Inland Port Towns

[Zancor Mezoran]

Hey, I wanted to share an oddity that I found. If you have a city that has access to both the ocean and a lake, and then another city that only has access to the lake, ships can be built in the second city and go across the lake and through the first city to reach the ocean.

I used cheat mode to prepare the terrain and towns, and tested it here (I tried uploading an image but it was too big):

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Not surprising. If a lake is big enough, you will get the option to build ships. Incidentally, you only connected the lake to a larger lake, not the ocean.

P.S. Try saving the picture as .jpeg. to make it small enough.

 

[Blasph23]

As far as I know, any water tile (ocean, not a single river tile), even if only one on a whole desert is enough to make a port city and built all the navy units and all maritime improvements, as long as your city is directly next to that ocean tile.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

As far as I know, any water tile (ocean, not a single river tile), even if only one on a whole desert is enough to make a port city and built all the navy units and all maritime improvements, as long as your city is directly next to that ocean tile.

That is not the case. A single Ocean tile will allow you to build harbours and offshore platforms. A city has to be next to a somewhat substantial body of water (not sure how large) before the computer will let you build ships, port facilities and coastal fortresses.

 

[linx]

First time poster, long time Civ player.

I remember reading something about this a long time ago. (I think it may have even been in the game manual or a strategy guide)

The test for whether a city is a port or not (and thus being able to build ships and harbors) is only performed once, when the city is first built. So it is possible to have a port city that is not able to build cities or a landlocked city that can build ships -- either by using the cheat menu and editing the terrain or with an event in a scenario.

A city is defined a being a port if the city square is adjacent to at least one ocean square, even if it is only a single square and is really just a landlocked lake. I haven't actually gone out and tested this myself though.

 

[Terrapin]

You definitely only need the city adjacent to one water square. As to the size f the body of water, I do not know. What I do know is that you can get the "worst of both worlds" where you have a city with lots of water in its city zone, but none adjacent to the actual city square. At that point, you cannot build anything, even a Harbor, which makes your water squares damn useless!

 

[Red Sickle]

In the original Europe map, I enjoy playing as Russia and building my capital about where St.Petersburg is located, and then building towns on all the lakes in St.Petersburg area and Finland. I find that because of the forest, you can support several small towns in the area with a decent number of Shields, and you can build a very imposing navy this way.

The benefit of this strategy, if you could not figure it out, is having an industrial city that can turn out a huge navy, while still protecting it from subversion by spies or attack in general.

 

[Ace]

The Prof is correct. A landlocked, one hex lake will allow you to build a harbor and an offshore platform if you have a city next to it, however, you will not be able to build a port facility or any ships in that city. However, if a city is next to two seperate but landlocked lake hexes that city can build ships.

 

[simpeter]

I just finished reading this thread and went back to my game and noticed that I have a size 12 city with 4 lake squares, but I can't build any ships or Port Facility, although I have a harbor and, having just discovered Miniaturization, the ability to build Offshore Platform.
The 4 lake squares are shared by 2 separate land-locked lakes (1+3).

 

[Ace]

Simpeter, is the 3 hex lake touching the city hex? If not, it won't contribute to the city being able to build ships. The one hex lake will let you build harbors and OPs, but you need a second lake hex touching the city hex or touching the lake hex that is touching the city hex to be able to build ships.

 

[simpeter]

Just checked. The 3 hex is touching, but the 1 hex isn't.

 

[Ace]

Strange! A city next to a 3 hex sized lake should be able to build ships. Maybe someone else can shed some light on this subject?

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I did a quick test earlier to try to determine how many ocean squares are needed to produce ships, but it didn't follow any discernable pattern, so I stopped trying. I've had 2 square lakes permit ships in one city on the lake and not another. Some larger lakes, however, didn't allow ships. There must be some way that the "ship flag" is triggered, but it doesn't seem to simply be lake size.

It might have something to do with unexplored terrain and not knowing how large the lake is, or something. I think this will require some play-testing on a custom map instead of cheat-mode testing.

 

[ColdWizard]

My tests indicate any 9 connected ocean squares or 2 ocean squares of the 8 immediately surrounding the city. So a city built on the end of a 2 square lake will not be a port city, but one built on the side will be.

 

[simpeter]

Indeed, my city has only 1 adjacent water square of the 4 total lake squares.

 

[stixs]

I just tested this myself with the following results:

A one square lake will not support ships, but a two square lake or two one square lakes (both directly bordering the city) will support ships. HOWEVER, even if these requirements are met there must be at least two revealed ocean squares when founding the city.

That being said, the "explored lake rule" only applies to small bodies of water. If the body of water bordering the city is nine squares or larger the city will support ships even if there is only one ocean square revealed when the city is founded.

As a side note, when testing this keep in mind that revealing the map in the cheat menu doesn't actually reveal YOUR map. It reveals the map, allowing you to see whats out there, but doesn't affect the city screen and which tiles are revealed for working. My guess is that simpeter had only explored one square of the three square lake, and with the other lake not bordering his city it didn't factor into the port status at all.

 

[artichoke]

This is all about one of my favourite strategies. The Civ 2 AI doesn't understand the advantage of building a city on an isthmus (such as Panama in the real world) which creates access between two oceans or a lake and an ocean. I think you can also use settlers to build cities adjacent to each other, effectively forming a canal. These cities can be disbanded (by settler emigration) when you don't need the canal any more.

Point is, you can do a great surprise attack on an enemy city containing the wonders you missed out on, even if it is deep in an enemy continent. Build the canal and then rush the enemy city (which prolly wont have a Coastal Fortress) with your entire navy and marines if you've got them. If that city contains Great Wall or United Nations, he'll have to beg for peace.

 

[mpescatori]

I noticed that if I build my city on the diamond edge of a body of water, the system will often not acknowledge that city as a seaside city.
BUT if I build my city on the flat side of a lake/ocean tile, the system will make it a seaside city.

Similarly, 1 one-tile lake will not allow for "navigation", so no ships;
BUT 2 one-tile lakes or a single 2+ tile lake will allow for some navigation, hence the ships.

IIRC CIV2 will not allow for adjacent cities on land, BUT I can build cities 2 tiles away, i.e. on opposite sides of 1-2 tile lakes, which will create a network of "lakeside cities".

I often prefer the strategic location of an isthmus city vs. the exploitation of whales/fish suares in the ocean.