Inland or ocean front?

[Lancer]

Where do you prefer your first city to be?

[Addled Platypus]

dont get yorself locked into the same ole rut


get use to making the best out of any location

[Thedrin]

Inland.

Actually I don't mind starting by the coast but I do mind;
1) relying on marine resources for early food,
2) having a large amount of water tiles in your capitals fat cross.

The odds of either happening are reduced with inland starts.

[couerdelion]

For development and for early game options, the coastal start is almost always going to be best. Obviously it is resource dependent but a coastal city with resources will generally be stronger than a land-locked one and allows you to build lighthouse, harbour, Great Lighthouse and Colossus

Edit: Speaking on behalf of my avatar, I prefer to have a trading post in the capital

[Thedrin]

From a theoertical point of view a coastal capital is better. The trade route bonus combined with bureacracy alone makes the idea interesting. And I do like coastal starts that contain 2 or 3 water tiles.

But more often than not, I find inland starts more enjoyable.

[MoonWolf]

No pref, depends a lot... I'd like a good spot, weither it's inland or with seaview. Too much water will halt your earliy production and too barren land will slow our capital's growth.

[snoopy369]

I prefer ocean. My capital does not need to be the strongest building city, but it needs to be able to quickly get a few workers/settlers out; and fish resources are the best for that (and technology also).

[Supr49er]

On the ocean. Opens trade quickly.

[Wittlich]

Ocean for me as well...for the same reasons given.

[Theben]

Ocean.. on top of a plains/hills square.

[Jaybe]

I might prefer ocean-front property, but I am not about to spend turns searching for it. I'll move my warrior the first turn to get a look, but Roma WILL be built in the first turn!

[Krill]

I'd argue that a land based start is preferable to an ocean start, for these reasons:

1. The resources can be developed with workers, which are not one use units. You build a worker, and it should be yours to use for the rest of the game, where as you spend 30 hammers on a work boat and you can only improve one tile with it.
   
2. You can grow in more than one direction, so you can get more land nd have a better placed capital for maintenence reasons.
   
3. More land tiles means more cottages. Cottages are hands down better than coast and sea tiles for developed cities to work (and as you are building workers and not work boats you are going to have workers to make cottages...).

Though this is only for pangaea/continent starts. For an archi/islands map I'd prefer the ocean start because it'd make it easier to get the collosus and GL that are so much more important.