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

[vmxa1]

This changes if the land is better. If it is grassland or bonus grass or worse if it is desert.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Dominae
Wow, nice analysis Thriller!

Thanks

That's not to say that I agree with all of it...

I would have been disappointed if you did!

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.

Yes, which is why I said it depends on circumstances and that one of my disclaimers was the city spacing assumption....and also partly why my preferred choice is to get the Aqueduct and Market/Cathedral built before the Harbour.

Actually, usually I will try to squeeze a Library in before any of these builds, as IMHO this is the most crucial building to get in place in the early game at Emperor or above if you want to stay competitive (Temple is a given, but I may even build Library before Granary though I'm ambivalent about this strategy).

So, moving on to city spacing.....Dom, you talk about a 3-tile placement. What exactly does this mean? I have finally learnt to space towns closer, and while the pattern is not fixed, I find I can squeeze 12 workable tiles into most cities (with some lagging at 9-ish) if I space about 60% of them 3 apart, meaning there are 2 horizontal/vertical empty squares and a diagonal offsetbetween the towns, with the remainder being 4 apart. Is this roughly the same as your 3-tile placement? If so, I would argue that it would be rare in the early game for a coastal city to not have sufficient inland tiles for growth past size 6, which would delay the need fo the Harbour build.

[Aqualung71]

.....and I'm wavering a little on my Marketplace vs Cathedral argument. I've been spoilt by a recent game where I was pulling in 1,000gpt from trade deals and researching at 100% in the late Industrial age, so MP/B/SE do not contribute in terms of commerce. But this situation would be quite rare in the earlier game, and a MP would definitely help generate additional funds to keep the research rate up (ignoring the happiness bonus if applicable).

Extending this further, another issue comes to mind: What are people's ideas on the relative merits of Marketplace vs Library as the best tool to leverage your research rate? I would probably assume a research rate ranging from 30% - 70% for this question.

[ducki]

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

I voted for option 1 before reading so as not to influence my answers, but I didn't really like the question.
Or rather, my optimal answer would be "not enough information".
How corrupt are these cities? How's my treasury? How's my income?
It depends really.

But here's my logic for choosing Harbour-Aqueduct-Happiness for the order.
-Harbour not only gets me self-sustaining food tiles, but they are +2 commerce tiles.
-Harbour might link up a trade route, making the need for the later Happiness building less pressing - at size 6 it's not that pressing anyway.
-Aqueduct would be needed before Happiness because, well, see the previous point - pre-City, happiness isn't that bad and I probably have the lux slider a bit high for my bigger Cities already anyway.
-Happiness is last, just because. I have the slider if I need it and maybe trade from a foreign civ from my harbour.

Originally posted by Dominae
You've mostly finished REXing, and just switched to Monarchy or Republic.

I think this is a big enough variable along with available non-coast tile types to warrant it's own variant. Monarchy can use MPs, so the Aqueduct might come first if I've got enough land-based food tiles to break size 6 without needing the harbor. Maybe, and if I already have at least one harbor linking trade.

You're using 3-tile spacing.

I'll try really hard to imagine this.

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.

This also depends greatly on the nature of your terrain from the coast all the way to the center of your landmass and how far inland you can shift each city's citizens. At the end of Expansion, I don't find tile-competition to really be a problem - that usually comes later for me.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong, or maybe I'm playing suboptimally. I can't wait to see the responses once I write mine.

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

Noted above, Harbour, Aqueduct, Happy, but with caveats and dependencies.

Assume you do not have enough Gold to just rush everything.

Another toughie, but I'll try. (sarcasm again)

Some additional questions:
1. Would your answer change if some of your buildings were half price?

It's not so much price for as at what point is it usable to the citizens. If I flat out don't have enough food to hit size 6, obviously, the Aqueduct is not top choice and neither is happiness. If I'm swimming in bonus food, more citizens first, then ensure they stay content, then more citizens and commerce, but if using the slider, more commerce often equals more happy.

2. Would your answer chance if the towns in questions did not have a Temple either?

For Republic, most likely, for Monarchy/Feudalism, it's less important, especially below size 9 or so.


Now, to read everyone else's response, hopefully I didn't make a fool of myself. Well, any more than usual.

Edit while reading Thriller's dissertation and thinking about Dominae's comment about "it's non-obvious" -
Another excellent option for really crowded coastal towns is to go with an option not presented:
I give you option Z
Z: Harbor, then Marketplace. Work all 6 Coastal tiles and stay at size 6. The marketplace is for money, not happy, since without the growth, you don't need it. If you're really crowded in, this might be the most palatable option, although probably not the "best" one. Don't build the Aqueduct until later on.

Just a thought. THat's pretty non-obvious.

[ErikM]

Originally posted by Thriller
Actually, usually I will try to squeeze a Library in before any of these builds, as IMHO this is the most crucial building to get in place in the early game at Emperor or above if you want to stay competitive (Temple is a given, but I may even build Library before Granary though I'm ambivalent about this strategy).

Agree with Library first, especially with Scientifics. Why temple though. Unless going for a culture win, religious improvements are rather poor investments, especially for non-religious civs.

