Connecting resources by coastline

[alcibaides]

In the Civ IV manual, it says the following:

Roads and Resources
If an improved resource is within a city’s “city radius,” that city
will get the benefit of the resource, roads or no roads.However,
cities further away must be connected to the resource’s space
via roads, rails, rivers, or coastline to get the benefits.

So if I understand this correctly, any resource that is on the coast will be accesible to all of your coastal cities. is this correct?

Does this mean that I can send a worker to any resource anywhere along the coast, improve it and then I will have access to it in all my coastal cities?

What happens if part of the coastline passes through a rival civs cultural area?

If the resource is not on the coastline, can I simply build a road to the coast to get access to it? Or do I need to build the road to one of my port cities?

Based on these rules, why would you even need to build long roads when you can simply build a road to your nearest port and all of your port cities will then have access to the resource?

Or have I totally misunderstood this?

 

[mariogreymist]

So if I understand this correctly, any resource that is on the coast will be accesible to all of your coastal cities. is this correct?

Prior to sailing, you need the coastline to be under your cultural control to trade along it in BtS (Beyond the Sword). You do need to have the resource connected to a city as well (IIRC) to get it. So if you have sailing, and an iron mine is connected to city #3, and city #3 is on the coast, city 2 is on the coast, and your capital connected to city 2 by a road/river, you'll have access to iron.

Does this mean that I can send a worker to any resource anywhere along the coast, improve it and then I will have access to it in all my coastal cities?

I believe a fort on the coast has this effect, but the "actual" improvement for a resource still requires that it be connected to at least one city (either yours, or a neighbor with whom you have open borders and trade routes) to gain access.

What happens if part of the coastline passes through a rival civs cultural area?

If you have open borders or astronomy this is not a problem. If neither of these is true, and the city working the resource is not connected to your civ by land, you won't have access.

If the resource is not on the coastline, can I simply build a road to the coast to get access to it? Or do I need to build the road to one of my port cities?

A port city.

Based on these rules, why would you even need to build long roads when you can simply build a road to your nearest port and all of your port cities will then have access to the resource?

This can make sense on some maps.

Or have I totally misunderstood this?

Not totally

 

[alcibaides]

Thanks

You do need to have the resource connected to a city as well (IIRC) to get it.

What is IIRC?

city 2 is on the coast, and your capital connected to city 2 by a road/river, you'll have access to iron.

What if city 2 is not connected to the capital by a road or a river but is connected to the capital by a coastline?

 

[mariogreymist]

"If I Recall Correctly"

As long as city 2 is connected to the captial, you're fine. If it's connected by coast or river, city 3 would be connected to the capital regardless of city 2's existence, so it's a bit of an academic matter.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Does coast really the same way as rivers for making improvements available? I've been playing this game for several years and I didn't know that.

 

[raxid]

Does coast really the same way as rivers for making improvements available? I've been playing this game for several years and I didn't know that.

No it doesn't. You can connect a resource using a river and no roads, the same does not apply with coast. Coast can merely take a resource from city to city, not resource to city.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Instead of city, a coastal fort also works. I think of it as a resource needing a harbor to embark and disembark, with cities and coastal forts being harbors. So you need

resource --road/river-- coastal city/fort ---coast-- coastal city/fort [--road/river-- other city]

 

[Liquidated]

The basics:
A city is connected to empire wide 'trade' if you can trace a path back to the Capital. A small icon appears by the name of any town ultimately connected to the capital as seen highlighted on the Ice Age's Entertainment Capital of World:

For a city to have access to a resource, it must ultimately trace a path to either the resource itself (or the capital for items imported from other civilizations). Note that a town need not be connected to the capital to gain access to a resource; this is commonly seen at the start of the game when first "hooking up" metal not in the starting city's BFC.

For a resource to show up in the diplomacy screen for trade, said resource must be able to trace a path to the capital.



What constitutes a trade path:

Towns and Forts act as trade 'hubs'. For all intents and purposes, a city/fort counts as a road (or rail after discovering Rail Road) leading to all 8 adjacent tiles.

Roads (and rails) are the most basic path on which trade flows between the 'hubs'. Roads count as trade paths even outside one's cultural borders and no special tech is needed to access them (though The Wheel is required to build them). To use another Civ's roads, an open borders agreement (A diplomacy option opened with Writing) must be active with the owner.

