Coastal Starts suck!

[Archon_Wing]

I think he must have reloaded another start.

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

Coastal starts with Norway are great... build your Stave church and get the extra production from sea resources, and then even more with the Harbor plus card.

It's pure awesomeness... and if you're lucky enough to get Suz of Auckland too, it is OP.

 

[thecrazyscot]

If I may toot my own horn a bit here, TCS Improved Water Yields attempts to address the imbalance a bit.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The problem with coastal cities isn't the yields they get from the sea and nearby sea resources; the problem is in the game's basic conceptualization and implementation of international trade. International trade is what has made maritime empires as wealthy as they've been, from Athens to the United States, because trade by water is so much more efficient than by land. Shanghai, New York, and Liverpool haven't been economic powerhouses because they eat a lot of fish.

 

[Victoria]

because trade by water is so much more efficient

Yeah, in Civ V you got better trade routes at sea, I liked that.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Yeah, in Civ V you got better trade routes at sea, I liked that.

Me too. My post above conflated two issues I have: The imbalance of domestic trade and international trade routes; and the imbalance of land routes and sea routes. iirc, sea routes get a range bonus in VI, but aren't any more lucrative. First, I think the Policy Cards "Caravansaries" and "Triangle Trade" should apply only to international trade routes, not all trade routes (ironically, I think the Civic you research to get Caravansaries is Foreign Trade). This would improve coastal cities indirectly (because sea trade routes get a range bonus, making it easier to reach far-flung trade partners).

To improve the value of coastal cities, maybe sea trade routes could get a small, innate boost to gold. However, I don't know if the game can actually discern between sea and land routes or if it just gives a "x0.5" movement cost to traders on the sea. If it's the latter, it wouldn't know to apply a Gold bonus, so perhaps cities directly on the coast or that build a Harbor District could get a gold bonus to any Trade Routes originating from them. In the early turns of a game, that would reflect the outsized wealth of a city like Athens/Piraeus compared to Ninevah or Babylon. Taking a quick look at a list of large, ancient cities in Wikipedia, they're all inland. I think only Alexandria and Carthage were coastal cities of that era that were also big metropolises. I guess the question is where they got their food from: Did they feed themselves from the sea, did they import their food, or were they co-located between the sea and lots of good farmland?

Anyway, coastal cities should mostly suck at the beginning, but should have an advantage later. The fact that so many Ancient and Classical maritime powers were in the Mediterranean isn't an accident. The Med is pretty placid compared to the other seas, and you can circumnavigate the entire thing by staying in coastal waters. Crossing even a relatively small body of water like the English Channel or the North Sea in a trireme, circa 500 BCE, would just have been a good way to die. I think it was a thousand years later that the Vikings even made it as far as England. And those guys were loco en la cabeza.

 

[bladex]

coastal starts are great if your Australia

 

[UWHabs]

Me too. My post above conflated two issues I have: The imbalance of domestic trade and international trade routes; and the imbalance of land routes and sea routes. iirc, sea routes get a range bonus in VI, but aren't any more lucrative. First, I think the Policy Cards "Caravansaries" and "Triangle Trade" should apply only to international trade routes, not all trade routes (ironically, I think the Civic you research to get Caravansaries is Foreign Trade). This would improve coastal cities indirectly (because sea trade routes get a range bonus, making it easier to reach far-flung trade partners).

To improve the value of coastal cities, maybe sea trade routes could get a small, innate boost to gold. However, I don't know if the game can actually discern between sea and land routes or if it just gives a "x0.5" movement cost to traders on the sea. If it's the latter, it wouldn't know to apply a Gold bonus, so perhaps cities directly on the coast or that build a Harbor District could get a gold bonus to any Trade Routes originating from them. In the early turns of a game, that would reflect the outsized wealth of a city like Athens/Piraeus compared to Ninevah or Babylon. Taking a quick look at a list of large, ancient cities in Wikipedia, they're all inland. I think only Alexandria and Carthage were coastal cities of that era that were also big metropolises. I guess the question is where they got their food from: Did they feed themselves from the sea, did they import their food, or were they co-located between the sea and lots of good farmland?

Anyway, coastal cities should mostly suck at the beginning, but should have an advantage later. The fact that so many Ancient and Classical maritime powers were in the Mediterranean isn't an accident. The Med is pretty placid compared to the other seas, and you can circumnavigate the entire thing by staying in coastal waters. Crossing even a relatively small body of water like the English Channel or the North Sea in a trireme, circa 500 BCE, would just have been a good way to die. I think it was a thousand years later that the Vikings even made it as far as England. And those guys were loco en la cabeza.

