How far away from ocean can you found a city...

Sherlock

Just one more turn...
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
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Eagle, Idaho
And still have access to naval units?

Is there an advantage to putting a city right on the ocean, or is a tile or two (or three?) just fine?
 
Well, to level set, to generate naval units in a city, you either need to found the city on the coast or, if the city is built off the coast, build a harbor district in that city. There have been some other threads discussing pros and cons of settling on and off the coast, but the main defect of settling off the coast is having to delay building boats until you can build a harbor district and the main defects of settling on the coast are potentially fewer land tiles to develop/place districts and making your city center vulnerable to naval melee units.

As far as max distance off the coast, since a harbor has to be in the water and can't be built further away than ring 3 from the city center, you could plant your city two tiles inland (that is, schematically, W ... C ... I ... CC, where W = the water tile where a harbor could go, C = coast tile adjacent to W, I = inland tile adjacent to C, and CC is the city Center (adjacent to I).

But, given how long it takes for a city to expand to Ring 3 and the cost of buying tiles, if you want to settle off the coast but also want boats in that city before, say, the Industrial Era, you should probably settle in a location where your harbor can be in Ring 2 (that is, place the city center on "I" rather than "CC" above).
 
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