Why not Harbor City State?

[Dexas]

So, I have a dilemma. And it's a strange one... One, because I never noticed it before... and secondly, now that I noticed it I don't understand WHY it hasn't be resolved yet.

I'm talking about City State envoy bonuses and how harbors don't have them. It's perplexing to me honestly. I generally play my civilization 6 games by going either harbors or commercial districts. Not both, as the fact that you can't get the trade routes from both makes me feel like im losing out.

But a friend of mine, who I put onto this game with this expansion asked a simply question. Why don't harbors have a city state bonus? Industrial zones, campuses, theater squares, commercial, and holy sites all have one... even encampments.

I can understand leaving Entertainment districts out. They don't give a 'yield'. But why not have a 'harbor' city state? I mean, it has yields. A little bit of gold. A little bit of food. And a little bit of production.

With the revamp of how city states now give yields based off of buildings, they could of easily mixed the harbor buildings into the city state yields. Or made an entirely new city state that gave bonus food. In civ 5 there was a city state that increased food. I don't see why they cant make harbors the food city state. As of now, I feel jibed when making harbors.

Can someone explain to me why Harbors get jibbed? And can someone mention this to a developer so they can look into this?

 

[Leyrann]

You mean maritime city states?

Good question, one that's frequently asked on the forums as well. Maybe they'll introduce it in the second expansion.

It'd probably just grant food though, like in Civ V.

 

[PeterChu]

Feel the same. I often do a lot of explorations and colonization plans in and after the renaissance era, the lack of maritime city states leaves me no choice other than England to play with.

 

[kaspergm]

That's a really good question. We even had Maritime City States as a thing in Civ5, and although I guess it's not completely comparable (those being linked to food rather than actual naval stuff), it wouldn't be a stretch to introduce them again in Civ6. It's not like the Harbor is a super powerful district as things stand.

 

[PeterChu]

Yes, maritime city states in Civ 5 is about food rather than naval stuff. But for CIv 6, they should be related to the harbor districts benefits, though one of new governors could help as well for those cities with a lot of ocean tiles to growth in terms of food.

 

[acluewithout]

I think it's intentional - see here - but I don't quite know why. Overall, I actually like that Harbours don't have their own city state type. It would be kinda bland if they got one.

I think this is been debated to death elsewhere, and by people more clever than me, but I think harbours and coastal cities are actually pretty strong overall.

 

[PeterChu]

But it is more about the the benefits from the Royal Navy Dock Yards of the England. Of course, that makes this civ unique for those prefer maritime strategy and mid-game or late-game colonization plans.

 

[Pietato]

Should be added to Commercial ones somehow. An either or bonus.

 

[acluewithout]

Sorry, but the bit I was referring to re: Maritime City States was this:

It’s weird Harbours don’t get their own city state type, isn’t it?

It must be deliberate. People have been talking about it for ages, and there were Maritime CSs in that one scenario, but yet Firaxis have never added them. I’d love to know what the design or game play reason for that is. Maybe because Harbours produce mixed yields - gold, hammers, food, and science?

I actually like that Harbours don’t have their own city state type, even if it makes them a little weaker in some situations. First, because I think more city state types would make things feel really cluttered. Second, because the gap makes for interesting tactical decisions. Like, I have lots of merchant city states, so should I put envoys into those and build CHs, or am I going to put my envoys into science or culture city states (and so harbours are as good as CHs really)?

Harbours do ( kind of ) benefit from certain suzerain bonus - Auckland, Nan Madol, Lisbon, Mohenjo Daro. Again, makes life interesting because it’s so situational. A few more suzerains that benefit harbours more - maybe a science one - would be fun. Maybe third tier harbour buildings could benefit from mercantile city states?

 

[Chocolate Pi]

Maritime bonuses are spread out among other classifications of city states.

Auckland (Industrial) and Libson (Trade) have maritime-specific bonuses, and Mohenjo Daro + Nan Madol (Cultural) are both disproportionately valuable to maritime civs. The bonuses for Buenos Aries (Industrial), Amsterdam/Antinoch/BandarBrunei/Jakarta (Trade), Hattusa (Scientific), and Kabul (Militaristic) also apply just as much (if not more) to Harbors as their usual districts.

Why spread it out like this? Harbors do not have their own unique resource, but are a jack-of-all-trades: they focus on a mix of food, production, coin, and unit-production. They also combo well with all other districts.

On the other hand, Harbor-exclusive resources would mean these city states are 100% useless to a non-maritime civ--even more useless than Religious city-states to a non-religious civ, who at least still has tertiary value from faith.


There were a lot of unanswered questions when civ 6 released, and Harbors were hot garbage. But now, they are rather solid options and combo well with plenty of city states.

