Any reason to settle on the coast?

[CaiusDrewart]

The problem with settling on the coast is that sea tiles AND sea resources are useless. They've lowered the yield form Civ5, while all other yields in the game have gone up - sometimes hugely.
In addition to the existing bonuses, the district buildings should:
Harbour: +2 gold if adjacent to city centre. Encourages cities built on the coast, and makes cities built near the mouth of a river a beast when you take into account the commercial district adjacency bonus.
Lighthouse: +1 food on each sea tile. Speaks for itself.
Sea port: +1 gold on each sea resource
Shipyard: +1 hammer on each sea resource
This brings a fully developed sea resource in line with a good land tile, which is what it should be. Plain coastal tiles are now about as good as unimproved land tiles. Again, as it should be.

But coastal city centres need something more than a beefed up harbour, they need their own special buildings (like river cities get the water mill). I would add:
Wharf (available with sailing): city centre must be adjacent to coast. Gives +1 food, +1 hammer.

I doubt it would be particularly helpful but I think it would be fun to add
Coastal fortress (available with balistics): city centre must be adjacent to coast. Gains an additional ranged attack, can be used on sea tiles only.


This would tempt me to build cities on the coast, maybe even at the expense of fresh water (provided an aqueduct is still in range). But not anywhere near enough to make them OP.

I think these suggestions are really good. I love the coastal fortress flavor-wise.

It's really sad how useless coastal cities (and therefore navies) are on a normal map.

 

[chazzycat]

Only reason I've found so far: playing as Norway. Those early longships are killer.

In general I think they went too far with applying the "adjacency bonuses" idea to seafood resources via the harbor and shipyard. If you have 3+ resources all next to a harbor it can be pretty good, but that's so rare...seafood tiles should be a more significant source of food, not relying on clustering map script luck.

 

[LoneDragon]

Why isn't shrimp a resource?

 

[malekithau]

Where the coast is essentially a long straight feature - no. Where you can settle at the end of an inlet for example yes. The biggest thing though is that if I'm settling a river I always leave a hex to place my commercial hub next to the river and next to my future harbour location.

 

[Kalmarunionist]

Well, if you settle "colony" in coast, you get extra two gold as city counts as district with the commercial district. Both harbor and commercial get +1 gold.

That is if you like to settle those small colonies far away for resources or strategic places. I like those little triangles or city/harbor/commercial. Nice gold and two trade routes. When you have many of these, it adds up

 

[LanguishViking]

what about giving sea tiles adjecency bonuses like mountains do? or, perhaps half, to make them more viable.

 

[yutterh]

The aqueduct is so rarely worth it, I've actually never built one

Aquaduct doesnt count as district. So there is no need to not build one really. Unless you have something better in that spot. But i usually have more then one spot to place it. I settle in places i am able too make one one usually.

 

[Acken]

It's not very good but better than being stuck at 1 pop in a water less city. It also allow you to get some harbors for even more routes.

 

[Big J Money]

Aquaduct doesnt count as district. So there is no need to not build one really. Unless you have something better in that spot. But i usually have more then one spot to place it. I settle in places i am able too make one one usually.

wat

Not even for adjacency bonuses? I've been plopping them down around my Acropoli, assuming they were giving me that sweet culture... That is such a confusing and pointless exception if it's true.

 

[King_Course]

Actually the battle of Tsushima was a good example for, how neglected the russian navy became over time.

No it wasn't. It was an example of an under estimated Japan coming up with ingenious new design. Up to this battle, the battleships had cannons of different caliber sticking out here there and every where. The Russian Navy had such design, along with every other European navy.

The Japanese had build fast battleships, that only had one size cannon, the biggest one they could fit. So when the battle commenced, the Japanese -as we say in gaming-, kited the Russian Navy while taking their ships out one by one. The Japanese were faster and had longer range. All the small extra cannons on the Russians ships, designed for every eventually, were useless as they couldn't hit anything.

The lesson was learned worldwide, and the English copied the idea and build the Dreadnought. Japan had basically obsoleted the whole worlds Navy. The Germans understood, that the whole mighty English fleet didn't count for anything now, if Dreadnoughts were on the field, and they started building a Dreadnought Navy of their own. And they got into an arms race with England that led the to the battle of Jutland.

At the battle of Tsushima, the Japanese invented the modern battleship.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I

wat

Not even for adjacency bonuses? I've been plopping them down around my Acropoli, assuming they were giving me that sweet culture... That is such a confusing and pointless exception if it's true.

it counts for adjacency

However, the aqueduct, city center, and neighborhood districts all do not count against the district limit.

