a review of the most underappreciated building of CIV: the harbor

[Cort Haus]

Yes, 50% beats 25% but If I'm looking at a newbie city with few, small trade routes and few food or hammers I'd rather bump up pop with gran/lighthouse first and then take 150% of the higher trade route income.

[DeepO]

CH, a granary I can understand. I am trying to make a point, which means you have to exagerate a bit sometimes

The lighthouse, though, is in 95% of cases coming after a harbor. More pop=higher maintenance. No harbor means no trade... which means some other city can't build another settler or units as your empire is lacking cash.

What I am trying to achieve is that people don't put a harbor on the 5th or 6th place in their build queue. It should always be in your first 3 builds in coastal cities. It's just too cheap for what it gives you in return, not using it is wasting opportunities.

DeepO

[Heroes]

Originally posted by DeepO
CH, a granary I can understand. I am trying to make a point, which means you have to exagerate a bit sometimes

The lighthouse, though, is in 95% of cases coming after a harbor. More pop=higher maintenance. No harbor means no trade... which means some other city can't build another settler or units as your empire is lacking cash.

What I am trying to achieve is that people don't put a harbor on the 5th or 6th place in their build queue. It should always be in your first 3 builds in coastal cities. It's just too cheap for what it gives you in return, not using it is wasting opportunities.

DeepO

1. Forge; 2. Granary; 3. Harbor (if having enough land tiles before entering water). Good, first 3 to me! :lol

But in any case, it would be extremely difficult to convince me to build forge and granary after any other things.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Heroes
But in any case, it would be extremely difficult to convince me to build forge and granary after any other things.

All I can do, is ask that you try it before making up your mind.

There is no fixed way in CIV, and this includes your city's build queue... In some instances a granary and forge is more useful than harbors. You already know those, they're obvious. What is not so easy to see, is that harbors are as important as the other two, and in many cases should take precedence.

But let me put it in perspective:
1. Your starting position will dictate what you go for. The harbor-first strategy is not a good one when you are getting beaten upon by the AI... go for military stuff first (this includes forges). Harbors are important when you've got a relatively large empire, and are looking to expand further without crashing your economy. Expansion can come from settling or conquest.

2. In many cases, I will try to beeline for harbors. Which means that pottery comes late: either I take it while going to alphabet, or I get it from trade around the same time my first harbors come online. Also note that cheap granaries means cheap harbors: both are part of the expansionist trait.

3. In most cases, harbors will come before forges. Metal casting is not so easy to get through tech trade as it is relatively expensive. So either you go for it asap, or you need to wait.

4. So, around the time harbors become available, your first cities have grown a bit, and granaries are less important to build asap. Waiting another 10 turns for your granary is hardly noticeable in growth. Waiting 10 turns on your harbor means 10 turns less commerce, which easily adds up to an extra 30 beakers per city.

5. The same goes for forges: building a forge first will only speed up the harbor following it by one turn, 2 at most. More importantly, in already settled cities the forge will deminish the maximum pop by one. Especially at the time when you're still researching worker-techs, you won't have every resource hooked up. Either a granary or harbor can give you the extra health needed to support a forge.

6. The early game centers around gold and beakers. There are starts which will get you ahead in this area (e.g. the lib-first in your capital, where 2 scientists give you more research than all your other cities combined. Similar to a market-first strategy with merchants, using the generated GMs to add to your money advantage in the capital). Harbor-first is one of those strategies, and has the advantage of not focussing on beakers or gold exclusively, but will improve both. This can also be achieved with lots of cottages (the AI way), but these will take time to grow, and are at a cost of either production or growth.

7. Later on in the game, you will typically conquer cities which are already a good size. granaries are not important at all: first you want to have some infrastructure in place that will pay for your new city. Courthouses can be important, but many cities will gain more commerce by building a harbor. If you've got the choice (i.e. not under cultural pressure), harbors will always beat markets, libs, unis, and other commerce modifiers. Forges and factories can be an option if your treasury is not hurting, but the situations are rare where you want to make a city a production powerhouse before making sure it pays itself.

