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

[VicRatlhead5199]

I'm not sure you could have multiple docks anyway. Pretty sure you can only have 1 type of district per city.

Also, despite all that we might know or think we know, we're speaking from a position of pretty significant ignorance. Let's see how things play out in reality before making too many unequivocal statements that "x are useless".

Nah, you can have multiple types. There's even adjacency bonuses that go along with it.

You are still limited on your number of districts though so a harbour will replace another district. That's going to be the limiting factor. How long do you put off building one district vs another. Science or trade? Commercial or industrial? Etc.

 

[bcaiko]

Now one dock is one trade route so you may want several docks just to get extra trade routes.

You keep saying that trade routes originate from harbors, but I haven't heard that before. Is there evidence for that?

But beyond that, why wouldn't I just build a slightly inland city and build the harbor from there? Getting the harbor tech a little faster isn't going to be worth the opportunity cost of building a sub-optimal city for the rest of the game.

 

[chazzycat]

Of course a Harbor is a district, so either you build it at size 3 and forgo building a Campus or a Holy Site, or you have to wait until your city is size 6.

This right here is a very important point that a lot of people have skipped over. Building a harbor just to make an inland city "coastal" carries a very significant opportunity cost, due to the limits on districts.

 

[bcaiko]

This right here is a very important point that a lot of people have skipped over. Building a harbor just to make an inland city "coastal" carries a very significant opportunity cost, due to the limits on districts.

A coastal city is going to need a Harbor just to build the buildings that could possibly make it viable.

 

[Polobo]

You keep saying that trade routes originate from harbors, but I haven't heard that before. Is there evidence for that?

There is. Both commercial and harbor districts provide an additional available trade route for your Civ.

 

[JimmyBanks]

There will still be coastal cities, people will want to create canal cities or whatever we call them.

The thing I want to know is, if I build on a hex next to the ocean on a strip of land 2 hexes wide, and build my harbour on the opposite side to my city, does it become a canal city? If you can enter a city via the harbour that would make it very interesting.

 

[Polobo]

The thing I want to know is, if I build on a hex next to the ocean on a strip of land 2 hexes wide, and build my harbour on the opposite side to my city, does it become a canal city? If you can enter a city via the harbour that would make it very interesting.

Since the harbor is built on the coastal tile (i.e., the water) canals can still only be 1 tile wide.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

What I ment was you may want to found multiple cities each with their own dock.

 

[Nick31]

One thing that would make coastal settling more interesting is if you could only embark from a Harbor for a long time in the game. Then, getting that free harbor for settling on a coast vs. having to build it, would make settling one coastal early on a very satisfying thing. Particularly if there's juicy new lands to settle that have no starting civs.

Still, unless boat trade routes are sufficiently powerful, coastal cities will be tough to make fantastic. Certainly unless yields change.

 

[JimmyBanks]

Since the harbor is built on the coastal tile (i.e., the water) canals can still only be 1 tile wide.

In my scenario there is coast on 2 sides of a 2hex wide stretch of land. The city can expand 3 tiles out so there would be the option of building a harbor on the coast on the opposite side to the city.

 

[Atlas627]

There will still be coastal cities, people will want to create canal cities or whatever we call them.

The thing I want to know is, if I build on a hex next to the ocean on a strip of land 2 hexes wide, and build my harbour on the opposite side to my city, does it become a canal city? If you can enter a city via the harbour that would make it very interesting.

It would be cool. That would be a cool way to make bigger canals.

And I'm not saying there will be 0 coastal cities. But there will be few enough that a navy to conquer them isn't really an incentive to build them...which means even fewer coastal cities and canal cities lose a lot of use.

This right here is a very important point that a lot of people have skipped over. Building a harbor just to make an inland city "coastal" carries a very significant opportunity cost, due to the limits on districts.

Nobody skipped over it. We pointed out that it actually doesn't mean anything because

A coastal city is going to need a Harbor just to build the buildings that could possibly make it viable.

And they have revealed nothing that cares about having the city center on the coast. The only thing we've seen is that you can build naval units (and embark faster on the city tile), but what good is that? Naval units only exist to conquer the cities and secure the trade routes...which also don't seem to be special in any way.