 

[Magil]

Would it be all right if Trade-based city-states just gave their gold bonus to Lighthouses and Shipyards in addition to Markets and Banks? I'm considering making a mod to that effect. Probably making it so that it will affect one or the other in the city but not both.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Most trade based city-states in real life are on the coast anyway or right near it: Lisbon, Muscat, Zanzibar, Bandar Brunei.
Antioch is close but it's also on a river.
Besides it's not as exclusive as the others as any city-state on the coast will eventually build a harbor.

 

[Chocolate Pi]

Would it be all right if Trade-based city-states just gave their gold bonus to Lighthouses and Shipyards in addition to Markets and Banks? I'm considering making a mod to that effect. Probably making it so that it will affect one or the other in the city but not both.

This main issue with this is how unique Harbors are.

Due to their jack-of-all-trades design, the only thing stopping you from building nothing but Harbors is the ramping district cost. Even Science matters less, since you are fixated on only the very top edge of the tech tree! (Having no Campuses will slow your naval military progress less than your land military.)

This is not true for any other district/resource. If I try to just collect all the Science city-states and spam nothing but Campuses, I'm going to grind to a halt. Same with all the others. But Harbors? They offer the growth, production, coin, and even a trade route to extend that growth to your next city with its next Harbor. +4 gold per city per city-state, would feed this spiral.

Harbors currently work really well as a well-rounded companion to any other strategy. I'd be wary of anything that shifts more in the direction of All Harbors vs. No Harbors as exclusive paths.

 

[acluewithout]

I think Harbours have also been slightly buffed in R&F with the addition of new sea resources (so potentially more adjacency bonuses for your Harbour).

 

[Ornen]

I think Harbours have also been slightly buffed in R&F with the addition of new sea resources (so potentially more adjacency bonuses for your Harbour).

Except the past couple Patches removed sea resources almost completely -- my past couple games I've seen at most 2-3 in my vicinity, fewer than 20 across a large sized map. Needs to be fixed.

 

[Magil]

This main issue with this is how unique Harbors are.

Due to their jack-of-all-trades design, the only thing stopping you from building nothing but Harbors is the ramping district cost. Even Science matters less, since you are fixated on only the very top edge of the tech tree! (Having no Campuses will slow your naval military progress less than your land military.)

This is not true for any other district/resource. If I try to just collect all the Science city-states and spam nothing but Campuses, I'm going to grind to a halt. Same with all the others. But Harbors? They offer the growth, production, coin, and even a trade route to extend that growth to your next city with its next Harbor. +4 gold per city per city-state, would feed this spiral.

Harbors currently work really well as a well-rounded companion to any other strategy. I'd be wary of anything that shifts more in the direction of All Harbors vs. No Harbors as exclusive paths.

I mean, the thing is, Harbors don't really do very much except provide you with a Trade Route (a Commercial Hub can do this too), unless you actually have water. They are very situational since they rely not only on the terrain for their adjacency bonus, but also because their benefits really only matter if you have significant water, whether it's for the food/gold/production from the buildings or the naval power. If anything encourages an "all harbor/no harbor dichotomy" it's going to be the map type because of how terrain-dependent they are, and I don't feel like that's going to change either way.

 

[Very Mad Max]

Venice could be a city-state (but I would like it to be similar to that of Civ 5, as in a full civ without settlers). Suzerian bonus: Adjacency bonus from harbors increased by 25%. All trade routes sent to Venice receives +1 gold per specialty district of the home city.

 

[pgm123]

It would honestly make sense to get a City State per district type, with the exception of aqueduct and neighborhood. So they need to add City States for Amenities. Not sure how that would work or what you'd even call them.

 

[UWHabs]

It would honestly make sense to get a City State per district type, with the exception of aqueduct and neighborhood. So they need to add City States for Amenities. Not sure how that would work or what you'd even call them.

Well, don't know what exactly to call them, but they would be a simple +1 amenity in capital / +1 amenity per arena/Ferris Wheel / +1 amenity per zoo/Aquarium. You'd probably pick cities like Monaco, Macau, etc... You could even change the system up a little bit so that city-states can be cross-listed, and will change what type they are based on the game. So maybe Auckland is a maritime/industrial city-state, where each game that it appears it's a 50/50 shot which category it ends up in. Could still keep the same suzerain bonus.

 

[Dexas]

I still don't think entertainment city states are needed, as being the suzerain of a city state gives your amenities anyway. But it would be nice to get amenities without fighting over suzerain... I still would rather have a food city state that was for harbors be introduced into the game.

Why doesn't food have a city state? Would food be an op yield for a city state to give? I don't think so. I constantly find myself no where near my housing limit and constantly wonder how the hell am I going to raise my population in my cities.