Nerfing the coast is just annoying

[ChocolateShake]

I like the idea behind the game representing sea level rise, but in practice I do think it has tilted the scales too much towards inland cities. I think districts need to get adjacencies towards being built on coastal tiles. It could represent them being more accessible, more appealing, something like that.

Maybe gold yields being increased for coastal tiles, or harbors being reduced in cost for coastal cities. Though in that case England and Phoenicia's unique harbors would need to be buffed a bit to compensate for them not getting as much benefit out of the half-cost perk for unique districts.

I do think aqueducts should be an improvement in the next iteration, or have their range increased somehow. It could help coastal cities quite a bit.

They definitely seem to be moving towards improving coastal cities with the maritime city states like MaryKB mentioned.

 

[Tomice]

@ Boris Gudenuf:
Specialists are an option to balance stuff I tend to forget because I have somewhat written them off due to unmoddability.
I tend to be more aware of changes that exist as a mod ready to try out.

Specialists would need increasing yields over time AND great people points, both of which seem impossible with the current modding tools.

They definitely seem to be moving towards improving coastal cities with the maritime city states like MaryKB mentioned.

They acknowledged the problem but did way too little to fix it.
At best, they buffed coastal cities as much as they indirectly nerfed them.

I noticed two things about their balancing strategy:

• They prefer tiny changes that are often too small and have to be buffed again later. They are definitively scared of changing too much and opening a can of worms.
• If they make a significant change, they prefer introducing some clever, indirect new mechanic instead of a simple number change.
• What they hardly ever do is boldly tuning up the numbers on stuff that's clearly underpowered and underused.

 

[acluewithout]

These are good points, but probably lost in the game design philosophy behind Civ 6.

This is, after all, the version of Civ that makes farms far away from large bodies of fresh water as productive as early farms along rivers and fresh water lakes.

A lot of the core concepts from earlier versions of Civ have been dropped in 6, things like the importance of irrigation, the importance of rivers for trade, the importance of food generally to grow the people who were the source of your empire's armies and innovation (as opposed to unworked districts and buildings and armies that don't require people or food to support).

This version of Civ isn't really about exploring the conditions that led to the development of major historical civilizations. Civ was never only about that anyway, but this version is the least interested in the historical aspects of human development.

Good post. Agree.

GS is a big improvement to the game, but yeah while Civ is not a simulation of history, we're getting further and further away from at least representing history.

Yea,but in that case you're basically neutering the city's science and culture potential for the sake of what? 10 gold, 4 food, and maybe 1 housing on a good day. Espeically now that Reyna early is an especially bad idea for people not named Kupe (and I still wouldn't suggest it). Sure, you could run the adjacency cards, but where do you find the culture to get there now?

If you think about it, the Commercial Hub is actually the weakest link here because hub buildings just give some gold and a trade route. But here the trader doesn't work because you already have a lighthouse, so you're just building some stuff for a few extra gold and GM points.

Heck, you're better off working plantations in these cases, and you know how badly I think of those. Like I could take a Brazillian rainforest start and make it 10 pop in the BCs easy with 3 districts (1 being reserved for entertainment if need be-- probably not)

It might make sense with Japan. Or maybe England, simply because you have no other choice anyways. We do need to remember that the Royal Navy Dockyard is actually much better than a standard harbor though. But usually when I make a triangle, it's often the last district to get made when I don't need anything else, and usually I regret it if I do it any earlier. Given the need for Rock Bands .late game, I'm actually preferring late Holy Sites for cultural wins.

I don't disagree with any of this. All good points.

You're dead right on two points: First, the commercial hub is the weakest link. Second, doing anything but spamming campuses and maybe theatre squares is sub-optimal.

My point is that a few triangles are a fairly good return overall. Having a Harbour and a Hub means you can run Commercial Hub Projects, which is more gold and GMs (usually more useful than GAs). The Harbour also helps here by boosting production so this projects cycle faster.

But no, you're always better building Campuses, but that's not because the triangles are bad but because campuses are overpowered. I deliberately don't spam campuses so this is less of an issue.

I think the real killer is you just don't need all that gold. You can just get it from trading with the AI. But this is really getting into the core problem of Civ overall. You don't really need anything - most of the mechanics are irrelevant. AI trading, spam cities, campuses, chopping. Everything else is just noise.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

@ Boris Gudenuf:
Specialists are an option to balance stuff I tend to forget because I have somewhat written them off due to unmoddability.
I tend to be more aware of changes that exist as a mod ready to try out.