The other things we've seen are anti-siege (which probably doesn't matter all that often, since your coastal cities wouldn't be on the border of your empire most of the time) and appeal. Don't know what appeal does here, so for now its not enough.

Nobody is saying that coastal cities ARE definitively useless. We know we don't have enough info. But we might as well talk about the info we do have, which says *coastal city centers are pointless*, as far as we know.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It would be cool. That would be a cool way to make bigger canals.

And I'm not saying there will be 0 coastal cities. But there will be few enough that a navy to conquer them isn't really an incentive to build them...which means even fewer coastal cities and canal cities lose a lot of use.




Nobody skipped over it. We pointed out that it actually doesn't mean anything because



And they have revealed nothing that cares about having the city center on the coast. The only thing we've seen is that you can build naval units (and embark faster on the city tile), but what good is that? Naval units only exist to conquer the cities and secure the trade routes...which also don't seem to be special in any way.

The other things we've seen are anti-siege (which probably doesn't matter all that often, since your coastal cities wouldn't be on the border of your empire most of the time) and appeal. Don't know what appeal does here, so for now its not enough.

Nobody is saying that coastal cities ARE definitively useless. We know we don't have enough info. But we might as well talk about the info we do have, which says *coastal city centers are pointless*, as far as we know.

Well I think there is a definite difference between "coastal cities are useless" and "sea/navy is useless"

If coastal cities are useless... that's fine

If sea/navy is useless.... that's not

All that means is that Naval trade has to be important for that to work.

Harbors effectively doubling trade routes/city helps.
Perhaps trade units can only embark/disembark at harbors/coastal cities (allow embarked trade units much greater range, and perhaps some bonuses if they cross a harbor)

We also don't know what the harbor buildings do...other than boosting navy, they may also boost sea tiles to make them worthwhile or sea trade to make it dominant.

 

[Atlas627]

Well I think there is a definite difference between "coastal cities are useless" and "sea/navy is useless"

I agree, though they are connected.

If coastal cities are useless... that's fine

Eh...

If sea/navy is useless.... that's not

I agree that sea/navy cannot be useless. That would be god-awful.

All that means is that Naval trade has to be important for that to work.

I agree.

Harbors effectively doubling trade routes/city helps.
Perhaps trade units can only embark/disembark at harbors/coastal cities (allow embarked trade units much greater range, and perhaps some bonuses if they cross a harbor)

We also don't know what the harbor buildings do...other than boosting navy, they may also boost sea tiles to make them worthwhile or sea trade to make it dominant.

Harbors giving an extra trade route helps with water being useful, but not with the trade routes being water based. And we have seen that trade units can only embark at harbors, but there seem to be no bonuses for doing so.

And we do know that the harbor buildings don't boost sea tiles or trade. We've seen them.

This could of course change, but for now, sea is useless. And coastal cities are even more useless, because all of the sea uses are attached to Harbors.

 

[Ebrim]

Nah, you can have multiple types. There's even adjacency bonuses that go along with it.

You are still limited on your number of districts though so a harbour will replace another district. That's going to be the limiting factor. How long do you put off building one district vs another. Science or trade? Commercial or industrial? Etc.

Sorry, I wasn't being very clear, I meant that you can only have 1 district of each type.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I
And we do know that the harbor buildings don't boost sea tiles or trade. We've seen them.
.

We've seen the shipyard (obvious boosts to ships+great admirals), Lighthouse (boosts there)... what about other harbor buildings?

and if embarked trade units have a greater range, that might improve their value.

 

[Atlas627]

We've seen the shipyard (obvious boosts to ships+great admirals), Lighthouse (boosts there)... what about other harbor buildings?

and if embarked trade units have a greater range, that might improve their value.

Lighthouse doesn't boost tiles, it just gives food itself.

I actually don't remember if we saw the third building, but that would be the lategame building, and nothing it does could possibly make those tiles worth having all game. Well ok, if it gave each of them +5 science +5 food or something crazy

 

[Ikael]

I concuur with the OP, this is probably going to be THE civilization 6 problem. Not that it wasn't present in previous vainilla civ entries, but this time it would seem that the district system will aggrave it it. And yes, this is a problem, for it turns navies into useless husks.


