Very few sea resources (and reasons to settle on the coast)

[kaspergm]

I really think it does just come down to the housing bonus, which means you'd always prefer the spot to be on a river instead. Sometimes though there just won't be a river near a great mountain range you need for science/faith. Or a bunch of strategic/luxury resources without a convenient river near by. This isn't an ideal situation, but I think it's what we have.

I don't think there's any denying that if you have a completely dry piece of land, you'll want to settle the coast rather than a no-water-at-all location. Problem for me is that if you have a river, it seems like you'll always want to settle OFF coast, which for me looks like bad balance. Ideal case, there should be pros and cons for each location, but if we focus on the case where there is water inland, there seems to be MAJOR pros for settling inland and only very marginal pros for settling on the coast.

In Civ5, the system was bad because settling one hex inland gave you 0 % naval capability, which obviously was bad. In Civ6, settling one hex inland seems to give you if not 100 % naval capability, then at least something like 80-90 %. Yes, you'll have to wait a bit to build those ships until you have the harbor district, and yes, you'll miss out on the eureka for sailing - but once you're past that bump, not only are you fully operational, you're also immune to naval city attacks. As it is, if you have a fresh-water source, there simply is very little reason to settle on the coast. That might be intentional, but it's not a design decision I approve of.

 

[BrokenBokken]

I don't think there's any denying that if you have a completely dry piece of land, you'll want to settle the coast rather than a no-water-at-all location. Problem for me is that if you have a river, it seems like you'll always want to settle OFF coast, which for me looks like bad balance. Ideal case, there should be pros and cons for each location, but if we focus on the case where there is water inland, there seems to be MAJOR pros for settling inland and only very marginal pros for settling on the coast.

In Civ5, the system was bad because settling one hex inland gave you 0 % naval capability, which obviously was bad. In Civ6, settling one hex inland seems to give you if not 100 % naval capability, then at least something like 80-90 %. Yes, you'll have to wait a bit to build those ships until you have the harbor district, and yes, you'll miss out on the eureka for sailing - but once you're past that bump, not only are you fully operational, you're also immune to naval city attacks. As it is, if you have a fresh-water source, there simply is very little reason to settle on the coast. That might be intentional, but it's not a design decision I approve of.

Being able to reach resources you can't from a river by being on the cost is weighing pros and cons. The pro of getting that resources vs the con of having less tiles.

 

[mitsho]

Sure, which is why I would bet on a significant housing bonus for example for settling on the coast. Or a gold or food bonus. Those are balancing points which they can address easily until the release (or by the first patch...), but are quite hard to judge right now. While the concerns brought up in here are totally understandable and quite possibly totally right, it does look like an error by the devs who just assumed by intuition that everybody would want to found by the coast and who weren't crushing the numbers as you are right now.

But we need gameplay experience.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Early game, powerful inland cities on rivers would be historically valid. Thebes, Beijing, Babylon; even later cities like Paris, London, and Vienna. Tenochtitlan was on lakes instead of a river, so it didn't get the water trade, but it still sort of fits. But it should also be possible to build a prosperous, early-game city based on shallow-water coastal trade, a la Athens, Byzantium, Rhodes, etc.

 

[ThomasClark]

I think there should be a housing bonus for being on both the coast and a river, e.g. a coastal, river city center should be the best housing spot in the game. That will add to the trade-offs and some level of balance in decision making. I'd also like to see a small uptick in sea resources, such as more fish 3 tiles off the coast.

However, I don't see any major realism issues with a city center one tile off the coast (on a river), a Commercial Hub on the coast, and then a harbor (and perhaps entertainment district and housing districts on the coast also). It's still a coastal city in my mind. If you think you aren't going to want to build a navy to protect your sea trade (which should be the most profitable trade, as in BNW) and basically all tiles within 2-3 tiles of the coast, just because ships can't take your city center itself...I think you'll change your mind after playing - at least in MP. Oceans are a highway for power projection.

 

[Atlas627]

Being able to reach resources you can't from a river by being on the cost is weighing pros and cons. The pro of getting that resources vs the con of having less tiles.

This usually will still not involve settling on the coast proper. Most water resources are coastal.

 

[MAHRana]

However, I don't see any major realism issues with a city center one tile off the coast (on a river), a Commercial Hub on the coast, and then a harbor (and perhaps entertainment district and housing districts on the coast also). It's still a coastal city in my mind.

