Enhancing Harbor ideas

[Tomice]

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).

Exactly, the importance of coasts for human development is immense.
Here is a population density map to prove it:

Densely populated regions in the Americas and Oceania are almost exclusively coastal. The major exception is the east of the United states where there's a connection from Chicago to New Orleans over the Missisippi and the artificial Chicago portage.
The situation on Europe and Asia is similar - most of the non-coastal population lives along the Rhein, Danube, Ganges and Yangtze rivers. Still, there is a bit more landlocked population, probably due to the long historical development of these regions allowing for better infrastructure like roads, railroads and canals.

No matter what, before the 19/20th century (trains, cars, planes) most of mankind was dependent on water-based trade and transport if they wanted to live from more than just subsistence. Even nowadays, being landlocked is almost a guarantee for a country to be poor. See this Wikipedia article: Click

 

[Kwami]

there is no bonus to trade.

Well, trade routes can have much longer distances over water than over land. But yeah, there should be a much bigger trade benefit for maritime routes.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

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.

Somehow I feel, in that post, you've both conflated issues and answered your own questions in a strange circular reasoning. I don't know how to reply, exactly, except to ask if you think coastal metropolises all feed population solely on halibut. The combat argument doesn't even have as much merit because there are amphibious land units, and while a city 4 tiles inland isn't subject to battleship bombardament, which is decidedly weak in and of itself, howitzers don't fire from swimming. I'm not even sure about what I'm "mistaken" from your parenthetical rebuff. I guess I can't communicate with you. Sorry.

 

[dexters]

Coastal tiles don't need to be buffed, but perhaps harbours/lighthouses can see a small buff to food and bonus coastal resources increased.

Civ5 is not even the same as Civ6 anymore. In civ 6 you can have an inland city next to a river with access to say, 5 coast tiles. Build a harbour and bam, it's a coastal city now.
In Civ5, you had to settle on the coast or you can't build your harbours and lighthouses, so it makes sense to increase those yields as a much larger chunk of your city's workable radius will be water.

It is IMHO a balance issue. Locking the buffs to sea yields behind the harbour district makes more sense to me than buffing the underlying yields.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

Coastal tiles don't need to be buffed, but perhaps harbours/lighthouses can see a small buff to food and bonus coastal resources increased.

I could go with this. 1 extra food for harbor, +2 more with added lighthouse, none for shipyard.

 

[Tomice]

Deciding how to boost coastal cities is step two, and I don't care too much about the details.
It's most important for me to check if most of the community agrees about the underlying problem (both regarding the lack of meaningful naval gameplay and realism issues).

That being said, a meaningful food and gold buff for the harbor (and its buildings) would be easy to implement and solve much of the issue.
But I think it would have to be at least 1 extra food and gold for each step of naval development (including the plain harbor district).

Maybe even extra food/gold only for having the city center along the coast? Putting all buffs on the harbor district would make coastal city centers even more pointless. Plus it would mean that only developed cities would profit from the buff.
What about giving coastal cities harbor districts for half the price and not let them count against the district limit?

I could go with this. 1 extra food for harbor, +2 more with added lighthouse, none for shipyard.

I doubt such small changes would be enough to make coastal cities attractive. Food is less important than it was in civ5, by the time you build lighthouses you may have hit the housing limit already...

 

[bbbt]

I think one simple buff they could do is make the housing bonus additive - i.e. so settling on a coast at the mouth of a river gives you more starter housing than just settling inland on a river.

 

[isau]

I think the problem might have been that if Ocean is too attractive, combined with there being no penalties to founding new cities, it kind of encourages you to stuff in dozens of small cities at the edges of the map. So maybe that's what they were thinking.

The thing about it though is there an entire tech line dedicated solely to Ocean, and even a Great Person. Right now little of it seems worth fighting for. The Lighthouse is currently a military building, a big change from previous games. This really messes over cities with lots of Ocean tiles because the full benefit of a Harbor can be had by a city with 1 Ocean tile as with 25 (barring adjacenies).

Rivers have a building associated with them that is built in the City Center (the Water Mill). I think this slot is a good place to put a building that can only be built in a city touching coast.

I did suggest in another thread that City Centers touching coast could generate extra Influence. Thus a Coastal empire would be one geared toward interactions with City States, and give you some explicit ways to earn City State points. Perhaps a Policy card like this: "Gain up to 4 influence per turn based on the percentage of city centers adjacent to Ocean." That would mean an empire with lots of city centers adjacent to Ocean could generate lots of influence. But you'd need to dedicate yourself to the task to become a master of influence. Currently there isn't a particularly good way to specialize for influence, so this could possibly work.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

A Lighthouse adding +1 Food to all water tiles, and a Seaport adding +2 production to all sea resources, sounds good to me. That would make plain water tiles 2 food/1 gold, which to be honest is still not really workable. There's no harm in doing this. Fish resources, however, would get up to 5 food/2 gold/2 production (though you'd have to invest in them to get there), and become really good. So a cluster of sea resources would be a great spot for a city. That's as it should be I think.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

I think one simple buff they could do is make the housing bonus additive - i.e. so settling on a coast at the mouth of a river gives you more starter housing than just settling inland on a river.

This is a great idea. I really like it. I might then also reduce the bonus for fresh water by 1 (so 1 housing for coast, 2 housing for river/lake, 3 housing for both)

 

[MyOtherName]

The sea gives you ... a ... lot of food ... 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).

A lot of food? More so than, say, the bounties available through agriculture or animal husbandry? A field that, even in the unfavorable terrain of ancient Greece, employed 80% of the population?

(I get that coast may need to be made more attractive in Civ6, but I feel like the arguments for it are way off base)

 

[player1 fanatic]

Another option would be a spin on fresh water concept.

Let boat access add extra food to ocean tiles.

