(Rising Tides) So why should I build water cities anyway?

[LORD ORION]

At the moment it looks to me like it's a very good idea to avoid water-cities if possible (assuming a defensive playstyle). Low growth, low defense, harder to secure trade routes... and spending production to acquire new tiles means delaying everything else... with no obvious upside as far as I know. Well, ocean-only buildings maybe, but that's about it.

So overall I agree that ocean cities look like a "bad deal" - I assume it will mostly be a backup-option for people who are looking for quick, efficient games. Which is a bit of a shame, but not surprising given the fact that everything else about the AddOn already tells us that it's not designed for people who want a challenging experience but rather for people who enjoy a more casual and "laid back"-experience. Balance-mods will fix that for us.


Most Water-Resources are somewhat culture-centered, there is no (or only 1?) really high food-tile. As far as I can tell it will be equivalent to something like a Plains-Only city with some fiber here and there - which is already the most suboptimal start that you can get in non-desert (without Tubers and/or Floodplains) or Tundra-areas. Resources are only useful early on when they're better than farms, later on most resource tiles become useless - with the exception of high-food and high-production tiles - because it's just better to work an academy instead.

I can think of a couple reasons to have 1 or 2 water cities per game.

1) Surround an enemy into a region
2) Collect resources you desperately need. (eg: On an island that would be pointless to build a land city on)

 

[Hail]

I can think of a couple reasons to have 1 or 2 water cities per game.

1) Surround an enemy into a region
2) Collect resources you desperately need. (eg: On an island that would be pointless to build a land city on)

surround an enemy?

city movement starts from like four turns per tile. I do not think that the devs were audacious enough to balance city movement with map size, so a player could move a city up to 20 tiles or so, before the game ends.

an island city could (should) acquire water tiles for water cities.

 

[LORD ORION]

surround an enemy?

city movement starts from like four turns per tile. I do not think that the devs were audacious enough to balance city movement with map size, so a player could move a city up to 20 tiles or so, before the game ends.

an island city could (should) acquire water tiles for water cities.

I'm talking about blowing any scouts and colonies out of the water so the enemy is contained in their little patch.

I don't literally mean move across their water and claim it all.

 

[Veras]

I must confess that I was thinking mainly in role play, because settling on water is.. well, settling on water! Humans are not an aquatic specie to build its entire civilization on oceans when there is land around.

And this is the key to my complains: when there is land around!

The AI is mostly ignoring land right now. When you encounter them, you see their capital on coast and a lot of water cities despite a lot of space on land.

If bad AI was already a problem, imagine a bad AI with cities so easy to get.

I don't know if BERT will have some sponsor modifier for likeness to settle on the ocean. It should. With the exception of NSA, Polystralia and the 4th sponsor, all others should be more restrained to the continents.

I know water cities does not equal land cities. Overall they have more disadvantages, which is right in terms of gameplay and role play. But I'm not sure the AI think that way. So far it seems that they treat both options as equals.

The big question is: Will I be able to build Academies on water tiles?
If not, there is no reason to bother with water cities.

As I said on the other thread, you sholdn't be able to build academies on water and on land nether. At least not the way it is. Fix Academies or remove it from the game.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

As I said on the other thread, you sholdn't be able to build academies on water and on land nether. At least not the way it is. Fix Academies or remove it from the game.

To quote myself from the "(Rising Tide) Fixing Academy spam" thread:

Here is the thing: I have played mods that didn't have Academies or Arrays - it still doesn't really fix the problem. Granted, it slows down the game, but except for that it will only shift the dominant strategy to the next best science engine, which would be Arrays, then specialists, then food spam.

 

[Breezin]

I was wondering last night exactly why it is that aquatic cities don't have culture border expansion. It feels like the ability to move cities to claim tiles was a response to NOT being able to have border spread naturally at sea, but I can't see any reason why it couldn't.

From what I know so far, I don't like the idea of having to move the city to expand the borders. For one, it seems a nuisance to have to remember to move the city to expand your culture. Also, if you put a water city in the perfect spot why would you ever want to move it.

Granted, there may be intricacies of gameplay with regards to water cities that I'm not aware of that make this a good option to have.

 

[Eji1700]

Of note, with proper production boosting options, it's possibly you can have water cities grab tiles much faster than culture would otherwise do, without spending the energy, or in some cases, in ways that energy might not always work. Nothing really stops you from building a water city and moving it one hex to the left every X turns as long as you can find a way to make it grow fast enough to work those yields (trade routes i suspect). There's some interesting potential to the system, but I have to say that unless there were larger balance changes made it's going to be hard to see them as useful.

 

[omniclast]

The Water Refinery only gives +1 production to water tiles now, the +1 food has been removed I believe.

I'll be interested to see what kind of unique buildings, wonders and agreement effects water cities get. That could be a way to balance their lower yields. There's also the fact that improvements will be faster to build since there's no miasma to remove first.

