Harbors Might Require Circumnavigation

[Seanner]

It's all in the title...if you don't prove the oblate spheroidness of the earth, your abstract trade ships may be blocked by ice tiles. It's not enough to build a harbor, there has to be an actual sailable route!

This seems to get me on pangea maps especially.

Often times, there IS a valid route, so it's not strictly necessary to sail beyond the edge, but it might be.

EDIT: It seems I worded the title poorly...if you do not have a sailable route between 2 cities with a harbor, then they are not connected. There are fixes, e.g. road connection from harbor city to other harbor city that itself has a sailable route to the 3rd city, then they are all connected. Another fix is to circle the earth, assuming it will reach the other harbor. It's possible to build a harbor in a totally ice-locked location, however.

 

[Sc4Freak]

From a realism standpoint, perhaps, but from a gameplay perspective I don't think they deserve to be nerfed.

 

[Seanner]

I'm not saying I think they should make it so what I said is true...

What I said IS true.

The "might" is in the title because if you already have a direct route unblocked by ice tiles to the other city, you won't need to circle around in the other direction.

 

[agentkirb]

But how often do you build a harbor on the OTHER side of the continent without knowing if a path exists through water to connect them? I think the designers might've thought of this but realized the odds of it being a factor in gameplay is small.

Also... from a realism prospective, what might be considered "ice" could be something that you can sail through during certain parts of the year. Antartica isn't sail-able because it's a landmass, but the north pole you can sail through a few months a year because it's only solid ice some times.

 

[Shillen]

It seems like fairly often in this game the ice blocks any sailable route on both top and bottom of a continent. The land seems to stretch too close to the poles too often, IMO.

 

[Deckhand]

It seems like fairly often in this game the ice blocks any sailable route on both top and bottom of a continent. The land seems to stretch too close to the poles too often, IMO.

I agree.
This is something that should be tweakable in the map selection menus. I don't recall what these are but iirc, they aren't as extensive as in other civ games.


Do harbors have any effect if the city is already connected to your capital by roads? (excluding their modifiers to build boats)
Likewise is there any reason (besides building boats) to build harbors?


I don't understand the thread's title/point: is it true that a route needs to be available or circumnavigation has occured?

I could not find anything about circumnavigation in the 'pedia.

 

[agentkirb]

I agree.
This is something that should be tweakable in the map selection menus. I don't recall what these are but iirc, they aren't as extensive as in other civ games.


Do harbors have any effect if the city is already connected to your capital by roads? (excluding their modifiers to build boats)
Likewise is there any reason (besides building boats) to build harbors?


I don't understand the thread's title/point: is it true that a route needs to be available or circumnavigation has occured?

I could not find anything about circumnavigation in the 'pedia.

Circumnavigation means "sail around the earth", as I'm sure you know.

So the problem is that if you could only reach one of your cities through circumnavigation and not by just sailing around the actual continent, then TECHNICALLY your harbor shouldn't be connected UNTIL you have the ability to circumnavigate.

This isn't actually the case but it's a small break away from realism.

 

[Seanner]

Except that it IS the case. I made this thread because I couldn't figure out why I wasn't receiving trade income in all my coastal cities (my capital had a harbor too). I didn't get the bonus until the exact moment I left the edge of the map.

EDIT:

Likewise is there any reason (besides building boats) to build harbors?

You save on maintenance (and worker turns) at distance bewteen cities > 3.

 

[crontab]

You save on maintenance (and worker turns) at distance bewteen cities > 3.

Isn't it at distance > 6, since you need a harbor at both cities?

 

[alpaca]

Isn't it at distance > 6, since you need a harbor at both cities?

For the first one, yes, but after that you only need the harbor in the new city. However, don't discount the production costs. 420 gold if you buy it, or a couple of turns in a good production city.