Working the Water - When the land tiles suck

[The Duff Man]

I have a game going on Prince level. I am China, Financial and Industrious.

My starting location is not great. I am on a peninsula without much good terrain. Enough good squares for a few cities, but nowhere to grow.

Without many cities (and not much gold) I am going to get behind in techs. But new cities will not be very productive with no good terrain. So I built the Colossus (Industrious and have Copper). All you need is a city on the coast and a lighthouse. Once the lighthouse is built you can use all those coastal tiles as 2 food, 4 commerce squares! Next get to work on a library and these little cities with crappy tiles all around them are going to be pumping out a good amount of research for the early ages.

 

[Good Omens]

Financial+Colossus+lots of shore line is a great combination. Unfortunately, you will lack in production in that situation, but you will have no shortage of food and money, especially if you can get Open Border agreements and set up lots of trade routes.

 

[The Duff Man]

Good point. These cities will be strictly science specialty ones. Will have to limit production to buildings that increase beakers, as each building will take quite a long time to build. If there are a few forests nearby that would help. Switch your citizens to work the forests until the buildings are complete, then back to the water.

Core two or three cities will be needed for military/wonder production.

Not a great strategy overall, but a good combo if you are stuck with a crumby starting location, or maybe an island location (with lots of cities along shores to maximize the effect)

 

[MyOtherName]

What's the gold-shield ratio for rushing buildings? This might be especially nice if you can get the pyramids in a core city.

 

[Luhh]

The reason you want coast cities is because they generate almost twice as much trade, plus that harbor increases it even further. Open border agreements and foreign trade and coast cities is the way to go. Decide yourself how much water you want, but don't overdo it unless there are fish/clam/crab tiles, then reach for those. Very powerful early game. Especially with financial.

 

[segawang]

Financial itself gives enough reason to work on the costal tiles, even if you don't have the Colossus.

 

[Gufnork]

Don't forget the Great Lighthouse, it will be great later in the game. As for production in these cities, there's always . If you have enough food an engineer or an Angkor Wat priest might not be a bad idea.

 

[anton_z1]

You dont need to get all your cities on a crap terrain. Build one next to a hUGE forest and it will compensate for all the othr costal ones .