Is Harbor redudant if cities already connected via roads?

[jpinard]

I've been trying to figure this out, but too much changes per turn to watch income levels. So if you have a city already connected to your capital via road network, is building a Harbor redundant for trade purposes? In fact, would this be a negative cost factor since it's upkeep is 3g/turn?

(ignore production bonus for naval units)

 

[Lonkut]

a harbor removes the trade bonus cities get from roads AFAIK. Whenever I build harbors between connected cities I get message next turn saying trade route canceled. I haven't tested anything but harbors most likely give a higher trade bonus than roads so maintenance is worth it. Prolly.

 

[Lekkric]

Having both is redundant. Could be useful to build roads to cities that were once only connected by harbour in case of blockade, but once cities are connected by road there's no reason to build a harbour (for trade purposes) because AFAIK the AI doesn't pillage roads.

 

[unindel]

One thing not mentioned in the tooltip is that Harbors serve for connection by railroad for the 50% production bonus (i.e. if your capital is coastal and you build a harbor in another city connected by the same ocean you get the 50% production bonus), so I've been using them to get my railroad bonus around without the excessive maintenance/setup time of that!

This doesn't work if you have one of those weird inland oceans as harbors don't connect you to your capital unless they're on the same "ocean". Harbors also don't connect you to an inland capital. What you can do however is build a harbor in a city that is on the ocean your capital is connected to (or build a road from an inland capital to a coastal town with harbor which then acts as a "source" for other harbors) and then have another harbor city build a road to any other cities you want.

For example, in my current game I had my capital inland and when I built harbors in my two coastal towns (one nearby and one far away) I didn't get trade routes. Once I connected the nearby one with a road, I immediately got trade routes in both cities. Later, I built harbors in two towns on an inland ocean and it didn't give me a trade route, but when I connected one of those towns with a road to my far away coastal city (that had a trade route by harbor) the other two cities popped trade routes.
So it was Capital--Road--Coastal city A---(Harbors)--Coastal city B---Road---Inland sea city C--(Harbors)---Inland sea city D.

I just researched railroad and I didn't get my production bonuses immediately, and I saved as of trying to connect City A with a railroad. I'm expecting it to give railroad bonuses to City A (obviously since its connected directly!) and City B but not C/D until I connect a railroad between B and C.

>_> I really dislike having to pay for roads hahah.

 

[mihaifx]

50% extra ship production, and 50% railroad production bonus. Hmm...redundant?

 

[CornPlanter]

50% extra ship production, and 50% railroad production bonus. Hmm...redundant?

OP was talking about roads.

 

[jjkrause84]

I almost never build harbors for this reason....they're ALMOST useless.

It' strange having a largely coastal empire without harbors....doesn't quite sit right with me.

 

[unindel]

edit: My point was that theres a purpose to it if you have it already roaded but you don't want to go to the trouble of upgrading the connection to a railroad later and still want the production bonus from railroad tech. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

 

[dannythefool]

OP was talking about roads.

That's the point. If you only have The Wheel researched then either harbours or roads are redundant. But if you have railroad researched then harbours can give a better bonus than roads so they are not redundant. They're also much cheaper than roads in most cases so I always try to build harbours unless I need the movement bonus from roads.

 

[Tylerryan79]

I usually build a harbor if the 3gpt is less than what a road would be to maintain, and I then destry the road that was there before harbors(so if a roads cheaper I just build roads, or keep them). Id much rather save money, and the AI is not so much a threat that I can't wait a few extra turns to get all my units there if needed. If a city isnt a productions city I dont build a railroad there, saving me wasted money for a boost to a city that doesnt need it. The harbor is great if your cities are more than 3 hexes away, and arent a production city, or a city that needs extra production. Ive noticed my gold income is slightly higher each game, the more i fine tune my strategies.

