Why coastal cities are better than inland cities

[Bibor]

But even if the land city is dry, you can chop jungle, or gather something like wheat to bypass the housing restriction.

Was about to say exactly this.

We already established that pop after 10, heck I would say for most cities size after 4 is a questionable investment. With a few marshes and jungles growth is truly not an issue for most cities. So once you build chop in that campus or theatre + market/harbor, what good is additional population in that city anyway? 4-5 pop can be 20 hammers easy with the right tiles, sometimes a bit more, sometime a bit less. Additional population is truly best utilized to provide a bit more gold (coastal resources, luxury resources) or science (offtopic Ziggurats are freaking awesome) or whatever you need.

Since filler cities don't need to produce anything of relevance, a worked lux/fish tile yields at least 2 gold. At pop 4 that's at least 8 gold, but usually around 12. Have 5 cities like that and you're sitting at 60 GPT just from that.
I know people say gold is not relevant. Well yes, I started skipping marketplaces in my primary cities lately. Also skipping harbors if not coastal. NOT building what you don't need is a much better investment. Also, gold is not relevant, but it certainly helps. Buying buildings or units for your victory of choice certainly speeds up things quite a lot actually.

On every map, there will be quite a few cities that will grow to size 12-15 with minimum effort, and there will be a double of that number that will struggle. Why pushing something that's not supposed to work, except for sake of "roleplaying"?

And if you want to push your cities to pop 10 for the bonus, well, you can. In that case the priority is truly fresh water and a bucketload of food, even if it's otherwise a crap city. If it can chop in your campus or theatre square - it's good.

 

[Archon_Wing]

So once you build chop in that campus or theatre + market/harbor, what good is additional population in that city anyway? 4-5 pop can be 20 hammers easy with the right tiles, sometimes a bit more, sometime a bit less. Additional population is truly best utilized to provide a bit more gold (coastal resources, luxury resources) or science (offtopic Ziggurats are freaking awesome) or whatever you need.

Which is why I went one step further and just eliminated the harbor too. It gives stuff after you actually need it (same with fishieries).

But more production is good, and so is rationalism. In the above discussion, I was assuming dry "crap" cities that would have no use otherwise, but that's not all cities. Of course, it's much easier to settle a land city and have resources to gather in the first ring without having to grow out or buy tiles.

 

[Victoria]

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

but please do tell where do I state this?

Above, is calling you out for claiming coastal cities have 4 sea resources in their first 2 rings rude? I found a lot of your argument unfounded and responded as such.

 

[Bibor]

Above

I said Camps, pastures, improved sea resources also add 0.5 each, so usually you can get up to +5
If I remove the +, as you kindly asked, that's: 5.
So 3 from being coastal, one camp 0.5, one pasture 0.5, two fishing boats 1 that's 5.
A granary that's 7, w Lighthouse that's 8.

An inland city w/o fresh water in a similar scenario would be 2, one camp 0.5, one pasture 0.5, three farms 1.5 for a total of 5.5
With a granary 7.5.

 

[Victoria]

Fair enough, I misread and apologise for the barefaced lie comment.

 

[Archon_Wing]

So 7 max.... but that means you have to take crappy Moksha and Victor? (and Amani has to stay at home otherwise 6?)

You don't have to keep the governor in the city. You can run a housing scam where once you reach the desired population, you simply move the governor to another city; rinse and repeat. Once the city has grown, the lost housing doesn't shrink your city back. Sort of like what you can do with Amani and Hungary. Of course, disasters will screw you over.

So in practice, you don't need to recruit every governor, even if you should. AC can be good for those really bad starts where housing actually is a problem; or maybe if you're Russia and settling in the tundra so there's really nothing to improve anyways. I do use it for my quad district Great People Oracle rush, but it is by no means a great strategy.

Also I have no idea why they nerfed it; it's still clearly the worst building.

 

[Sostratus]

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.

This thread is starting to get spicy, I appreciate the reciprocated civility as well

You can gather fish too.... but you can't really replace it with anything except a fishery.

