Is there any way to give sea cities normal border growth?

[Westwall]

The novelty of moving aquatic bases around to grab territory is really wearing thin for me.

Unless I'm playing NSA it just takes too many turns and isn't really worth it.

More and more I'm finding myself just buying up tiles or avoiding starting cities in the water altogether because they're too tedious and it's a bummer not seeing them grow on their own.

Are there any adjustments I can make to the program files that will give back normal tile growth via culture?

 

[fotonut]

I don't have an answer to your question, but with a few technologies in place you can usually move them around in 3-4 turns. I usually find myself buying off the good tiles rather than moving.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I actually like putting cities on 1 tile islands. That way, the game treats them as land cities and so the borders will grow with culture, even though all the tiles around it are all water tiles.

 

[Westwall]

I actually like putting cities on 1 tile islands. That way, the game treats them as land cities and so the borders will grow with culture, even though all the tiles around it are all water tiles.

I also find myself doing this a lot, since they're stronger than water cities anyway. Shame though that we're all doing this now because colonizing the seas themselves is just that unattractive.

 

[Martin_K]

actually sea colonies are pretty good - they produce extra culture, get more output from internal trade routes, reduced unhealth and a 100% production bonus to naval units which is huge, considering that most civs will expand towards the ocean now, so naval units are far more important than land units in most games).

in my experience, once you've set up an internal route to a big core city, built the rudder thingy (the building that reduces movement cost by 30% or something) and a water refinery, i can usually move them in 1-2 turns and that's quite a bit cheaper than investing hundreds of energy to buy up the tiles.

i didn't really like aqua cities at first, but after a few games i learned to appreciate them. they do have a defense problem early on, that's true. so they are a bit of a liablility in the early game if you expect war, but they bring very solid economic advantages to balance that out and the game also has a bunch of "water only" defense buildings that will close the gap in city defense compared to land cities (if building up the defense is even necessary- that depends a lot on the circumstances of the game...)

 

[Ryika]

Yeah, putting Cities on 1-Tile Islands is extremely wasteful, that's basically giving up all the good stuff aquatic cities get without getting the benefits of a "real" land city - except for the building requirements.

Moving these cities around can be a bit annoying, but given that you can usually delay it until you have a 10+ production trade route going it shouldn't really take that long.


But no, the culture border growth restriction seems to be hardcoded. The only thing I could find is...

<Row Name="CITY_PLOT_GAIN_SPEED_SEA">
<Value>-50</Value>
</Row>

...in GlobalDefines.xml and that one obviously didn't end up being used.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

The important thing about aquatic cities is actually the 50% reduced unhealth, which allows you to go expand much, much faster (the 50% higher trade yields are also not too bad - one reason why Hutama is so insane when expanding into the ocean).

As for the original question: I am not sure. I browsed over the defines file but couldn't really find an entry that seemed related to that. Maybe tweaking CITY_PLOT_GAIN_SPEED_SEA could help? Dunno.

 

[kipwheeler]

To echo Ryika, if you sent several trade routes to them heavy in production hammers) (and are willing to forego that production elsewhere) you can move a newly founded aquatic city 1 hex per turn.

I know it's not optimal play, but when I want to claim a lot of ocean tiles, I will often overload a newly founded aquatic city so it's 1 turn per move, setting the trade route to non-repeating. So, for the first 14-15 turns, all it does it move and claim 14-15 +(0-2) tiles. Then, I halt the non-repeating trade routes, and let the city sit thereafter.

 

[Barathor]

I feel the same way, Westwall. I wanted to enable cultural border growth for aquatic cities too but at only half the rate, while keeping the ability to move but removing the +50% culture bonus.

If I remember, most unique bonuses/penalties can be removed from aquatic cities except for the border growth. As Ryika said, it must be hardcoded.

 

[Westwall]

Alright thanks. Kudos on the new Chungsu/INTEGR color mod by the way.

I hope it inspires Firaxis to eventually make the change themselves.

As much as I love mods, I wish there was a way to auto-enable them.

 

[Azedenkae]

In one game, I got Hugh's capital to 250 strength, compared to the AI's 125. Yeah in general aquatic cities are kinda bad, but Hugh's cities are pretty good. With them it's pretty easy to build up a formidable fortress of doom.

