Why coastal cities are better than inland cities

[Archon_Wing]

How badly settled are your coastal cities to have such few land tiles?

Eh, so let's get this right. Coastal cities should avoid water? It's almost like water tiles are a bad thing.

When one discusses inland cities, does one hold it to the same standard? What about an inland city with no hills and no features?

I mean considering your average coastal tile is worse than your average plains tile and can't be improved besides meme fisheries, I think that's a huge point.

Even resource tiles are not very impressive. Fish only gives 3 food when improved, Crab tiles start out food deficient. These struggle to beat plains wheat; and who gets excited over that?

 

[Ziad]

Eh, so let's get this right. Coastal cities should avoid water? It's almost like water tiles are a bad thing.

This is not a reasonable deduction. Cities in general should avoid poor placement. Just as you don't settle on featureless grassland with no hills and no resources, you don't settle on random locations with too many empty sea tiles and too little land tiles of use.

People stress far too much on "coastal" and assume that this implies you need to have as many water tiles as possible or something. The benefits of coastal settling are what about the water can give you. If there's nothing there then it's a poor city period.

I mean considering your average coastal tile is worse than your average plains tile and can't be improved besides meme fisheries, I think that's a huge point

Who cares about "your average". You don't work "your average" tile until way later into the city's lifetime. By then such micro issues are almost irrelevant. Again.. how terrible are your city placements?

 

[Sic]

This is not a reasonable deduction

Cities in general should avoid poor placement.

You understand why most would label this as top tier mental gymnastics, right?

You are, in fact, arguing that water tiles are bad, no matter how much rhetoric you slap on top.

The question is, why do you think it's OK that water tiles are objectively worse than all other tiles? Why are you against making water tiles reflect the real world and to work better together with the existing mechanics?

I just don't understand where you're coming from.

 

[Archon_Wing]

This is not a reasonable deduction. Cities in general should avoid poor placement. Just as you don't settle on featureless grassland with no hills and no resources, you don't settle on random locations with too many empty sea tiles and too little land tiles of use.

People stress far too much on "coastal" and assume that this implies you need to have as many water tiles as possible or something.

Except I never said you should settle near empty sea tiles-- I put out that even resource sea tiles struggle against even mediocre land tiles. And you're right that many mediocre tiles go unworked; but at that rate you might as well just settle in the desert/tundra to see what that can give you; and in some cases probably offer more....

What does the sea offer you anyways? Harbors and boats. But you don't really need a good city to make boats so it is by and far irrelevant when it comes to quality or even how "great" our city placement is.

Who cares about "your average".

It's not like really good water tiles are that good either.

Again.. how terrible are your city placements?

I dunno, it's probably better than a water tile though.

 

[Sostratus]

Featureless Coastal tiles have never been that good in civ. Their peak was probably civ4 - running a Financial trait with the Colossus you could get 2 4 tiles, which was nice, but not really growth. And in Gods of Old the Cathedral of Enki acted as a second lighthouse, giving you 3 tiles.
In contrast, sea resource tiles have usually been pretty attractive thing.
In civ5 coastal starts were optimal because
1) Trade route bonus yields
2) having 3 sea resources was basically a game winner for growth. Just a lighthouse gave you +2 and +1 on fishing boats.

In contrast, in civ6 sea resources are pretty mediocre. You have to build a harbor first, then the lighthouse to get a food boost. No production until the shipyard. Even the food is a lot worse than it used to be. As someone pointed out, an improved fish tile is essentially a blank wheat tile in terms of output. That's pretty mediocre.

Sure, coastal cities get easier early access to extra int'l route gold, but without the boost to trade route and like civ5 had, they simply aren't the domestic trade powerhouses they need to be to keep up with land cities.

Then they get hit again: We cannot build many districts or wonders on water, and even more importantly, you cannot chop for production on water tiles. There's no source of hammers.

IMO if they had domestic trade route efficiency bonuses too, then players who build a network of coastal cities could supercharge their internal trade to compensate for the other weaknesses. A land empire couldn't build 1 coastal city to reap the same reward like they can with int'l route gold, because there's no sea route from that single coastal city to his other cities.

 

[Scaramanga]

This thread seems devoid of context. If all players were on 10x10 islands with no rivers then obviously the coast would rock and admirals would be awesome.

