[R&F] Harbours

[MrRadar]

My impression is that with CH you're into money much faster, especially if there are some commercial city states around, and of course all the bonuses of the GM points and those guys themselves.
But I love harbours with some irrational love and usually end up building a bunch of coastal cities with harbours in them. Maybe there's some unfulfilled mariner living inside me. I like ships Harbours need more initial investment, but then they give it back, unless you do a speedrun, then they probably lack time to be really useful. You can of course start with CH and build harbours later, then buy most of their buildings with cash from CH.

What I'd probably like with harbours is further specialization: tier III seaports could be made either military for fleet and armada building, or purely commercial, for a guaranteed another trade route and a GM point.

I would also like to see separation between purely land and purely sea trade brought back. This merger came with BE(RT), and maybe it is plausible in SciFi environment, but in a historical setting on Earth it is somewhat... ahead of its time Land caravans would then be guaranteed to build land roads only and not to take annoying shortcuts via sea lanes, where I would prefer a road on land. And sea cargo ships would be more valuable, like in Civ V, because you can move more by sea than by land, of course. This also would give another interesting dilemma: a road vs more food/production/gold.

And a side note about England: I picked them for my current game and only now noticed one unfortunate thing about era score. I've built my first RND without much adjacency and got +4 era score for the unique district. Then another RND completed with two sea resources nearby, for +4 adjacency, and I was expecting +3 era score for my first fabulous harbour, but received nothing. So what - England gets screwed in this respect too? All other nations can get era score for their unique district or improvement AND a busy harbour, but not such seafaring superpower as England?

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

And a side note about England: I picked them for my current game and only now noticed one unfortunate thing about era score. I've built my first RND without much adjacency and got +4 era score for the unique district. Then another RND completed with two sea resources nearby, for +4 adjacency, and I was expecting +3 era score for my first fabulous harbour, but received nothing. So what - England gets screwed in this respect too? All other nations can get era score for their unique district or improvement AND a busy harbour, but not such seafaring superpower as England?

It's quite possible the era score for the busy harbour is coded to only apply to the Harbour district, not the RND district. I haven't confirmed. If so, presumably it's an oversight. Then again, possibly it's exactly what the Scots-loving member of the development team intended. Sometimes the nerfing is very subtle.

 

[Jkchart]

Whenever I make harbors I'm almost always itching to sneak in a CH triangle for the gold- rivers especially so free market will trigger. While harbor doesn't need to mean coastal city, usually the +2 for city center means that. I think the Economic Union card that combines the CH and harbor adjacencies should actually come sooner. It can be hard to justify the card slot when you might only have a few and you also want to put in rationalism, or craftsmen, or free market there. I would also suggest some extra interplay - make the CH +2 bonus for adj to harbor a two way street. If we could get the IZ in on this action (maybe via a card or ability) that would be even sweeter.
I also think that lighthouses could use a return to their civ5 BNW power and also grant sea resources +1 production. Perhaps seaports should see their gold bonus swapped to production as well. Or at least the sea resource boost that Civ5 BNW had. In civ5, coastal cities had the major advantage of the boosted trade routes, and sea resource tiles being outstanding. Sea resources really aren't that good anymore, even for growth.

What I HATE is that even a great harbor spot in a new city takes eons to finish, and you cannot do anything but chop or be aztec to speed it up.
I really like how the shipyard scales with the district adjacency. I wish that mechanic was in other buildings too.

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IRL, built up harbor infrastructure is unbelievably OP: for starters, ships have always been extremely handy ways to move things en masse.


