Dock pseudo-exploit

[Chibiabos]

I'm sure others have discovered this, but for those who haven't ... you are normally not allowed to build a Dock to increase the food production on freshwater lakes, they give you 3 fish/square as it is which is decent especially with an Expert Fisherman's bonus.

However, if you find a freshwater lake that is only one square away from a sea square, if you build a settlement so that it touches both the sea square and the freshwater lake, you get the Dock food production bonus on the freshwater lake as well as the sea squares, which can really give you a lot of food in some setups (especially if your settlement borders more than one freshwater square!).

This is a bit of an exploit, since the game doesn't allow you to build a dock to get extra advantage of freshwater lakes, but like the Silver Market crash and boom economic war, I find I tend to do it anyway to help me get every last dirty trick advantage I can.

 

[Codeman]

hadn't seen this one. interesting.

 

[dalgo]

That's a very nice bonus, well spotted. I presume your ships can also then sail on the lake?

 

[Chibiabos]

Yep, through your Settlement -- or a Native settlement if its so situated.

 

[HermannLombard]

I have a game right now where the combo of a native village and my town gives me a "Panama Canal" through an isthmus. The chief keeps offering the town and I keep turning him down!

 

[dalgo]

I have had that in one game too, it's a real bonus being able to move your ships back and forth to the West Coast.

 

[jenks]

yeah i like using that trick though I also think you should be able to build a dock next to a lake - just not a drydock

 

[HermannLombard]

Actually the drydock would be amusing, having a Privateer as a pleasure boat...or using a Shipyard to produce a warship to annoy your neighbor across the lake.

 

[popejubal]

This is just like building a Lighthouse in the regular version of Civ IV. You can't build docks without ocean access, but ocean access + freshwater access = Awesome.

It's still not as good as settling next to fish in the ocean, but it's quite good all the same.

 

[dalgo]

Presumably the King's fleet wouldn't have access to the lake so your fishermen could continue working after independence without any interference from Man-o-Wars.

 

[tour86rocker]

That's pretty cool. I'd noticed the canal creation aspects of colonies and settlements. It seems to me that the colony should have to choose ONE direction that ships can enter and leave the square by. It's unrealistic for settlements to all have all kinds of mega-canals all through them.

 

[Astat]

Good point, tour86rocker - maybe even better, some sort of trigger that gets attached to each ship once it enters the city. This trigger remembers the direction the ship sailed in, and when the ship wants to leave the city it can do so only back to the same tile it came from.
Would allow for multiple harbors per city without having the canal situation.


However, I wonder why you shouldn't be able to build ships for freshwater lakes. There were some fierce naval engagements on the Great Lakes.