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

[Gokudo01]

I find the lack of early production pretty crippling, with the only remedy i've found is water refinery and the might bonus giving +1 for every basic resource. Yeah by mid game it's not longer an issue, but having basically all of your starting water cities suck at production barring titanium is really difficult to handle.

Yes that's why there are only 2 sponsors which start on water.
NSA can move and defend themselves easier.
Chungsu need boats to find his foes faster : His agreements are op and he gets a lot of science from his traits

 

[Ryika]

After the last 2 days I have to say that water starts seem quite a bit stronger than land starts. Patrol Boats give you access to like... 2000 Resource Pods, which will give you enough Energy to just buy what you need early on - a Worker, 2-3 Settlers and you're good to go.

The negative effects don't really come into play that much. I barely move my aquatic cities more than 1-2 per game, so the production costs are somewhat neglectable. The AI is horrible on Sea, which rendered my fear that a ton of defensive units would be needed completely void.

Aliens don't really eat trade routes either.
And of course expanding on sea is extremely easy.

And the low food... that doesn't really matter too much. Trade Routes make more than up for that.

So... I'm converted, Ocean Cities are the way to go.

 

[Galgus]

The AI seems to like to use a lot of submarines without enough support in my experience.

Enough to surprise take a city occasionally, but they are horrible at fighting actual wars.

Naval wars seem to be won and lost on numbers with freer movement and less holdout potential, and the AI just doesn't build enough ships.

(Especially if they have most of their cities on land.)

 

[EpicWestern]

I'm a little surprised to hear people say the AI doesn't build enough ships. I've lost a few games on Apollo to being completely unprepared for mass melee boats. I really think you need at least 8-10 boats to defend especially in case you get out-teched early.

I do feel water cities are slightly worse than coastal ones, but that's OK. There are enough decent strategic resources in the water you should still build a few of them to gain the benefits.

 

[Lucius_]

Not sure if this has been said, but water cities are worth having for just the naval production bonus. I will usually have at least 1 water city, with titanium and hopefully some other strong production tiles. Then I try to get the wonder that gives +2 production to coast tiles. This city can then crank out naval units way way faster than a coastal city. Even without the wonder, a strong water city can build your navy in half the time as a coastal city.