With Hugh's city I also find that I do end up with 1-turn moves pretty soon as well. Just focus a bit more on production.

 

[legalizefreedom]

in my experience, once you've set up an internal route to a big core city, built the rudder thingy (the building that reduces movement cost by 30% or something) and a water refinery, i can usually move them in 1-2 turns and that's quite a bit cheaper than investing hundreds of energy to buy up the tiles.

This.

If you're not an aquatic civ, you might want to wait til city 3 or 4 to make a water city. When a new aquatic city is founded and I have energy available, I immediately buy the rudder, water refinery and usually the recycler. Then built the trade depot first which after buying those things is usually only 2-3 turns.

I send the next available trade route or two to the city. Once it finishes the depot I start moving it. I'll just send more trade routes if it is not down to 1 turn move, but usually 1-2 outside routes plus its route is enough. Having a worker out there to improve resources is a big help also.

I capture the area I want to work and then back to the center to stay and start building everything else. Pump up the food at that point and spam improvements on the water tiles.

 

[Ryika]

This.

If you're not an aquatic civ, you might want to wait til city 3 or 4 to make a water city.

I actually think that's really bad advice. In my opinion... if you have the possibility to go Aquatic, you should do so immediately and have the water refinery as your very first research, spam it everywhere and develop your empire from there. The lesser Unhealth from Aquatic Cities will allow you to ignore the health Buildings for a while and push for max production very early on. That's what so great about aquatic-expansion-only empires.

Giving that up just because you want to move your cities immediately sounds really wasteful - I mean, it's not even really a problem to sit on 6 tiles in a 7+ Population City for a while.

 

[MAMoob]

Aquatic cities are much better than land cities as far as economy goes. Main thing is +50% to TR yields and -50% pop unhealth. The only thing really going for land cities is that they are much easier to defend. Then again, for offensive warfare aquatic cities are again better because they produce boats faster and boats >>> land units for offence. I usually always try to build an aquatic city first for the free boat for exploration as it is much more useful than the soldier.

In reality, border expansion is not an issue as it's not that difficult to buy the tiles you really want and once you're over 6 pop you should have enough production for TRs to move the cities in reasonable time or just enough energy to buyout all the tiles you need. I also often build institutes in aquatic cities which effectively gives you 3 extra tiles to work which have a decent science yield.

 

[Callonia]

NSA is the only civ I like in CivBERT. I hated all the civs in CivBE. XD I really don't mind buying all the hexs. I'm usually rich enough and at most you only need one aquatic city painting the territory as new aquatic cities move in to develop the sea. If that aquatic city is travelling far, I give it naval escorts and rename it to Gargantia.

I think they're incredible but the fact that I only play as NSA definitely skews my view of what they are like for other civs.

 

[legalizefreedom]

I actually think that's really bad advice. In my opinion... if you have the possibility to go Aquatic, you should do so immediately and have the water refinery as your very first research, spam it everywhere and develop your empire from there. The lesser Unhealth from Aquatic Cities will allow you to ignore the health Buildings for a while and push for max production very early on. That's what so great about aquatic-expansion-only empires.

Giving that up just because you want to move your cities immediately sounds really wasteful - I mean, it's not even really a problem to sit on 6 tiles in a 7+ Population City for a while.

I did say "might want to".

Yeah, my "advice" wasn't really for early game. More of how to get an aquatic city up and running after you are established. Although, I would never sit on 6 tiles longer than I had to unless it was my first water city. Once more slots are available a couple more trade routes and food buildings and the pop fills in pretty quick. It's not long before you have a major producer (esp for water units). I also only plan to buy hard-to-get-to tiles. Spending that much energy to get tiles when you can basically get 3 every turn or two isn't worth it.

Good points about the heath and from MAMoob for the boat to start with.

And also using one city as a permanent mover while settling in its wake works well. Even for the nearby land cities... you can paint the coast saving the culture expansion for inland tiles.

 

[NASAROG]

I don't have an answer to your question, but with a few technologies in place you can usually move them around in 3-4 turns. I usually find myself buying off the good tiles rather than moving.

That's what I do too.