A big problem with coastal cityes

[Dragon67]

So fare my strategy works fine fore me. I have always the largest
imperie, and the regent mode works easy now. But the big problem is the coastal cities. They do not produce good enoth, and do not expand, what did i do wrong here?? I always keeps my workers to work automaticly, so maybe it's something here. What I suspect is that they often produce irregations around these sities, is that wrong?? Did they not get enoth food from the coast
So maybe I have to build mine around these sityes , no matter what terrain it is, any suggestion please?
My other inland cities works fine, so my economy it's dependend on them. Coastal cities with grassland works ok, but no other terrain like ex tundra, plains, desert etc...
So if any has succeded to managed it, plese help me
I need really badly a lager navy, but with my crappy coastal cities I cant build them!
One other thing. My scientistic goes pretty past, so fast that i never manage to produce all the city inprovements before about around the years around 1500, then finaly I can build a huge army, and start the conquest. I want to start my rainding earlier, so is it really needed to have all these city improvements, so I can produce more military units, and wait with the improvements? So if any has any suggestion, an other tactic please help me,
I will be happy, since I love this game

Dragon 67

 

[Zouave]

You built a harbor early on??

 

[Dragon67]

Yes. First I try to make two (My capital is the third one) inland cities on grassland/hills so they can produce fast from the beginning. Then the next one is a coastal city. Other coastal cities are dependend of how the map looks like. Basicly I start at the coast(because i want to build a gally/harbor fast so I can trade early with civilizations outside my range). But mainly I make cities in a radius around my capital so my settlers do not have to run to long to fare away. But my coastal cities has always high priority, but many of them do not produce anything. Tundra/plain area is the worst areas, if I am lucky, I can manage to make an population of 5 citizens if i am lucky throw the whole game.....So a must do something wrong here, and I can't understand why my workers only make irrigations(no mines) around those cities, when it is a coast city with plenty of food to catch. The worst problem with these cities is that they do not produce enoth shields.
Another strange thing. I cant eather get them to produce shield on tundra, even withe pine forest added to the tundra.
This is how i build up my coastal cities from the beginning: Settler - Tempel or libary - Worker/settler - galley(only in two of my cities, since I only use two of them to explore, other coastal cities makes a harbor instead)- Harbor- worker-Granary- worker- Libary/tempel

So what is the clue to make those cities productive, since I do something wrong here.

 

[enelrad]

The only way to make money on tundra is to mine every square that isn't forest. The forests are your only source of food unless they have game nearby(or are coastal).

These are never going to be powerhouses but they can keep others off your land and can pay for themselves eventually.

 

[Salvor]

The only way I know to make any square of tundra the slightest bit useful is to build a road and plant a forest there. You get exactly the same result as you would if you had a mine and a RR there, but you don't need Steam Power to do it, just Engineering.

 

[BillChin]

For a costal city to produce a lot of shields you need irrigated grassland or a fishery for food plus mines on hills, mountains, or plains. Whale resource icons help, but only produce two shields with a harbor. On tundra, the best you can do is forest with a road, or a mine and a railroad. You can get a fishing village to pop six or seven, but more than that is not worth the effort, unless there is irrigated grassland.

 

[Foo]

When I build a coastal city, I try to look for hills/mountains/plains nearby for some additional production. Planting forests works well too.

 

[Dragon67]

Thanks!
The worst problem fore me seems to be the shield production in those cities. I just watched one of my coastal cities, it is builded on a plain area. This city produce 20 food and only 5 shields each turn. The population grows, but to creat city improvements takes hours to make. My automated workers has only build irrigations around it(The same thing may also happen in the tundra area with forest). I can't understand why they has done that, since it has extra food from the ocean. What if i delete some of my irrigations/forest and replace them with mines, will it make any sense with the production, and is it worth it ?
Most of my coastal cities looks like this one, also on the tundra area, they produce food, but to few shields, so I can't make any city improvements. And the resault is that they only gives gold, but to use them to build military forces is useless, since they never reach to finish their city improvements.
So when I am ready to attack, my army is large, but my navy weak.

 

[Salvor]

If you want to build improvements, you need shields. To get shields, you should definitely mine those plains. Especially if you've got food coming out of your ears.

Another option is to turn the city into a settler and/or worker farm. But to be effective you still need more shields. For a town of 6, the perfect worker farm generates 10 shields and 10 food per turn (with a granary). For settlers, 15 shields and 10 food. If the city size is 6-12, double the food output.

Set your production for what you intend to use the city for. Not every city has to grow to 20+, and not every city needs every possible improvement. You definitely benefit from specializing. This goes from the obvious, like building Copernicus/Newton/SETI all in the same city (which works particularly well in coastal cities with hills and rivers in its radius), to the subtle, like optimizing worker farms.

 

[hHh]

The workers AI is rather stupid I almost never irrigate squares in the beginning of the game 'cause i choose a grassland for my starting towns and under despotism it doesn't matter if you irrigate or not unless there is some bonus resource on it(wheat, cattle) so i build only mines and achieve some high productioni only irrigate plain and desert squares. The AI makes irrigation wherever is possible and sometimes i make mines everywhere i want and when turn the workers to automatic the first thing they do is to turn the mines into irrigation. From another thread on this forum i found a very usefull keyboard shortcut shift + a that prevents the workers from spoiling some improvement that has been already made so i make manually whatever improvements that i think are important arround my best sities and then with shift +a leave the workers to do their job.

 

[Ironikinit]

Tundra cities are highly dependent on tile bonuses, especially game and bonus sea/ocean/coast tiles. The latter makes being coastal important, because you'll want a harbor.

They require forests for production, excluding what they get from hard to reach whales. A forested game square produces 2 food and 2 shield. This dependence is a pain because automated workers don't mix well with forests, creating a management issue.

Major food production comes from fish bonus tiles. A tundra/ocean city can get respectable medieval production and population so long as the bonus tiles are there. Other tundra cities have to settle with being border outposts or luxury producers.

 

[kring]

Originally posted by Dragon67
My automated workers has only build irrigations around it(The same thing may also happen in the tundra area with forest

This is why I don't automate my workers. I can have 150-200 workers on a Standard size map. It may take a while for me to move and order them, but I know what they are doing. Many people I know don't automate. Also, under patch 1.16f, if you automated with the don't destroy current improvements, it didn't work, it would still mine on irrigated and irrigate on mined. I don't know about in 1.17 patch since I haven't tried to automate any workers. I concentrate on roading everything first, since it is the quickest thing your worker can do. Then mine/irrigate/forest as needed.

 

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by hHh
....... The AI makes irrigation wherever is possible........

I've noticed that. They don't seem to build many mines.

My advice:
-Don't automate workers. You can tell them where to build mines, irrigate, etc. Much more efficient than the ai.
-Early on, pick one fairly productive city, and pump military out of it. Until you are ready to attack. Or just to build def for others. It can catch up on improvements later.

 

[Anglophile]

I agree - I never automate my workers; I know what I want that city to be now, in 25 turns and in 100 turns - it just isn't reasonable to expect the AI to be able to read my mind. Yah I spend a lot of time moving settlers but they are where I want doing what I want.

 

[Zachriel]

In the beginning of the game, I always micro-manage. As the game progresses, micro-managing has diminishing returns, and requires much more attention. At some point, every city has enough improvements for its current labor force. At that time, I automate the workers, only borrowing a few now and again for special projects.