Still feel there should be other changes to water as well. Coast tiles should have faster movement than ocean tiles. Maybe some ocean tiles should be even worse. So it might actually be faster to go around Greenland than to cross the open ocean, at least until modern vessels. You could also potentially lower the default range of traders on land - if you were limited to 10 tiles distance, which became 20 or 30 by water. Ideally it would be nice to have a tradeoff involved - maybe coastal cities should suck early game, but there should be more bonuses to trade on water in the middle ages.

Would be nice to see Harbors get the Egypt bonus to trade routes, where routes to a city with a harbor give an extra bonus to both sides.And agreed that those policy cards should only apply to foreign routes - it makes domestic routes way too strong most of the time if they get the gold bonuses as well. Or I've had an idea where internal trade routes should give yields depending on essentially the difference in districts between the cities - if both have a commercial hub, then an internal trade route between the cities won't get a boost from that. So it can still be useful to get a new city off the ground, or if you diversify districts, but you can't use it between your big cities as easily. Or even if some of the trade route yield calculations were brought back from 5 - if route yields are based on resources around a city, coastal cities tend to have more bonus resources, and so would have larger yields.

I'd also argue that there should be more bonuses to trade with friends and allies. Maybe give a default +1f/+1p for both sides to trade with a declared friend, and +2/+2 to an ally (including a suzerain city-state). And then the policy card that gives that bonus would perhaps double the bonus instead. This way, that could be another reason to be declared friends with someone, in that you get some mutual trade benefits out of that. But that's not really related to coastal routes.

 

[Stalker0]

I like the idea that the harbor district provide a trade bonus for international trade routes. Seems a simple way to mimic that idea

 

[stinkubus]

If there is a harbor at the destination of an international trade route that route already gets a gold boost. If a city state spawns on the coast they will build a harbor in addition to their regular district. So once a military or industrial CS builds its districts routes to them get something like 2c-5g and you only need to build one district in each city to get them up and running. If I get one or more of each type close to me I'm willing to sink some resources into keeping them alive just to run all my trade routes to them later in the game. Even if they are all in-land you still get 2c-3g from each route before any policy modifiers.

If your traders are decentralized and sent to these city states, and you run both Trade Confederation and Caravansaries into Triangular Trade you can get some really nice routes, especially if you don't need the food that domestic routes provide. The extra science will let you skip a campus or two and the extra culture will compensate if these cards prevent you from putting in Meritocracy. If you're lucky enough to get Kumasi (or Nan Madol) you won't even miss Meritocracy. You'll also generate a nice sum of gold without sinking a cog into a market or a bank.

 

[UWHabs]

If there is a harbor at the destination of an international trade route that route already gets a gold boost. If a city state spawns on the coast they will build a harbor in addition to their regular district. So once a military or industrial CS builds its districts routes to them get something like 2c-5g and you only need to build one district in each city to get them up and running. If I get one or more of each type close to me I'm willing to sink some resources into keeping them alive just to run all my trade routes to them later in the game. Even if they are all in-land you still get 2c-3g from each route before any policy modifiers.

If your traders are decentralized and sent to these city states, and you run both Trade Confederation and Caravansaries into Triangular Trade you can get some really nice routes, especially if you don't need the food that domestic routes provide. The extra science will let you skip a campus or two and the extra culture will compensate if these cards prevent you from putting in Meritocracy. If you're lucky enough to get Kumasi (or Nan Madol) you won't even miss Meritocracy. You'll also generate a nice sum of gold without sinking a cog into a market or a bank.

Oh, I've definitely had some pretty beefy trade routes. My last game I think I had something like Kumasi + Amsterdam + Rockefeller+the 2 trade cards going near the end, so my average city-state route was something like 12 culture, 18-20 gold, 2 science, 2 culture, plus whatever the CS gave normally (ie. 2 prod for an industrious CS). I just had big farmlands to feed my cities and never ran an internal route.
*well, in the end I was running the +5p/+10g card, which would have been on top of the above numbers. But before then, I was getting the above.

 

[Victoria]

Try Kumasi and great Zimbabwe together ... you get to the good cards faster that way too.
Because I play England sometimes I just leave on points score victory (not that I care) and go for a merchant game. This conversation is turning into a nice little thread for a new VC

 

[Chinese American]

seems the real problem is the Shape of cities. why is every city built as a circle around the initial city center? natural expansion is to expand where there is usable land. seriously what (ancient) city looks 50 miles into the ocean and claims that as usable area of the city? instead even coastal cities look inland to support population and development, and should not be forced into some arbitrary Shape predefined by designer-gods.

 

[UWHabs]

seems the real problem is the Shape of cities. why is every city built as a circle around the initial city center? natural expansion is to expand where there is usable land. seriously what (ancient) city looks 50 miles into the ocean and claims that as usable area of the city? instead even coastal cities look inland to support population and development, and should not be forced into some arbitrary Shape predefined by designer-gods.