The crux of the thread. Since you cannot improve resourceless water (except fisheries and ultra late game,) land tiles, which already have better base yields, just pull massively ahead.
But then, as I mentioned in my last post, this has always been true in every civ game (except some Beyond Earth:Rising Tide shenanigans that we won't talk about) and the real disparity between coastal cities in 5 (where they were amazing) vs 6 is down to how unremarkable sea resources + trade actually are. As @Victoria points out, the housing thing is brutally crippling as well. Because the growth penalty starts before you max out housing, you often don't even notice. Perhaps the sea+freshwater housing should be additive. After all, the biggest cities in the world are almost all coastal river starts.

No one is arguing coastal cities are worthless or can't do anything, just that the opportunity cost (you could have settled inland) is usually not in your favor. I myself know it's probably not optimal but I love building harbors (Shipyard pride!)

Any expansionist will settle the coast eventually anyways. X arbitrary cities + 1 coastal city beats just having X arbitrary cities.

 

[Scaramanga]

This thread is starting to get spicy, I appreciate the reciprocated civility as well


The crux of the thread. Since you cannot improve resourceless water (except fisheries and ultra late game,) land tiles, which already have better base yields, just pull massively ahead.
But then, as I mentioned in my last post, this has always been true in every civ game (except some Beyond Earth:Rising Tide shenanigans that we won't talk about) and the real disparity between coastal cities in 5 (where they were amazing) vs 6 is down to how unremarkable sea resources + trade actually are. As @Victoria points out, the housing thing is brutally crippling as well. Because the growth penalty starts before you max out housing, you often don't even notice. Perhaps the sea+freshwater housing should be additive. After all, the biggest cities in the world are almost all coastal river starts.

No one is arguing coastal cities are worthless or can't do anything, just that the opportunity cost (you could have settled inland) is usually not in your favor. I myself know it's probably not optimal but I love building harbors (Shipyard pride!)

Any expansionist will settle the coast eventually anyways. X arbitrary cities + 1 coastal city beats just having X arbitrary cities.

I love coastal cities too and always look for coastal tiles with at least 2 adjacent sea resources for those harbour district triangles (maybe even diamonds), but only if I started on the coast or other inland spots have been taken, so it's part of a bigger strategy. Coastal cities tend to be more international in flavour because it's much easier to get around on the sea, so they can get bigger using alliance-based policies and a big navy, whereas inland would probably benefit more from Communist policies to get larger.

 

[DanQuayle]

Currently

• Coast 1f1g
• Fishing boat +1f, 0.5 housing
• Lighthouse +1f from coast tiles, +1 housing
• Fishery +1f, +1f if adjacent to sea resource, +1h if Liang is in the city

