Floating Water Cities

[GhengisFarb]

Okay, so with 1.29 you can toggle what terrain can support a city and what not. First thing I did was toggle coastal to allow cities since historically this is possible (Mexico City by the Aztecs, Tyre, King Herod).

Here's what I've discovered:

1. Yes, it works. You have to haul your settler to the desired location in a boat and then click the build city button.

2. If the chosen location is adjacent to a land tile you cannot connect them by road. The floating city rises with the tides and would break apart from the floating road/bridge.

3. You cannot attack the city with any unit that couldn't attack a water square in the fist place, ie Marines cannot attack a floating city as the game still views it as a water tile. Therefore the only way for it to change hands is through negotiation.

4. You can build troops in the city but cannot unload troops from a naval unit. The game won't allow you to kick them into the water. But any units built by the city are considered to have 'sea legs' and can stay in it or load onto boats. However, once they've uploaded to boats they can never come back to the city.

Any other observations?

 

[Tassadar]

This is pretty weird, it is a bug IMO.

 

[Perfection]

I wonder If you can bomb them with aircraft?

I wish I had sea legs

 

[Willem]

Originally posted by Tassadar
This is pretty weird, it is a bug IMO.

Firaxis never intended for cities to be built on water, so any quirks that result shouldn't be considered a bug.

 

[jpowers]

This seems a bit unbalancing to me, since you can't lose an aquatic city other than to culture flipping. Mapmaking becomes a pretty darn important tech!

 

[Sodak]

It sounds like a fantastic tool for scenarios! If only the scenario editing tools were complete, anyway.

Good for pirate source cities.

Is lethal bombard another way to empty it of defenders? Or is the problem that nobody can capture the empty city?

It would also be a good way to ensure that you will never get wiped out...

 

[Lab Monkey]

Can another ship attack and take the city?

 

[andyo]

if a ship can't take the city, what about parachuting in? or would they "drown", sinceit is considered water

 

[Willem]

You can''t parachute onto water so I doubt if that would work. Sounds to me like floating cities just aren't very practical.

 

[GhengisFarb]

Originally posted by Lab Monkey
Can another ship attack and take the city?

I haven't tried to take one yet, but the barbarian galleys ransack them just like the barbarian horsemen ransack normal ones.

I'll have to give one to somebody and see if I can take it.....

I thought this might make a good basic for an Oceanic civ, like merfolk. All their units would be sea based with only a few that they could land on shore.

 

[Zarn]

I'm checking this out.

 

[Carver]

Well the Kaminoans have floating water cities so its about time we got them.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

This sounds very interesting, maybe it can be used in a mod.... I'll try them, thanx a lot for the hint!

 

[rangers85]

Only thing I'm wondering is if the AI will know how to use them, or attack them. I'd say they wouldn't since it's definately not in the intended rule set to have water cities. Especially since of all the difficulties in the first post. If the game can't even connect a road to one on a coast tile touching land, then I don't have much hope for the AI to know how to attack them, much less use them.

 

[Dynamic Cow]

lets hope we dont see a lot of ai citeis floating in the water, all untakeable...

 

[Bamspeedy]

What about allowing cities to be built on ocean/sea squares instead of just coasts? You could make 'islands' wherever you want them!

But you would have to add more food to ocean squares as currently you don't get any food from ocean (you get a red shield, just like you do from pollution). Also, border expansions may be a problem as you normally aren't allowed to claim ocean tiles.

 

[GhengisFarb]

Originally posted by Dynamic Cow
lets hope we dont see a lot of ai citeis floating in the water, all untakeable...

AI hasn't made any. I gave one to the AI as a token of appreciation. She's built stuff in it. I've been trying to kill off the units defending it with ManOWars but the new patch took out the lethal bombardment settings and even though it's surrounded with 8 MOWs I can't kill the defenders.

AI was at war with me and had a galley heading straight for one of my undefended Flotilla Cities but turned around when I met it with a Privateer so it looks like it was going for it.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Tried attacking the city with Men'O'War, instead of bombarding?

Is a 'sea-legged' unit able to move from a floating city to an adjacent land tile? Are 'sea-legged' Marines able to do so? (In SMAC, the answers'd be 'no' and 'yes', but of course, maritime cities were supposed to feature in that game.)

 

[algonacy]

So if you had an island nation you could conceivably surround the entire island with these "island nations" and you would be unconquerable. Since the other nations couldn't go through the cities (by defeating them) the only way they could get on your nation would be to use a helicopter stationed on a cruiser and land paratroopers in your land. I don't think that would provide anyone with enough firepower to overcome your entire force. It would take a lot of settlers, but just think you could finally possibly achieve a true diplomatic victory by never declaring war on anyone because you are invulnerable to war. I might have to build that scenario and try it. Could be fun.