Specialists would need increasing yields over time AND great people points, both of which seem impossible with the current modding tools.

Much as I would like to directly Mod things in Civ, the last computer language I learned was COBOL back about 1970, and then I worked with a very 'specialized' language while teaching computers at the US Army's Artillery School - about 35 years ago. I'd have to start from scratch to learn the skills necessary for Modding, and if I'm going to take time to study another language, it will probably be Ukrainian instead of LUA.

So, I'll hold all my commentary about Specialists for Civ VII.

They acknowledged the problem but did way too little to fix it.
At best, they buffed coastal cities as much as they indirectly nerfed them.

I noticed two things about their balancing strategy:

• They prefer tiny changes that are often too small and have to be buffed again later. They are definitively scared of changing too much and opening a can of worms.
• If they make a significant change, they prefer introducing some clever, indirect new mechanic instead of a simple number change.
• What they hardly ever do is boldly tuning up the numbers on stuff that's clearly underpowered and underused.

What has become numbingly obvious is that they do very little, if any, in-game testing of how any of their numbers actually work, or any of their systems and mechanics work together. The good news is that leaves the Mod community to 'tweak' the numbers. The bad news is, there are soooooo many numbers that need 'tweaking'. And, whether you are a paid Game Designer or a Model, any change will affect something else, or several somethings, and so they really have to be tested as to how all the interactions work. There are as many outrageously Imbalanced Mods as there are Imbalances in the game, they just veer off in different directions . . .

 

[Pietato]

Good stuff here.

 

[godman85]

Here is an interesting buff

City centers on cliffs over coasts act as a mine upgrade and increase with all mine techs. The reason?

Almost every city built on a cliff has easier access to underground nodes for mining and exploitation, seeing as how a huge area is basically exposed for hundreds of feet below.

Think of every single cliff city in existance. They always had bad ass mining underneath.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

What has become numbingly obvious is that they do very little, if any, in-game testing of how any of their numbers actually work, or any of their systems and mechanics work together.

The systems/mechanics working together would appear to be challenged by a segregated approach to the game's development. I'm inferring this, but there are so many common problems solved in different ways within Civ 6 that it suggests that different people work on their part of the game in relative isolation. Probably good for speed of development, but less so for system integration and consistency.

re in-game testing of numbers, I'd go farther and suggest there's even limited pre-implementation testing of the numbers. Return on investment and related calculations are non-intuitive, but can be tested in isolation of actual gameplay. The Tier 3 buildings, chopping, base yields of tiles, Canada's farm bonus - a lot of things suggest to me that the dev team tries to intuit what the number should be ("this seems right") rather than running them through an economic model that would get them "about right" first before playtesting.

 

[Pietato]

Here is an interesting buff

City centers on cliffs over coasts act as a mine upgrade and increase with all mine techs. The reason?

Almost every city built on a cliff has easier access to underground nodes for mining and exploitation, seeing as how a huge area is basically exposed for hundreds of feet below.

Think of every single cliff city in existance. They always had bad ass mining underneath.

Or coastal cliffs can be mined.

 

[Gwelengu]

Perhaps coastal cities could get bonuses to science and culture from their trade routes. It would do a bit to mitigate the district prioritization issue. I also like the idea of coastal cities getting bonus trade routes if they also build a commercial hub. I feel like an extra trade route for a harbor district would be a bit too strong, though. It could double your trade route capacity on an islands map. I am reminded of Venice from Civ V.

 

[Casualty of war]

Make Harbor a green District, like Dams, Neighborhoods and Aqueducts, that takes a hex and production to make but doesn't use up a population-derived slot. Give it extra Housing, like you would expect a green District to do, and major adjacency buffs to whatever you put next to it. Maybe buff adjacent sea hexes too, I mean the most you could affect is 5 hexes if you built a Harbor at the tip of a peninsula.

 

[Tomice]

Coming back to the problem of having fewer suitable land tiles to put districts on, fewer tiles with production, and generally lower quality tiles:

We could decouple border growth on land and sea.
A coastal city would then acquire land tiles at the same rate as a landlocked city.
Sea tiles would be acquired as a bonus.

In other words:
If an inland city unlocks 3 new tiles in 50 turns, a coastal city should unlock 3 land tiles PLUS 3 water tiles during the same time.
This buff should exclusively apply to city centers directly situated at the coast.

This would not increase the maximal potential of coastal cities, but significantly buff them during the development phase.

 

[kb27787]

Make harbors unlock at sailing and give 2 housing would be a start. Fishing boats should give 1 housing, up from 0.5. Also make purchase cost of coastal tiles half price both with gold and culture.