8. Harbors are cheap, and are ideal to build in commerce-specialized cities. Unless I'm industrial, I will not build forges everywhere: if it will take too long to get profit from the investment it's simply not worth it (Return On Investment calculations in CIV ). This is the extreme, of course: most cities will at some point in the game build a forge, and so are better off with building it fast. However, early on commerce is more a factor than production, which means that building forges first is not the right priority. You gain more by building harbors.

9. Add all this, and harbors become your first option you've got when helping your commerce situation. It doesn't ask you to specialize cities in the same extreme as every coastal city will add to the general count (whereas research typically comes from 2 or 3 centers in a 12-city empire, meaning only 2-3 libs.). It also is instantaneous: cottages take time to build, harbors give their bonus the moment they complete.

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As I said, all I can ask is that you test it out. I'm sure that if you play a game with a focus (e.g. an archipelago as an expansionist, with beeline for the great lighthouse and harbors) will not mean that your next 'normal' games will all rely on harbors solely. But in general, you will build them sooner, and have a better idea of what makes them so great.

DeepO

[Heroes]

Originally posted by DeepO

All I can do, is ask that you try it before making up your mind.

There is no fixed way in CIV, and this includes your city's build queue... In some instances a granary and forge is more useful than harbors. You already know those, they're obvious. What is not so easy to see, is that harbors are as important as the other two, and in many cases should take precedence.

Thanks for your many points. But I have some questions.

1. Granary speeds growth. If leader is financial or you get colossus, a sea tile generates 3 gold. If both, sea tile 4 gold, ocean tile 3 gold. That looks massive.

2. Forge reduces health by 1, but it doesn't really matter since you normally have some resources to keep a small city healthy. I don't think it's fair to say forge will reduce pop by 1.

3. How much does trade route earn? Somehow I just see a city has several +7 trade routes, some other cities +3, but most cities +1 or +2. I don't know the math determining trade route, so it's too early to conclude, but anyway it seems that trade route is not too profitable overall. For this reason, I prefer representation + mercantillism (free specialist and +3 beaker, great synergy) over free market (does it have synergy with any civic? universal suffrage?).

It would be great if some one can point out how eaxatly trade route is determined, so that we can predict its benefit.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Heroes
1. Granary speeds growth. If leader is financial or you get colossus, a sea tile generates 3 gold. If both, sea tile 4 gold, ocean tile 3 gold. That looks massive.

This is not the issue here. Sure, more pop will mean more commerce, but it doesn't harm you a lot when you build your granary after your harbor. You can catch up in growth easily by just using food tiles (and thus not commerce tiles) for a few turns. You can afford to do so, because your harbor is guaranteeing a good commerce (not a great commerce but certainly a good one).

As to Colossus: I can't imagine a situation where the Great Lighthouse is not a better wonder than the Colossus, but add both together and you've got a killer combination. The Colossus is relatively shortlived, and only provide bonuses for true commerce cities. The Great Lighthouse + harbors will deliver their bonus much longer, and for all coastal cities: it's not uncommon to have games where between 50% and 80% of commerce is coming from trade routes alone. Harbors will make coastal barracks cities good commerce centers, the Colossus won't do that.

2. Forge reduces health by 1, but it doesn't really matter since you normally have some resources to keep a small city healthy. I don't think it's fair to say forge will reduce pop by 1.

I don't know what level you're playing, but at Monarch and above, health is most certainly the limiting factor. A forge is costing you 4-5 base commerce each turn, which can translate to up to 10 bpt. Harbors as well as granaries become important for their health bonus: that in itself is enough reason to put them before any other building, but before forges in particular.

3. How much does trade route earn? Somehow I just see a city has several +7 trade routes, some other cities +3, but most cities +1 or +2. I don't know the math determining trade route, so it's too early to conclude, but anyway it seems that trade route is not too profitable overall. For this reason, I prefer representation + mercantillism (free specialist and +3 beaker, great synergy) over free market (does it have synergy with any civic? universal suffrage?).

Different play strategies: in mercantilism you will only get the bonusses from your own cities. Which means that getting a +7 trade route will be quite good.

Without mercantilism, and with either the largest cities in the world or close to the largest cities in the world, you will gain in the best cities +7 around the time your first harbor gets built (so before currency, 1 trade route only). +1 is an exception, reserved for size 1-2 cities. I don't know the exact formulae, but large cities are definately worth it. Running a health deficit, just to get better trade routes is in most cases profitable as well.

