I hate coastal starts

[dragomaster]

Costal capitals are often good. without seafod is disepointing but ok.

 

[Cu Chulainn]

There's nothing wrong with a coastal start. There's no better starting resource than coastal fish and you can't properly capitalize on trade route income inland. Its fantastic for Fin civs and those with sea based UB's.

 

[Il Corvo Bianco]

1) Often you have a pile of crap water tiles that really do nothing for a capital, especially a bureaucracy capital.

Do you think? Financial leader + Colossus means 4 commerce per tile, which is really something; the Moai's give you 1 production per tile, which means a bitt of production, enlarged by bureaucracy; moreover, seafood gives a great food increase, combined maybe with some weath/rice/cow/sheep inland

2) #1 means you often have to either pretty much sacrifice bureaucracy (which is expensive so you want to get max benefit) or else move your capital spending hammers on a pricy palace during a time when hammers are critical.

Already answered.

3) Even if you choose to move your capital, you may have tundra/desert/mountains/etc. or in other words you may not have a good bureaucracy-capital location in the center of your empire to help cut maintenance.

Don't move it, then.

4) If you keep your capital on the coast, that means that as you spread out your empire, maintenance costs are going to add up much faster because you are limited in terms of the directions you can expand.

This, instead, is quite a good point, but if you have the Colossus/you are Financial/both, coastal cities are going to pay themselves.

5) Often these cities are low-production meaning it can be difficult to churn out everything you need early-game.

This is quite true too, but it is often how you place them. I love coastal cities, and if you place them near some hills, they will produce little to nothing early, but a lot going on.

As corollaries to these points, I often:

1) Find myself not ever building the GLH. Sailing/masonry generally aren't on my tech priorities list and again often there are production shortages during a critical time.

If you find this situation, you MAKE it your priority.

2) Find myself not whipping enough early in the game (Coastal capitals tend to have high-food on average).

As above. Strategy has to change as the map changes, too.

 

[futurehermit]

Thanks everyone!

I'm surprised by the diversity of responses. Seems to be one camp who doesn't like coastal starts that much (that's where I fall too), but then there's another camp who likes them and is encouraging me to expand my game to capitalize on them more (that's where I want to be).

So, I want to try and capitalize on these starts more. Trade commerce seems to be one factor, which means GLH is a wonder I should probably plan ahead for more often. I did try a few starts after posting this thread and discovered that GLH is a pretty easy wonder to get for the most part (monarch/normal), but it does seem to delay expansion and other techs I consider important...so there seems to be a trade-off there. I will try to see the positives, however, instead of the negatives to expand my game. So, the positive is you can plunk down coastal cities, and especially if you're financial you can have these cities pay for themselves.

One nice thing I've found is that the GM you get from GLH can bulb metal casting--a fairly pricy tech--that lets you get the colossus unless an AI takes mc off the oracle and really prioritizes it. These two wonders can obviously help a lot and I agree that pre-1000AD is FAR more important than post-1000AD and a lot of that has to do with economic/expansion issues.

However, here is an experience I had last night:

My rush skills have been slipping since playing BtS because I have been focusing on peaceful expansion as opposed to rushing. However, I rushed a bit a few games back and was surprised at how a game with Darius and a game with Hatty played out post-rush. They were some of my top scores. But, in general, I've found my rush skills to be sub-par lately, so I just tried some rush openings last night.

I just focused on what time I could attack the AI (assuming a close neighbour or else I would restart) with 10 axes or chariots. I found that my slowest times were coastal starts where I was researching fishing, then building a pair of work boats, then a worker then finally a settler (forgoing my usual 2nd worker), then get the resource hooked up, etc.

This is in contrast to land-based starts where I can ignore fishing, workboats, and just get to the business of getting BW/AH and getting that settler out asap. I was finding I could get my attacks in the 1500-1200BC range doing it this way, which worked out well, whereas I was usually later than 1000BC with coastal starts, which didn't work out that well.

So, I guess the lesson I learned is that maybe coastal starts aren't the best for rushing (???) and that I should go back more to peaceful expansion and attack a bit later, maybe post-construction (especially if ivory is around)?