Then maybe coastal starts might be competitive.

 

[kaspergm]

Here is an interesting buff

City centers on cliffs over coasts act as a mine upgrade and increase with all mine techs.

Talking about coastal cities on cliffs, maybe these should be immune to attacks from naval melee class? Or at least get a heavy defense bonus. I mean, sailing a ship up a cliff is pretty tough to begin with, and scaling a cliff wall or even a steep hill is pretty detrimental to your attack capabilities. In real life, coastal cities were often placed on top of cliffs for protection.

Of course, if one does this, one also needs to add the condition that such a city needs to build a harbor district to construct naval units, or at least the naval units are produced on a hex outside the city and can't actually enter the city.

 

[acluewithout]

I think Civ VI's design is that you sort of get a "proto" harbour from the start, which you can then access by just settling in the coast (i.e. that's why coastal cities can build ships without a Harbour). The actual Harbour district is therefore a more "advance" Harbour, that then improves the core function of building and launching ships and gives you access to other infrastructure. I can see the argument for moving Harbours in the tech tree. But if you do that, you'll sort of lose this difference between a "proto" harbour and a "real" harbour, which I think is kinda fun to play around with.

That said, I'd be fine with the Harbour or it's buildings giving more housing or buffing housing from fishing boats (taking them from 0.5 to 1.0). I'd also like Harbours (or maybe Shipyards) giving +2 to adjacent IZs, although that maybe creates the risk of everyone just spamming IZs.

I also think it should be a little harder to get Trade Routes from Commercial Hubs, given Harbours are on a leaf tech and have specific placement conditions and Commercial Hubs don't. I've suggested before pushing back Trade Routes to Banks (with Harbours keeping them at Lighthouses) but everyone hated that idea... So, the less said the better. (You'd also have to balance a few things to make that work anyway. Maybe 1 or 2 extra trade routes via the Civics Tree (rather than just Foreign Trade) and or bring back Trade Route stacking (it wouldn't be so OP any more).) Anyway, another option is maybe moving Commercial Hubs somewhere else in the tech tree or leaving them where they are but locking the Market's Trade routes behind another Civic or Tech (so you still get the Market at Currency, but it doesn't provide a Trade Route until say Medieval Fares).

Letting Harbours get up trade routes faster than Commercial Hubs would be closer to the original Vanilla design. Originally, you could stack Harbours and Commercial Hubs in one City, which sort of made Coastal Cities "better" in that they could have two trade routes, versus inland cities that could only have one. But the trade route stacking went the way of IZ AOE, meaning Coastal and Inland Cities are sort of evenly pegged in terms of Trade (actually, Inland Cities kind of do better because, as I've said, it's easier to research and place Commercial Hubs than Harbours).

Anyway. FXS have been slowly, slowly buffing Coastal Cities and Harbours. First it was improving Harbour Adjacencies for Coastal Cities. Then it was tweaking Governors. Then tweaking City States and tweaking Governors some more and tweak trade route yields. I'm guessing they'll continue to improve them.

 

[Abaxial]

Thing is, we think about the sea as a barrier. We have cars and we drive on roads, so it's easier for us to make an inland journey than any other sort. In ancient times it was very different. The sea was your major communication route. The early civs in the Mediterranean did not wait for cartography before sailing to every corner of it. Early navigation from Europe across the Atlantic certainly took place.

In the north of Scotland, most of the currently existing road system was only built after 1934. Before that, the main way of travelling from village to village was by boat, and there is still one village with no road connection to it.

 

[Pietato]

I think Civ VI's design is that you sort of get a "proto" harbour from the start, which you can then access by just settling in the coast (i.e. that's why coastal cities can build ships without a Harbour). The actual Harbour district is therefore a more "advance" Harbour, that then improves the core function of building and launching ships and gives you access to other infrastructure. I can see the argument for moving Harbours in the tech tree. But if you do that, you'll sort of lose this difference between a "proto" harbour and a "real" harbour, which I think is kinda fun to play around with.

That said, I'd be fine with the Harbour or it's buildings giving more housing or buffing housing from fishing boats (taking them from 0.5 to 1.0). I'd also like Harbours (or maybe Shipyards) giving +2 to adjacent IZs, although that maybe creates the risk of everyone just spamming IZs.

