Any reason to settle on the coast?

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.

It's the relative strength of siege weapons I think. Melee or normal range units seem much more ineffective at taking cities now. Even 1 catapault made a huge speed difference I found.
 
I have to say it sounds like coastal cities are expected to be your money makers, with trade routes getting extra range, harbour granting a free TR and sea bonus resources mostly being gold focused. Makes sense actually in risk vs reward terms, and gives it a nice "pirates are raiding my treasure" sort of aspect.

If coastal cities are too strong it makes landing an invasion force more difficult I guess, perhaps this will lead to better gameplay. Having the coast be worse for production, better for gold, worse for housing, better for culture etc is quite good balance. It makes settling there a choice with benefits and risks. After reading this thread I'm certainly going to settle less coastal cities but make them my commerce hubs.
 
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. :(

We had coastal fortresse in CIV 3, but they didn`t do much good. I would love to see a coastal fortress as a hex improvement in the sea with a bombard ability and ZOC. Kind of like an encampment....
 
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.

how did you come up with this statement that the best (?) cities were on the coast?
 
It's easy. London, Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Vienna, Moscow, Kiev, Rome, Milan, Chicago, Beijing, Delhi, Cairo, Memphis (... the list goes on) are all located on the coast. Q.E.D.
 
It's easy. London, Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Vienna, Moscow, Kiev, Rome, Milan, Chicago, Beijing, Delhi, Cairo, Memphis (... the list goes on) are all located on the coast. Q.E.D.

LOL! :D

I think harbor districts should require that you build them next to the city district.

Actually ... I do like the new concept of coastal/near coastal cities in VI.

Settle *on* the coast and get instant access to naval units.

Settle within range of the coast and still retain the ability to build a harbor/ships later on.

I mean: Unless you have a ton of sea-resources in a location, settling on the coast robs your city of a lot of potential food/hammers just to have access to the sea - a non-resource sea- or coast-tile yields next to nothing compared to decent land-tiles, especially if it's hilly terrain and/or has a river running through it.

S.
 
Technically Cairo is the Encampment for Memphis.
London, Paris, Berlin, Viennea, Moscow, Kiev, Rome and Milan were founded at important river crossings and river intersections.
Delhi and Beijing were made great as imperial capitals due to local loyalty.
Chicaco is the communications hub connecting the mississippi watershed with the st lawrence watershed and most definitely coastal.

I see you and raise you Tokyo, Osaka, Shanghai, Manilla, Singapore, Jakarta, Calcutta, Bombay, Karachi Alexandria, Istanbul, Athens, Venice, Genoa, Marseiles, Cape Town, Lisabon, Amsterdam, New York, Rio Buenos Aires, Miama, Washington, San Fransisco, Los Angeles, Sidney, Melbourne and of course the great metropolis of Reykjavik.

The main problem is the cost benefit is such that in the vanilla game settling away from the coast is preferrable.
 
LOL! :D



Actually ... I do like the new concept of coastal/near coastal cities in VI.

Settle *on* the coast and get instant access to naval units.

Settle within range of the coast and still retain the ability to build a harbor/ships later on.

I mean: Unless you have a ton of sea-resources in a location, settling on the coast robs your city of a lot of potential food/hammers just to have access to the sea - a non-resource sea- or coast-tile yields next to nothing compared to decent land-tiles, especially if it's hilly terrain and/or has a river running through it.

S.

Also:
Settle on the coast and you don't need to spend/waste one district on a harbor (and can think about using it for some other disctrict type, while still having access to the sea resources (and still being able to build ships))
 
Settle on the coast and you don't need to spend/waste one district on a harbor (and can think about using it for some other disctrict type, while still having access to the sea resources (and still being able to build ships))

Not sure about that.
You'll eventually want a harbor in coastal towns as well, IMO. If only to get access to additional harbor-district buildings like the lighthouse.

S.
 
I've generally been settling one hex from the sea, which gives you the city-commerce sector-harbor connection, keeps the city safe from galley attacks and yet allows your city walls to bombard the coast.
 
I believe this screenshot is worth a thousand words. My reach for outer sea is delayed for X turns...
 

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After a couple games, the changes I would do:
-Give harbors a +2 adjacency bonus for being next to the city centre. The shipyrd will give you +2 production then as well when it comes along, which is a solid bonus.
-Give lighthouses their old bonus of +1 food per resource instead of the combat bonus. Make the seaport's bonus be per resource as well, instead of simply a flat bonus (maybe make it +1 food, +1 science, +1 gold instead of 2/0/2)
-Add a new building, coastal fortress, which gives a big bonus to your city for both coastal bombardment as well as extra protection from invasion from the sea.

Point being, if you have multiple sea resources, the harbor should basically be your #1 district to build, and sea resources should be very powerful. And if your city doesn't have any sea resources, then the harbor really shouldn't be all that useful except for ship building and trade routes.
 
I don't think harbors need a change of any kind but there's always armchair designers who think they need to tweak things.

As with most things civ, there are pros and cons to each decision.
 
Another suggestion: Traders can create routes on either land or sea. To 'convert' between land and sea they currently need a harbor. However, that harbor district only needs to be placed to get the effect. If the harbor had to be completed before it could 'convert' traders it would give another reason to settle on the coast and get early sea routes.
 
Just played a game where none of the capitals happened to be coastal. Didn't need a navy at all this game to be successful. Built one ship to explore. They were utterly useless otherwise.

This is the obvious consequence of making coastal cities mostly bad.
 
Just played a game where none of the capitals happened to be coastal. Didn't need a navy at all this game to be successful. Built one ship to explore. They were utterly useless otherwise.

This is the obvious consequence of making coastal cities mostly bad.
What map type were you playing on? It must have been Pangaea! I could see not needing a navy on that map type (which is why I avoid it). Continents and Islands would definitely require a Navy unless you go the isolationist route and send no trade routes over to other continents.
 
I settled one of my cities right next to the sea because I didn't know I could have a coastal city a little further inland.
 
Does anyone know how Venetian Arsenal interacts with in-land cities that have a harbor? The in-land cities would still be able to deploy naval units, but would they still get free copies?

But I do agree that trying to gain much advantage with a coastal city is difficult. Rather than bumping up adjacency bonuses for harbors, I'd like sea tiles near coast to be slightly more populated with resources than they are is currently.
 
The Arsenal is a civ wide bonus. When you build a horsehocky, you get two copies, it's like the skythian horse person ability.

The Inland sea map has lots of coastal resources, 3-6 reliably per coastal city.

I've said this before, my solution to the coastal city issue is to let a coastal city build the harbor district as if it were a specialty district and give coastal tiles adjecency bonuses from ocean tiles as if they were farmland or districts.
 
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