What's the best way to build up coastal towns?

[Dominae]

Here's the scenario (which happens a lot in my games):

You've mostly finished REXing, and just switched to Monarchy or Republic. You're using 3-tile spacing. This creates problems with your coastal cities because most of their workable tiles are Coast and Sea, but without Harbors these tiles are not self-sustaining (i.e. only produce 1 Food). Thus your coastal cities are competing with inland cities for workable tiles.

You need to build Harbors in your coastal towns ASAP. But you also need to build Aqueducts to allow growth beyond size 6, and Marketplaces/Cathedrals to keep the populace happy.

Which do you build first/second/last: Harbors, Aqueducts or Marketplaces/Cathedrals?

Careful: this is not as obvious as it may seem.

Assume you do not have enough Gold to just rush everything. Also assume that you need to pay full price for all those buildings (you're not Seafaring, or Agricultural, etc.). Finally, assume Emperor-level and only a couple of Luxuries.

Some additional questions:

1. Would your answer change if some of your buildings were half price?
2. Would your answer chance if the towns in questions did not have a Temple either?

Discuss!


Dominae

[Rhothaerill]

With the assumption above that the workable tiles are at sea then I would go harbor-marketplace-aqueduct. In fact I've been using that build for rebuilding Vox Controli on it's new island rock that has no fresh water anywhere.

[Aqualung71]

I've started a response, but it's turning into an essay so it may take all day! See you later.

[Barinthus]

Originally posted by Thriller
I've started a response, but it's turning into an essay so it may take all day! See you later.

An essay is better than one sentence posting so share?

[vmxa1]

I would think that 1 and 3 are the most common. I should not need cathedrals before harbor and aqua.
I should not need markets before size 6.

So it comes down to can I get over size 6 without a harbor? If I can, then aqua could come first. This not going to happen a lot.
The harbor is cheaper to build and can speed up the growth, so do #1 most of the time.

This presumes that the town is close enough to not be too corrupt.

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I would think that 1 and 3 are the most common. I should not need cathedrals before harbor and aqua.
I should not need markets before size 6.

So it comes down to can I get over size 6 without a harbor? If I can, then aqua could come first. This not going to happen a lot.
The harbor is cheaper to build and can speed up the growth, so do #1 most of the time.

This presumes that the town is close enough to not be too corrupt.

I often pick the marketplace over the aqueduct for two reasons. 1) A mostly coastal town does not provide much in the way of shields but does give decent growth so it would likely be a while before that market/cathedral can come into play and tone down the unhappiness if it's the third improvement (this also assumes that you don't play with the luxury slider just to make a few coastal towns happy). 2) The coastal town does provide a lot of commerce that is immediately given an increase by the market.

[Donegeal]

Harbor, Aqua, Market

In the situation described above, the cities might not even be able to make it to size 6. That is some wasted tiles that could be used. The coastal cities will sit and hover around size 3-4 even after you build any of the other improvements (ie: aqua, market/cath) if you choose to build them first. The Harbor should come first to at least let your cities reach that first plateu of size 6.

Although I never posted it, vxmal taught me long ago that it is worse to waste food more than production. Now I know that if you built harbors first, that most of these costal cities will be wasting food as they idle at size 6 while your aquaducts get built (however, the only way for them to reach this point is to build harbors first), which is why the aqua shoule be built second (so you stop wasting food!). Any unhappiness should be taken care of with the slider (assuming two lux as stated in the first post, republic government giving extra commerce and a temple), this should be more than adequate.

Markets should be made next because they help with everything not food related (food being the most important). The extra commerce can mean more gold for rushing (shields), research (beakers) and luxury (smilies); and it increases the value of lux items over two (happiness).

Cathedrals should be a lower priority as yes the may help an individual city, but they don't really help your overall empire until most cities have them built (and can thusly lower the lux slider).

[Aqualung71]

As usual, a thought provoking little teaser from Dom which is a lot deeper than it first seems. And coincidentally, this discussion is very timely for me personally as AU501 opened my eyes to the power of coastal cities (so yes, hats off again!)

I know that my final answer is probably going to be "it depends", but I will try to put down a few thoughts to justify that answer.

Firstly, some assumptions and disclaimers:

• I have ignored the value of the unrelated but definite benefit of being able to build veteran naval units in a town with a Harbour;
• A Granary has already been built – I would usually try to do this before Harbour/Aqueduct;
• I will make the assumption that we are talking about a situation where your coastal towns are probably size 3/4/5. Nearby inland towns may be 5/6 or a little bigger if built on rivers, or if Aqueducts are finished. Based on this, you may still have access to some inland tiles as the land-lubber towns haven't maxed out yet (unless you’ve seriously crowded them in, which is quite possible if they are all 3-spaced). This distinction is important as it means you still have some time until you really need to use those coastal tiles to avoid wasting labour;
• Rivers or irrigated tiles are within a reasonable distance (which is definitely not always the case!); and
• Corruption/waste considerations ignored and no WW issues.

