[GS] Land vs coast (tile) yield balance concerns

[TomKQT]

• Canals make it actually LESS important to settle on the coast (as you can just create sea access with a canal district) - this might even make harbors superfluous in many situations, and without harbors, sea tile yields are abysmal

That's an interesting question - if you make a city one tile away from water, you cannot make ships now and certainly won't be able also in GS. But are you going to be able to make them just by building a canal to the ocean?

 

[Tomice]

I'm somewhat relieved by the Hungary Stream and Ed's comments
1) He announced that trade route yields will be doubled if they go primarily over water, canals, railroads or through tunnels. Meaning the purpose of these improvements is to get double yields for landlocked cities. Coastal trade will get the boost right away, which seems like a great incentive to settle on the coast.
2) He declared coast vs inland balance is something they care about and want to improve.

That's an interesting question - if you make a city one tile away from water, you cannot make ships now and certainly won't be able also in GS. But are you going to be able to make them just by building a canal to the ocean?

I would assume that this is the way it works, but I'm not sure.
As told above, canals are mainly meant to give the efficiency bonus for trade routes and of course for fleet movement.
Not allowing "canalled" cities to built ships might be a balance measure to still encourage having a harbor. Or they just forget to implement the feature.

Then again, I think each city that has the canal graphic will count as "connected to water" (coastal cities get the canal graphic for their own tile right from the start).

Your question does raise AI concerns, though - will they mindlessly spam ships on small lakes just because they are allowed to???

 

[Victoria]

You get no production,

The shipyard... a habour triangle with 1 adjacent resource will give +4 production and can give you +12 production. The max you can get from a shipyard is 30 Prod.
You also can get +3 science from a harbour without Free Inquiry.

if you make a city one tile away from water, you cannot make ships now

With a harbor you can... One suspects a canal may lead to a harbour anyway

will they mindlessly spam ships on small lakes just because they are allowed to

Well if it was Frigates it would not be completely mindless but melee ships seemed to be spammed a bit in V and were useless so lets hope not.

 

[cvb]

if you make a city one tile away from water, you cannot make ships now and certainly won't be able also in GS. But are you going to be able to make them just by building a canal to the ocean?

Methinks it should. If you have
lake / city / canal / coast
I suppose, it means you can travel a ship from lake through city(center) & canal to coast. The 'city(center) & canal to coast' part should be the same in this case:
hills / city / canal / coast
I'd imply also to have seawater in this city (canal == "aqueduct to the coast" with respect to housing).

...
lake / canal / city / coast
Does this city have freshwater access? (It should)

As I understand it,
lake / canal / coast
is VERY flexible, far away from the city-center, somewhere in the 2nd or 3rd ring of the city tiles.

 

[Victoria]

Canals would make battleships too strong methinks, I said this before the last expansion... if battleships can get to inland lakes with a range of 4 indirect, they would just be V nasty

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Canals would make battleships too strong methinks, I said this before the last expansion... if battleships can get to inland lakes with a range of 4 indirect, they would just be V nasty

If they're vulnerable to Bombers when passing through the canal, that could be an offset.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

If they're vulnerable to Bombers when passing through the canal, that could be an offset.

You should also be able to guard canals with (land) military units.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

You should also be able to guard canals with (land) military units.

Agreed, but unless its an AA gun, it shouldn't do much against planes. Boats stuck in a lock are pretty much the definition of a sitting duck.

 

[Victoria]

Boats stuck in a lock are pretty much the definition of a sitting duck.

Bombers often struggled, a battleship is armored and a small target, needed specialized bombs. The real vulnerability was torpedoes... special land torpedoes might do the trick

 

[kryat]

Canals would make battleships too strong methinks, I said this before the last expansion... if battleships can get to inland lakes with a range of 4 indirect, they would just be V nasty

They’d be great for defense, and maybe slightly weaker on offense, since you wouldn’t be able to move them into someone else’s lake unless:

a) You take their city first if a city is in the way or
b) They built an unobstructed canal into a lake

a) Relatively easy to do, though you will need nearby land units for further taking completely landlocked cities, even if your battleship can provide the first few heavy hits. Ironclads and destroyers won’t be much help in these cases.

b) Leads to some interesting tactical choices. Placing defensive submarines in your own canals to block movement of enemy ships could become a thing.

 

[chazzycat]

Wait, you were serious here? You do all that and maybe equal a land city settled next to the river; a land city without millions of boosts.

I'm not saying to choose naval over land...I'm saying if the map gives you land suited for a naval empire, roll with it and you'll be fine.

At some point early on, you just make a decision "am I going to go naval" based on the map, your starting location and your civ. Most of the time, the answer is probably no. I'm not arguing that.

If the map says yes, then it's a great strategy to commit to it and go naval. The impact of free inquiry in R&F is a huge, huge boost to this strategy. You'll get your shipyards up in the medieval age. That's the point I'm trying to make here.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Another thing I just thought of, in terms of maritime trade-vs-passive bonuses for coastal cities: The maritime superpowers have mostly only had a small number of coastal super-cities. Here in the US, they've changed over time. Boston, Charleston, Baltimore, and New Orleans aren't nearly the trade hubs they used to be. In the 21st Century, we basically have 3 coastal megaports: NY-NJ, Houston, and LA. Mind-boggling amounts of trade come through those 3 ports. The maritime wealth generated by every other US city combined doesn't match the trade going through even one of those 3 big ports. Even the wealthy US cities that happen to be on the coasts - besides those 3 - get their wealth in other ways. If you added up the wealth generated by the "ocean tiles" near Boston, Seattle, San Francisco and Miami today, it's probably a pittance.