 

[gilfan]

the 3gp maintenance for a harbor is almost always less than the maintenance on the roads it would take to connect your city to the road network

PROs
cheaper maintenance by usually 1-4gp (2-8gp vs railroads)
+% to ship production

CONs
costs city Hammers to build
can be blockaded by nearby ships
don't get the benefit of faster unit movement


Mandatory for island cities, of course, situationally useful in others. Forinstance, I'm currently playing a huge earth map, capital is on the coast of southern brazil on the east side of the continent. The Andes mountain range runs almost the entire length of the continent. If I wanted to connect my west coast cities to the trade network, I'd have to run a ridiculously long road almost to the southern tip of the land mass and back up again.... I haven't counted, but it would probaly be more than 20 or even 30 hexes. giving that city a harbor is far more cost effective, even if I paid for it in gold, I'd make my money back in 25 turns or so.


One strategy that could frequently be effective is to put roads everywhere, harbors on all the coast cities, and railroads to all the inland cities. Strikes a good balance between mobility, maintenance, and uninterruptable trade routes

 

[The Great Apple]

I will only build harbours if the road is going to be expensive (ie. 6+ GPT), otherwise you'll just save more cash by using the hammers to build a market, and roads can actually be useful sometimes . It's also often not worth doing for just one city, as you need a harbour at both ends. You have to make the cost-benefit decision again once RRs come in.

With respect to harbour connectivity. As far as I can tell they only work as if all sea/ocean tiles in adjacent waterways are roads which can connect to any other harbour. One of the more complicated trade routes I had in one of my previous games had three sea stages and four road stages.... in a pangea map of all things!

 

[jpinard]

One thing not mentioned in the tooltip is that Harbors serve for connection by railroad for the 50% production bonus (i.e. if your capital is coastal and you build a harbor in another city connected by the same ocean you get the 50% production bonus), so I've been using them to get my railroad bonus around without the excessive maintenance/setup time of that!

Where did you see this? I understand the city has to be on an ocean and so does the Capitol, but I haven't seen a 50% production bonus for tiles that equates to the railroad bonus.

 

[Collic]

edit : oops, missed the OP's qualification. It is indeed redundant (for trade) unless you're hooking up another city harbour to harbour.

 

[Stalker0]

I almost always build roads...even if the harbor is cheaper. Those hammers are precious, my workers finish up improvements quick while buildings take forever.

 

[Yard Waste]

Geez--seems I was wasting my time/money/resources building harbours when I have roads.

 

[jpinard]

Geez--seems I was wasting my time/money/resources building harbours when I have roads.

Me too

 

[unindel]

Where did you see this? I understand the city has to be on an ocean and so does the Capitol, but I haven't seen a 50% production bonus for tiles that equates to the railroad bonus.

I read it on here somewhere and tried it myself. It's not mentioned in the tooltip, but if you have the railroad tech and have a city hooked up to your capital through harbors (either directly with a coastal capital and coastal city, or inland capital railroaded to a coastal city with a harbor and then another coastal city somewhere else), you get the bonus. You can see it if you mouse-over the hammer icon in the city overview it'll say something like 50% production bonus for railroad connection.

edit: See this picture from a recent cultural game of mine. I was being cheap so I didn't initially build the railroads to my production city since the road was good enough for unit movement. I still get the modifier for railroad connection despite only being connected by a road, you can see the Harbor I built there too.

 

[zonk]

AS mentioned in the naval thread -

Personally, I think they ought to make harbors required for embarkation.

Units only allowed to embark from a city with a harbor.

You make harbors worth the cost and you make embarkation a little less silly without bringing back the tedium of transports.

Problem solved.

Next thread...

 

[Justicex]

AS mentioned in the naval thread -

Personally, I think they ought to make harbors required for embarkation.

Units only allowed to embark from a city with a harbor.

You make harbors worth the cost and you make embarkation a little less silly without bringing back the tedium of transports.

Problem solved.

Next thread...

The only problem with that is, you can't send an invasion force over water without transports or finding some way to receive a city or city-state as a gift or culture-flipped or whatever since there wouldn't be a harbor for you to disembark your units on that you controlled.

Unless there was some way to do that through diplomacy....