Enhancing Harbor ideas

[Tomice]

While coastal tiles were not exactly in great pre-BNW civ5, it was the expansion (designed by Civ6 lead designer Ed Beach) that finally made working plain water tiles terrible.

Is there anything wrong about water tiles producing a mix of food and gold, and generally having comparable yields to land tiles?

 

[playshogi]

Maybe, because if every tile were potentially good to super, there would be no really hard decisions about where to settle.

 

[Babarigo]

Having a tile that has 2 food 1 gold that needs a building for the +1 food and without the possibility of building any district besides the harbour and improvements unless there is a resource is far from being very good. At the moment they are terrible and I don't think anybody works those tiles. They need a buff.

 

[Cuneiform]

I think another part of the problem is that in Civ5 you at least had a better chance of Offshore Oil appearing to help give a late game boost to production. Now with the current limits on Strategic resources that occurrence is somewhat lessoned.

So in that case maybe an extra Offshore "Gas Field" resource should have a chance of appearing as well, which would give extra yields and may even qualify as an +1 Amenity?

 

[criZp]

Maybe, because if every tile were potentially good to super, there would be no really hard decisions about where to settle.

Who said anything about water tiles becoming super good?

 

[player1 fanatic]

To me it seem strange that water tiles do not support 2 food.

After all, coastal villages were able to self sustain themself by fishing.

 

[teakbois]

To me it seem strange that water tiles do not support 2 food.

After all, coastal villages were able to self sustain themself by fishing.

I agree with this. Water is a huge source of food. There needs to be 2 food per tile so water isnt a detriment to population.

 

[MyOtherName]

After all, coastal villages were able to self sustain themself by fishing.

And a 2 pop village can support itself on the current water tiles. But if you want a big city....

 

[isau]

What's weird about to me is that there is a sub-tree of water related things you have to research in order to deal with ocean, and this game punishes tech grabbing by increasing district costs. Ignoring the water techs as long as possible tends to be my strategy.

I did give ocean resources a little boost with this mod where I also changed building costs and reduced Food from hills: http://forums.civfanatics.com/threa...-building-cost-adjuster.603053/#post-14537071

 

[player1 fanatic]

And a 2 pop village can support itself on the current water tiles. But if you want a big city....

No it can not. It is sustained by food grown in city center and any resource rich sea tiles.

 

[MyOtherName]

No it can not. It is sustained by food grown in city center and any resource rich sea tiles.

2 food from city center, 1 food from each coast tile = 4 food.

2 citizens' food consumption = 4 food.

 

[PhilBowles]

To me it seem strange that water tiles do not support 2 food.

After all, coastal villages were able to self sustain themself by fishing.

They're also villages - the only settlements Civ represents are cities. A village, like a tribal village, would just support itself from its own tile and have a pop below 1 - once a settlement hits pop 1 it's city-size.

It's certainly an issue with older Civ games that sea tiles were overproductive; in Civ 6 you need fish to make them productive, which actually makes a degree of sense. Gameplay-wise sea tiles may have been made a little too weak, but it's not a credibility problem.

 

[Jabulani]

Maybe because Ed when he was a child lost his loved bike near a coast and since then, he sweared someone has to pay for that atrocious fact

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

I don't understand why *any* of the tile yields were changed after civ4; they were all *perfectly* balanced.

 

[player1 fanatic]

2 food from city center, 1 food from each coast tile = 4 food.

2 citizens' food consumption = 4 food.

But city center is not food from fishes. That's source from the land tile.

In all Civ titles, those +2 foods in center represented slow growth model, while having tiles with +2 food represented minimal food needed to support population that produces it. So any city with just +2 food tiles would self sustain itself, regardless of population level itself, but grow slowly, since methods of food production are primitive enough to not allow any surplus.

Thus any food tile with +2 food is supposed to be self sustaining, while those with +1 food are supposed to be supplementary food sources.

Anyway, +1 food from ocean tiles does not correctly represent the role of fishery in historical sense, as major food source.

