Coastal Tiles

[Stalker0]

This is one we haven't discussed in a while. I think Coastal Tiles with Imperialism do well, but in general coastal tiles do fall off towards the mid to late game. Land tiles or specialists are just significantly better.

Should they get a boost after harbors to keep them competitive?

 

[phantomaxl1207]

This reminds of that thread about trying to rework late game Plants: (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/wind-nuclear-solar-hydro-plant-ideas.645215/). It seems forgotten now.

The primary issue that Coastal Tiles have is that between Fish, Luxuries, and Atolls, the primary Yield that Coastal Tiles generate is . Not being able to Improve Coastal Tiles w/o Resources limits the creativity we can give them.

 

[Stalker0]

You probably could focus on gold as there primary resource.

So sake of argument, let’s say they produced 3 food, x gold.

How much gold would be needed to make them useful late game. My initial reaction was at least 6.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

6 Gold sounds about right. Throw in 1 more Production just to be sure. The Seaport already gives 1 Production.

 

[azum4roll]

I think coast tiles currently make 4f1p2g in end game with all buildings, which is lower than any improved land tile (except non-connection non-trade route villages and forts)

 

[ridjack]

My question would be, is this actually a problem? Do coast tiles being 'meh' actually cause any real world problems that need to be addressed?

 

[CrazyG]

Coastal tiles are excellent with imperialism but mediocre without. If you really want to buff their regular yields in the late game, you need to consider imperialism.

 

[tu_79]

Coastal cities can do sea trade. We can send a lot of production with a cargo ship. This helps starting island cities until specialists can take place.

I don't mind babysitting them for a while. If the city is in a continent, half the territory is land anyway (do you work on more than half your territory?), so we are really discussing islands.
Islands are strategic ports for our navy. Their biggest utility is to provide support for ships, so we can trade further, keep trade routes safe, or repair ships after a combat near the target.
They must be an investment. For everyone, included imperialist civs, although imperialism make it easier to settle in islands (it buffs also coastal cities in continents, but we are giving up on bonuses from other trees).
In practice, most islands become settled as it already is, making use of the pioneers.

The biggest problem for a coastal city is not the low yields, but its vulnerability to a superior fleet.

 

[azum4roll]

The only problem of island cities is that it starts growing slower than coastal/inland cities past mid-game, that combined with the lack of farms makes it unable to support many specialists, so they're settled purely for strategic reasons (unique lux/strategic resources that you lack/military control).

They're usually not bad at production since you probably picked a location with multiple stones/coal tiles to settle on.

 

[Bhawb]

I don't think we particularly need to encourage tiny island cities outside of strategic uses. It is already very worthwhile to settle islands as long as they have access to strategic resources or their location provides strategic relevance for military projection, we don't need to further boost this with good yields.

 

[Deljade]

The only problem of island cities is that it starts growing slower than coastal/inland cities past mid-game, that combined with the lack of farms makes it unable to support many specialists, so they're settled purely for strategic reasons (unique lux/strategic resources that you lack/military control).

They're usually not bad at production since you probably picked a location with multiple stones/coal tiles to settle on.

It seems to me that island cities are pretty good for specialists since, well, most of the land is just coast so might as well work specialists. And they tend to grow way more than I think they should. In between imperialism, god of the sea, sea resources and civ specific bonuses, you can definitely make use of the sea if you want to, disregarding all the strategic advantages of having coastal cities.
Though I do believe that we could have workboats be able to construct a late game improvement on coast with some restrictions; say, only next to a sea resource and not next to each other. Not sure what that building would be called or what it'd be based on or the tech to unlock. Could be simply a fish farm for food and production and gold unlocked at ecology or something.
Another idea would be flood barrier can be constructed only next to a city, gives production and science maybe?

 

[pineappledan]

I'm still kinda bummed that powerplant rework didn't get more uptake. Mutually exclusive end game buildings, one of which could boost ocean/coast, seemed like a great addition. None of the current powerplant offerings except Nuclear really help a coastal city.

Maybe if I made a modmod for the 5 plants, using only existing code, then it could get some uptake from G? It only requires 1 additional icon for the tidal plant.

Maybe this would make for a good tidal plant icon?

 

[Deljade]

I'm still kinda bummed that powerplant rework didn't get more uptake. Mutually exclusive end game buildings, one of which could boost ocean/coast, seemed like a great addition. None of the current powerplant offerings except Nuclear really help a coastal city.

Maybe if I made a modmod for the 5 plants, using only existing code, then it could get some uptake from G? It only requires 1 additional icon for the tidal plant.

Maybe this would make for a good tidal plant icon?

It would make a lot of sense considering balance and flavor. I have also been only considering nuclear plants for coastal cities. However it's debatable how plausible it is, considering tidal energy is barely a thing in our current year... what tech are we talking about? I'd assume tidal plant would come after hydro plant. Is it maybe too late into the game?