 

[Ziad]

You understand why most would label this as top tier mental gymnastics, right?

You are, in fact, arguing that water tiles are bad, no matter how much rhetoric you slap on top.

The question is, why do you think it's OK that water tiles are objectively worse than all other tiles? Why are you against making water tiles reflect the real world and to work better together with the existing mechanics?

I just don't understand where you're coming from.

The only top tier mental gymnastics is the already incredibly reductive argument that reduces cities to tile yields as if that's literally the only benefit that matters.

Obviously water tiles aren't the best, no different than a useless grasslands tile til you have 17 population and need a district. The point is that has little to no bearing on a properly placed coastal city.

But honestly I don't expect much when half the time this forum talks about yield porn like reddit.

IMO if they had domestic trade route efficiency bonuses too, then players who build a network of coastal cities could supercharge their internal trade to compensate for the other weaknesses.

I actually thought this would be the case and was disappointed it wasn't.

 

[Ziad]

but at that rate you might as well just settle in the desert/tundra to see what that can give you; and in some cases probably offer more....

Really?

Did you genuinely just say this... when coastal cities can have all possible terrain types on land? How is this a reasonable counterargument?

 

[Archon_Wing]

Did you genuinely just say this..

I did. I mean, if you don't mind your city having useless 1f/1g titles, why not just settle in the tundra.... no difference lol. I mean, you said the average tile doesn't matter.

At least you can build on tundra tiles....

How is this a reasonable counterargument?

Well I mean nothing is a reasonable counterargument when you cut half the sentence out.

 

[Bibor]

Erm, coastal cities are not the same as a one-hex-island city. If you place them normally, 50-80% of terrain of a coastal city will be, unsurprisingly, land.

Now, housing for a coastal city is +3. For a freshwater city it's +5. So yes, there is a difference. But it's not a ginormous one. Camps, pastures, improved sea resources also add 0.5 each, so usually you can get up to +5 for a costal with no issues, that's 8 with granary and lighthouse. If you place the cities smart, most of them will eventually grab either a lake or mountain, as the aqueduct is getting even better with the next patch. Except if you get some crazy floodplain action, coastal resources are better than early farms and provide enough food for decent growth.

Presuming most of your cities for most of the game will be pop 5-10, which is realistic, a normal coastal city will have no issues finding land tiles to work and no real housing problems.

Incidentally, almost the same is true for cities with no fresh water. Presuming you plant them with Ancestral Hall and Feudalism, you're getting 5 worker actions for at least 2 farms/camps/whatever, so that's 1 housing, putting the total to 3 and at least 2 more chops which should be plenty for an aqueduct or granary. Again, if you place them smart, they'll be able to connect to a mountain, river or lake via an aqueduct at one point, putting them to equal footing with every other city in your empire.

However, unlike a coastal city, and inland city without fresh water can't build a harbor, and the marketplace will be missing out on at least +2 gold. For a lake city with no river, I'd also rather plant a harbor into that one lonely lake tile than force myself to build a +0 market.

Again, I'm not sure what the hype is all about

 

[Victoria]

Now, housing for a coastal city is +3. For a freshwater city it's +5. So

can you drop the ‘+’ as it is deceptive as is your assessment.

I start with no water and have 2 housing (I am at -50% growth from the start)
I start on the coast I have 3 housing (I am at -50% growth very soon)
I start with fresh water I have 5 housing (due to each pop taking longer to make than the last it will be a while before I get to -50% and can plan a bit)

I have ho idea what placing a city ‘normally’ means. I will place them quite often on a thin stretch of land where they are 70% water. I would have to say 50% is close to right for me.

You are stating that your coastal city has 4 sea resources that are not outer ring as a standard. I call that a barefaced lie unless you are talking about legendary starts and that is not standard.

You are conceding a granary is required, fair enough but you are more forced to use one on coastal, especially at at 2 pop you are -50% growth.

The hype is about the huge number of people here saying coastal areas are worse and the facts clearly given and not yet disputed while I immediately dispute your smoothing if stats and ignoring when growth restrictions cut in.
That you use term like “if you place them smart...” but the issue is not with placing one to two cities as Kongo to use all your space. It is playing as England or Phoenicia and having fill the coast to make use of your harbours like Korea can make use of their campus.
It’s easy to offend people with “if you place them smart”

 

[Bibor]

You are stating that your coastal city has 4 sea resources that Are not outer ring as a standard. I call that a barefaced lie.