And Fish resource is not supposed to represent only places in ocean that have fish, but those with abundant fish, enough to make significant surplus (and not just self sustain the population).


So anyway, if Civ is supposed to represent historical importance of finishing it would start with 1 food, until you get Net or Fish Boat technology that would upgrade to 2. Then have some modern technology that would up it to 3 or even 4.

 

[Lord Khorak]

Civ kinda has trouble with sea tiles because it has a barely more than non-existent trade system and refuses to give powerful tile bonuses to represent the reasons why humanity has spent much of its history inhabiting every coast it can.

The sea gives you two things, a hell of a lot of food, and a hell of a lot of trade. There's basically no excuse not to make fish resources powerful enough to drag us to the shore in search of them (because obviously fish are nothing compared to wild sugar growing in a marsh).

The other thing is trade, and I think the solution there might be introducing a new tile type: natural harbours. A tile that represents an excellent place for coastal activity to occur and provides lots of gold when worked, as well as having monster adjacency for commercial and harbour districts. Give it a high probability for coastal resources to spawn near it.

Actually, I'm gonna go see if there's somewhere I can put that in the suggestions forum, never know, someone who matters might see it. Hmm.....

 

[Ryika]

I think the Harbor should have food-related adjacency bonuses (or maybe there should be a completely separate food-related District that can only be built on water, and only if the city is directly coastal?), and Water-Resources should really be more valuable than they're now, but in general I'm sort of glad that plain water is basically useless.

 

[Exodite]

I'd suggest buffing coast/ocean tiles up to at least 2 food/1 gold as well as providing an economic policy to enhance this further.

Flood plains are the land version of tiles that can't have districts placed on them and they're generally awesome - on top of accepting improvements.

Additional non-food sea resources that don't need modern era tech to discover and work would also be a great boon.

Personally I prefer balanced maps which mandate utilization of the ocean but as it is right now I can't bring myself to settle close to water and Huge Continents always seem to spawn the equivalent of two Pangea-sized landmasses where the one I start on have 80% of the civs right next to me. The very existence of water in the game as it is currently balanced is more of a detriment than anything else.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

I don't think water tiles should be buffed at all. I don't think sea without a plentiful-resource icon should do more for a population than maintain a status quo. There are plenty of towns in the world with fewer than 10k people ( which is size 3ish?) that primarily garner food and trade from water, yet do not turn into Hong Kong or Lisbon after 3000 years. It's fine.

 

[Babarigo]

I don't think water tiles should be buffed at all. I don't think sea without a plentiful-resource icon should do more for a population than maintain a status quo. There are plenty of towns in the world with fewer than 10k people ( which is size 3ish?) that primarily garner food and trade from water, yet do not turn into Hong Kong or Lisbon after 3000 years. It's fine.

It's not even a question of realism (although you are mistaken). It's about balance. Right now continental cities are just way better than a coastal city.
Let's compare with civ 5. In civ 5 a coastal city was the only one able to build a navy. Maritime trade routes were also better. The water yields were also better (2 food with the lighthouse ds way better than 1 food 1 gold). Now coastal cities have not only lost their unique ability to build boats since you just need a harbour now but the water yields are worse and there is no bonus to trade.
Were coastal cities op in civ 5 ? Because saying that they are fine now is basically saying that since they are arguably worse than in civ 5.
There also other problems. Water tiles can have another district than harbour so a coastal city will have to sacrifice its good tiles to build the districts. At least desert allows you to build districts same for tundra.
Finally a coastal city can also be attacked by sea.
The reason why navy is underwhelming in this game is at least in part tied to the weakness of coastal cities and water yields. Who is going to fight for this mediocre territory ? Nobody so nobody develops a large navy and instead everybody focuses for land tiles that are way much valuable.
To be honest and know why there is still a debate, for me the mediocrity of the water yields is as obvious as the tech progression problems. I don't understand why people doesn't want to buff water tiles in some way. There will be more choice and the navy will be more useful. The game will be more interesting.