Comparisons

• Settling coast without sea resources is bad (3 housing)
• Settling coast with 2 sea resources is worst than settling fresh water [4 housing with 2 builder charges, may need to buy 1 tile vs 5 housing for free]
• Settling coast on a river mouth is the same as settling fresh water (housing-wise)
• Working a bare coast tile (1f1g) is worse than working unimproved grassland (2f) [nothing vs nothing]
• Working a bare coast tile in a city with a lighthouse (2f1g) is slightly better than working unimproved grassland (2f) [harbor + lighthouse vs nothing]
• Working a bare coast tile in a city with a lighthouse (2f1g) is worse than working a lone grassland farm (3f) [harbor + lighthouse vs 1 builder charge]
• Working a fishery not adjacent to a sea resource in a city without a lighthouse (2f1g) is worse than working a lone grassland farm (3f) [2 governor tiles + 1 builder charge vs 1 builder charge]
• Working a fishery adjacent to a sea resource in a city without a lighthouse (3f1g) is slightly better than working a lone grassland farm (3f) [2 governor tiles + 1 builder charge vs 1 builder charge]
• Working a fishery not adjacent to a sea resource in a city with a lighthouse (3f1g) is slightly better than working a lone grassland farm (3f) [harbor + lighthouse + 2 governor tiles + 1 builder charge vs 1 builder charge]
• Working a fishery not adjacent to a sea resource in a city with a lighthouse (3f1g) is worse than working a grassland farm in a feudalism triangle (4f) [harbor + lighthouse + 2 governor tiles + 1 builder charge vs feudalism civic + 3 builder charges]
• Working a fishery adjacent to a sea resource in a city with a lighthouse (4f1g) is slightly better than working a grassland farm in a feudalism triangle (4f) [harbor + lighthouse + 2 governor tiles + 1 builder charge vs feudalism civic + 3 builder charges]
• Working a fishery adjacent to a sea resource in a city with a lighthouse (4f1g) is worse than working a grassland farm with 4 adjacent farms post feudalism (5f) [harbor + lighthouse + 2 governor tiles + 1 builder charge vs feudalism civic + 5 builder charges]
• Working a fishery adjacent to a sea resource in a city with a lighthouse (4f1g) is worse than working a grassland farm with 6 adjacent farms post feudalism (6f) [harbor + lighthouse + 2 governor tiles + 1 builder charge vs feudalism civic + 7 builder charges]
• Working unimproved fish (2f1g) is worse than working unimproved grassland wheat (3f) [nothing vs nothing]
• Working fish with a fishing boat (3f1g) is worse working grassland wheat with a lone farm in a city without a watermill (4f) [1 builder charge vs 1 builder charge]
• Working fish with a fishing boat in a city with a lighthouse (4f1g) is worse than working grassland wheat with a lone farm in a city with a watermill (5f) [harbor + lighthouse + 1 builder charge vs watermill + 1 builder charge]
• Working fish with a fishing boat in a city with a lighthouse (4f1g) is worse than working grassland wheat farm in a feudalism triangle in a city with a watermill (6f) [harbor + lighthouse + 1 builder charge vs watermill + feudalism civic + 3 builder charges]
• Working fish with a fishing boat in a city with a lighthouse (4f1g) is worse than working grassland wheat farm with 4 adjacent farms post feudalism and a watermill (7f) [harbor + lighthouse + 1 builder charge vs watermill + feudalism civic + 5 builder charges]
• Working fish with a fishing boat in a city with a lighthouse (4f1g) is worse than working grassland wheat farm with 6 adjacent farms post feudalism and a watermill (8f) [harbor + lighthouse + 1 builder charge vs watermill + feudalism civic + 7 builder charges]

Proposed changes:

• Coast 2f (instead of 1f1g)
• Fishing Boat provides 1 housing (instead of 0.5 housing)
• Lighthouse +1g from coast tiles (instead of 1f from coast tiles), +2h1g from sea resources
• Fishery +1f1h if adjacent to sea resources (instead of +1f), provides 0.5 housing

After changes:

