Any reason to settle on the coast?

[Blossome]

Thank you, this makes all big sense to me. I will adjust my Civ 5 automatic behavior to Civ 6 now.

 

[dirtrobot]

I just don't see the value other than having a place to make naval units. Agreed what was said above about the tile inbalance, although I have seen the odd spot with a billion whales.

 

[player1 fanatic]

It may be of strategic importance to get access to ship units before you get harbor. Especially due to painful costs of districs.

Also gives access to trading opportunities.

What you do not want is to build cities around a lot of ocean tiles, with litle access to land.

 

[Halcyan2]

Trade route range is doubled over water. If you want your coastal city to be a trade hub, you need to put it on the coast otherwise you'll only have access to about half the total area as you normally would otherwise, compared to a city 3 tiles inland with a harbour. You'll have to take my word for it or do the math yourself. I've already posted it in another thread and I'm too lazy to look for it.

Do you know if this works with Rome's civilization ability?

So would a coastal city that is too far away from your capital for a land trade route but is within range for a naval trade route, still get an automatic road built to it?

 

[LanguishViking]

There are three really good reasons I can see.

1. You can delay the harbour district for a long time.
2. You can immediately create a sea trade route to the city which can't be pillaged by land barbarians
3. Any attempt to siege the city requires the besieger to defeat both your army and navy
X. A naval civ like norway or england can use the sea as lines of communication since movement at sea is FINALLY more efficient than movement on land in many cases

 

[Abraxis]

Do you know if this works with Rome's civilization ability?

So would a coastal city that is too far away from your capital for a land trade route but is within range for a naval trade route, still get an automatic road built to it?

It works the same way for all. There technically is no "Land trade route" and "Sea trade route" -only trade routes. Rather, land tiles cost double the movement points as sea tiles for traders to traverse.

In practice though, if your trader starts by wasting 4 movements to get through those two land tiles from an inland city out into the sea, that's a big difference in the potential diameter of their range, and works out to be a significant area of coverage once you do the math.

Edit: Sorry, I think I see what you're saying about Rome, the answer would be yes, it would be better for them, since the coastal city could have a trade post which could service the capital of Rome, effectively giving Rome its wider range -but any civ could do this, they would just have to rely on a foreign coastal city instead.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

What irks me the most about coastal cities is the fact that water hexes are utterly useless later on.
Give me three terrible Tundra hexes and I can at least turn them into 1F 3P lumber mills later on. Water seems to stay pointless for the whole game...

 

[killmeplease]

maybe coastal cities should be given a free harbor? (not counting towards district limit)
sea resources definitely should be better to work, maybe they should add food and gold to surrounding water tiles

 

[LanguishViking]

What irks me the most about coastal cities is the fact that water hexes are utterly useless later on.
Give me three terrible Tundra hexes and I can at least turn them into 1F 3P lumber mills later on. Water seems to stay pointless for the whole game...

Three terrible tundra hexes, entertainment district, culture district and encampment/airport/spaceport. Screw crappy lumber mills. I almost prefer a few useless hexes of terrible terrain since I'm not annoyed at losing the terrain yield when I go and build districts.

 

[LanguishViking]

maybe coastal cities should be given a free harbor? (not counting towards district limit)
sea resources definitely should be better to work, maybe they should add food and gold to surrounding water tiles

While giving them all free harbours make all civs CivV carthage, giving a coastal city harbours which get the same bonuses as unique districts either or both getting 50% off or not requiring population might make the city viable. Harbours give some nice bonuses.

 

[Frank327]

Honestly you could increase coastal tiles food yield by 1, production yield by 1 upon building a lighthouse and still coastal cities wouldn't be overpowered. Especially because mid-late game it's all about production and water tiles won't do anything for production.

 

[Blossome]

Well... now this ... I have tried the above and didn't build any cities directly at the coast. One of them is maybe one tile inland from that away, another like two tiles. However, in both cities I am NOT able to build a harbor now, which would allow me to build also naval units and buildings. Any suggestions what I am doing wrong please? Thank you in advance!

 

[Proteus]

Do you already have researched the tech that gives you harbors?

IIRC the tech to build harbors comes much later than the tech to build ships

 

[Mr.WorldWide]

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.

It's almost as if I never said capital huh? I know, you feel smart about one upping someone on the internet but don't straw man my argument, I was talking about large affluent cities and never once mentioned capitals.

 

[Blossome]

proteus:
Do you already have researched the tech that gives you harbors?

IIRC the tech to build harbors comes much later than the tech to build ships

Yeah I did. The tech is Celestial Navigation, which really isn't that much later. Honestly, I don't know what to do... LOLz I even cut all the trees to try that out.

 

[Ravellion]

Yeah I did. The tech is Celestial Navigation, which really isn't that much later. Honestly, I don't know what to do... LOLz I even cut all the trees to try that out.

You are probably either at your district limit (1 per 3 population), or you haven't claimed the sea tile yet. For some reason, the harbour district requires you to have bought or claimed the sea tile before you start constructing it.

 

[Blossome]

I have found the problem by trying to buy some tiles. For example, one of my cities had its boundary right at the coastline but as I said, it wouldn't let me build a harbor. However, when I bought an adjacent tile of the ocean right next to the coast, the harbor appeared correctly. Problem solved. Thanks for all the efforts to help!

 

[Martinus]

Yeah, there is some glitch in the way district / wonder placement works now that the game allows you to buy a viable tile from the construction overlay only if you already have at least one viable tile within the city boundaries - otherwise the option is grayed out and you need to go into the tile purchasing overlay to get the right tile "manually".

 

[Kwami]

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.

Yeah, but...

1. Tokyo, Japan's current capital, is most definitely on the coast and is by far one of the largest, wealthiest, and most prosperous cities in the world. See also: Osaka, Yokohama, Fukuoka, Kobe, Hiroshima, etc.

2. Only considering capitals is silly. Many of the world's great cities are coastal, including Edinburgh, Venice, Boston, New York City, Bangkok, Istanbul, Lisbon, Dubai, Hong Kong, etc.

Besides, the game already models some of the dangers of settling on the coast since cities can be directly attacked by ships. The game should therefore also model the benefits of settling on the coast, such as increased trading and food opportunities. The trade bit is somewhat there, in that traders have a longer range over water than over land, but at the moment, coastal tiles just don't give enough resources.

 

[Ikael]

Freaking called it, man. Doubling trade route radious and a couple of Eurekas obviously doesn't compensate the loss of tiles, housing, production and decent tile yields in general. Also, notice how coasts are probably the only terrain in the game that has no adyacency bonuses or whatsoever. Hell, even tundra and desert have their own situational uses.