I'd call your post rude, but I'm sure you already know that, but please do tell where do I state this?

 

[Bradypus]

I just played Australia for the first time and I had several coastal cities (Continents map on Standard speed). I have never had such easy access to massive production before! It was insane.

I used harbor/campus combo. With Heartbeat of steam and John Curtain's unique effect, I had massive production from campuses alone very early on. I had a 14 production campus in one city and 9 production in the others because of massive adjacency bonuses (without using Natural Philosophy!). I combined that with massive adjacency bonuses for my harbors w/ shipyards w/ Naval Infrastructure social policy. In hindsight it would probably have been more effective using Natural Philosophy instead of Naval Infrastructure, but I didn't consider it at the time. But the extra gold did come in handy for maintaining my navy. In hind-hindsight I could have used both.

Then as John Curtain I could maintain 100% production bonus uptime for almost the entire length of the game by provoking war or liberating cities. I had beelined Square Rigging as I had a lot of Harbors and I was able to produce Frigates in 1-2 turns in my highest production cities and 3 turns in the others w/ Press Gangs social policy (luckily I had multiple Niter sources). Because of all my harbors I got a lot of Great Admirals. Combine that with Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and you have a seriously broken navy. I had OP frigate fleets and 2 early Ironclads (from Yi Sun-Sin) just 2-shotting the AI coastal cities (on Emperor difficulty).

I have always considered inland cities to be superior. But I'll have to now admit that coastal cities can be very strong. One big plus to coastal cities (and harbors) compared to inland cities (and commercial hubs) is that you can build ships. Depending on the situation you're in, ships can be very strong. And coastal production is no joke (at least as Australia). My best coastal production city could literally build a district from scratch in 1 turn.

Note: The landmass I spawned on consisted almost entirely of grassland hills. This benefited my production greatly.

 

[kryat]

Featureless Coastal tiles have never been that good in civ. Their peak was probably civ4 - running a Financial trait with the Colossus you could get 2 4 tiles, which was nice, but not really growth. And in Gods of Old the Cathedral of Enki acted as a second lighthouse, giving you 3 tiles.
In contrast, sea resource tiles have usually been pretty attractive thing.
In civ5 coastal starts were optimal because
1) Trade route bonus yields
2) having 3 sea resources was basically a game winner for growth. Just a lighthouse gave you +2 and +1 on fishing boats.

In contrast, in civ6 sea resources are pretty mediocre. You have to build a harbor first, then the lighthouse to get a food boost. No production until the shipyard. Even the food is a lot worse than it used to be. As someone pointed out, an improved fish tile is essentially a blank wheat tile in terms of output. That's pretty mediocre.

Sure, coastal cities get easier early access to extra int'l route gold, but without the boost to trade route and like civ5 had, they simply aren't the domestic trade powerhouses they need to be to keep up with land cities.

Then they get hit again: We cannot build many districts or wonders on water, and even more importantly, you cannot chop for production on water tiles. There's no source of hammers.

IMO if they had domestic trade route efficiency bonuses too, then players who build a network of coastal cities could supercharge their internal trade to compensate for the other weaknesses. A land empire couldn't build 1 coastal city to reap the same reward like they can with int'l route gold, because there's no sea route from that single coastal city to his other cities.

These are all fair points, and thank you for being civil.

You are absolutely correct that shipyards come late and they don’t have the same ability to chop for production, so their production is weaker.

This is accurate. However, there are some things to consider as well, take them as you will.

First, some players don’t chop unless they have to (ie, to build something else in the tile). While this is technically less efficient, it means that the lack of chopping isn’t as big of a deal for some players.

Next, though these come later, Wisselbanken and democracy add production to international trade routes, which makes up a lot of this deficit. Since sea trade routes have farther range, they will almost always have more options than one originating in a land city, giving them more access to other yields through trade. Also, because you have more options from coastal origin cities and farther range, you should be putting most trade routes in coastal cities, which means the production from the trade routes is additive.