You are 50% right (or so), many times this is the case in which a city close to the coast is basically still coastal (like London, even Sevilla) but this is many times due to a river connecting the sea to the city, in other cases it doesn't happen (e.g. Makkah).



Imho i think a city not exactly on the coast should be able to have a harbor district if a river runs between them, at least in the early/middle game. It's more realistic and gives the coast some more importance.

 

[Cyon]

If coast was +2 housing, river +3 and coastal river delta +4 housing it would seem more balanced.

Sea trade routes should have a +25% or +50% modifier compared to land and also longer range to offset that they don't build you roads.

And costal city could give +1 trade route from city center . That way a coastal city with harbor and commercial would get 3 trade routes compared to city with harbor but not on coast that only would have two (if also commercial district) and a total landlocked city that only has one.

This way coastal city is all about nice trade, which gives you an incentive to protect your naval trade with a Navy.

If naval trade routes are not better than land trade, land trade will dominant since it's safer and builds roads. And Navy will only be useful for escorting invasion armies.

 

[Calouste]

Early game, powerful inland cities on rivers would be historically valid. Thebes, Beijing, Babylon; even later cities like Paris, London, and Vienna. Tenochtitlan was on lakes instead of a river, so it didn't get the water trade, but it still sort of fits. But it should also be possible to build a prosperous, early-game city based on shallow-water coastal trade, a la Athens, Byzantium, Rhodes, etc.

London was the largest sea port in the world in the 18th and 19th centuries. It's not strictly on the coast, but at a large river close to the mouth like other big European harbors like Rotterdam and Hamburg. Very different from inland cities like Paris and Vienna.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

London was the largest sea port in the world in the 18th and 19th centuries. It's not strictly on the coast, but at a large river close to the mouth like other big European harbors like Rotterdam and Hamburg. Very different from inland cities like Paris and Vienna.

Not trying to be a dingy and throw a monkey wrench into anybody's real world equivancies but no massive coastal city feeds itself or grows based on the surrounding land and sea. They're almost all fueled by trade. NYC, London, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Istanbul, etc, all trade hubs.

If we're trying to use real world arguments as to why coastal cities should be better there is a Civ VI way to simulate that. Internal trade routes. You can use the valuable tiles for districts and use the extra trade routes to fuel your little trade capital.

 

[Atlas627]

Not trying to be a dingy and throw a monkey wrench into anybody's real world equivancies but no massive coastal city feeds itself or grows based on the surrounding land and sea. They're almost all fueled by trade. NYC, London, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Istanbul, etc, all trade hubs.

London got food from its surrounding countryside and the sea. Lisbon did the same. Sevilla was a big port before it became the trading hub of a massive empire.

As far as real world equivalencies go, trade is the most effective use of the water. But trade requires people to live there, and people didn't ship food around the world to trade hubs. There's plenty of food in the water.

The coastal cities grew on their own. They grew a TON more because people moved there for trade purposes, but they grew on their own first.

And we still haven't seen good internal trade routes, and especially routes that get buffed by being water routes.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

I think there should be a housing bonus for being on both the coast and a river, e.g. a coastal, river city center should be the best housing spot in the game. That will add to the trade-offs and some level of balance in decision making. I'd also like to see a small uptick in sea resources, such as more fish 3 tiles off the coast.

However, I don't see any major realism issues with a city center one tile off the coast (on a river), a Commercial Hub on the coast, and then a harbor (and perhaps entertainment district and housing districts on the coast also). It's still a coastal city in my mind. If you think you aren't going to want to build a navy to protect your sea trade (which should be the most profitable trade, as in BNW) and basically all tiles within 2-3 tiles of the coast, just because ships can't take your city center itself...I think you'll change your mind after playing - at least in MP. Oceans are a highway for power projection.