As to the synergy of free market: there doesn't have to be such an obvious synergy with another civic. Free market is great in heavily cultured, or coastal empires. In your empire, an extra trade route (without mercantilism if possible) will be worth 10 - 20% of your gross income, depending on the size of your cities. Coastal cities get increased benefits because of harbors, so the effect is increased. Compare an archipelago map with free market and harbors everywhere to mercantilism, and I wouldn't be surprised if the gross income of free market is double that of mercantilism. That includes science, btw, as science is only part of your 'gross income'.

Mercantilism has its place, of course. But when all harbors are online, most situations will prefer free market.

DeepO

[Heroes]

Originally posted by DeepO

2. Forge reduces health by 1, but it doesn't really matter since you normally have some resources to keep a small city healthy. I don't think it's fair to say forge will reduce pop by 1.

I don't know what level you're playing, but at Monarch and above, health is most certainly the limiting factor. A forge is costing you 4-5 base commerce each turn, which can translate to up to 10 bpt. Harbors as well as granaries become important for their health bonus: that in itself is enough reason to put them before any other building, but before forges in particular.

Thanks. I just won a settler and a noble , and am wining a monarch game. BTW, for civ 3 I think myself to be of deity level skill, but I still begin from settler here.

In that monarch game as Inca, I quickly got sheep, rice, clam, and pig. So a city with forge can at least healthily grow to 5, then it gets enough production to build granary and harbor quickly. Well, probably this has to do with luck and civ: quechuas capture Paris and eliminate Napolean. Maybe 4 early health resource is not common at higher levels?

[Krill]

DeepO, would you care to explain how trade routes work? I have no idea at all how they mechanics work, apart from bigger cities give bigger trade routes...

[Heroes]

Originally posted by Krill
DeepO, would you care to explain how trade routes work? I have no idea at all how they mechanics work, apart from bigger cities give bigger trade routes...

Yeah, that's the key question. If we can predict trade route bonus, then the comparison can be rational.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Heroes
Thanks. I just won a settler and a noble , and am wining a monarch game. BTW, for civ 3 I think myself to be of deity level skill, but I still begin from settler here.

I was not questioning your ability to play, or to observe things and try to maximize your play: you're analysing stuff after a couple of weeks of play. Obviously you must have some idea of what you're doing. However, Monarch changes CIV profoundly, and it is easy to get stuck in traditions from high-level civ3 play.

In that monarch game as Inca, I quickly got sheep, rice, clam, and pig. So a city with forge can at least healthily grow to 5, then it gets enough production to build granary and harbor quickly. Well, probably this has to do with luck and civ: quechuas capture Paris and eliminate Napolean. Maybe 4 early health resource is not common at higher levels?

Sheep, rice, and clam: 3 worker-techs. And in total 4 resources that need to be connected... my first harbor is built in a coastal capital before I can improve 3 tiles, and I generally won't have those 3 worker techs + the wheel either. Note that you will need mining to get harbors, but mining never gives health, only happy.

The sooner you get a harbor out, the sooner the benefit kicks in. In the super-early game, you won't have the resources to do otherwise: you will need health buildings asap. In that stage, harbors can give you more production than forges do... it's not because the description says it increases production by 25% that there aren't any better options out there.

DeepO

[Heroes]

Originally posted by DeepO
I was not questioning your ability to play, or to observe things and try to maximize your play: you're analysing stuff after a couple of weeks of play. Obviously you must have some idea of what you're doing. However, Monarch changes CIV profoundly, and it is easy to get stuck in traditions from high-level civ3 play.

Sheep, rice, and clam: 3 worker-techs. And in total 4 resources that need to be connected... my first harbor is built in a coastal capital before I can improve 3 tiles, and I generally won't have those 3 worker techs + the wheel either. Note that you will need mining to get harbors, but mining never gives health, only happy.

The sooner you get a harbor out, the sooner the benefit kicks in. In the super-early game, you won't have the resources to do otherwise: you will need health buildings asap. In that stage, harbors can give you more production than forges do... it's not because the description says it increases production by 25% that there aren't any better options out there.

DeepO

Yeah, civ 4 is quite different from civ 3, -- one building I like a lot is forge!

