Does anyone use Fisheries?

So let’s just clarify this a bit more.... If you are buying builders either with money or faith then Liang is the same as a pyramid, just 1 more promotion for fisheries.
Yes in 95% or even 98% of games Magnus, Amani, Reyna or Pingala area better first choice but keep your mind open.

 

For my first governor, I often prefer Pingala or Liang to build up my infrastructure.

Amani's nice but she can usually wait till 3rd or 4th. Moshka can wait till later. And Victor is usually last.

Magnus' value depends on how much chopping (or settler building) you plan to do. Liang actually complements Magnus well.

Reyna's abilities are a little more subtle. But she's definitely gotten some improvements with GS.

With that I generally find my first few governor promotions to be getting more governors. I rarely have the promotions in the early game to spend it on Fisheries. And if I were to give a governor another promotion, I think Pingala, Magnus, and Reyna are usually better options than Liang. I mean, even Liang's district building promotion tends to be better than Fisheries.

I do agree that in a few circumstances, Fisheries can be very strong. Say, you are playing an Archipelago map and start off on an awful island but with lots of sea resources. Then maybe combine God of the Sea with Liang....

 

Can I built Gitarja's Kampungs around the fisheries tho?

 

You get housing-blocked really fast on coastal cities anyway unless you are Australia so I don't see much use for fisheries. The fact that they don't give housing is the thing which I do not understand... farms do, fishing boats do, most sources of food do... I do not understand what the dev's concept of housing comes from.


Still, I think city park-rush can be an (inferior but interesting) alternative to Pingala (need 4 promo points total: government plaza and building is 2 promos, and 2 promos from state workforce and early empire... in the meantime you've picked up disaster immunity, +20% district construction and the default +1 builder charge). If Liang is in the city then they give plenty of culture. Maybe as Mapuche I could see some interesting openings (although at that stage in the game I would rather work tile improvements which give food and cogs... but let's say you get the Eykajoasdfkull wonder with volcanic soil for example; then Liang might be better).

 

In my last game, I had two cities (coastal and on river) that were at the southern edge of the Pangaea continent.

Both cities had plenty of land tiles but they were mainly plains hills or desert. I actually didn't have housing problems with any of these cities (plenty of tiles to build improvements and they had enough construction to build housing buildings and districts) but they were really slow at growing because they didn't have any large food tiles. These cities benefited significantly from the Fisheries I built (which I later replaced with Seasteads). When most of your tiles are 1, 2, or maybe 3 food (wheat with farm) it's hard to grow so the 4 or 5 food Fishery tiles were a noticeable help.

 

The only times I've built fisheries - once when I crammed my first 4 cities on a peninsula and really needed more food to get to pop 7 or 10, and even then I think I just left her in the city that had the furthest water reach and swapped tiles around to build them. And once with Kupe when my 4th city on a landmass had such poor food that it would never get to pop 7. I was going to move her to my capital to build more, but it was already size 14 and I'd run out of districts I wanted to place in such limited space, so she stayed put for the extra hammers.

 

Can you in *any* way enlighten me why the city park is not completely and utterly crap when weighed up against the number of promotions needed to invest to get there?

 

When Liang is in the city the parks yield 4 culture each I believe. Early culture is very valuable and helps expand your borders much more quickly so you get more stuff to chop which in turn saves gold (Pingala requires only two promotions but probably gives half of what Liang could early game around poly phi as long as you have the builder charges and grassland hills to put them on)

Amenity bonus only one per city, but you can build as many parks as you want as long as they are not adjacent. When Liang goes to another city though, the parks she leaves behind are quite useless as you say.

Of course, since the parks give appeal they also boost chemamulls for Mapuche regardless of Liang's presence (you don't work them, just work the nearby tiles), also for Australia they help you place your districts more freely. If you get alcazars then parks will give you science!

 

I guess 4 culture pr. tile would be pretty good, if not for the number of promotions you'd need to invest to get there.

 

don't give me more ideas to start up a game as Australia and use city parks. Must resist urge... Though I do want to eventually play every civ again to fill up the HOF.

 

I must say, that in my current game as Phoenicia, I actually got some use out of fisheries. I guess this is pretty unusual situation, but my start was coastal with almost only hills and mountains, so I had a really hard time getting food in my capital. By the time I got a couple of fisheries up and running, they really helped.

