[GS] Are Coastal and Colonial Cities worse now? (Post June 2019 Update)

[acluewithout]

So, are Coastal and Colonial Cities even worse now Post June 2019 Update?

Well, I guess we'll need to see the patch notes to see. It's possible they got a slight buff in this update - but if they did, surely Anton would have said something?

Anyway. Just based on the video, it looks like Coastal Cities are relatively worse. Why? Well, all the production boosts are primarily to land tiles - quarries, camps etc - and or are all directed a higher pop cities - specialists, tiles. None of that helps coastal cities, and indeed makes inland cities stronger overall and relative to coastal cities.

Colonial Cities? Well, stronger tiles means it might be easier to get these up and running, although I find mostly that comes down to chopping. But I find most colonial cities are also coastal cities, so back to square one again.

It's not looking good so far...

The only good news is getting a small Contiments map, but is that the map we needed? That's just a map between Continents and Islands. What we really need are map scripts that give you large land masses, but also chains of small Islands. A bit like Detailed World's Mixed Continents or a Terra map.

 

[cvb]

getting a small Contiments map, but is that the map we needed? That's just a map between Continents and Islands. What we really need are map scripts that give you large land masses, but also chains of small Islands. A bit like Detailed World's Mixed Continents or a Terra map.

I think, in such considerations should also be looked at the character of the sea tiles in between: is it just 'coast' or 'ocean' separating the land tile clusters?

I really enjoy a good mix of both (ideally the ancient 'shallow mediterranean sea' view & near neighbours followed by a 'other Worlds exploration' age, from all (most) starting locations ) and find it quite disappointing, when the whole world (eg. small Continents map) can ALWAYS be explored with only one ship class (regardless whether galleys or caravels).

.

 

[acluewithout]

I think the embarkment tech restrictions and inability to heal naval units outside of friendly territory were designed to slow exploration and expansion, and so make it more challenging.

I'd love a mechanic that properly slowed exploration - like, there's a maximum distance from your capital units can travel or a city, perhaps based on techs.

Problem with that is that it's not very organic and is ultimately pretty arbitrary. The current system at least makes some sense and isn't really prescriptive - eg if you can get somewhere by land, then go for it!

 

[NukeAJS]

I think you're right on both accounts. ALL cities will get a buff from improved tile yields and that includes coastal cities. But, yes, coastal cities will get less of a buff relatively to inland cities.

 

[Casworon]

Agree completely.

At the moment colonial play is the one area where civ doesnt follow human history. Historically it was huge but the gameplay changes have massively weakened it.

I think i have seen you mention a few times that cities on other continents to your starting continent could produce +1 diplomatic favour. I think this is a cool idea. Maybe tie it too a policy card that comes around colonialism.

Allows you to turn your naval power into 'Soft power' as a colonial empire you would often control the oceans giving you lots of diplomatic clout.

Coastal cities just need a yield boost. I like how they are not production power houses but instead could be gold powerhouses with extra gold from coastal maybe connected to the harbour. Fisheries should also give housing to allow them to be taller cities than inland.

I am interested in other suggestions on how to improve colonial play especially.

My ideal design would them being very powerful for the mid game eras and then falling off late game. Also their design to be around improving your home lands rather than necessarily powerful themselves. I think policy cards which then go obsolete are probably the best way to do this.

Ideally there would be a new city type 'Colonial cities' which could be founded on other continents or converted into them when you conquer cities on other continents. That produce no production but lots of gold. Also having really good loyalty through use of a policy card during the mid game that then goes obsolete late game leaving them to instead have really bad loyalty

 

[Jkchart]

I know that there are cards here that can help, but I do agree with what you are saying.

Part of the problem is game design where everyone starts on equal footing, and the loyalty system is very punishing when attempting to found or conquer a city on another continent. I think that that in terms of conquest, loyalty does a good job creating the idea that you need to station troops in occupied conquered territory and build opposition to active resistance.

