One tile off the coast

[grandad1982]

As we all know settling 1 off the coast in Civ4 was a bad idea as you could never fully develope and benifit from the sea tiles and unless you had a good reason to settle 1 off the coast then it should be avoided. Benifits included health and trade bonuses as well.

Now with the advent of Civ5 and the removal of health, interciv and intercontinetal trading, along with the increased area the city can work I've been wondering if I should be working harder to break the habit of trying place cities so they contain no sea tiles if they aren't coastal.

It feels to me that if you are settling in a location that has up to a third of the tiles as sea tiles but you are not settling on the coast then this is ok as long as you have some strong tiles to compensate, i.e. riverside tiles or an iron hill etc. The main reason it doesn't matter so much IMO is that you are not particularly likely to end up working all of the availible tiles in the BFH so you really aren't losing anything.

However if you are going to get a greater proportion of sea tiles or you have some weak terrain, such as tundra or desert, then you are probably better off settling on the coast and building a lighthouse.

This is only my gut feeling and be interested to see what you guys think.

 

[teh DG]

I fretted about this last game as the position 1 tile in was otherwise much better. never regretted going inland. Sea tiles are crap except if there's a bonus, and there's now a LOT of tiles to spare.

Without coast you're only missing out on an extra 1 food and 2 hammers per fish tile, and those will cost you a lighthouse (80h, 2g/turn) and seaport (140h, 2g/turn).

Except for obvious scenarios like you need to build naval units there, or connect to capital using harbour, I've no interest in coast unless the quantity of fish makes it the best tile anyway.

Actually IIRC my coastal cities only ever worked the fish tiles. TBF those are some great tiles and it might be a tough decision sometimes with 2 fish available, but otherwise not interested.

 

[grandad1982]

Welcome to the forums teh DG (should that be "the" by any chance )

Does the Lighthouse not give an extra food in all tiles? I haven't actually built one yet. if its only extra food in bonous tiles that sucks big arse.

 

[xcaine]

ciV made me stop caring about coastal cities unless they're abundant with resources. 3+ fish/pearls/whales and I just might settle there.

I only want one production coastal to build my navy so AI doesn't pull a Normandy on me.

 

[DaveGold]

Theoretically you don't need any coastal cities now at all. Good troops can avoid losses in wartime so if you can get some embarked units over to another continent safely they can then conquer a whole continent without further support or garrisons.

 

[Ahriman]

Theoretically you don't need any coastal cities now at all. Good troops can avoid losses in wartime so if you can get some embarked units over to another continent safely they can then conquer a whole continent without further support or garrisons.

Planning to do intercontinental warfare with no navy is usually not a good idea. It can take several turns for a large landing force to actually land, during which time even the small AI navy can do a lot of damage.

 

[teh DG]

Welcome to the forums teh DG (should that be "the" by any chance )

Does the Lighthouse not give an extra food in all tiles? I haven't actually built one yet. if its only extra food in bonous tiles that sucks big arse.

Forgot my login since haven't played IV for a while (getting V was a big mistake to my career too but couldn't resist ). "teh" makes the username available on the popular forums.


Lighthouse does give the +1 food in all tiles but even then the tile is just 2 food 1 gold. It costs you a civ to work the tile so all it does it pay for it's own food and 1 gold profit. Is 1 gold worth what it took to grow that civ or the unhappiness? As a rule of thumb I think tiles have to give a total of at least 4 food+hammers+gold. Maybe 3 if all hammers, and also worth having tiles with 3 food or 3 gold available for when you switch to growth or gold mode.

edit: according to this thread, if there is a water connection to to the capital harbours also give the railroad bonus. So it seems coastal placement could save you a ton of maintenance sometimes.

 

[Rathelon]

As a rule of thumb I think tiles have to give a total of at least 4 food+hammers+gold. Maybe 3 if all hammers, and also worth having tiles with 3 food or 3 gold available for when you switch to growth or gold mode.

A lot of tiles that's just not possible.

 

[King Jason]

If I can get a city working 2 or more sea resources I'll settle there. Pops don't get high in civ5 so you're mostly working resource hexes anyway, I don't fret about having wasted hexes in the radius because every city has wasted hexes in the life of a game due to never reaching the pop marks to work every tile.

In one game I had 3 different cities on the coast, each having 3 sea resources each and the cities were beastly cause of it. sidenote: sea resources produce the highest total yield of any tile in the game, and 1 tile will pay the maintenance on the port itself.

 

[brindle]

harbors are way cheaper to maintain trade to capital than roads.

 

[Ravellion]

harbors are way cheaper to maintain trade to capital than roads.

But will not net you the 50% railroad production bonus.

 

[AlienFromBeyond]

Cities really do not like coastal tiles unless the have a resource, so not settling on the coast is totally fine other than the obvious disadvantage of not being able to make naval units.

 

[DaveGold]

Planning to do intercontinental warfare with no navy is usually not a good idea.

You'd have thought so but the mechanics don't prohibit it. My point was that if you can land a respectable force in peacetime you may never have to send any other troops across. You can conquer a whole continent with those few good troops as you can cut down your losses and never have to garrison your cities.

 

[ignite]

ciV made me stop caring about coastal cities unless they're abundant with resources. 3+ fish/pearls/whales and I just might settle there.

I only want one production coastal to build my navy so AI doesn't pull a Normandy on me.

The AI uses naval units?

My last game had me starting by the coast, next to a river, with three whales and a fish in the immediate vicinity. It was obvious that I couldn't have placed myself better. However, I have yet to use a harbor in any game. I suppose it could help if I settle far away, but I haven't done that yet -- I like to keep my cities fairly close together (having experimented with the railroad 50% production bonus recently, it's pretty amazing, but I've heard harbors give this as well).

 

[Cu Chulainn]

While it's not the curse it was in IV, I still try to avoid it. If moving inland will provide even a little better location resource wise I prefer to do that. Otherwise I'll settle coastal just to keep my options open, especially if there's some good resources out there, or if there's an interesting geographic feature, an inlet or isthmus, that reduces the amount of water tiles in the radius or provides canal access. Even with the reduced naval usefulness I'm still a sucker for canals.

 

[Lyoncet]

I actually didn't really even notice this until this thread came up, but lately I've been seeing a really annoying tendency of coastal cities to culture-grab crap coast tile after crap coast tile. This means you need to a) hope you get lucky with your pops to grab some useful land tiles, b) hope you have a lot of sea resources nearby, or c) purchase good tiles for what will quickly become a prohibitive sum.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

But will not net you the 50% railroad production bonus.

Yes it does, and it is Definitely cheaper than maintaining a railroad.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Depends on the dirt, really. If it will pick you up a couple more resources, do it. If not, don't.

Starting fast is generally worth incurring penalties in the later game.

 

[xcaine]

The AI uses naval units?

Yup, I actually haven't found it to be that stupid in this regard. I was sending a lot of troops unescorted across an ocean and pretty soon, I had a destroyer waiting for me.

Another time, I was defending 3 tile chokepoint vs Japan to the east and had all my troops stationed there. Persia attacked me across a 4 tile sea that was diving our empires on the west. Was pretty epic.

 

[grandad1982]

In my current Persia game German launched a massive attack against the Ottermans and sent loads of troops across a large bay! No defencive fleet though.