 

[chazzycat]

Another thing I just thought of, in terms of maritime trade-vs-passive bonuses for coastal cities: The maritime superpowers have mostly only had a small number of coastal super-cities. Here in the US, they've changed over time. Boston, Charleston, Baltimore, and New Orleans aren't nearly the trade hubs they used to be. In the 21st Century, we basically have 3 coastal megaports: NY-NJ, Houston, and LA. Mind-boggling amounts of trade come through those 3 ports. The maritime wealth generated by every other US city combined doesn't match the trade going through even one of those 3 big ports. Even the wealthy US cities that happen to be on the coasts - besides those 3 - get their wealth in other ways. If you added up the wealth generated by the "ocean tiles" near Boston, Seattle, San Francisco and Miami today, it's probably a pittance.

Oakland, Miami & Seattle are still very active ports in the top 10 that service the vast majority of containers coming in/out of those respective metro areas.

Boston is too close to NY, and Nola too close to Houston so they got swallowed up. But the rest of those aren't great examples of places where naval trade is just a "pittance".

 

[Steamboat Willem]

I'm not saying to choose naval over land...I'm saying if the map gives you land suited for a naval empire, roll with it and you'll be fine.

At some point early on, you just make a decision "am I going to go naval" based on the map, your starting location and your civ. Most of the time, the answer is probably no. I'm not arguing that.

If the map says yes, then it's a great strategy to commit to it and go naval. The impact of free inquiry in R&F is a huge, huge boost to this strategy. You'll get your shipyards up in the medieval age. That's the point I'm trying to make here.

I don't think you even have to commit to "going naval" (I think "going coastal" sounds better )
Even if you just have one location where you can get a Golden Triangle City up with Reyna, it's probably already worth it for a Free Inquiry Golden Age. It's 16 science & 16 gold at a minimum. And if you don't have a lot of Faith, the other options for a Medieval Golden Age aren't that attractive.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Oakland, Miami & Seattle are still very active ports in the top 10 that service the vast majority of containers coming in/out of those respective metro areas.

Boston is too close to NY, and Nola too close to Houston so they got swallowed up. But the rest of those aren't great examples of places where naval trade is just a "pittance".

You're right: The Port of Los Angeles saw 9.3 million "TEUs" in 2017, while Seattle saw 3.1 million and Oakland 2.4 million. Definitely not a pittance. NY/NJ was 6.7 million, Miami-Dade was a little over a million, and Baltimore was a little under a million, but I guess it's not surprising that the Pacific is busier than the Atlantic. Boston is a pittance, 270,000 in 2017. I'm surprised Houston wasn't bigger, which I expected to be right up there with NY & LA, but it had a little under 2.5 million in 2017. Still, NY and LA are head-and-shoulders above the rest, so my point stands even if my language was exaggerated and I was wrong about Houston.

All of which pale in comparison to Chinese ports: Shanghai, 40 million TEUs in 2017. Sheesh.

 

[bumpyglint]

I'm not saying to choose naval over land...I'm saying if the map gives you land suited for a naval empire, roll with it and you'll be fine.

At some point early on, you just make a decision "am I going to go naval" based on the map, your starting location and your civ. Most of the time, the answer is probably no. I'm not arguing that.

If the map says yes, then it's a great strategy to commit to it and go naval. The impact of free inquiry in R&F is a huge, huge boost to this strategy. You'll get your shipyards up in the medieval age. That's the point I'm trying to make here.

The point is that at the moment the map gives you land suited for a naval empire maybe on 1 % of the game (if you are not playing a small map type or similar, obviously).
You are taking about something that almost never happen, 99 % of time land based Civs are way better than the "sea one".

 

[Steamboat Willem]

The point is that at the moment the map gives you land suited for a naval empire maybe on 1 % of the game (if you are not playing a small map type or similar, obviously).
You are taking about something that almost never happen, 99 % of time land based Civs are way better than the "sea one".

Depends on the type of map you play. The 1% only applies on Pangea. On Islands of course the 1% is the other way around, but even on Continents you probably have 25-30% chance of a naval empire.

 

[bumpyglint]

Depends on the type of map you play. The 1% only applies on Pangea. On Islands of course the 1% is the other way around, but even on Continents you probably have 25-30% chance of a naval empire.

On Pangea is 0,000001 %. On continent 1 %. Yeah, on a map totally based on water, Coastal cities can be sort of good pretty often, but that should be something obvious.

 

[Socrates99]

Ok so if you're playing "optimally" you're going to cap most of your cities ~10 pop to get the rationalism bonus and a few districts depending on what you need there without sucking up too many amenities. Only one or two production monster mega cities need to be built at all. If you're settling on the coast and half the tiles are coast/ocean, generally two or three are sea resources. That will leave you with ~15 or more reasonably good tiles to work. If you're looking for optimal play a coast city is not bad unless your placement is bad. That can happen inland too, ie. a failed Petra city. Stop saying coastal cities aren't optimal just because tiles you aren't likely to work happen to be in their radius.

I get it, from an RP perspective itd make sense for the largest cities to be coastal since there are so many massive cities on coast irl. Just say that though, don't use "optimal play" as part of the argument against settling coastal.

 

[Phrozen]

Oakland, Miami & Seattle are still very active ports in the top 10 that service the vast majority of containers coming in/out of those respective metro areas.

Boston is too close to NY, and Nola too close to Houston so they got swallowed up. But the rest of those aren't great examples of places where naval trade is just a "pittance".

Houston has to do with one commodity though: Oil. Almost all the oil that gets shipped out of the US goes through Houston because almost all the refineries are on the gulf coast and link directly to the port of Houston.