This is why I think they need to bring back the idea of individual citizens having cultures, IMO one of the best features of Civ III. A city's loyalty can be influenced based on the number of citizens in your city that are your culture, or belonging to a different culture. So, when you initially found a city, you have only a citizen in it of your culture. If you are nearby other cities of your own, or have an internal trade route then a citizen is more likely to be of your culture. Other cities that are foreign, or foreign trade routes/trade routes to foreign cities (representing immigrants due to trade opportunities), increase the chances of foreign cities. Also, foreign citizens currently residing in a city also contribute to the "foreign citizen born" chance. Strong/weak culture output could also influence. The owner of a city always should have a small chance to add citizens of their own culture (think promoting immigration), and you could increase that small chance with a garrison (military families settling down, or like how Alexander encouraged intermarriage in Persia, etc.)

This would give the loyalty system a more realistic dimension - after all, why would a new city of Norwegian colonists just decide to try and join Mongolia a few years later with no reason other than there are more Mongolian people nearby? This fleshing out of loyalty and city cultures would add greater dimension to colonial play IMO.

 

[kryat]

Coastal cities will be slightly weaker now because the buffs were mostly land-based. But I am certain coastal cities will see improvement in the bonus yield for citizens working in districts. A properly-placed coastal city will often be much higher population than an inland one.

Colonial cities are difficult, but can be quite effective. They get slightly more viable in this patch because the increased production can help get them up and going faster.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Right now unless you have some meme start with 4+ sea resources, you are usually better off moving inland unless you like to stagnate your capital at turn 25. If you have no sea resources or just like 1 crab then it is terrible and essentially a noob trap besides Indonesia or Australia.

Rushing harbors? Well that is as silly as rushing religion with a nonreligious civ. You can, but you can also punch yourself in the gut before the game starts or delete your starting warrior. Why? To drive home the point you have to research astrology too. At least religion gives you a variety of benefits. It is a win condition too. All building a harbor does is some food and maybe science.... You could get all that by settling real cities and not picking a useless tech path to begin with.


Another issue with coastal starts which has been present for longer than 6 is that the map generator thinks all that ocean is good enough for you and shove you in some corner where you have no space to expand.

 

[Phoenix1595]

I think an interesting concept for colonial cities is to give them 1+ amentity upon establishment. If one thinks about the main premise of most historical colonization efforts, it was to facilitate the importation of luxury goods into staid European markets that could not domestically produce them. Granted, their are luxury resources on non-homeland areas now that replicate this, but I think an amenity buff would help overcome the game mechanics that make colonization difficult.

Plus, amenities somewhat help the loyalty issue, although I think that the concept of loyalty management should not disappear entirely, to replicate the very real troubles empires had when dealing with far-flung footholds with peoples not entirely while with citizens in the homeland.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I think the more cultural sway you have against someone, their loyalty pressure should be less to you. So say if you were 25% influential over a civ, their cities would put 25% less pressure on yours. If you were 100% culturally dominant they would put 0 pressure.

It'd give tourism a secondary use.

 

[The googles do nothing]

Cant tell until playing but I’m guessing they will play the same as pre patch.

 

[_hero_]

Right now unless you have some meme start with 4+ sea resources, you are usually better off moving inland unless you like to stagnate your capital at turn 25. If you have no sea resources or just like 1 crab then it is terrible and essentially a noob trap besides Indonesia or Australia.

Rushing harbors? Well that is as silly as rushing religion with a nonreligious civ. You can, but you can also punch yourself in the gut before the game starts or delete your starting warrior. Why? To drive home the point you have to research astrology too. At least religion gives you a variety of benefits. It is a win condition too. All building a harbor does is some food and maybe science.... You could get all that by settling real cities and not picking a useless tech path to begin with.


Another issue with coastal starts which has been present for longer than 6 is that the map generator thinks all that ocean is good enough for you and shove you in some corner where you have no space to expand.

Yeah coastal capitals are usually bad. I'd throw a Norway and Phoenicia in as viable coastal starters though. Longboats and Biremes can absolutely destroy early cities and get be mass produced easier than anything else early thanks to Maritime industries. If the map allows for this kind of mass naval early conquest, it's more powerful than spamming settlers. Especially with Dido as you can clear out the nearby competition while buying time for the Cothon+Government Plaza settler spam a little later that is normally too late to pull off because all the spots are filled by then.