Harbour (60 shield cost) – The Food Issue

Harbours provide 1 extra food, giving water squares 2-food and maintaining the status quo regarding excess food available for growth (barring whales/fish, which you’d probably be using anyway). Assuming you have some inland grassland or plains squares available your best option is to irrigate those first and use them for growth. In this case, a Harbour is not yet necessary. And this is where part of the “it depends” answer comes in – it depends on your terrain. If the available tiles in your coastal town have lousy food terrain (anything except grassland/plains or forest game), then you need that Harbour pretty quickly.

Another thing to consider is that you really don’t want your pop growth to outstrip the ability of your infrastructure to cope with it. If one of the few available inland tiles is irrigated wheat or cows for example, you may already have a decent food surplus and prefer the extra production of the mined hill rather than the extra food from a Harbour-assisted coastal square. This may not be relevant in the current example if we assume that all landed squares can be used by another town given the close spacing, since that other town would also benefit from working the bonus food tile. But based on this principle, oscillating your bonus food squares between towns may also be a sensible strategy to avoid one town growing much faster than another and creating an imbalance between town size and infrastructure.

Aqueduct (100) – The Happiness Issue

It is pointless expanding to 7 pop if you are going to go into disorder. Don’t underestimate how often that 7th pop-point will put you in disorder. If you’re 3 happy and 3 unhappy at 6 pop-points, it’s a good bet the 7th will be unhappy (assuming Emperor level and 2 luxuries, as instructed).

So happiness is vitally important. While pop growth is probably the most important commerce/research lever in the game, growing into unhappiness can be counterproductive, because you are forced to sacrifice that gain on luxury spending (which reduces the income of all your towns) or by using entertainers (which means the pop-point growth doesn’t achieve anything at all because the lazy sod isn’t working a tile…and in some cases may force you to move from a shield-rich tile to a food-rich tile to avoid starvation).

Is the longer-term gain of having the ability to push your population higher sooner, worth the cost of having to using the luxury slider? Game circumstances play a part here – how balanced is your empire? Some core cities may already have sufficient happiness buildings to not need the slider, and it may be better to use entertainers for those towns trailing in infrastructure. If most of your cities need the slider to keep them out of disorder, then you should probably use it instead of entertainers as you will benefit from the extra commerce generated by those tiles that would have been entertainers in most cities, plus of course your growth will continue and any shields available will not be wasted. If you can trade for luxuries, this is probably a better option than using the slider – but we are assuming here that you can’t.

Commerce – the Power of Coastal Tiles

Coastal tiles produce one extra commerce than most roaded land tiles (excluding those adjacent to rivers or with certain resources). By working a number of coastal tiles in several towns, you can significantly boost your income/research level. You will generally not want to work a coastal tile however, unless you have a Harbour already built – because of the food deficit.

This brings us to a trade-off between growth (build Aqueduct) and bonus commerce (build Harbour) in order to maximize your overall commerce/research. Growth provides longer term benefits (you will eventually “grow” into that bonus commerce coastal tile anyway) as long as you can control the happiness side of things.

Marketplace (100) vs Cathedral (160) – The Happiness Method

Although Dom hasn’t asked us to choose between Marketplaces and Cathedrals for the happiness issue, I have some comments anyway. The choice between Marketplaces and Cathedrals depends partly on your play style and luxury situation, although paradoxically the latter may actually be irrelevant. If you have only 1 or 2 luxuries, a Marketplace will not help happiness. If you have more, you probably won’t need more happiness yet given the current size of your town. Also, if you are researching at near maximum rates, a Marketplace will not help income. A Cathedral boosts happiness significantly and gives culture and if you score Sistine you’re laughing. So in almost all cases I would choose a Cathedral, even though it’s more expensive. Only if I was intending on researching at low rates for a time would I build the Marketplace first, and only then if I could get the happiness bonus by securing a 3rd luxury.

Summary

Pop growth is the most important process to manage well, since this is the main engine that drives your increase in commerce and research over time. Without sufficient and effective growth, you will not be competitive. You should strive towards maintaining a balance between growth rate and infrastructure to ensure that the use of entertainers is minimized and any luxury slider use, if necessary, is efficient for all towns/cities. For me, the bonus commerce of the coastal tile is important, but growth is more important.

In most cases I would strive to build Aqueduct/Happiness/Harbour in that order, and manage happiness using the slider in the meantime. Then again, I don’t use a strict 3-tile town placement method, so I can usually get away with delaying the Harbour build.

If the available inland tiles were low in food or there were just insufficient tiles available, I would probably build the Harbour first to restart growth, then Aqueduct/Happiness (if say pop 3/4), or Aqueduct/Harbour/Happiness (if say pop 5/6). Furthermore, the overall balance between the towns/cities in your empire may require a different approach on a case-by-case basis.