Taking an example from my homeland, even the 1 pop settlement of Two Harbors, Minnesota (3-4,000ish), thanks to its iron ore docks, moves material on the order of millions of tons per month. Scale: roughly speaking, this one port ships the equivalent tonnage of every single automobile made by volkswagen and ford. And all it does is move ore from iron mines out to IZs elsewhere- it's not some big city containerized shipyard.
~~~~

Yes - I would love for Shipyards to provide some sort of boost when near an IZ. Harbors SHOULD be powerful districts. Plus, if we buff them a little, then people will worry less about coastal cities being less valuable.

 

[Victoria]

Harbors SHOULD be powerful districts

Lets just qualify this correctly, a harbour below in portsmouth (4 population) is creating 24 gold, 24 science and 24 production per turn here with only 2 adjacent sea resources and the harbour below it in Birmingham is producting 14/14/14 (with 1 sea resource). To be fair it is England off continent and so for another civ it would be 18/18/18 and 10/10/10 but that is still very strong. If I built an IZ where that mountain is (if it did not exist, and could get a water park or another district at sea it would be 21/21/21 for any civ...without a harbour triangle and without a river. With the IZ in place att trade routes to Portsmouth would be +4 production so the IZ boost is great. Even without a golden age 21 gold and 21 production, 1 food and 1 housing is pretty good.

Now the secret that makes it powerful is the Government plaza, all portsmouth has is a population of 4 and rather awful land. +1 Adjacency for each of the turtles = 2, +2 adjacency for the city, and +1 adjacency for the plaza and +1 for having 2 districts adjacent.... so the plaza gives +2 adjacency. This means that eary in the game my harbour is +6 adjacency if not England, Reyna harbourmaster gives +12.... so you just need 1 coastal city with a government plaza and Reyna for +12 gold and +12 production with a shipyard, you do not even have to slot the Naval Infrastructure card. Remember Reyna gets +2 gold per pop with a promo also and a seaport gives +2 gold per sea tile worked, the money is revoltingly high.

Now consider you are sea borne and have a big navy so take a lot of cities with harbours and you do slot the naval infrastructure card, its quite easy to get over +100 gold from harbours alone.... no commercial hubs required. The Free inquiry harbour science can be quite hard to get on emporer or above in the classic age but it is not hard to get when going Medieval, especially with circumnavigation +5 and meeting all civs +5.... so +100 science at about T100 is in fact quite scary.

Harbours are powerful when used right. The main issue is they do not help with an victory directly. So normally just have 1 with your government plaza and Reyna and maybe another for the Cartography eureka and make your second district a campus or theatre in other cities. But if going naval, do not forget naval infrastructure, its a highly underrated card as it comes rather early. Getting a double free enquiry pretty much wins you the game but its not easy and quite situational. Certainly doable on continents.
Also people forget that slotting a population gives +2 gold and +1 science, it may not seem like a lot but with 10 harbours that can be +20 science, +40 gold, lighthouses and fisheries make this very very easy to get.

A nice little trick with coastal cities is to swap sea resources to boost housing in cities. Nothing to do with harbours but handy to get to 4 pop, or in the case above get the city with more mines to 6 pop.
The game above BTW is deity and at T100 on +107 science. It could have been played much better but it does not matter, it is won already and was a lot of fun to play which I prefer to micro managing.

Note though, all of the above would be great and fun, but the harbour down a crappy leaf tech makes it bad.

 

[Jkchart]

Lets just qualify this correctly, a harbour below in portsmouth (4 population) is creating 24 gold, 24 science and 24 production per turn here with only 2 adjacent sea resources and the harbour below it in Birmingham is producting 14/14/14 (with 1 sea resource). To be fair it is England off continent and so for another civ it would be 18/18/18 and 10/10/10 but that is still very strong. If I built an IZ where that mountain is (if it did not exist, and could get a water park or another district at sea it would be 21/21/21 for any civ...without a harbour triangle and without a river. With the IZ in place att trade routes to Portsmouth would be +4 production so the IZ boost is great. Even without a golden age 21 gold and 21 production, 1 food and 1 housing is pretty good.

Now the secret that makes it powerful is the Government plaza, all portsmouth has is a population of 4 and rather awful land. +1 Adjacency for each of the turtles = 2, +2 adjacency for the city, and +1 adjacency for the plaza and +1 for having 2 districts adjacent.... so the plaza gives +2 adjacency. This means that eary in the game my harbour is +6 adjacency if not England, Reyna harbourmaster gives +12.... so you just need 1 coastal city with a government plaza and Reyna for +12 gold and +12 production with a shipyard, you do not even have to slot the Naval Infrastructure card. Remember Reyna gets +2 gold per pop with a promo also and a seaport gives +2 gold per sea tile worked, the money is revoltingly high.

Now consider you are sea borne and have a big navy so take a lot of cities with harbours and you do slot the naval infrastructure card, its quite easy to get over +100 gold from harbours alone.... no commercial hubs required. The Free inquiry harbour science can be quite hard to get on emporer or above in the classic age but it is not hard to get when going Medieval, especially with circumnavigation +5 and meeting all civs +5.... so +100 science at about T100 is in fact quite scary.