I also think it should be a little harder to get Trade Routes from Commercial Hubs, given Harbours are on a leaf tech and have specific placement conditions and Commercial Hubs don't. I've suggested before pushing back Trade Routes to Banks (with Harbours keeping them at Lighthouses) but everyone hated that idea... So, the less said the better. (You'd also have to balance a few things to make that work anyway. Maybe 1 or 2 extra trade routes via the Civics Tree (rather than just Foreign Trade) and or bring back Trade Route stacking (it wouldn't be so OP any more).) Anyway, another option is maybe moving Commercial Hubs somewhere else in the tech tree or leaving them where they are but locking the Market's Trade routes behind another Civic or Tech (so you still get the Market at Currency, but it doesn't provide a Trade Route until say Medieval Fares).

Letting Harbours get up trade routes faster than Commercial Hubs would be closer to the original Vanilla design. Originally, you could stack Harbours and Commercial Hubs in one City, which sort of made Coastal Cities "better" in that they could have two trade routes, versus inland cities that could only have one. But the trade route stacking went the way of IZ AOE, meaning Coastal and Inland Cities are sort of evenly pegged in terms of Trade (actually, Inland Cities kind of do better because, as I've said, it's easier to research and place Commercial Hubs than Harbours).

Anyway. FXS have been slowly, slowly buffing Coastal Cities and Harbours. First it was improving Harbour Adjacencies for Coastal Cities. Then it was tweaking Governors. Then tweaking City States and tweaking Governors some more and tweak trade route yields. I'm guessing they'll continue to improve them.

Trade routes at banks is an extremely bad idea. They are far too late, too expensive, and would kill trade route civs. Bringing back the double trade routes is equally poor, because trade routes are insanely strong now.

I think yields, adjacencies, tech required and vulnerability to disasters/climate change are what FX need to work on.

Thing is, we think about the sea as a barrier. We have cars and we drive on roads, so it's easier for us to make an inland journey than any other sort. In ancient times it was very different. The sea was your major communication route. The early civs in the Mediterranean did not wait for cartography before sailing to every corner of it. Early navigation from Europe across the Atlantic certainly took place.

In the north of Scotland, most of the currently existing road system was only built after 1934. Before that, the main way of travelling from village to village was by boat, and there is still one village with no road connection to it.

Here in New Zealand, until I believe the early 20th century it was easier travelling to Australia than our capital Wellington, from our major city Auckland.

 

[acluewithout]

Trade routes at banks is an extremely bad idea. They are far too late, too expensive, and would kill trade route civs.

I've suggested before pushing back Trade Routes to Banks ... but everyone hated that idea.

Thanks internet. You never disappoint.

...so, leaving that aside. I still think Harbours should somehow get you to trade routes faster than Commercial Hubs. Historically that makes more sense - Sea Trade before Land Trade (see @Victoria 's post above and others). Gameplay-wise, it would be closer to the original design, and I think it would also be more fun, and make all Coastal / Naval Civs inherently more about Trade.

 

[Pietato]

Thanks internet. You never disappoint.

...so, leaving that aside. I still think Harbours should somehow get you to trade routes faster than Commercial Hubs. Historically that makes more sense - Sea Trade before Land Trade (see @Victoria 's post above and others). Gameplay-wise, it would be closer to the original design, and I think it would also be more fun, and make all Coastal / Naval Civs inherently more about Trade.

What? My point was there are very good reasons the idea is hated...

And yeah, harbours need to be more accessible.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Thing is, we think about the sea as a barrier. We have cars and we drive on roads, so it's easier for us to make an inland journey than any other sort. In ancient times it was very different. The sea was your major communication route. The early civs in the Mediterranean did not wait for cartography before sailing to every corner of it. Early navigation from Europe across the Atlantic certainly took place.

In the north of Scotland, most of the currently existing road system was only built after 1934. Before that, the main way of travelling from village to village was by boat, and there is still one village with no road connection to it.

This is a really good post. A lot of the movement in the game, especially early game, is based on current conceptions rather than historical reality.

Deserts and snow, for example, were formidable barriers to cross, at least as difficult if not more difficult than crossing mountains. Sailing up a coast, however, was relatively easy. Yet Civ 6 requires you to research a special tech before you can move on water.

I might flip this on it's head. Make Desert, Snow (even Mountain) tiles uncrossable until you research a leaf tech that first lets civilian units (and Scouts) cross them, then another leaf tech to allow military units to cross them. Civilian units (including Scouts) should, however, be able to sail along coastal waters from the start. Plus up rivers, which has a technical issue with Civ 6's implementation discussed elsewhere with respect to Norway. Galleys and the ability for military units to sail can still be on a leaf tech.

 

[criZp]

Why should everything be a leaf tech?