In other words, it depends

The relatively short-term use of the luxury slider to keep the citizens happy while assembling the infrastructure to keep pace with your growth is generally worth the cost, in my opinion – although this can be dependent upon circumstances. Better to use the luxury slider because you have grown a little too fast, than to have Cathedrals sitting in all your size-5/6 cities with lots of happy faces and wondering why you’re running last in the tech race!

On The Utility of Bananas….

Dom’s thread title “What’s the Best Way to Build Up Coastal Towns?” is subtlely different from the poll title of “What’s your Build Queue for Coastal Towns?”. Once the second question is answered (see above), the first question is relatively straightforward, but not that obvious.

You build up your coastal town populations by a combination of natural growth (ie, surplus food) and by adding workers that you have been spawning from your (at least 2) worker camps. The best way to quickly grow your towns through natural growth is often to terra-form some tiles with irrigation, though at the cost of shield production which will delay some infra-structure builds. I believe the long-term benefits of this interim strategy will far outweigh the short-term cost as you will quickly get that production back with a higher population plus more when you revert the tiles back to mines. Again though, the proviso is don't let your growth get too far ahead of your ability to "keep 'em happy".

Underlying this strategy of course is the need to have sufficient workers for the pop-adds and terra-forming. The importance of having enough workers for these tasks in the early/mid game simply cannot be stressed enough – ignore it at your peril!

So, while tempted to vote Banana in support of the pop-add principle, I went for Aqueduct,Marketplace/Cathedral,Harbour, since my normal town placement allows most coastal towns to use at least some landed-tiles below pop 6.


Additional Questions

• 1. Probably not, although I know I would be tempted to build a Cathedral first if it was half price
  2. Yes – I would build a Temple first.

[Mountain Sage]

Harbor, marketplace, aqueduct.
Extra commerce/smilies are more important for me that extra growth (for coastal cities, that is).
Often, those cites have too much food in respect of shields. Building an aqueduct just makes things worse.
I often throw in a temple before the aqueduct to avoid getting an entretainer when the city grows.

[ErikM]

It mostly depens on how many non-coastal tiles the city in question will work.

If a town can work 3-5 non-coastal tiles, usually mapketplace/aqueduct/harbor. If it cannot, harbor/aqueduct/marketplace. Growth is always 1st priority.

Of course harbor first in some town if it will allow me to trade for luxuries.

I rarely build cathedrals at all.

[Brundlefly]

My choice wasn't listed: Harbor, Banana, Aqueduct

[ZargonX]

I'd go with harbor-market-aqua. The extra commerce generated on a nice coastal city isn't something to scoff at.

[Dominae]

Wow, nice analysis Thriller!

That's not to say that I agree with all of it...I'll let others comment first.

One consideration that some of you may be missing is that once you build a Harbor and start working coastal tiles to free up inland tiles, your production in coastal towns goes down. At 5-8spt you finished your Harbor in ~10 turns; at 3-4spt it will take you ~29 turns to complete each of Aqueduct and Marketplace.


Dominae

[Arrian]

Woah, not a simple question.

Ok, the assumptions are different than my normal circumstances (tighter build, so less land tiles available), but here is what I *think* I'd do:

In general, I'd use land tiles to get decent production under size6 and go market, aqueduct, harbor. Then we put citizens on the land and slowbuild other improvements (hopefully something discounted... are we scientific at least, Dom? ).

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

A lot will hinge on the situation, that is certain.

If you have a town on the coast and it is say 2F 1S 3C. This is not unusal for non Ag civs. The 9 titles around the city are going to be 6 land most of the time. It could be more on occasions and less, but stick with 6 land and 3 water.

Now if you are lucky and get say sugar on one (that is what showed up in my all random gen. As Persia in this case, I got 2F 1S 1C (no road). So a reasonably good start at 4F 2S 4C. Grow in 10 turns. Now the bad news, hills or mountains for the rest of the land tiles. So any tile I choose will be 1F. I can go 1F and 1S or 1F and 1C without improvements. Ignore the mountains.

So soon I will be at size 3 and cannot grow without help. If I have workers at hand and water to get to the sugar tile (I think we were told we were republic or monarch) I can get 3F. I will ignore commerce for now. Now I can grow to size 4 eventually and stop.

We could have mined the three hill tiles that would be worked for 8S total and 10F, no growth all total (counting sugar and city center).

I must make a harbor now to grow. I have no use for an Aqua and don't need a Cath either. If I roaded the hills, I would have 7C. The market can wait, if I intend to grow the city.

Once I get the harbor, I shift citizens to the coast tiles. How many is a function of your prioritties. One and grow slow, while building a structure or more to grow faster.