So here there are some ideas as to how to solve it:

- Grant an extra trade route ONLY to cities placed directly in the coast, rather than to every city with a harbour district

- Make the coastatal housing bonus add up, rather than replace the riverside housing bonus, thus making river mouths prime locations for setting cities (as it happens in the real life)

- Increase sea tile yields, for crap's shake. Make EVERYTHING increase sea tile yields: policies, wonders, buildings... hell in civ 6 the lighthouse doesn't even add food. Oh, and increase ocean base tile yields too, now that we're at it (they should produce 3 food at the very least). As for how to archieve it:

Regular lighthouse: +1 food to sea resources in this city
Harbour: +2 production to workboats in this city
Salt luxury resource: +1 food to sea resources in every city
Refrigeration tech: +1 food to every sea tile in every city
Maritime industries SP: +2 gold to workboats

The colossus: +1 production in every deep ocean tile of your empire
The great lighthouse: +1 gold to every coastatal tile of your empire
The venetial arsenal: X2 to the yields of this city workboats
Gaining suzerain status over Nan Madol city state: +1 culture to every coastatal tile and adjacent district

- Make the possibility of building certain districts in swallow waters or unlock water-building by certain techs. Also: Adjacency bonuses, please (extra amenities for entertainement districts, extra gold for commercial districts, extra production to industrial districts if next to sea resources, special "oceanographic institute" building for science districts...)

 

[skyclad]

I concuur with the OP, this is probably going to be THE civilization 6 problem. Not that it wasn't present in previous vainilla civ entries, but this time it would seem that the district system will aggrave it it. And yes, this is a problem, for it turns navies into useless husks.


So here there are some ideas as to how to solve it:

- Grant an extra trade route ONLY to cities placed directly in the coast, rather than to every city with a harbour district

- Make the coastatal housing bonus add up, rather than replace the riverside housing bonus, thus making river mouths prime locations for setting cities (as it happens in the real life)

- Increase sea tile yields, for crap's shake. Make EVERYTHING increase sea tile yields: policies, wonders, buildings... hell in civ 6 the lighthouse doesn't even add food. Oh, and increase ocean base tile yields too, now that we're at it (they should produce 3 food at the very least). As for how to archieve it:

Regular lighthouse: +1 food to sea resources in this city
Harbour: +2 production to workboats in this city
Salt luxury resource: +1 food to sea resources in every city
Refrigeration tech: +1 food to every sea tile in every city
Maritime industries SP: +2 gold to workboats

The colossus: +1 production in every deep ocean tile of your empire
The great lighthouse: +1 gold to every coastatal tile of your empire
The venetial arsenal: X2 to the yields of this city workboats
Gaining suzerain status over Nan Madol city state: +1 culture to every coastatal tile and adjacent district

- Make the possibility of building certain districts in swallow waters or unlock water-building by certain techs. Also: Adjacency bonuses, please (extra amenities for entertainement districts, extra gold for commercial districts, extra production to industrial districts if next to sea resources, special "oceanographic institute" building for science districts...)

I really hope firaxis listen to our concerns. Its only theorycraft so far but all signs points towards coastal cities hvaing very marginal benefits and very obvious drawbacks.
At the very least buff time yields from water.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I really hope firaxis listen to our concerns.

Well, Firaxis is testing the game in the state close to release for about half a year now, maybe more. We've seen only small share of pics and videos - all of them Firaxis developer have seen. It's nearly impossible for us to find a balance issue Firaxis not aware of. The thread is more about speculation fun and trying to guess how the balance works.

After the game release it will be different story, though. We'll have the same amount of game hours Firaxis spent on testing in a week

 

[JimmyBanks]

Well, Firaxis is testing the game in the state close to release for about half a year now, maybe more. We've seen only small share of pics and videos - all of them Firaxis developer have seen. It's nearly impossible for us to find a balance issue Firaxis not aware of. The thread is more about speculation fun and trying to guess how the balance works.

After the game release it will be different story, though. We'll have the same amount of game hours Firaxis spent on testing in a week

This is the difficult part for firaxis, I saw on a video Ed said they have had a AI only games running on a computer continueously. The problem is the AI don't play the same as real people so it's going to be interesting to see what we exploit. I think not building on the coast is one of many.