Harbours are powerful when used right. The main issue is they do not help with an victory directly. So normally just have 1 with your government plaza and Reyna and maybe another for the Cartography eureka and make your second district a campus or theatre in other cities. But if going naval, do not forget naval infrastructure, its a highly underrated card as it comes rather early. Getting a double free enquiry pretty much wins you the game but its not easy and quite situational. Certainly doable on continents.
Also people forget that slotting a population gives +2 gold and +1 science, it may not seem like a lot but with 10 harbours that can be +20 science, +40 gold, lighthouses and fisheries make this very very easy to get.
View attachment 508804

A nice little trick with coastal cities is to swap sea resources to boost housing in cities. Nothing to do with harbours but handy to get to 4 pop, or in the case above get the city with more mines to 6 pop.
The game above BTW is deity and at T100 on +107 science. It could have been played much better but it does not matter, it is won already and was a lot of fun to play which I prefer to micro managing.

Note though, all of the above would be great and fun, but the harbour down a crappy leaf tech makes it bad.

Yeah you've got excellent points (as always), Victoria! Your analysis is spot on and I should've prefaced my own statement better and should've stated it differently - especially because I personally find nothing "wrong" with harbors. I do love building them, but I do like the idea that there could be an IZ adjacency still to represent the commercial benefits of shipping out industrial goods though.

And now I'm going to have to actually pull this off with an England run

 

[Victoria]

And now I'm going to have to actually pull this off with an England run

I am playing again but have moved harbours and lighthouse to shipbuilding as it really is frustrating otherwise. Moving them has not made it OP in any way, just playable with repeatability

 

[Archon_Wing]

Wouldn't shipbuilding be just as hard to get?

I think they should just do away with Celestial Navigation and just make harbors require Astrology, or maybe Sailing + Currency. Or make CN branch off from sailing.

 

[Victoria]

Wouldn't shipbuilding be just as hard to get?.

The thing is, you need to get to Cartography in time top make it of value. Its about the time spent down a useless leaf node. Also by the time you get to shipbuilding its too late to sail settlers. Its about making England workable, without this it just takes too long on higher levels.

 

[acluewithout]

The honestly don’t know if putting Harbours at Shipbuilding is the solution (glad to hear it’s working), but the fact that Commercial Hubs are in the way to good techs - and Harbours are not - is a real problem.

 

[Victoria]

Commercial Hubs are in the way to good techs - and Harbours are no

So first off its about getting golden ages and with ships you can do very well.
Then there is the fact that you do not get too many techs fast and as long as you do not push your culture either you can get quite cheap districts while getting out your settlers.
I am not quite sure what you mean by good techs.... I have to get to universities as well but by the time I need to my harbours are pushing ourt good science.... and I am rich so buying allows me to gontrol things quite nicely.
Do not get me wrong, it's not an OP strategy, but it works, makes the game challenging and different and gives better flavour. It just did not work with the leaf node, too slow and risks the golden ages and its all about them, at least a medieval one anyway. England is still a crap civ but is playable... without it, it's tasteless to me.

 

[acluewithout]

I get your not discussing Harbours as a most optimal strategy, but instead an interesting one that does work.

I haven’t been playing much with Naval and Harbours, so I might be out of practice. But when I was playing, I usually find I’m happy to get to currency as it’s usually already boosted via foreign trade, and I can then go on to grab Apprenticeship - IZs and workshops are underwhelming, although I’ve modded them to make them better*, and Apprenticeship also buffs all your mines which is significant. Then, as you mention, there’s also Universities.

If you have a coastal city on a river though, and you have good tiles, Harbours can be very attractive as you get as much gold as a CH plus housing and food, and later on production from Shipyards. A coastal city like that can be much stronger than an inland production heavy city. Although, inland cities can often do things with farms.

I haven’t experimented much with adjacency cards for Harbour. I might do that after the next expansion comes out.

Overall. It’s a bit daft you basically get both Harbours and Commercial Hubs at the same “tier” of districts (they’re literally above / below each other), but Harbours have a much harder and more focused path to unlock. That said, if I’m willing to be patient for Harbours, a lone coastal city can usually just pump through the various Eurekas for the by itself.

*IZs get an additional +1 for adjacent strategic resources and +2 for Harbours, and Workshop gets an additional +1 production and +1 housing. So far, seems fairly balanced to me. IZ are basically “good”, although still not worth spamming.

 

[Victoria]

Harbours have a much harder and more focused path to unlock

As I said, I moved Harbour to ship building which is much more sensible.
Typically I'll look at mining-sailing-shipbuilding-Cartography. - Archer and Education are other considerations.

Mining - its both mines and chops, no brainer, early production and eurekas from having it are important but so it chopping for ships

