[Vanilla] Commercial hubs in (Indonesian) coastal cities

[Tomice]

If playing as Indonesia, I'll want to maximize coastal yields to benefit from my UI (Kampung).
This means most of my cities will have a harbor as first or second district, especially if I have Auckland as ally.

Is it ever viable to create commercial hubs in cities that already have a harbor?
The question also applies to other less extreme situations where I already have a harbor before.

 

[stinkubus]

Com hubs that are adjacent to both the city center and a harbor can generate some serious coin. You get +2 for being next to the harbor, +1 for minor adjacency, and if you've got a river another +2 for a total of +5 which can be doubled by policy after guilds, although double harbor adjacency may be more attractive if you've got sea resources near by.

 

[Japper007]

There is a nice stacking effect between CH and Harbors, but it only gives you gold. I almost never run into gold issues. When do you ever run into a situation where you say: "gee if only I had a random additional 2 GPT! It would make my situation so much better!" ? As England it's a really nice little boost though. I'm wandering if these districts are worth the investment at all come Rise and Fall, as the Trade routes are getting yet another substantial nerf (TR moved to Markets and Lighthouses)

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Even if it does provide another trade route I don't think it worthwhile. Also, it doesn't provide.

Why not build a campus?

 

[Victoria]

Why not build a campus?

I have played around with the campus triangle but I found a campus diamond more effective. Once your city gets going on the coast the population can rise rather quickly now the sea is a watery grassland with a lighthouse. getting to 7 pop is never an issue so a diamond is great and getting the 2 money making ones first just helps a lot. The additional trade route England gets is great but not necessary its the +2 off continent adjacency bonus combined with a cheap harbour that is great.

Is it ever viable to create commercial hubs in cities that already have a harbor?

I play a fair amount of Catherine as well as Victoria and I tend to just use the golden triangle at river mouths while with Victoria I do not care. Just having one city like this helps and especially if you like internal trade routes as they will get +3 production from the triangle as well as you getting +10 gold (with 2 adjacent sea resources). Its often you cannot even find one place for this and in which case I do not bother, no river or sea resources only means +6. It is about using your terrain to its best advantage.
For example, no river = no need for the additional CH, any district will do as you are mainly boosting the harbour adjacency. Using a campus or Theatre in this case is just fine as long as you are not relying on +3 prod internal trade routes.
I have often in the past pumped up with an encampment and IZ to +5 production. This is quite ideal in many ways, you get the large pop eurekas and all internal cities getting +5 production is pretty strong.
With Indonesia its also tempting to have a holy site in the triangle ut regardless maximizing a harbour if you have the sea resources does allow adjacency to get stronger. The trouble is the value of an adjacency card scales with the amount your civ uses it in cities.

With the advent of R&F and the +science for CH & harbour adjacency early in the game combined with naval infrastructure (+100% adjacency to harbour) and Reyna with 1 promotion for an additional 100% for both having a CH & Harbour could be a strong early option.

The one thing to keep in mind with all of this is that gold is not worth anywhere near as much as science or culture and so you have to be weary of the values you are looking at truly being of value to your nation. I think it really works with England because the synergy is so much stronger(+1 ship movement, +2 gold off continent, extra trade route). With Indonesia I am not so convinced.

 

[Japper007]

Even if it does provide another trade route I don't think it worthwhile. Also, it doesn't provide.

Why not build a campus?

How do you maintain your empire/army upkeep, purely from gold tile improvements and captured harbors/CM's?

Also a CM or Harbor (or even both) doesn't close out a Campus, and of course you build that Campus first...

 

[Tomice]

With the advent of R&F and the +science for CH & harbour adjacency early in the game combined with naval infrastructure (+100% adjacency to harbour) and Reyna with 1 promotion for an additional 100% for both having a CH & Harbour could be a strong early option.

I know about Reina giving double adjacency and I use the policy for harbors quite often (shipyards!), but I don't know what you mean with the bold part?

EDIT:
Oh, it's the free inquiry dedication

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

A built up commercial hub can provide 42 gold per turn from the free market card and the three specialists without considering adjacency bonus. That is not an insignificant amount of gold. The last building, the stock exchange is both cheaper and comes earlier than many other top level district buildings. So yes commerical hubs are useful even if you have the harbour.

 

[Swissy]

A few commercial hubs are useful for generating great merchant points, both passively and through projects. A number of the great merchants have very good benefits, four of which specifically geared for those going for a culture victory.

 

[UWHabs]

Just finished an Indonesia island plates win, and I didn't build any CH. Basically, all my cities built a harbor, and when I had a district slot open, it just never made sense to go CH. Now, some factors:
-There was only 1 commercial city-state, and I never made the effort to put envoys into it. I played a more science/faith game
-None of the cities I build were near rivers, so my best CH was only going to be +3
-Ended up with a turn 169 conquest win (small map). Jongs were just deadly, although the map was brutal to everyone else. Basically, there was one massive continent with Kongo and the Aztecs on it, but they only worried about fighting each other. Everyone else could only fit 3-4 cities on their starting island, and those were still mostly crappy cities. Neither England or Norway was in the game, so seas came easily.

I had tons of gold - trade routes were swimming in cash (since everyone including the city-states built harbors, trade routes were quite lucrative for gold). And between everyone having a solid harbor adjacency and working a bunch of crabs and other water tiles that yielded gold, it never really made sense to even think about a commercial hub. And since I could faith-buy boats and later land units, you're often better served to put down a +2 or +3 holy site, which gives an extra +4 or more faith from city-states, than to worry about cash.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Gold is a global resource who can be used for most things. Global resources tend to become stronger and stronger the more you can produce of it because you can use your whole empire to work for one goal. If you produce enough gold you can setup well developed cities in just a few turns, something you can not do with production.

Massive amount of gold greatly increase the speed you can build up an airforce because only cities with an aerodrome can build aircraft but all cities producing gold can help you build an airforce. Similar case can be said about navy. Gold also have the big advantage that you can produce military units where you need them instead of having to walk them across the map. Even if production is more efficient, gold from commerical hub don't compete with production.

The great merchants are very nice as well, two of them help alot with tourism victory and all of them have some nice benefits such as envoys or amenities.