extra rules for Lighthouse placement?

[Arnold_T]

I’m trying to place a Lighthouse, and understand that it needs to go on a Coastal tile. I have three Coastal tiles, one on a sea, and two on a lake. the game will let me only put it on one of the lake tiles, but not the other lake tile, or the sea coastal tiles (see pic1). Are there more rules about Lighthouse placement that are not documented. The game will let me build the Colossus on any of the three tiles (see pic2). Am I missing something?

 

[Ornen]

I’m trying to place a Lighthouse, and understand that it needs to go on a Coastal tile. I have three Coastal tiles, one on a sea, and two on a lake. the game will let me only put it on one of the lake tiles, but not the other lake tile, or the sea coastal tiles (see pic1). Are there more rules about Lighthouse placement that are not documented. The game will let me build the Colossus on any of the three tiles (see pic2). Am I missing something?

has to be next to an existing urban district

 

[Carazycool]

This is yet another aspect of the game where they've removed the player's ability to make decisions about where to build what. Meanwhile, once those tiles (which you aren't allowed to build a lighthouse on) came within the city limits of Roma, they will never ever be able to be worked by different city for the rest of eternity. Only Roma. But no lighthouses can be built there because lighthouses are only ever built in urban environments

 

[chazzycat]

This is yet another aspect of the game where they've removed the player's ability to make decisions about where to build what. Meanwhile, once those tiles (which you aren't allowed to build a lighthouse on) came within the city limits of Roma, they will never ever be able to be worked by different city for the rest of eternity. Only Roma. But no lighthouses can be built there because lighthouses are only ever built in urban environments

Sorry, what? In all past civ games you had exactly 1 option where to place a building. In the city center. Then in civ 6, the one designated district for that type of building. That's it. Zero choices whatsoever.

Not to mention the "city limits" of Roma are defined by the players actions. They don't expand automatically, the player clicked those tiles.

 

[Carazycool]

In Civ VI you could decide where you wanted to build your harbor - so long as you owned that tile with 3 tiles of the city center. Obviously you would build the lighthouse where it can actually be useful - where the boats are coming and going in the harbor.

Previous civs that just had every building built in the city center are obviously a different beast.

Civ VII just makes no sense in so many different ways. If people founded a settlement near the coast, and they had gained control of the coastal region surrounding them, they would build a lighthouse where it was most useful (which is generally nowhere near an urban area, but instead at the end of a rocky spit of land leading into a protected harbor)

 

[chazzycat]

I guess that's fair, lighthouses aren't typically in urban areas. Kind of a silly thing to get hung up on, though.

In civ 6 I always placed my harbors where they had maximum adjacency bonuses, not in a "realistic" looking spot. In civ7 at least all the buildings have adjacency bonuses to consider, and lighthouse gets extra adjacency from being surrounded by more water. So your "end of a rocky spit" would actually be perfect. It's not that big of a deal to buy a granary or whatever to extend your urban area to that spot.

 

[Carazycool]

Yeah. I'm just feeling discouraged with the game at the moment. I pulled an all-nighter (like the good old days) but it was because I was forcing myself to play through an entire game hoping it would start to hook me. But I was only left grumpy and critical of lots of various things that I see as glaring flaws with the gameplay.

 

[Leyrann]

Yeah. I'm just feeling discouraged with the game at the moment. I pulled an all-nighter (like the good old days) but it was because I was forcing myself to play through an entire game hoping it would start to hook me. But I was only left grumpy and critical of lots of various things that I see as glaring flaws with the gameplay.

I'm sure you weren't at all left grumpy by the all-nighter and forcing yourself to do something you didn't want to do.

Civ VII just makes no sense in so many different ways. If people founded a settlement near the coast, and they had gained control of the coastal region surrounding them, they would build a lighthouse where it was most useful (which is generally nowhere near an urban area, but instead at the end of a rocky spit of land leading into a protected harbor)

Fun fact, that's usually the best spot to build a Lighthouse anyway. Why? Because it gets adjacency from coastal tiles. You're actively encouraged to build it at the end of a rocky spit of land.

Also, what's important for Lighthouses is that they're visible so that ships can determine their exact location. Whether they're located at the edge of an outcrop is secondary. Take for example what's arguably the most famous lighthouse in the Netherlands, which is located... at the red dot:

(the southeastern water is essentially a shallow bay/sea hybrid, northwest is the North Sea)

 

[Carazycool]

The point is that it doesn't make any sense to require a lighthouse to be built adjacent to an urban district while simultaneously requiring the same city that isn't allowed to use that tile to retain sole possession of that tile for the remainder of eternity.

 

[UWHabs]

I think the change to force your cities to be connected is a good one overall. It made no sense in civ 6 how you could just buy your land out, build a campus on the other side of a mountain range, and it would magically be connected to your main city.

Is it frustrating? Yeah. One of my games I built a city that I thought would be great, there was a mountain range that snaked around, and I had a tile with 4 mountains around it. Perfect, right? Yes, except that bordering the mountain range was a string of resources, and I basically couldn't wrap my urban districts around those resources to snake them around to be able to get any urban districts on the other side. But it's something to get used to - next game, if I see the same setup, I probably need to move my settlement up, so that I can plan on getting my districts around the bend and able to fill in the gaps. Or in the above case, if you really want it out by the ocean, you have to plan your districts out in that direction.

 

[evonannoredars]

The point is that it doesn't make any sense to require a lighthouse to be built adjacent to an urban district while simultaneously requiring the same city that isn't allowed to use that tile to retain sole possession of that tile for the remainder of eternity.

It makes sense to require a lighthouse be built adjacent to an urban district because that keeps the rules for urban building placement consistent. Gameplay-wise the fact it is a lighthouse is irrelevant, they could've named and designed it as anything.
As for not being able to swap unimproved tiles, I imagine that's something they'll change sooner or later, doesn't sound like it'd be hard to alter and a complaint I've seen often enough that I have no doubt they're aware of it too.