Really though it would be ideal if they had a lower base unhealth cost, 3 or even 2, to balance out the fact that they'll inevitably be smaller (and there's even an incentive to keep them small since it's cheaper to move them). If founding two new water cities had the same base unhealth as founding one land city, that would make them a lot more interesting.

 

[s0nny80y]

Land units will be useless to siege water cities.
The satellite coverage helps.
Healing a navy near the front helps.
And relocating a city full of planes helps too.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Land units will be useless to siege water cities.
The satellite coverage helps.
Healing a navy near the front helps.
And relocating a city full of planes helps too.

So basically, it's like a real world aircraft carrier. It makes a hell of a forward base for projecting hard and soft power around the planet, but it's kinda squishy, so keep a fleet around it to protect it.

 

[swordoflight86]

It is the ultimate forward base for an amphibious landing. It is like a Mulberry Harbor on steroids.

Plus, on any water map anything that improves your control of the waves is a huge bonus. The earlier you dominate the worlds oceans, the more surely you will win.

 

[Aldor]

I have had enough game starts where you land on a narrow continent, and quickly get most of your possible expansion locations blocked by AIs or stations. These are often rage quit situations for me ("Damn you station, you're blocking not only one, but TWO of the locations I wanted to settle"). Sure you can go to war...but that's very expensive, especially in the early game. Being able to spread to the ocean instead will let me continue those games.

However I agree with the basic point that there is no reason to build water cities as long as good land spots are available.

 

[albie_123]

Out of curiosity: What would make you all build water cities?

The idea in and of itself is really fun and interesting, but there doesn't seem to be any impetus to make use of it. I'd say this is a bit of backwards game design, but since they're here, why don't we talk about what could theoretically work?

 

[kipwheeler]

Out of curiosity: What would make you all build water cities?

I'd construct water cities if they could take better advantage of water tiles providing culture to become cultural powerhouses. I really like the idea of being able to make my way through three complete Virtue trees by the end of the game, but that's just not practical in land cities right now.

The need to beeline for specific affinity techs in the old BE meant that culture had to take a backseat to technology for the most efficient game play. I loved playing Franco-Iberia, but when they nerfed FI's gameplay to change it from one free tech per 10 virtues to one free virtue per 10 virtues, it took the shine off FI.

Aquatic cities, since they had access to aquatic tiles providing lots of culture, might have been a remedy to that if they had aquatic-only buildings or wonders that could really sky-rocket your culture and/or transfer culture directly into science--ones that weren't available for land-cities. That would enable a play-style for the cultural elitists.

I don't think that's going to happen, though, from what I've seen thus far.

 

[aguliondew]

Water cities will make atlantean maps more interesting. Instead of them being the easiest map to get a victory on. It gives you a better area to build on if you start around a desert/snow area of the map. Production is a good reason to build water cities since most tiles are comparable to plains and your water refinery yields 1 production to all water tiles. Without magrails/roads you will save energy on water cities connections but without magrails you will lose some production.

If all of the important resources are water based I would build a mostly water based civ.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Academies are what makes or breaks water cities with the current gameplay. Ideally they should also have something to compensate properly for the lack of food. Not sure if culture is good enough, probably depends on the available buildings. I guess the dream would be that the water-specific ressources play enough of a role to justify founding one or two ocean cities in your games.

Would also be fine for me if water cities would open up a "plan B" startegy - if you are boxed in by the AI or the terrain is horrible, you just settle the ocean. Better have somewhat worse yields than no spot for a 4th and 5th city at all.

 

[aguliondew]

Even without academy spamming you can beat Apollo without much difficulty. The different being +15turns or so. Curious if academy spamming will be necessary to beat Apollo in RT? We get more science yields from diplomacy. Also, more affinity quests(fixing some that were broken before), so getting 15 affinity in RT should take the same amount of time as getting 13 affinity now. RT give us a lot of things to test out.

 

[Gokudo01]

I think I will try to settle on land with my capital and get my second or third city on water. With my first water city, I will try to claim as much "land/water" as I can.

Imagine with NSA char trait, I think you can move your city every turn if you optimise with water raffinery + production building( with specialist) + some defense building ( no science building, only vivarium for food, 4 - 5 pop max )

Getting cooperative should be easier when they will need "Open border" to move around

Even without academy spamming you can beat Apollo without much difficulty. The different being +15turns or so. Curious if academy spamming will be necessary to beat Apollo in RT?

I think water cities will make specialists(at least scientists) shine

 

[LORD ORION]

Mass Driver + City Strength focus on a water city...

City? It's a military unit.

 

[x2Madda]

Mass Driver + City Strength focus on a water city...

City? It's a military unit.

Generally speaking, that is what a water city will end up being.
It does give a use for that wonder but it also has the side effect that players will simply remain 2 tiles away from the coast with their capital city.

If water trade routes become lucrative again then a real risk-reward comes into play but of they remain the same then why even risk a valuable city near the ocean?

There is also the question of how close can you settle a water city if it can move anyway? We run the risk of a fortress of water cities protecting/camping capitals making them truly protected/dominated.