 

[Villager720]

They should have added production to fish and luxury boats when they added production to lumber mills, pastures, and quarries.

Or, maybe make lighthouses work like harbors did in Civ V before BNW : +1 production on all sea resources.
For bonus points, make trade routes originating in harbor cities get a flat +1 production too.

 

[BrotherInJah]

For colonial cities:

- give scaling bonuses to each trade routes, longer routs should give more benefit that shorter (what they're trading)

- diverse sea tiles more, i was saying this before reefs and addition of new sea resources

- bring back stacking trade routs, but make them local, available only for cities with H + CH

 

[Casworon]

One idea is to make victorias +1 trade route for founding a city on a continent other than your capital a base game mechanic that everyone can use, and then change victorias ability to somthing else.

Colonial empires where built for the commerce and income primarily so it makes sense that playing colonially should give you a trade bonus to make it worth doing. The question is, is another trade capacity slot worth building a settler and sending it out across the world too a city that will have low loyalty and be difficult too defend.

It might still need somthing more but its a good start i think

 

[acluewithout]

@Zenphys Yeah, I’d had that thought too. It would also be hilarious if AGAIN one of Vicky’s abilities was recycled for something else.

(I'd be quite happy if they stole the free unit thing and gave that to a pantheon or government or ideological tenets or whatevs... ahem, and gave Vicky something else... )

Anyway. Everyone getting TRs for settling new continents would be a sort of neat solution, maybe even combined with some delay to Markets providing trade routes.

But my preference is still for Colonial Cities to give either Diplomatic favour or +% to tourism at some point in the game. Someone put it better than me, but it would sort of reflect the way colonial power has sometimes turned into soft power in the modern world. That would be kinda cool. Indeed, it would be even cooler if it was literally linked to settled colonial cities ... so if you lost the city later in the game, it would actually keep generating diplomacy for you.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I actually find (and this isn't talked about all that much) that my bigger issue with coastal cities--or any city with lots of water tiles--is the lack of choice of tiles to put districts and wonders and "stuff." I could live with plain ocean tiles being, well, plain, but it really limits where you could place things. There's a better chance that you have to put a district/wonder on a good tile where you'd rather not. The generic plains tile is probably no better or worse than the generic water tile but you can plop a college there.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if this isn't the real difference in perceived strength between Civ6 coastal cities and coastal cities before.

 

[Villager720]

I agree - on top of the production deficit, their is definitely an opportunity cost associated with all those “open” tiles.

 

[Ziad]

I actually find (and this isn't talked about all that much) that my bigger issue with coastal cities--or any city with lots of water tiles--is the lack of choice of tiles to put districts and wonders and "stuff." I could live with plain ocean tiles being, well, plain, but it really limits where you could place things. There's a better chance that you have to put a district/wonder on a good tile where you'd rather not. The generic plains tile is probably no better or worse than the generic water tile but you can plop a college there.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if this isn't the real difference in perceived strength between Civ6 coastal cities and coastal cities before.

I mean is there really a choice? In most cases there are an ideal location or two for every district. Most of the time you just cluster them especially in satellite cities which tend to lack resources.

 

[acluewithout]

I think maybe Coastals have been boosted a little, but are probably relatively weaker compared to inland cities with all the buffs to production.

The good things for Coastals are the buffs to Lumbermills and IZs leveraging Canals (which sort of nerd coast, right?). I’m a bit surprised FXS didn’t give Industrial Zones bonuses from Harbours given the other changes. That feels like it would have been a good fit.

I’m still interested to see if there are any buffs to Coastal Cities (I doubt it) or Military Engineers / District Repair (still possible, I think) or just repair costs in general (maybe).

There’s a good suggestion in another thread about Campuses getting buffs from reefs. Feels a shame if there hasn’t been a bit of work around Coastals etc.