Ostia, the port of Rome during the Empire, comes to mind.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

It's 30 km from Rome, easily a district of Rome at this game scale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostia_Antica

 

[Ikael]

I don't think that anyone here is arguing that naval districts are a bad idea. But they do make coastatal settling even more worthless:

- Coastatal tiles provide less housing than rivers
- Sea tiles have abysmal yields, they are comparable to frigging deserts, for God's shake
- Sea tile output can't be increased. There are no sea enhancing wonder, and lighthouses give no bonuses to food output
- Harbour districts makes useless to settle on coast in order to gain access to a navy

And now, compare this with the real world, where a whooping 80% of the total human popullation lives no more than 62 miles away from the coast. Seriously, is laughable. Coastatal settings are garbage in civ 6, probably the most glaring flaw of the game so far.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

I don't think that anyone here is arguing that naval districts are a bad idea. But they do make coastatal settling even more worthless:

- Coastatal tiles provide less housing than rivers
- Sea tiles have abysmal yields, they are comparable to frigging deserts, for God's shake
- Sea tile output can't be increased. There are no sea enhancing wonder, and lighthouses give no bonuses to food output
- Harbour districts makes useless to settle on coast in order to gain access to a navy

And now, compare this with the real world, where a whooping 80% of the total human popullation lives no more than 62 miles away from the coast. Seriously, is laughable. Coastatal settings are garbage in civ 6, probably the most glaring flaw of the game so far.

These are all easily moddable or correctable via xml. Perhaps the balancing will still occur pre-release or after release.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I don't think that anyone here is arguing that naval districts are a bad idea. But they do make coastatal settling even more worthless:

- Coastatal tiles provide less housing than rivers
- Sea tiles have abysmal yields, they are comparable to frigging deserts, for God's shake
- Sea tile output can't be increased. There are no sea enhancing wonder, and lighthouses give no bonuses to food output
- Harbour districts makes useless to settle on coast in order to gain access to a navy

1. Coastal cities still provide more housing than tiles without water at all. And you could compensate the lack of housing later with aqueducts. If there are no river or lake, but with mountains nearby, coastal settling is actually the best approach in terms of housing.

2. We don't know how final it is. Plus settling on coast could give access to additional luxury resources.

3. We don't know for sure. Our information is incomplete and these things are subject of change. Also, don't forget more tiles for sea-based Wonders.

4. Harbor district is much more difficult to defend. Also, settling city on coast makes it easier to defend against land-based attacks. Harbor requires time to be built and there's limited number of districts per city population - so you may want to have navy without actual building Harbor for some time.

 

[isau]

It's certainly odd that there don't seem to be any specific buildings for a city center that is founded on the coast, but there are buildings (e.g. water mills) that go in the city center if the center is on a river. Or maybe we just haven't seen them yet.

 

[Ikael]

These are all easily moddable or correctable via xml. Perhaps the balancing will still occur pre-release or after release.

If these problems are not addressed, I know what my first civ6 mod is going to be about

1. Coastal cities still provide more housing than tiles without water at all. And you could compensate the lack of housing later with aqueducts. If there are no river or lake, but with mountains nearby, coastal settling is actually the best approach in terms of housing.

That's the problem. If there's a river, settling in the coast will always be the lesser option. It will be a non-choice.

2. We don't know how final it is. Plus settling on coast could give access to additional luxury resources.

I really do hope that it isn't final at all, but I dunno, coasts sucking on vainilla games have been a constant of this saga. As for luxury resources and workboats, their yields are still too paltry to justify settling on coast.

3. We don't know for sure. Our information is incomplete and these things are subject of change. Also, don't forget more tiles for sea-based Wonders.

There's only like 4 sea-based wonders in the game (colossus, lighthouse, venetian arsenal and the sydney opera).

4. Harbor district is much more difficult to defend. Also, settling city on coast makes it easier to defend against land-based attacks. Harbor requires time to be built and there's limited number of districts per city population - so you may want to have navy without actual building Harbor for some time.

Well, that is the only true advantage that comes to mind. Not needing a specialized harbour district might be a good advantage considering that districts are indeed a limited resource.

 

[skyclad]

Some kind of city centre-only building, for settling on the coast, similar to watermill, sounds like a great idea!

 

[GauntZero]

Well, it could help to:
a.) make sea resources more worth it. Especially Oil comes to my mind here. Maybe Oil resources should be at least double the value than Oil that exist on land tiles.

b.) make buying additional sea-tiles cheaper if your city is directly at the coast (so you can get sea resources that are a little farther away more quickly)

c.) give cities that are directly at the coast a gold bonus (not too high, but a little bonus wouldnt be wrong)