 

[Morgrad]

So, I guess the lesson I learned is that maybe coastal starts aren't the best for rushing (???) and that I should go back more to peaceful expansion and attack a bit later, maybe post-construction (especially if ivory is around)?

I agree with this. Rushing is extremely hammer-heavy, and coastal starts are commerce-high and hammer weak (for a pre-BC attack, anyway).

Rushing in BtS is much more difficult for me, and I've found that I don't bother rushing with coastal starts unless it's a godly start for whatever reason (or I'm HC).

 

[Arksa]

Yeah, coastal starts pretty much suck, especially when it comes to trade income:

Emperor, Marathon, no ironworks, no Moai and eiffel tower is done in 12 turns!

I actually love coastal cities, those trade route income bring more commerce than a bunch of towns.

 

[futurehermit]

Yes, but your screenshot isn't the kind of coastal start I was talking about. You only have 4 water tiles and two of them are seafood. I am more of a fan of those starts as well. Plus you have exceptional early production there with both copper AND iron and hills. I agree though that I don't pay enough attention to trade income and will try and maximize that more. I also think that the benefit in terms of health and money from an early harbor could be something I don't give enough attention to.

 

[gomms]

hmmm

I often hate coastal stars also, but this one game i was playing a 4 player continents, with 2 ppl per island continent.

I took over the germans and berlin was on a sea tile, it had 11 water tiles, and 1 lake tile, and 3 grassland/forests, 2 grassland/hills/forest.

The water tiles had 3 fishes and 2 crabs... the city was doing 16-17 population, with 5 seafood tiles occupied, as well as the 5 land tiles, and the remaining were all specialists, the city was rocking!!!

 

[popejubal]

One nice thing I've found is that the GM you get from GLH can bulb metal casting--a fairly pricy tech--that lets you get the colossus unless an AI takes mc off the oracle and really prioritizes it. These two wonders can obviously help a lot and I agree that pre-1000AD is FAR more important than post-1000AD and a lot of that has to do with economic/expansion issues.

...and if you manage to get the GM around the same time you're working toward the Oracle (entirely depends on the game difficulty, but entirely possible up to Monarch and maybe Emperor in the right situation), the GM can give you Metal Casting and the Oracle can give you Machinery. That's an astronomical tech jump with the right situation.

Colossus and Courthouses gives a great boost to coastal expansion and puts you just Civil Service away from Macemen while most other civs are just thinking about Swordsmen and Axes.

It's certainly not a given, but a coastal start tends to give me a fair amount more commerce in the early game than a land bound start.

 

[futurehermit]

It's certainly not a given, but a coastal start tends to give me a fair amount more commerce in the early game than a land bound start.

That's true, but the trade-off is production. What I'm sensing from all this is that with a coastal start, I should focus more on teching and attacking with superior units as opposed to rushing or trying to attack early...unless the coastal start also happens to have excellent early production, which does happen occasionally as indicated in the above screenshot someone else posted.

 

[The Rook]

I often find myself regenerating if I get a coastal start. Here is why I hate them:

1) Often you have a pile of crap water tiles that really do nothing for a capital, especially a bureaucracy capital.

2) #1 means you often have to either pretty much sacrifice bureaucracy (which is expensive so you want to get max benefit) or else move your capital spending hammers on a pricy palace during a time when hammers are critical.

3) Even if you choose to move your capital, you may have tundra/desert/mountains/etc. or in other words you may not have a good bureaucracy-capital location in the center of your empire to help cut maintenance.

4) If you keep your capital on the coast, that means that as you spread out your empire, maintenance costs are going to add up much faster because you are limited in terms of the directions you can expand.

5) Often these cities are low-production meaning it can be difficult to churn out everything you need early-game.

I generally dislike coastal starts too. I would add...

6. Limited options for direction of expansion.

7. Normally more difficult to cut land off to your rivals.

9. If an AI is nearby, and they expand towards you, they can completely cut you off.

9. Less likely that you will obtain an important strategic resource near the capital. If 9 is true too, you could have a miserable game ahead... unless you are HC.