I know this is somewhat unpopular as well, but running fisheries with Liang, God of the Sea, and Audience Chamber is a fairly viable start that allows production in coastal cities. Yes it means giving up other pantheons and governor titles and ancestral hall, but there’s fair responses to those as well. It’s only one promotion, and I’m usually struggling to find ways to give out promotions toward the end of the game anyway. It’s not that crippling. Audience chamber means you’ll have ~7 very large cities by end game that benefit from higher tier policy cards with a population requirement, and probably a 20-30 pop city for Pingala, and settler spam isn’t that important by mid-late game (conquest is more so).

 

[kb27787]

Erm, coastal cities are not the same as a one-hex-island city. If you place them normally, 50-80% of terrain of a coastal city will be, unsurprisingly, land.

Now, housing for a coastal city is +3. For a freshwater city it's +5. So yes, there is a difference. But it's not a ginormous one. Camps, pastures, improved sea resources also add 0.5 each, so usually you can get up to +5 for a costal with no issues, that's 8 with granary and lighthouse. If you place the cities smart, most of them will eventually grab either a lake or mountain, as the aqueduct is getting even better with the next patch. Except if you get some crazy floodplain action, coastal resources are better than early farms and provide enough food for decent growth.

Presuming most of your cities for most of the game will be pop 5-10, which is realistic, a normal coastal city will have no issues finding land tiles to work and no real housing problems.

Incidentally, almost the same is true for cities with no fresh water. Presuming you plant them with Ancestral Hall and Feudalism, you're getting 5 worker actions for at least 2 farms/camps/whatever, so that's 1 housing, putting the total to 3 and at least 2 more chops which should be plenty for an aqueduct or granary. Again, if you place them smart, they'll be able to connect to a mountain, river or lake via an aqueduct at one point, putting them to equal footing with every other city in your empire.

However, unlike a coastal city, and inland city without fresh water can't build a harbor, and the marketplace will be missing out on at least +2 gold. For a lake city with no river, I'd also rather plant a harbor into that one lonely lake tile than force myself to build a +0 market.

Again, I'm not sure what the hype is all about

I'd take the +0 market over the lake harbor... (if I already have 2 harbors or somehow got that eureka)... great merchant points are, well, great.... great admiral points? (when your admiral would be born in a lonely lake anyway?) You do realize that to get +5 (salt water is actually +1, not +3 unless you are Aussie) you need TEN freaking housing improvements? And before civil engineering you need a whole bunch of flat tiles since mines don't give housing and fishing boats (let's say you have 4 fish/crabs) give you 2 housing at most.

Early farms can be put in triangles and are necessary for feudalism... and will beat out fishing boats easily. A crappy non-water plains city with a farm triangle still gets 3 4-yield tiles (3f 1p) from a plains farm triangle (3 charges). Not bad at all with granary (~1 chop) you can work those 3f1p tiles and a plains mine (remaining charge) and that shall be sufficient for a lot of the early game.

Besides, ancestral hall affects ALL your cities from that point onwards.... audience chamber affects only FOUR! (and they have to be your first 4 too... you cannot even choose which cities you want the bonus housing). The comparison is simply absurd as the latter is far, far inferior.

 

[kryat]

Besides, ancestral hall affects ALL your cities from that point onwards.... audience chamber affects only FOUR! (and they have to be your first 4 too... you cannot even choose which cities you want the bonus housing). The comparison is simply absurd as the latter is far, far inferior.

This is plain wrong. You’re correct about ancestral hall, but you’re confusing audience chamber with a Civ V mechanic. Audience chamber affects any city you have a governor in. So, up to 7 cities, which can be changed at any time (or 8 if Ottomans).

 

[acluewithout]

Do Coastal Cities or Inland Cities produce more gold?

The Harbour and the Commercial Hub plus Tier 1 building sort of end up the same. I guess Coastals end up ahead on districts because they can build both, whereas inland cities cannot.

Sea Resources generally give food and gold. Inland tiles give a mix of yields, but I’ve certainly had some truffle tiles which are pretty crazy. I feel like land tiles do better for gold overall but it depends on the bonus resources available to you (I’ve certainly had games where I’m really short of gold because all my tiles are just hammers and food).

Coastals get more gold from trade routes, but that doesn’t count because you only need one coastal city to get that benefit.