• Settling coast without sea resources is still bad (3 housing)
• Settling coast with 2 sea resources is slightly worst than settling fresh water [5 housing with 2 builder charges, may need to buy 1 tile vs nothing]
• Settling coast on a river mouth is now the best for settling (housing-wise) if there are sea resources in range
• Working a bare coast tile (2f) is the same as working unimproved grassland (2f) [nothing vs nothing]
• Working a bare coast tile in a city with a lighthouse (2f1g) is slightly better than working unimproved grassland (2f) [harbor + lighthouse vs nothing]
• Working a bare coast tile in a city with a lighthouse (2f1g) is worse than working a lone grassland farm (3f) [harbor + lighthouse vs 1 builder charge]
• Working a fishery not adjacent to a sea resource in a city without a lighthouse (3f) is the same as working a lone grassland farm (3f) [2 governor tiles + 1 builder charge vs 1 builder charge]
• Working a fishery adjacent to a sea resource in a city without a lighthouse (4f1h) is better than working a lone grassland farm (3f) [2 governor tiles + 1 builder charge vs 1 builder charge]
• Working a fishery not adjacent to a sea resource in a city with a lighthouse (3f1g) is slightly better than working a lone grassland farm (3f) [harbor + lighthouse + 2 governor tiles + 1 builder charge vs 1 builder charge]
• Working a fishery not adjacent to a sea resource in a city with a lighthouse (3f1g) is worse than working a grassland farm in a feudalism triangle (4f) [harbor + lighthouse + 2 governor tiles + 1 builder charge vs feudalism civic + 3 builder charges]
• Working a fishery adjacent to a sea resource in a city with a lighthouse (4f1h1g) is better than working a grassland farm in a feudalism triangle (4f) [harbor + lighthouse + 2 governor tiles + 1 builder charge vs feudalism civic + 3 builder charges]
• Working a fishery adjacent to a sea resource in a city with a lighthouse (4f1h1g) is slightly better (arguably) than working a grassland farm with 4 adjacent farms post feudalism (5f) [harbor + lighthouse + 2 governor tiles + 1 builder charge vs feudalism civic + 5 builder charges]
• Working a fishery adjacent to a sea resource in a city with a lighthouse (4f1h1g) is worse than working a grassland farm with 6 adjacent farms post feudalism (6f) [harbor + lighthouse + 2 governor tiles + 1 builder charge vs feudalism civic + 7 builder charges]
• Working unimproved fish in a city without a lighthouse (3f) is the same as working unimproved grassland wheat in a city without a watermill (3f) [nothing vs nothing]
• Working fish with a fishing boat in a city without a lighthouse (4f) is the same as working grassland wheat with a lone farm in a city without a watermill (4f) [1 builder charge vs 1 builder charge]
• Working fish with a fishing boat in a city with a lighthouse (4f2h2g) is better than working grassland wheat with a lone farm in a city with a watermill (5f) [harbor + lighthouse + 1 builder charge vs watermill + 1 builder charge]
• Working fish with a fishing boat in a city with a lighthouse (4f2h2g) is better than working grassland wheat farm in a feudalism triangle in a city with a watermill (6f) [harbor + lighthouse + 1 builder charge vs watermill + feudalism civic + 3 builder charges]
• Working fish with a fishing boat in a city with a lighthouse (4f2h2g) is slightly worse (arguably) than working grassland wheat farm with 4 adjacent farms post feudalism and a watermill (7f) [harbor + lighthouse + 1 builder charge vs watermill + feudalism civic + 5 builder charges]
• Working fish with a fishing boat in a city with a lighthouse (4f2h2g) is worse than working grassland wheat farm with 6 adjacent farms post feudalism and a watermill (8f) [harbor + lighthouse + 1 builder charge vs watermill + feudalism civic + 7 builder charges]

Notes

• The color coding evaluation does not take into account [the investment cost required], only the tile yield differential (1f=1h=3g; green > 0.66 diff; red < 0.66 diff; else black)
• Two early governor titles invested in Liang is a big investment
• The Harbor + Lighthouse also provide benefits outside tile yield improvement (namely a trade route)
• This analysis only observes the early game and excludes effects from Cartography, Shipyard, Seaport, Replaceable Parts, Plastics, etc.

tldr;
Now, coastal tiles have a lot of red = bad
After proposed changes, less red, more balanced considering the investment required

 

[Ziad]

I am genuinely confused why people assume coastal cities lack fresh water by default. Does one hold the same assumption for inland cities? I almost always settle on fresh water or near a mountain range, at least in my core cities.

I do like some ideas in this thread though like changing some yield distributions.

Also they should make water tiles increase in yields after hurricanes.

 

[kryat]

I am genuinely confused why people assume coastal cities lack fresh water by default. Does one hold the same assumption for inland cities? I almost always settle on fresh water or near a mountain range, at least in my core cities.

I do like some ideas in this thread though like changing some yield distributions.

Also they should make water tiles increase in yields after hurricanes.

Agreed. Many seem to act as if land tiles get freshwater by default. You settle near rivers and lakes. Same goes with coasts.