Rivers are special in that they do not occupy tiles, rather they lie between them. Rivers act as roads, in regards to trade, without any special technology so long as the segment of river used is completely contained within cultural borders. Sailing allows one to path trade via rivers that run outside cultural borders. As with roads, to use another Civ's river path, an open borders agreement must be active. Not sure if you need to have sailing to use another civ's rivers or coastlines to be honest.

You can get pretty creative combining rivers and roads. In the case you want to connect a town or resource that's not adjacent to a river, running a road to the river will create a continuous path. In the case of resources adjacent to a river, one doesn't even need to build a road on said tile for it to gain trade access to the waterway.

If a city/fort is adjacent to a coastal/lake tile, that location also acts as a port which allows access trade across that body of water to another port (or to gain access to a water based resource you control).

The 3 forms of water tiles are inland fresh water lakes, coastline and open Ocean. No special technology is required use these tiles to path trade so long as the entire path is within cultural borders. If the water path leaves cultured tiles, Sailing is required to access coastlines and lakes. To count uncultured ocean as a trade path, one must research Astronomy.

As far as I know from abusing canals, Polar Ice doesn't block trade even though it blocks ship movement.

Remember that to use an open water tile for trade, the path using said water tiles must ultimately begin and end in port 'hubs', be those cities or forts.

Hope this clarifies things.


Cheers!
-Liq

 

[vicawoo]

(domestic) trade route connections are transitive, and therefore are (graph theory) cliques. Your capital's clique defines what resources you have to trade. But you can have trade routes with a non-capital clique and a foreign AI.

Within your borders, you do not need tech to enable trade routes (via roads, coast, river, sea). But they still must exist for the connection to exist

Outside your borders, you do need the appropriate technology. And also, foreign trade routes are not commutative, so open those intercontinental trade routes once you get an astronomy monopoly!

I'm not sure: if you scout an AI city unconnected to their capital, you are connected to that city, and you open borders, whether you are connected to their capital.
how far your connection "penetrates": this is hard to describe. Say you don't have sailing, so no rivers trade outside your borders. Say the AI has sailing, and there's a river from one of their cities. Say you road to that river, but outside both borders. Then the AI has trade routes, since they have a connection, but you don't, because you can't use that river.
So say you road to a river tile in their borders. Then I think you get the trade routes, so you "get to use" their river inside of their borders.
Say you road to just outside their border, on the river. That probably doesn't work, but it should, given how coastal trade works.

 

[Liquidated]

Oh forgot to mention that rivers that empty into a body of water also count as interfaces to facilitate trade over said water. Guessing a picture would explain it better.

A doctored start where fishing and sailing were enabled, as well as a few more units.

Notice that though 4000 BC Beijing is not a coastal town, the river it is connected to acts as a western port as denoted by the red box. From that interface, a short coastline path to Shanghai completes the trade path

Since the river left Chinese culture, Sailing was required to complete that path. Had every tile of that river bearing west and SW coastline been in Chinese culture, not even sailing would have been required to connect the two towns.

One aspect of rivers to keep in mind is they can never be pillaged. A nice fact when sid's finest are at the door.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Yamps]

What happens if part of the coastline passes through a rival civs cultural area?

iirc, even at war, resource connection is not lost if you have Sailing and if there are no naval units doing the blockade. But I could be wrong here...

As far as I know from abusing canals, Polar Ice doesn't block trade even though it blocks ship movement.

Here's a picture of fort usage to bypass polar ice to get the connection:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7701379&postcount=7

 

[raxid]

iirc, even at war, resource connection is not lost if you have Sailing and if there are no naval units doing the blockade. But I could be wrong here...

This is untrue. If coast is the only thing connection two of your cities and that path is through either barb territory or a civ that you're at war with then the route no longer works, no blockades needed. However if you're at peace then you don't need open borders just sailing for the route.

 

[Yamps]

^ yes, thanks for the correction. Time to review some old threads! Here's a nice post explaining some finer points about trade route connections:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7999426&postcount=76

 

[xenex]

For a resource to show up in the diplomacy screen for trade, said resource must be able to trace a path to the capital.

-Liq

That is a very good thing to hear for me, i was building a wonder a few games back that needed marble for faster production, might have been Great Library, but was probably a later wonder and I didn't have marble myself but my "friend" the AI had multiple sources of marble and they were quarried and connected to the closest city, I was wondering why It wasnt showing up in the trade window, now I see that that city the marble was connected to must have not been connected to the capitol, now I know for next time to send a worker over there and help my friend connect his two ctities.

Thanks for this info!.

 

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Rivers connect resources and cities?? The things I never knew...that's fantastic.