 

[Plus Ultra]

After playing around with the game it seems both sides of the argument had a point:

-Reasons to settle on the coast are few and don't outweigh the abysmal sea/ocean yields.
-Settling on the coast might be your only option to optimize your city placement and have at least the +2 Housing of coastal cities.

 

[EwMatias]

I'm seeing huge swats of land without fresh water. Sometimes coast is your best housing option. Sometimes is the best to reach the best tiles. And cities that are not surrounded take forever to go down, so coastal cities are safer than inland cities in my experience.

 

[PendragonWRB]

After playing around with the game it seems both sides of the argument had a point:

-Reasons to settle on the coast are few and don't outweigh the abysmal sea/ocean yields.
-Settling on the coast might be your only option to optimize your city placement and have at least the +2 Housing of coastal cities.

I am still only on my first game, but with the map I got, the coastal locations where my best option. I have very few and very short rivers. That two housing from the coast lets me grow a few citizens without needing farms. Every coastal city of mine has one or two coastal resources or luxuries. Most do not have farms and certainly not enough viable land for a farm triangle. Mountains I have plenty of however, but I just don't need the faith or science bonus. I build granary and Bath district in each for a decent sized city. I also added harbors in each for lots of extra trade routes which bring in production.

The net is so far I do not see a problem settling on the coast but I reserve the right to change my mind base on future maps.

 

[bcaiko]

And cities that are not surrounded take forever to go down, so coastal cities are safer than inland cities in my experience.

That last bit hasn't even been remotely true in my experience. Unless you're attacking a city that far outpaces you in combat strength.

 

[chazzycat]

Coastal cities are not safe if the AI is further in tech than you. They send big overseas invasions and can be sneaky too. I lost a city to a single caravel in 3 turns.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Costal resorts are probably the most powerful improvement in the game and harbours are pretty decent for its trade route.

 

[mitsho]

Another option to improve coastal cities would be to have harbors in those cities not increase the district limit. With some other improvements already mentioned here, they should be fine.

 

[Stalker0]

And actually that is something I disagree with.
Naval units in Civ VI don't become useless if they cannot conquer coastal towns.
They still can kill enemy invasion armies that move over the ocean with it (or protect your own invasion armies that go to other continents), or can protect your own trade lanes against pirates (either barbarians or privateers). Also they can be used to bombard armies on land.
All uses for which navies were traditionally used in reality
(also, in Civ VI ships still can be used to pillage enemy marine resources or protect against pillaging)

Lots of uses for ships (of course their use still is dependant on the amount of oceans and continents ... they will be next to useless when playing one continent games (or if your worst enemy is located on the same conmtinent as yourself ... but that`s O.K., IMHO, why should ships be equally useful in every game of Civ VI you play )

I for my part always disliked the ability of ships in Civ to conquer towns without any help by ground troops, because it is unrealistic.
(and I rarely or never used ships for conquering cities in past incarnations of civ)

So, for me actually the gameplay has improved by the added realism in Civ VI with regards to the harbor. Civ VI may have its problems/shortcomings ... but this definitely isn't one of them, IMHO

I'll disagree. Navies commonly exist to protect sea trade. No civ game ever realistically modeled this, though V and VIs trade routes isn't too bad.

As such, you have to give navies something else to do, and since so much of civ ware fare is around the taking of cities...then they need to be involved in that to feel useful

 

[Proteus]

...

As such, you have to give navies something else to do, and since so much of civ ware fare is around the taking of cities...then they need to be involved in that to feel useful

For which they can be used, as I mentioned ... by giving your army a chance to land on an enemy continent firsthand.

Even if the enemy (located on another continent/island) has all his cities inland (and uses harbors instead (something which would require his cities to "sacrifice" a district btw.)) he can still prevent you from getting on his island/continent by
a) employing a strong navy for himself (that can kill your invasion forces in their transport ships)
b) blocking all possible landing locations with his own troops (so that you will have to do a difficult amphibious landing, which will give his defending forces big advantages)

Especially b) is easier with Civ VI, as lots of the coast consists of impassable cliffs, meaning that he can concentrate his defending troops on certain chokepoints with beaches (which you will have to use unless you have lots of forces with the "commando" upgrade, that can scale cliffs).

In case a) you won't even get to his continent without a strong navy of your own (as else his navy will blow your transport ships to smithereens before they reach his continent/island)
And in case b) your ships will still be extremly useful (if they are able to bombard) by bombarding the enemy troops blocking the beaches (and therefore be able to establish beachheads without many losses.

As I mentioned, the usefulness of a navy will depend on the map setting (it may be next to useless with just a single Pangaia continent, but it is extremly useful or even abslutely necessary on map settings with lots of islands/small continents surrounded by ocean).
I hope that Firaxis will implement further map settings, however. At the moment the only map that guarantees multiple continent play seems to the the "islands"-map.