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

i am curious as to why we are comparing both land locked and coastal cities under same/similar situations that are "perfect" or better than average/standart.
if we are talking the best possible outcome ( since i decide where to put the city , i am an unlucky guy , usually i dont get to put my cities in perfect locations , maybe 1 in 10 cities ) then of course coastal gives more options , but if we are talking about filler cities or built for resources or strategic decisions etc which seems to me the vast majority of cities are in this category , then coastal suddenly does lack even the basic requirements that you have to spend gold/hammer/faith to negate and honestly for the cities in this category that would hurt my economy and strategy a lot to spend it.

 

[Victoria]

The color coding evaluation does not take into account [the investment cost required],

Great effort on the thread. I get frustrated with the black as my mind says to me that is even but with investment it is not.
Also as @Sostratus said, “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”

I am genuinely confused why people assume coastal cities lack fresh water by default

The issue if you want to settle all along a coast rather than just the odd coastal tile is you have to settle cities without freshwater quite often.

Also they should make water tiles increase in yields after hurricanes

why? Does it happen IRL? The real issue with hurricanes is it can take hundreds of years to repair districts after.... and you can buy a district building with gold so why can you not repair one with gold?

 

[Scaramanga]

The more water tiles a coastal city has, the more tiles your damaged navy can use to heal.
They also heal faster if they're able to access the city centre.
Owning water tiles that occupy choke-points forces other civs to trade for open borders or declare flimsy wars.
Not the best places for capitals but great for naval domination.

 

[Pietato]

Agreed. Many seem to act as if land tiles get freshwater by default. You settle near rivers and lakes. Same goes with coasts.

You settle coastal cities by the resorces required to make them not completely suck. Fresh water is a secondary.

 

[Ziad]

You settle coastal cities by the resorces required to make them not completely suck. Fresh water is a secondary.

No it is not, and even then one can apply a similar argument to any city especially in the early game.

Coastal doesnt mean no fresh water.

The issue if you want to settle all along a coast rather than just the odd coastal tile is you have to settle cities without freshwater quite often.

Sure that can happen (especially for satellite cities), but in that case you've made investments in coastal settling which perhaps means you're playing a coastal civ or a pantheon that supports that gameplay ... so standard arguments are warped.

why? Does it happen IRL? The real issue with hurricanes is it can take hundreds of years to repair districts after.... and you can buy a district building with gold so why can you not repair one with gold?

Hurricanes transport fish from one place to another. Duh

I'm fairly certain volcanic ash doesn't immediately increase yields either. It's just for gameplay purposes.

I wouldn't be opposed to repairing districts with gold, especially when coastal cities tend to be more gold focused than production.

 

[Scaramanga]

Hurricanes transport fish from one place to another. Duh

I'm fairly certain volcanic ash doesn't immediately increase yields either. It's just for gameplay purposes.

I wouldn't be opposed to repairing districts with gold, especially when coastal cities tend to be more gold focused than production.

Aaaah yes, the same way tornadoes transport cows.

 

[Victoria]

wouldn't be opposed to repairing districts with gold, especially when coastal cities tend to be more gold focused than production.

Sure, just saying that when a hurricane hits my coastal city it takes most of my production, all my districts and buildings and takes maybe 80+ turns to resolve.

 

[Kwami]

The issue if you want to settle all along a coast rather than just the odd coastal tile is you have to settle cities without freshwater quite often.

Sure, but only a few leaders really want to settle every city on the coast. In those cases, they usually have bonuses that help to make up for always being on the coast. And, even then, you'll find plenty of rivers and nearby mountains for getting fresh water into your coastal cities. In most games, you'll probably have a few coastal cities and a few inland cities. And, you'll settle where the water, mountains, and resources are.

It seems to me that most of the "analysis" in this thread assumes no fresh water, 100% land tiles, and Liang in every coastal city. All of that is nonsensical.

why? Does it happen IRL? The real issue with hurricanes is it can take hundreds of years to repair districts after.... and you can buy a district building with gold so why can you not repair one with gold?

Because they caved and added bonuses resources for blizzards, etc. Hurricanes kind of stand out now. Something about not punishing players too much, or some such nonsense.

 

[Ziad]

Aaaah yes, the same way tornadoes transport cows.

It was a joke. Lower your hostility.