So if city is coast, get +1 food. And if not, add same benefit only after harbor is build.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Its fine to have poor coastal yields if sea based trade is better. (BNW did that well)

The main idea is that there needs to be something of economic value in the water for a navy to be worthwhile. (either to protect or destroy)

Right now the only thing of economic value in the water is the harbor district itself. (which is nice with +1 Trade route..but not quite good enough)

They could improve it by something like trade routes get 0.1 gold per water tile they pass through (and can leave trade posts in harbors/coastal cities to extend their range)
(since land trade routes get +1 every 15 tiles or less for trade routes...sea ones should get a bigger bonus +1 per 30 tiles or less AND +1 more per 10)

(and since trade routes can only embark/disembark at coastal cities/harbors they should end up with a lot of trade routes going through)

 

[Tomice]

A lot of food? More so than, say, the bounties available through agriculture or animal husbandry? A field that, even in the unfavorable terrain of ancient Greece, employed 80% of the population?
(I get that coast may need to be made more attractive in Civ6, but I feel like the arguments for it are way off base)

I agree that it's less about the food (though fish provide a protein source that doesn't conflict with agriculture, unlike farm animals).
It's more about trade and transport. Caravans were way less effective than ships, meaning that coastal trade hubs were far more powerful than naval ones. And trade not only meant wealth, but also progress by exchange of knowledge.

 

[Exodite]

Coastal tiles don't need to be buffed, but perhaps harbours/lighthouses can see a small buff to food and bonus coastal resources increased.
It is IMHO a balance issue. Locking the buffs to sea yields behind the harbour district makes more sense to me than buffing the underlying yields.

You're correct that it's a balance issue, which is why buffing the harbor and sea resources isn't the way to go - since it doesn't fix the underlying problem.

The harbor and sea resources are already strong, what's needed is a reason to actually work the water tiles.

Buffing the base water tiles to 2 food/1 gold and providing an economic policy or the like which increases this to 3/1 or 3/2 would allow water tiles to support a city population and focus on working production tiles on land. I'd say that's the bare minimum, as you'd still work land tiles over those if you at all can since even a base grassland or plains tile can be improved to be significantly better.

Again I'd like to draw the comparison to flood plains which are a base 3 food and can be further improved with builders or used to house districts or wonders, and can get further bonuses from pantheon beliefs. These aren't considered too strong so water tiles can stand to get much, much better than they currently are.

In civ 6 you can have an inland city next to a river with access to say, 5 coast tiles. Build a harbour and bam, it's a coastal city now.

Sure, the problem is that you're never going to.

While there are some perks to a harbor district it's very low priority compared to just about any other district and it makes you no more interested in working coast or ocean tiles, or building a navy. Since units can embark without harbors every win condition is open without the least bit of navy focus anyway, including domination and religious.

Its fine to have poor coastal yields if sea based trade is better. (BNW did that well)

I disagree with that, Civ5 really didn't do coastal settlements any services.

Ocean trade routes being much stronger in Civ5 didn't make working coastal tiles any more desirable, it just meant that you never wanted to build land-based trade routes.

The ideal setup in Civ5 were having a single coastal city on your main continent, ideally with a minimum of water tiles and/or an abundance of sea resources on the ones you did have. And then use that as your trade route hub.

This wasn't balanced or ideal, it just reinforced a cookie-cutter strategy with trade routes.

In that sense I feel the base system is much better in Civ6, ie. equally strong land/sea trade routes and no bonuses for settling coastal (or penalties for not doing so).

The only things lacking are actual reasons to work the coast/ocean tiles and build and support a navy in the first place.

The fact that the default continents map script seem to lean towards creating only two super-continents on larger map sizes adds to this but frankly a better script wouldn't make water tiles any more desirable to work.

 

[isau]

There is a weird rule in Civ 6 with trade routes where the range of them is determined by the point of departure. However I do find it confusing.

Basically the rule is something like: you have 15 tile range on land, 30 tile range on water, calculated from point of origin (i.e. a Coastal city); if you cross from land to water in general you don't suddenly get bonus move tiles. So, if it starts on water, the full range is supposed to be 30 tiles.

Where it gets weird to me is that if there's a trading post involved, supposedly the distance resets. So if you go 15 tiles on land and hit a trading post, you can then travel an additional 30 tiles on water, calculated from that trading post. And somehow, the Harbor district can be involved in this too, altho I don't understand how.

 

[need my speed]

What if coastal tiles yield two food, one gold, and ocean tiles one food, three gold?

 

[Tomice]

What if coastal tiles yield two food, one gold, and ocean tiles one food, three gold?

It would suddenly make water tiles overpowered as a gold source. In BNW and to a lesser extent civ6, gold has mostly been removed as a tile yield to increase the importance of trade routes. 3 gold from a very common tile would kill international trade routes.
Civ always suffered from the problem of small numbers - one yield from a tile might be way too low, but just increasing it to two might make it overpowered.

 

[need my speed]

It would suddenly make water tiles overpowered as a gold source. In BNW and to a lesser extent civ6, gold has mostly been removed as a tile yield to increase the importance of trade routes. 3 gold from a very common tile would kill international trade routes.
Civ always suffered from the problem of small numbers - one yield from a tile might be way too low, but just increasing it to two might make it overpowered.

Well, yes - but ocean tiles aren't very common nor very available (unless you settle on the coast, and even then, borders expand extremely slow to water tiles), and it would tie gold (which is, usually, what we mean with trade) to the sea.

 

[Assault Lemming]

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?

It's part of a larger approach to making you make actual decisions about settling. Mountains for beauty, hills for production, plains for food, sea for commerce. I dont think it's really working yet, but it makes a lot of sense given the district move to specialised cities. Personally it's boring if all tiles are the same.