Useless, Worthless, Stupid Water ;)

[steveg700]

"Water, water everywhere, and...well, that sucks!"

So, has there been any discussion of this quote from Ed Beach in the Rock-Paper-Shotgun interview?

It used to be in Civ V that settling along a sea coast or along a river gave you free gold. We’ve taken that gold out of the game and now you actually have to earn it by creating these trade routes.

So, you start a game. Your spanking new civ will have no trade routes for a goodly while, and all the land that previously generated the lion's share of gold for a lot of civ's--river tiles--have gone poof.

And on a related note, settling an island or peninsula is already considered somewhat onerous since the yield for water is already considered pretty lousy, even with a lighthouse.

What do you guys think is going to happen here that will keep the game afloat (pun intended) in these situations?

 

[Gucumatz]

Anyone want to bet it will be patched back in eventually?

 

[JanghanHong]

+1 gold for any tile with river was honestly, overkill, since those started giving +2 food with Civil service farms earlier than any other +2 yield techs and improvements.

Not to mention hydro plant which gives you +1 hammer on top of that.


The gold lost from coast, however, seems like they will be brought back eventually, it was literally the only thing that was saving heavy coastal starts.

 

[seancolorado]

The sea gold better be compensated by something else because if not, coastal starts just got a whole lot lousier

 

[AriochIV]

Ed said it himself: that gold will be replaced by trade routes. It's true that we don't know much about them at present, but one can infer that since Caravans have limited range, sea-based trade routes are probably preferred and you'll probably need coastal cities for that.

It will be interesting to see how river trade is handled in the new system.

 

[Haig]

I suggest beelining The Colossus..

 

[ahawk]

Is it possible shallow water would be given +1 production instead of +1 gold, and deep water given an extra food than it is already giving and no production or gold? That would somewhat mitigate coastal starts without having to patch back in the gold. Otherwise, yes, coastal starts look like they might get a little rockier until you get a trade-route or two up from them.

 

[bite]

There may be some other buildings coming for coasts/rivers to compensate, or maybe trade routes really will be significantly better, who knows?

 

[kaspergm]

I say good thing with the loss of +1 Gold on rivers. Like JanghanHong said, the gold on rivers was overkill, and you will still be better off starting on river than none-river because it will allow you to build Watermill and Garden, plus we get the impression it will influence your trade routes. This sounds perfectly balanced with me.

With regards to the ocean tiles - yes, it makes an already dubious starting position even worse - with the information we have now. But the fact that ocean starts was already pretty dubious in the first place makes me fairly confident that there will be other changes to make up for this. Yes, the Gold on ocean tiles was slightly useful, but you still only worked those naked water tiles after you had put citizens to work on all inland tiles, save perhaps desert. So will thise have much early game inpact? Not really. And could one imagine they have made other features that will make coastal cities actually more useful in late game, even after we take the lost gold into account? Possibly and hopefully.

As game is now, in 9/10 games, I'll completely neglect the ocean-technology lines (Sailing, Compass, etc.) until sometime during Renaissance where I might catch up on it to get Frigates, so if this will put more focus on that line, good thing. As game is now, I already feel gold is pretty abundant, I very rarely strive to keep a positive GPT after Markets come available, so less "free" gold may not be a bad thing. I think we should wait to get the full picture before we pass judgement on this.

 

[Ikael]

I think that the following could compensate it:

In order to compensate the loss of gold in riversides:

- Make land caravans builts in riverside cities, able to move trought nearby river tiles as if they were roads in order to compensate the loss for gold. That way, you can build a fluvial commercial network and reward civilizations that builds their cities in strategic river crossroads

Now, the really troublesome thing are coastatal cities. Ocean and coast regular yields sucks already, so there needs to be some kind of huge compensation for loosing even its gold, I suggest the following bonuses:

- Add +1 extra food yield to the coast tiles. That way, your seaside cities can keep up the growing pace with your inland ones, since that would provide a similar yield to the ones of grasslands: 2 food without a lighthouse, 3 with one, equivalent to non irrigated grassland vs farmed grassland

- Add a +50% extra production and gold yield to sea trade routes. That way you will be able to compensate the lack of these two (production and gold)

 

[Knut_Are_M]

maybe they will go with this way. 2 food base.
+1 food for lighthouse.
+1 food for sea building at navigation.

 

[kirbdog]

If ocean tiles had 3 food with lighthouse they would go from yucky to lovely while not really breaking anything (since land tiles remain superior in many ways). Giving them 4 food, however, is possibly too much.

If they take gold from rivers, I predict they also add in some "bonus resources" with gold on them (not just the luxuries).

 

[Cyon]

maybe they could divide the fish tiles in 'some fish' +1 food and gold, 'medium dense fish' +2 food and gold, and 'dense fish' +3 food and gold, and have a lot of tiles of the first kind (a bit like horses can be 1, 2 ir 4 buy affecting the tile yield instead if horse quantety) that way the oceans would not be as empty.

work boats should be slightly cheaper to

 

[kirbdog]

work boats should be slightly cheaper to

Not slightly. Half the cost, at most. 20 or 25 hammers. 100 or 120 gold.

Maybe even less. These stupid boats can be pillaged.

 

[DemonMaster]

Not slightly. Half the cost, at most. 20 or 25 hammers. 100 or 120 gold.

Maybe even less. These stupid boats can be pillaged.

Or make the worker turn into a workboat if moved into water.

 

[igelkott]

Coasts can be a tourist destination with proper infrastructure, so wouldn't it be great, if BNW introduced new modern-era buildings or tile improvements (like a 'Riviera'?), which would bring in tourism resources or additionally happiness/gold?

 

[JanghanHong]

Maybe instead of giving gold to river tiles and coast tiles, maybe they can start giving out extra gold for all land tiles that border the coast instead. Think of people going to beaches and spending 5 dollars for a waffle cone.

 

[micbucci]

I think there should be some incentives here to balance things because building along the coastline was already crappy to begin with. I no longer see any reason to build along the coastline that would outweigh building inside to take advantage of more luxuries and resources. This was never the case in all the other Civ games. The removal of gold per tile needs to then be replaced with something beneficial. Why not give a growth bonus to cities built along the coastline? Maybe add +1food per tile, if that's too much then +1/2food? I noticed there is no half value in Civ V so that should also be included in the new expansion.

 

[iconocast]

its all to vague and very very speculative atm to even consider how its going to work in reality

 

[steveg700]

its all to vague and very very speculative atm to even consider how its going to work in reality

Well, that's kind of a buzzkill. Pretty much this entire subforum is an exercise in speculative discussion.

I don't think anybody's said it yet, but maybe cities will simply generate an adequate sum of gold, and the capital a bit more than that. That'll tide baby civ's over until they can get their trade routes going.

I've posted many times about how economic stability is already too dependent on the presence of rivers, so I'm inclined to embrace an economy that's less impacted by terrain-lotto.

And 3 apples from water tiles would be a dramatic upturn.