Any reason to settle on the coast?

[Atwork]

Cities on the coast also have more appeal.

 

[criZp]

Does cities have use of appeal? I know there's something about tourism but I don't understand how that functions, as the game explains nothing.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

Now that cities can construct a harbor even if they're a few tiles away from the coast, can anyone see any advantage in placing a city on the coast?

Getting boats out without the Harbor, and the minor housing boost. I rarely do it for more than one city unless there are no fresh water tiles, or a city has a good inlet (ie, land tiles curving away so half or more of the city's tiles aren't wasted on water)

At this point, I'd rather conquer cities than settle more than one coastal city (or settle any cities with no water at all. The aqueduct is so rarely worth it, I've actually never built one)

@isau- it's still extra housing. Any city can build extra farms, and they're generally worthwhile in their own right.

Does cities have use of appeal? I know there's something about tourism but I don't understand how that functions, as the game explains nothing.

Directly? No. You'll need appeal for national parks, neighborhoods and seaside resorts. The location of the city center doesn't matter.

 

[Atwork]

My understanding is that appeal plays into tourism and a few other things.

http://civ6.gamepedia.com/Appeal

 

[need my speed]

@isau- it's still extra housing. Any city can build extra farms, and they're generally worthwhile in their own right.

iasu's point is that, by not settling on the coast, you gain much more than two land tiles; two farmable land tiles are required to get the +1 housing bonus - and then you have more tiles that you can exploit, instead of water that might as well not exist.

 

[bbbt]

This current build encourages all inland cities which is terrible because historically the best cities are on the coast.

Not directly on the coast, historically the ocean was dangerous both from weather and direct attacks. Hell, Kyoto, Japan's long term capital, is inland in the mountians.

Looking quickly at some of the capitals in the game:

A large number of capitals in the game are on rivers a 30+ miles upstream from the coast - i.e. London, Cairo, Rome, Washington DC, Sparta, Paris (though Paris is a good bit further inland). I feel like a city center on a river three tiles from the coast with a harbor at the end of the river would represent these.

A number of capitals in the game - Dehli, Aachen, Madrid, Sumer, Tenochtitlan, Changsha, Mbanza Kongo - are solidly inland.

Athens is on the coast, but it's ancient city center is inland uphill a bit - probably the example of a city one-tile from the coast with it's harbor on the coast.

Rio, St. Petersburg, Alexandria, Norway are capitals which would be 'directly' on the coast.

 

[Proteus]

I think harbor districts should require that you build them next to the city district. This current build encourages all inland cities which is terrible because historically the best cities are on the coast.

Actually there is a rather famous ancient city which is an example of the contrary:
Athens

Athens wasn't directly on the coast, but rather upcountry ... and was connected to its harbor, Piraeus, by a long narrow passage protected by walls

Spoiler :

The distance between Athenas and Piraeus was large enough, that Sulla, when he led the roman army against the greek city states, actually made 2 independent simultaneous sieges ... one against Piraeus and one against Athens.

Therefore IMHO it makes sense to go away from the old system where you had to found acity directly on the coast, if you wanted to have a harbor

 

[isau]

Here is an example where a coastal settle may have been an ok decision. There were 4 Wheat tiles, which meant a Water Mill was needed (+1 food to each). So that meant settling the river for sure. Only real spot was by the coast. Luckily there were a bunch of sea resources there, and Harbor can go in the middle of them for +3 gold from adjacencies.

Downside was production. It's pretty much a wash if a city doesn't have production and this city ended up needing 33 turns to build a Harbor. At least I could make enough money to buy the forest tiles.

I do think there are serious imbalances in the current tiles as defined by Firaxis though, as you can see for how stacked the situation has to be.

Spoiler :

 

[WillowBrook]

I plan to build my next city on the coast because I'm on a small island and want to get off without having to tech to and build a harbor. (There's room for at most 4 cities, no city states or anything except barbs). No idea if I'd do it in other circumstances.

 

[GKrause]

The tech required to get harbors is fairly expensive and a dead-end at that, so there is some opportunity cost for settling inland. That said, there needs to be more housing bonuses for improved water tiles, more sea resources, a less stiff housing penalty, or some combination of all three before settling the coast is viable without a really great land tiles and/or river, IMO

 

[regeneration64]

What concerns me most is if/when they add more map types, such as small islands or archipelago, and you settle cities on the coast it is going to be particularly difficult for one to build districts and have a city be able to sustain itself. Coastal cities on small plots of land always took a while to get going (usually production-wise) but now things are going to be particularly difficult.

I guess coast and ocean districts could help. More sea luxuries and other incentives would too.

 

[NukeAJS]

Settling on the coast allows you to immediately build ships. This can be important because harbors can take a long time to build and you won't have to spend the gold to get a sea tile. Also, it seems that cities on the coast have much further trade route range than inland cities. In many of my games, it was only possible to trade with cities on the coast that were on the other continent.

 

[Japper007]

I only settle on an estuary (so you can settle on river tiles) and even then I'd rather settle the city a few tiles inland to grab more food and production tiles.
Settling any city were there is no river/oasis (or at least an aquaductable mountain) is just to painfull in the current build I find (which is pretty much historical/realistic, come to think of it, you shouldnt be able to build a massive metropolis in the steppes/desert anyways).

I'll play a coastal site if it's my start, as a start it's pretty fun since you can build boats really early, but I pretty much avoid them otherwise.

 

[Blossome]

I still am placing cities on the coasts, just because my brain has been programmed to do such from Civ V. But one advantage is also that you can acquire a coastal luxury source and fishies to grow the city with. An early game advantage, imho. However, I am still a noob and my head is spinning from all the new stuff.

 

[Brianstorm]

The pathetic part is they knew this was going to be a problem for a while and did nothing to address it. But hey those Agendas really made diplomacy...barely more functional if at all

 

[lamaros]

Coastal as your first city only makes sense if it's an island map, or just a good layout.

However, if you have some sea resources then a coastal city has the potential to generate a very large amount of cash. I think half my income in my immortal game was from a single city (60+ gold per turn). I don't think other cities can generate as much as a good coastal city (maybe if you have a lot of diamonds), but I stand to be corrected.

And money is even more valuable in Civ 6 that Civ 5, I think.

The thing is, with districts even if half your tiles aren't that great you can just put the citizens in the district and cap the growth to where the city gets the job done. So it doesn't matter if your size 15 city has 8 nearby sea tiles you don't use.

 

[TheUndeadFish]

There are no possible advantages that can outweigh the fact that late game against a player that city being on the cost means that it is possibly always one turn away from being razed by nuke > ship invasion.

 

[lamaros]

There are no possible advantages that can outweigh the fact that late game against a player that city being on the cost means that it is possibly always one turn away from being razed by nuke > ship invasion.

What about an inland sea next to the galapagos islands covered in crabs?

Or a game where you're planning to win before anyone gets nukes?

Or etc etc.

 

[TheUndeadFish]

What about an inland sea next to the galapagos islands covered in crabs?

Or a game where you're planning to win before anyone gets nukes?

Or etc etc.

You can still work almost all of those coastal tiles without settling directly on the coast. Also settling on the cost will not make, or break your ability to win before nukes. I don't see why the incredibly minute resource gains from settling directly on the coast could ever outweigh giving your opponent a route to attack. Sure AI won't raze and you can take it back, but players will have no problem doing so.

In the rare situation where you cover the entirety of the coast in that inland sea sure I guess in that situation there are no disadvantages and go ahead and settle it.

 

[lamaros]

In fact, in any situation where there's no significant risk of getting attacked, it makes sense.