Relatedly, has anyone noticed the ocean World Wonders are pretty rubbish compared to Land ones? I mean, the Great Lighthouse and Colossus are cool, but they’ve got nothing on Pyramids. Also, we have Sand Petra, Tundra Petra, Snow Petra, Lake Petra and Jungle Petra. Where’s my Ocean Petra?

I know this is somewhat unpopular as well, but running fisheries with Liang, God of the Sea, and Audience Chamber is a fairly viable start that allows production in coastal cities. Yes it means giving up other pantheons and governor titles and ancestral hall, but there’s fair responses to those as well.

It’s a pain you can only choose one pantheon.

Civ VI is sort of crying out for a Social Policy type mechanism. Indeed, Pantheons are already sort of like Social Policies - it’s just that you only get one policy. Before you got to the ideology ones, you could probably have policies like Patronage (for buffing City States) or Empire (for buffing Colonial Cities). Some Social Policies like that could include buffs for Coastal Cities (... although, we’d just end up arguing whether it’s optimal to take coastal city policies over other production focused policies etc).

 

[kb27787]

This is plain wrong. You’re correct about ancestral hall, but you’re confusing audience chamber with a Civ V mechanic. Audience chamber affects any city you have a governor in. So, up to 7 cities, which can be changed at any time (or 8 if Ottomans).

Oops--my bad! I somehow got BNW tradition tree mixed up. Yeah +3 housing if governor, but -loyalty if no governor (I love it when AI builds it because I can easily flip cities during their dark age). I remember now.

So 7 max.... but that means you have to take crappy Moksha and Victor? (and Amani has to stay at home otherwise 6?) I would say even so it is still inferior... but for the sake of argument, let's say 21 extra housing total. Ancestral hall is 5 charges free, so let's be generous and round down to 2 housing (say you want a mine or chop with the remaining charge). All you need to do to outdo audience chamber in terms of housing is 11 cities. On top of that, you have improved tiles that you get to keep, AND +50% production to settlers.

 

[Archon_Wing]

However, unlike a coastal city, and inland city without fresh water can't build a harbor, and the marketplace will be missing out on at least +2 gold.

But even if the land city is dry, you can chop jungle, or gather something like wheat to bypass the housing restriction. You can gather fish too.... but you can't really replace it with anything except a fishery.

Sure thje coastal city may also be able to gather land resources, but it's really only 1 housing better than a dry city....

The 2 gold from a commercial hub isn't really relevant since most of the gold games from trade/great merchants anyways. I've actually started to realize wasting prime river space for that extra bit of gold is actually a bad habit.

Likewise, in the event I actually do settle coastal cities, I've realized that building the harbor first is often a mistake. It's often better to just use the chops to chop out a needed district and ignore the city entirely, or have it slowly build a harbor with the scraps. Building something so the city will grow and do something is just not as good as just doing whatever you needed in the first place in so many places in the game. It's like building Ruhr Valley so you can build more wonders later; often times you might as well just build the wonders outright.

The land city is often not forced to build a commercial district either; gold is not a victory condition and building too many trade districts sometimes isn't as effective. Most coastal cities need to build a harbor....

 

[kryat]

Oops--my bad! I somehow got BNW tradition tree mixed up. Yeah +3 housing if governor, but -loyalty if no governor (I love it when AI builds it because I can easily flip cities during their dark age). I remember now.

So 7 max.... but that means you have to take crappy Moksha and Victor? (and Amani has to stay at home otherwise 6?) I would say even so it is still inferior... but for the sake of argument, let's say 21 extra housing total. Ancestral hall is 5 charges free, so let's be generous and round down to 2 housing (say you want a mine or chop with the remaining charge). All you need to do to outdo audience chamber in terms of housing is 11 cities. On top of that, you have improved tiles that you get to keep, AND +50% production to settlers.

This is an interesting approach to the math, though last time I checked, builders give 3 charges, not 5 (though you can get to 5 under the right circumstances). In terms of housing, that means to get that surplus of 21 housing, you would need 42 farms, or 14 free builders, who spent all their charges on plantations, camps, farms, or fishing boats (not counting unique improvements). So that’s 14 settled cities to make up the housing? Plus the production to build the settlers (albeit, at a cheaper rate).