I really have question about your saying on worker techs here. Sheep and pig needs animal husbandry, clam fishing, rice agriculture (Inca starts with this). All these are cheap techs. OTOH, harbor needs compass, which is much more expensive, isn't it? I guess in most cases I will research these 3 worker techs before compass: animal husbandry for production, fishing for many water resources (food and health), agriculture for farm. Certainly, this depends on resources. If I have only 1 or 2 health resources and they are from water, then it makes a lot of sense to build harbor asap. But that's basically for growth, not for trade route (a nice side effect though).

[Blake]

I don't believe I've seen it mentioned that Forges also give +1 happy for Gold/Silver/Gems (it took me several games to notice this!!!). Thus if you have 1 or more of those luxuries, and more happy than health problems, the forge gets bumped up on the priority list considerably.

I've been using harbors a lot more since reading this thread but I'm unconvinced. Most small cities only have 1 commerce traderoutes, and they usually stay at 1 with the harbor. Or is trade actually fractional amounts and it could be that under the covers the trade income is indeed being increased by 50%?

What difficulty are you playing on DeepO? I suppose at higher difficulty levels the AI bases grow a lot faster and thus make for better trade routes... also what map type/size?

I think I'm still missing something because I'm not really seeing the benefits of harbors to such a degree.
edit: and by that I mean I'm seeing precisely 0 benefit, not just less benefit than other builds.

[Heroes]

BTW: The biggest difference of civ 4 from civ 3, as I feel, is that tech determines war in a much higher degree.

In civ 3, sword can fight up to musket, cavalry can fight up to infantry, -- and the keys are artillery type units and army.

In civ 4, there are more units and they counter each other, so it seems fighting a advanced foe becomes much harder. Therefore, sacrificing some production to keep high commerce and research makes much more sense. I guess this is the spirit of focusing on harbor etc.

[Heroes]

Originally posted by Blake
I don't believe I've seen it mentioned that Forges also give +1 happy for Gold/Silver/Gems (it took me several games to notice this!!!). Thus if you have 1 or more of those luxuries, and more happy than health problems, the forge gets bumped up on the priority list considerably.

What do you mean? A city with forge gains 2 happiness from gold or silver or gem? That's interesting!

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Krill
DeepO, would you care to explain how trade routes work? I have no idea at all how they mechanics work, apart from bigger cities give bigger trade routes...

Krill, I don't know it either. The reason is twofold: there is only a limited amount of free time I'm willing to spend on re-engineering stuff, and you might not see it but I'm spending a lot of that on combat. Something's cooking Further, trades is one of those aspects of the game that interests me, but simply to have some high-level ideas on, and not the find the last mathematical detail involved. Similar to forest growth, or barb spawn chances I guess...

I do have some observations, though. Size is definately a factor for trades. Distance and/or foreign cities as well. And I believe harbors and possibly culture/markets/libs is as well...

I'm not sure, but I think that trade is made in pairs. Or at least, the available (foreign) trade routes are distributed over your empire. You simply get a list, and your best city gets the first choice, gaining you most on the trade route. Your second next, etc.

I'm not sure, but I think this 'list' is global: when your emprire consists of many small cities, you won't have trade towards foreign capitals anywhere in your empire. Those trade routes are reserved for AI (capital) cities, which will all be bigger and better than yours.

Also, and this is even more speculation, I think determining which city is 'best' is not based solely on pop, but in general on commerce income you will gain by the trade route. I've seen it happen quite often that a city which builds a harbor does not simply get 50% more income from the same trade routes. No, it gets the 50% bonus, but also gets different trade routes which offer more in itself. In an empire with 2 large cities, your second city coastal (capital in-land), building a harbor early on in your second city will give the best AI capital up for trade there. Add currency, and you will have 2 trade routes to capitals in that city. Your own capital gets minor AI cities... this indicates to me, that when matching up your cities with all available trade route, commerce modifiers (and thus harbors) are taken into account.

Mind you, that could also be just a coincidence of the world situation changing at the exact time of harbor completion. At any rate, this changing-the-trade-routes thing happens a lot more early on in the game, later on more cities will have harbors and thus you won't 'jump'. You will only get the 50% increase from a harbor, nothing more. Not that it's not enough, it's already very powerful

DeepO