 

[Bhawb]

Strictly speaking none of the plants in the latest stage of the game are that grounded in real applications. But oceans/coasts give access to 5 sources of renewable energy: solar, wind, tides, waves, and geothermal. In a theoretical alternate reality (which is what civ represents), it is entirely plausible that tidal and wave energy, or harnessing solar, wind, or geothermal from ocean areas, would have been sufficiently researched to be a good source of energy. And that should be good enough for us to just make a general "ocean plant" or whatever we want to call it.

 

[Deljade]

Strictly speaking none of the plants in the latest stage of the game are that grounded in real applications. But oceans/coasts give access to 5 sources of renewable energy: solar, wind, tides, waves, and geothermal. In a theoretical alternate reality (which is what civ represents), it is entirely plausible that tidal and wave energy, or harnessing solar, wind, or geothermal from ocean areas, would have been sufficiently researched to be a good source of energy. And that should be good enough for us to just make a general "ocean plant" or whatever we want to call it.

While I generally agree with the sentiment it is a fact that hydro and wind power had not only been harnessed earlier than tidal power, but also had proved to be more efficient for a pretty long time. Hydroelectric dams especially have been a major source of energy for many parts of the world. A "tidal plant" would me more akin to wind parks and photovoltaic stations that became widespread a bit later I suppose...

 

[Gazebo]

I'm still kinda bummed that powerplant rework didn't get more uptake. Mutually exclusive end game buildings, one of which could boost ocean/coast, seemed like a great addition. None of the current powerplant offerings except Nuclear really help a coastal city.

Maybe if I made a modmod for the 5 plants, using only existing code, then it could get some uptake from G? It only requires 1 additional icon for the tidal plant.

Maybe this would make for a good tidal plant icon?

It doesn't need to be a modmod, It's still on my list of things to look at. Feel free to throw spaghetti at the wall.

G

 

[pineappledan]

Spoiler Mom's Spaghetti :

• Hydro Plant (Requires Aluminum, City must be on a River):
  • Unlocked at Electronics
  • 2500
  • 10 Maintenance
  • +5 and +15%
  • , +211 on every River and Lake tile
• Wind Plant (Requires Aluminum, no tile restrictions):
  • Unlocked at Electronics
  • 2500
    
  • 10 Maintenance
    
  • +5 and +15%
  • +5 , +1 11 on every tile
• Nuclear Plant (Requires Uranium, no tile restrictions):
  • Unlocked at Nuclear Fission
  • 2500
  • 10 Maintenance
  • +10 and +33%
  • On Completion, 5% of the Cost of Buildings from the Modern Era or Later are converted into GEngineer and GScientist points

• Solar Plant (Requires Aluminum, City must be on or next to Desert):
  • Unlocked at Ecology
  • 3000
  • 10 Maintenance

• +5 and +20%
• +22 on every Desert tile

• Tidal Plant (Requires Aluminum, City must be on Coast)
  • Unlocked at Ecology
  • 3000
  • 10 Maintenance
  • +25
  • +2 2 on every Coast and Ocean tile

 

[Deljade]

Keep in mind that the gold from the wind plant is really important. It's the last building on the tech tree that provides gold. It can be necessary for the mounting costs of late game buildings!

 

[Bromar1]

Spoiler Mom's Spaghetti :

• Hydro Plant (Requires Aluminum, City must be on a River):
  • Unlocked at Electronics
  • 2500
  • 10 Maintenance
  • +5 and +15%
  • , +211 on every River and Lake tile
• Wind Plant (Requires Aluminum, no tile restrictions):
  • Unlocked at Electronics
  • 2500
    
  • 10 Maintenance
    
  • +5 and +15%
  • +5 , +2 11 on every tile
• Nuclear Plant (Requires Uranium, no tile restrictions):
  • Unlocked at Nuclear Fission
  • 2500
  • 10 Maintenance
  • +10 and +33%
  • On Completion, 5% of the Cost of Buildings from the Modern Era or Later are converted into GEngineer and GScientist points

• Solar Plant (Requires Aluminum, City must be on or next to Desert):
  • Unlocked at Ecology
  • 3000
  • 10 Maintenance

• +5 and +20%
• +22 on every Desert tile

• Tidal Plant (Requires Aluminum, City must be on Coast)
  • Unlocked at Ecology
  • 3000
  • 10 Maintenance
  • +25
  • +2 2 on every Coast and Ocean tile

I like the specialist vs yields dichotomy but I don't think we need to push terrain dependent limitations, especially so late in the game.
At this point in the game, the last thing I am interested in is 4 separate buildings, each with slightly different variations of yields for a certain terrain that are hard to compare and balance.

The deciding factor for any building or anything you spend hammers on at that point in the game should revolve around "Big Picture" concerns like specialists, happiness, growth, etc. Not little details like weighing a few culture here vs some science here, etc.

If you're already in the information era with ecology, do you even care about another 45 hammers and ~20 culture at best for the price of 3000 hammers? Does that even pay for itself by the time the game ends?

 

[phantomaxl1207]

+100% towards Processes would also be a good addition to the Plants, to represent Electrical Power.