I'd argue that cities now actually are a bit more free-form than they used to be. Just because a city has a farm in its radius that it's using doesn't mean that farm is part of the city itself, it more means that it's in its usable range. So, for example, Iowa might be a "farm" tile in Chicago's city radius, but its districts, which are more like the city itself, will spread in a variety of ways.

The one argument I would make that would make sense is that until at least mid-game, is that all districts should be forced to connect to the city-centre. It's weird to think of a city in 2000 BC stretching beyond a mountain range, or across a coast, to set up a campus. Maybe once you get to the industrial era, then your city can stretch its influence, but until then, it feels like every district should have to be connected to the city centre by some means.

 

[Victoria]

why is every city built as a circle around the initial city center

Ever seen a real city look like a landing strip or a snake?....it's about transportation, logistics, cities grow that way. Mountains and water are the limiting factor just like in the game

London started snakey along a river, now its fat and round

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'd argue that cities now actually are a bit more free-form than they used to be. Just because a city has a farm in its radius that it's using doesn't mean that farm is part of the city itself, it more means that it's in its usable range. So, for example, Iowa might be a "farm" tile in Chicago's city radius, but its districts, which are more like the city itself, will spread in a variety of ways.

The one argument I would make that would make sense is that until at least mid-game, is that all districts should be forced to connect to the city-centre. It's weird to think of a city in 2000 BC stretching beyond a mountain range, or across a coast, to set up a campus. Maybe once you get to the industrial era, then your city can stretch its influence, but until then, it feels like every district should have to be connected to the city centre by some means.

Given the scale of Civ VI maps, I think Districts could frequently be real-world cities unto themselves. Milwaukee could be a Neighborhood 3 hexes distant from Chicago, and Portsmouth could be London's Royal Dockyard. Boston (Massachusetts, not England) has a Campus adjacent to the City Center, Cambridge. 3 hexes south is a Neighborhood, Providence, Rhode Island. 3 hexes north we have a Harbor, which is actually two separate towns, Gloucester, Mass is the Lighthouse and Portsmouth, New Hampshire is the Shipyard, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which is actually older than the country (it built 3 of His Majesty's frigates between 1699 and 1749).

 

[Victoria]

Portsmouth could be London's Royal Dockyard.

Well, it was the Royal Navy dockyard but if that was part of London so would Oxford and Cambridge and heaven forbid those 2 towns ever meeting

 

[EgonSpengler]

Well, it was the Royal Navy dockyard but if that was part of London so would Oxford and Cambridge and heaven forbid those 2 towns ever meeting

I haven't tried the full Earth map in Civ VI, but I wouldn't be surprised if they'd be Campuses. Of course, you can only have one per city and the Civ team have made Oxford a Wonder. You could say that London's Campus and its Oxford Wonder are, combined, Oxford. Or you could say that the District is Cambridge and the Wonder is Oxford, but then, as you warn against, they'd have to be adjacent.

When it comes to questions of scale (be it in time or space) nothing makes sense in Civ. I always find it best to leave it at that rather than shoehorn some interpretation of realism onto it.

Right, I haven't even tried the real Earth map, for that reason. I think in Civ V, an Earth map I tried wouldn't even fit all of the European civs that were in the game, and the ones you could fit were basically a single city (e.g. France was just Paris, Spain was just Madrid; England was able to squeeze in London, Edinburgh and Dublin if you were willing to antagonize all of Scotland and Ireland by making them a part of England ).

That said, forcing districts to be adjacent to at least one another could be interesting. Would certainly make the order in which districts are built more important than now.

I'd love to see some kind of map overlay that allows you to see potential adjacency bonuses for districts. I dread having to plan out my district arrangements, centuries in advance, just using a notepad and those unsightly map markers that you can't turn off. (Seriously, the entire UI in this game needs a massive makeover - by people who've played the game not less than 200 hours - but that's another thread.)

 

[shaglio]

I'd love to see some kind of map overlay that allows you to see potential adjacency bonuses for districts. I dread having to plan out my district arrangements, centuries in advance, just using a notepad and those unsightly map markers that you can't turn off. (Seriously, the entire UI in this game needs a massive makeover - by people who've played the game not less than 200 hours - but that's another thread.)

I would love this. It sucks to have to wait until you research a new district to determine where it would be best to build it. Or needing to wait until your city grows enough that you are able to build another district to see where the optimal placement would be.

Maybe I'll go post that idea in the More Lenses mod thread. Edit: There's already an Adjacency Yield Lens, but I'm unclear as to how it works. It doesn't seem to list the bonuses by specific yield.

 

[Victoria]

the District is Cambridge and the Wonder is Oxford,

Calling either of those towns a wonder and the other a campus would take more than a yearly boat race to resolve... the war of the campus towns would go down in history... both have adequate amounts of nuclear material and certainly the skill to use it.