive in the early game unless absolutely necessary for happiness or trading purposes.

Our land units can move on top of a worker and capture it, how about our naval units doing the same with a work boat. I often see work boats on their way to some distant destination, sometimes they are just treading water probably because their original destination belonged to a City that got captured.

 

[plast]

I normally don't like coastal starts, but I had an interesting one the other day.

Emperor/continents. Random leader and I got England. Right next to the city were 3 pearls and 1 whale.

I went for Pottery->sailing and went exploring and met three other CIVs. I built a shrine while waiting for the sailing tech and a work boat afterwards. When I got the boat I immediately sold the pearls, then bought another boat, sold that lux, bought another one, etc. Not long after the shrine provided me with the god of sea-pantheon and I with the great tiles I was able to build the Great lighthouse in no time. I mean, surely it's not a coincidence that a boat cost as much as a lux will trade for?

Lighthouse wasn't so great without fish of course but it gave me a very strong start. I got compass early and built harbor and I ended up dominating the game so much I quit out of boredom. Kinda wish I had that start on Immortal, which I'm struggling to cope with.

 

[Ranos]

Fishing boats should work one of two ways.

A) They function exactly like workers. Sit on the tile for X turns until the improvement is built and then move on to the next tile.

B) Once a boat is built, you settle it in a city. It adds the Fishing Villages building, giving an auto boost to all fish, crab and whale tiles. A separate boat would be needed for offshore platforms.

 

[Ravellion]

How I loved Call to Power's Public Works slider...

 

[kirbdog]

Actually it's normally 50 Hammers, according to the game

Yes it is. I found the wrong info quoted in a couple places online.