 

Interesting responses, this topic makes me twitch a little bit - here's why.

I do build them, but feel that I shouldn't. The perfectionist, min-maxing builder in me prevents me from locking tiles until they are "optimized," meaning there is nothing else I need to do to them to have them reach their maximum potential. This is a bit of a obsessive-compulsive trait in my approach to the game. This leads to a bit of an internal struggle for me. For example, if I have a grassland tea (which I'd prioritize improving as it either gives more amenities or offers another payday through trade) which yields (early) 2F/2G/1S, and another tile that is an unimproved plains/hill/rainforest tile (2F/2P), I'd prefer the rainforest to be worked and pray that the governor chooses it. Otherwise, I HAVE TO lock the tile and make a map pin reminding me that I need to chop/mine out of fear that I'll forget about it. And I hate having cities with several tiles that are being worked that aren't locked; it drives me to send builders there as I feel the city needs terrain improvement that I need to address.

Back to fisheries, when I play maps such as island plates with abundant resources (which is one of my favorites) and Auckland is in the game AND I have their suzerein AND they are in a position that I can defend/liberate them if needed, I try to work mostly coastal tiles and save the limited land tiles for districts/wonders. In this setting, if you are working coastal tiles then that city needs to prioritize a harbor; it's usually the first district. Having done so and making a lighthouse, the resource tiles yield "positive" growth (more than the two necessary to feed the citizen that works it), good production (since with this mapscript, I usually take GotS always) and lots of gold. Once all those tiles are worked (and food is already positive), continuing with coastal tiles is often one of the better options; 2F/2P/1G is one of the better tile yields early game and still not too shabby after the other improvements have had their bonuses added. BUT..... (back to the previous parapgraph), the OCD part of me won't let me lock the resource-less tile until it has a fishery, as it is not, in my mind, "optimized," it's yield can still be improved.

But that "improvement" is just food, and food is plentiful in this game (especially compared to civ5, to which I am far more experienced (150 deity wins vs. 20 deity wins) and it isn't NEEDED. Grass/mines are self-feeding (2food, which feeds the citizen needed to work it) plains/mines are only -1 food, and internal trade routes combined with many resource yields compensate for this.

So as I'm finishing a game on a map where Auckland comes into play (which, situationally, is really the most game-changing suzerein bonus) and look at all the fisheries I've built because of my OCD that weren't really needed but built to satisfy my compulsions. and then think about how many builder charges went into them and think of the impact that it could have had if I used those charges more effectively, I think that I could be playing better.

If they just had the farm's 1/2 housing bonus, it would so justify building them. But looking at the games that I used them, I'd undoubedtly be better off if I hadn't.

But that's just me and my crazy compulsions...

 

Only if I have Auckland, and only in one city.

 

With Auckland, they can make for some great tiles. The other times it helps is when you have a city that you had to cram in on the coast, grabbing a bunch of 4f tiles is great to get the city off the ground, although you very quickly learn that the lack of housing per tile does come back to bite you pretty fast. And with Auckland and Liang stationed in the city, if you can solve that housing, a city on a peninsula that's all water can actually become a really dominant city.

 

I usually use fishery for the antartic/artic city. Usually map will generate some oils in snow tile. I usually found new city in snow tiles to get oils but the city usually lack food supply from land tiles. With fishery it is good to boost the city growth, especially if I am aiming for Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in late era start game. When global warming starts, the ice will melting and more coast tile will be available, which is better for fishery. Here is an example:

 

On some maps at least. Fisheries can be amazing but they require a lot of effort to make use of with constantly having to move Liang around since you can only build them in the city she is currently in

 

yes i use fisheries same way you need ato place a city strategically and this is a way to get enough food and this mostly happens mid game or later so they are for me usefull

 

And since they get the bonus while she's in the city, if you have one superb fisheries site, it can be tough to move her away for 15 or 20 turns (5 to get there, stay for 5-10 to build the new fisheries, then 5 to move back). Kind of the double-edged sword there - often times I plan it so that I don't send her to my best city for fisheries first, and try to scrape out a couple in other cities, before more permanently settling her on that peninsula city.

 

Kupe and Liang seem like a good fit. a) it will no doubt be a coastal start b) Magnus will be no good (no chopping) - that leaves less for Kupe to use builders on c) Culture bombs on sea resources. d) +1 builder charge is not a waste either.