Floating Cities

[Syrkres]

Ok,

I almost never take a floating city, it just seems too hard to acquire land around the city.

So my question I throw out, how to improve them? (or do people think they are fine as is)?


Easier to move?
More defensive/Offensive?
Able to convert(improve resources) existing ocean tiles?

 

[MIS]

People think floating are slightly stronger than land. There are other threads on this.

 

[Doviello]

I either place the sea city exactly where i want, and buy the tiles i need (KP has cheaper tile, and there's a political trait as well), or i locate my perfect position, then settle a couple tiles near it; then purchase/build the rudder and a couple production buildings, and move the city in a circle around my target position; once i circled it, i move the city where i want and leave it there forever. It takes 12 moves i think, and i try to speed it up with trade routes / orbital fabricators.

Water cities are much better, they just need some initial investment on getting the tiles (either energy or movement), and are weaker but just for a while (a couple defense buildings fix that). After that, the 50% extra culture is too good to pass.

The AI, however, is TERRIBLE at managing the acquisition of tiles for floating cities, which takes away some of the fun/challenge of water maps.

 

[Ryika]

There's also another solution: Just don't acquire them.

It's a perfectly valid and completely stupid strategy to not ever acquire any tiles outside of your capital. Make sure that it has tons of Food, get Trade Route Bonuses (aquatic Cities already have a modifier on their own), then wire every single City to the Capital and set it to Food Focus as soon as it runs out of stuff to build. There you go, all Cities will grow pretty quickly because the immense Food Difference makes it so your trade routes produce insane amounts of Food. Put the excess population into Specialist Slots as they become available or simply let them be unassigned. If you really want to you can then, once you're out of the initial "Build recyclers in as many cities as you can!"-phase start buying up tiles in your bigger cities, but I've literally played matches where I didn't even do that and just has my cities sitting there with only 6 workable tiles.

Aside from the Trade Routes this also works because by basically ignoring tiles early on you also don't need to build any workers which frees up a lot of extra production. Obviously not a 100% efficient strategy but still enough to easily win Apollo without it even being close.

As for the question whether it's fine the way it works: In the Mod I'm working on I personally added a 50% Tile Cost Purchase modifier to the Whateveritscalled-rudder. That way moving the city around and just buying tiles are somewhat on equal footing. I enjoy just buying tiles over moving the city around, especially because it completely resets locked citizens.

I'd still prefer some sort of automatic border growth.

 

[DefiantMars]

the Whateveritscalled-rudder.

Thermohaline Rudder.

Here on Earth there is a thingamabob called the Thermohaline circulation generated from the differentials in temperature and salinity in the ocean. This circulation is one of the driving forces of spread of thermal energy in the ocean. According to paleogeography, it can get drastically altered by continental shapes as well as climate change (i.e. the size of glaciers and icecaps).

Yay... !

Just make sure none of the internet salt gets into the ocean, or you might not be able to move anywhere.

 

[Ryika]

That's good to know!

 

[Syrkres]

What about moving Orbital Fabricator up a branch/leaf on the tech tree?

Or maybe make a new sea unit, like deep sea exploration, which basically does same thing (reveals new resource) but a one shot. So once it reveals a new resource it's done. I think it should be a chance like the Orbital Fabricator, and possibly higher production, without the production tile increase?

 

[HughFran]

Thermohaline Rudder.

Here on Earth there is a thingamabob called the Thermohaline circulation generated from the differentials in temperature and salinity in the ocean. This circulation is one of the driving forces of spread of thermal energy in the ocean. According to paleogeography, it can get drastically altered by continental shapes as well as climate change (i.e. the size of glaciers and icecaps).

Yay... !

Just make sure none of the internet salt gets into the ocean, or you might not be able to move anywhere.

Cool story bro!

 

[DefiantMars]

Cool story bro!

I read the Pedia entry and basically it talks about the Thermohaline Rudder being a series of buildings that monitor and regulate the flow of currents in seas to move the aquatic city.

All those Geography courses proving interesting but useless, as expected.

 

[Royal_Praetor]

Although they are much better than cities on land, my only major reservation is that the AI is horrid with them. This kind drains the fun out the floating cities.

 

[Acken]

It's a perfectly valid and completely stupid strategy to not ever acquire any tiles outside of your capital. Make sure that it has tons of Food, get Trade Route Bonuses (aquatic Cities already have a modifier on their own), then wire every single City to the Capital and set it to Food Focus as soon as it runs out of stuff to build. There you go, all Cities will grow pretty quickly because the immense Food Difference makes it so your trade routes produce insane amounts of Food.

Cool system

 

[Makenshi]

Would it be possible to create an AI routine estabilishing that it should choose both a starting point [where it should place the city] and a destination point [where it will stay put after claiming all 36 tiles it can work at once]?

That way, they's move move move until satisfied and then never move again. It is what I do [except I stop moving sometimes to make essential buildings]. Maybe the AI could be programmed to only move at certain population thresholds, like 5, 10, 15, etc. In the mean while, it would make some essential buildings, like Thermoaline thing and whatnot [stuff that give production, useful to move faster, and energy, because whatever].

Create at point A, produce til 5 pop, move, rinse repeat 'til reach point B. Always move the planned course, maybe in a spiral movement, never backing unless essential to reach point B.

It can be done, right? I mean those .lua/.sql/whatever texts are like magic, they can do anything! I wish I could learn those and mod... but I suck at all this programming stuff, tried sometimes and just failed, like math and sciences, I suck at them... I'm only good with human stuff, politics, history, geography, law... all else I love, but I fail hard when trying to do... :/

Sorry in advance if there is any grammar mistakes up there

 

[Acken]

You can't control the AI through LuA.

You need access to the AI code which is in C++ and afaik never was released for CivBE.

But yes what you say is possible in c++.

 

[Syrkres]

What about "FLAVOR"? Can we adjust flavor or game elements to give the AI better input into what selections it should make?

 

[Acken]

Yes you can play with flavors.
Flavors only influence what is more likely to be produced/picked by the AI.

What the other poster asked for though cannot be done with flavors alone afaik.

 

[Joch]

I have no issues with the floating cities as is. They are different than land cities, in someways better, in some ways worse, but that is the fun part, seeing how to integrate them into your expansion plan.

 

[s0nny80y]

There's a wonder that adds hammers for coastal tiles. Very useful for floating cities.