Sailing - On the coast city so you have the eureka to start. This provides the ability to get a 1 charge builder to sea very early(often worth more than a scout on land) but more importantly to be able to build 2 galleys. The first galley will often give you +3 era for the first galley in the world, otherwise +2 era. The two galleys allow you to explore coast and increasing the chance of finding other continents. The second galley can stay at home with a slinger for an early city defense that is harder to crack (or later warrior/quad)

Shipbuilding - Eurekas because of 2 galleys makes this quite reachable fast. Shipbuilding is quite a key tech not just because of harbours but because your settlers and scouts can now sail as well as getting those quads going. These quads make great defense against barbs and other civs.

Cartography - eureka because of 2 harbours (and then cheaper other districts), early promotion of caravels for merchant gov eureka but the ability to take your quads and caravels and take out early cities anywhere. But the key thing with cartography, and a reason you can delay it, is for +5 circumnavigation and +5 meeting all civs. These seem rather easy to get and at least one golden age is a must.

Sometimes there are landmasses with 2-3 CS that are undiscovered for a while, these can be great. Also just finding more CS early means more envoys by accidental quests alone. And especially on deity these can often be rare.

It is a different mindset completely, a whole different game. Taking that first city half way around the world and being able to buy a settler there is quite a different game and you know there are a lot of off continent bonuses in cards. I am still discovering the style of play really but what is clear is sea resources are a bonus but not key, using your government plaza is. The ability to chop for 100% helping the home fires while creating a mighty scary fleet is also strong. One of the hardest things I have found is you see some good plots to build inland but if you change your focus and go inland you will not be as good. It is a coastal game, maybe 1 city for a nice loyalty triangle but often it just causes more trouble than it is worth.

• Battleships and spies a great combo for bombardments.
• Great admirals may not be that good but very early fleet/amadas and all those era points from GA's helps a lot.
• I do not build CH any more, one key thing is going OTT in gold when you could have had a campus is a silly thing to do, you have lost track of VC and just enjoying an OP gold game then, which can be OK as long as it is what you want.
• I still do like a scout if I can fit one it, they do help with the golden and do help in decision making a lot, some games you just cannot play coastal.
• Slotting harbour citizens is just a no brainer but going fisheries is a bit of a pain. However you can then really grow cities huge early and also allow both campus and harbour slotting.

If you can always keep your mind on continents and play as England you find this game suits them and that's what i have been looking for. It just does not work at higher levels if your Harbour is down a dead end double leaf node. So much of the game is about golden era's and it's a nice change to use Free Inquiry. The strongest seems monumentality in classic and free inquiry in medi but not 100% yet. A double free inquiry pushes your science rather a lot.

 

[acluewithout]

That sounds very cool and a very different shaped game by moving Harbours to Shipbuilding.

I wonder if you might end up with Shipbuilding being a very powerful tech (maybe even OP), given it’s easy to rush, and you get already get embarking and a strong unit at that tech plus now Harbours. Although, maybe that’s no bad thing given in comparison it’s so easy to rush Commercial Hubs. I might play around with this as well.

A few other thoughts. One. Even without moving Harbours, I wonder if I’ve been a bit blinkered not rushing Shipbuilding. I did it a few times in Vanilla to expand early, but haven’t tried with RnF. I should experiment more - particularly with golden ages etc. Get a few basic techs (eg mining), get Shipbuilding, grab a Golden Age and or Ancestral Hall, get some colonial cities before turn 100, and then go back later for Harbour tech etc.

Two. If Harbours were better in comparison to other districts, that would make the leaf tech thing better too, because it would improve the opportunity cost. Harbours are good though already - for all the reasons you’ve stated - although the Shipbuilding things sometimes comes a bit late. Which brings me on to...

Three. Yeah, I think if you’re pushing Naval, you can’t really muck around inland. You very quickly end up spread too thin and not really achieving anything. I play with 8 Ages of Pace, and I don’t know if that makes the problem better or worse. I think the game is deliberately designed this way - if you want to expand OS you only have two options. Either go early, and then you really have to throw things at it (and miss out on other stuff). Or, get infrastructure online and then get to Naval tech a bit later when you’ll have more punch but also bigger hurdles. So, you’re kinda either Vikings finding America crazy early, or Spain (or whoever) discovering the new world once you’ve got all the guns and trade and things already going on.

 

[Victoria]

Although, maybe that’s no bad thing given in comparison it’s so easy to rush Commercial Hubs.

Yes, its not OP, it is alternative, balanced, more than one way to milk a cat.
most of all, it is not simple.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Yes, its not OP, it is alternative, balanced, more than one way to milk a cat.
most of all, it is not simple.

Milking a cat never is.

Also, don't milk cats.

No cats were harmed, or milked, in the making of this forum post.

 

[Victoria]

Also, don't milk cats.

well I would not recommend it by hand.