What are people's ideas on the relative merits of Marketplace vs Library as the best tool to leverage your research rate? I would probably assume a research rate ranging from 30% - 70% for this question.

MPs have this extra benefit of multiplying happiness for 2+ luxuries, so it is a better structure overall. But libraries give culture so it is a close call. Since both multiply beakers by 1.5, net effect is exactly the same for libraries and MPs. Thus, it all boils down to costs. For scientific civs it is fairly obvious that it is better to build libraries first. MPs in most cases can wait till size 7, so I prefer building aqueducts before MPs to prevent bottlenecks.

One exception is GreatLib. If I have it, there is no need to research anything before Education, so libraries are relatively useless (may still be needed for culture). Then I'd build MPs first and I would try to rush them using savings from the GL.

Lacking GL though, my normal sequence would be library-aqueduct-MP-harbor. If a town lacks food, harbor will go earlier in the sequence. This being said, I will not use city-tile-tile-city placement for coastal towns if it is obvious that the town in question will not get enough shields. It is no crime to place cities farther apart when situation demands it (imo, at least).

[ducki]

Since both multiply beakers by 1.5

I thought Marketplaces specifically did not affect science, only tax revenue going to your treasury. Am I reading the 'pedia too literally?

[ErikM]

Sorry I meant "commerce points".
But net result is basically the same up to rounding errors.
Ie 10cps, MP, 6.4.0 sliders, yields 10*0.6=6 beakers + 10*0.4*1.5=6 gold.
Same 10 cps, Library, 4.6.0, yields 10*0.4*1.5=6 beakers +10*0.6=6gold.
So net outcome is exactly the same whether using libraries or MPs except for rounding errors due to the fact that you can only move sliders in 10% increments.

[Aqualung71]

Good point ducki on Monarchy vs Republic. I've assumed Republic for the purposes of my analysis, because that's my style. But if I was in Monarchy it would probably delay the happiness building.

[Aqualung71]

One important point I neglected to mention (well, I partly assumed it away -> no corruption!)....is that not all towns are equal.

A size 6 town with temple, 2 luxuries and no slider use will have 2 happy, 4 unhappy citizens at Emperor level (I've tested this, but not sure if it's true for all cases). However, moving the luxury slider up does not provide the same happiness effect to all towns because it provides an allocation of each town's commerce to entertainment, not a fixed amount of "happy gas" (as opposed to a Temple, Cathedral or Colosseum and related wonders).

The amount of tangible happiness benefit you get from the luxury slider (ie, the number of citizens you sway from being unhappy to content/happy) depends on the net amount of commerce you generate. This in turn depends on a number of factors, such as number of citizens, whether your worked tiles are roaded, commerce generated by each worked tile, and of course - corruption! (which is why moving the luxury slider up will usually not help towns that are distant from your capital/FP and so totally corrupt).

So, when talking about the use of the luxury slider, we need to be careful to restrict our discussions to those towns/cities that are reasonably close to your palace/FP cores and so have reasonable commerce/shields.

Anyway, going back to the "base case" I mentioned above, a core city in that situation would probably need to have the slider at around 20% to get to 3 happy / 3 unhappy, but depending on it's net commerce level this may or may not need to be supplemented by an entertainer.

Dom, has this can of worms opened far enough yet for you to wade in?

[Dominae]

No.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Dominae
No.

Hmmm, you sitting out there monitoring this huh?

[Risa]

I'm not in favor of 3-tile city placement usually. However it's not uncommon to build coastal city on tundra with one or two games in range, which is quite similar to above situation with regard to food/shield production.

In those cities, I usually pop-rush harbor or temple (or both, if I'm Mil/Sea and Rel) in despotism, and build another manually. It's just too annoyed to see my cities can't grow to 6 population. After that, building sequence is depended on what I want. When I need more gold in near future, I'll build marketplace first (unless I'm Agr, getting cheap aqueduct); when I can't manage happiness with 10% luxury, I'll go for cathedral; otherwise aqueduct is an obvious choice.

[Catt]

Postage-stamp sized answer: Pop is power. Do not let addressable constraints limit growth. Harbor = food & commerce; aqueduct = more food & commerce. Even in the face of happiness constraints, the power of specialists in C3C often indicates that pop growth is worthwhile (especially if there's a bonus food available) so a city can resume growth immediately from a high pop point as soon as circumstances allow (i.e., a new luxury is acquired via trade or expansion / conquest). If not emphasizing research, a market's value increases -- if researching at full bore, a market serves as little more than happiness provider.

To address the phenomena of "harbor induces coastal tile working and low shields" is to micromanage for shields, giving the coastal city a turn or two here or there on a shared shield-rich land tile.

Most often I'll choose a harbor first -- this doesn't necesaarily mean I start working coastal tiles immediately, but it means I can grow the town using available shared land tiles (and shields) to build additional improvements, and still switch the citizens over to water tiles for turns at a stretch without worrying about starvation, for example if production power must be shifted to interior cities.

The interesting balancing act, for me, is how much and when to sacrifice interior cities' productive power in order to allow coastal cities to build what's needed. Once the coastal city has its necessary improvements (harbor, market, lib, aqueduct - whatever makes sense in the grander strategic plan) it can be left to sit as a cash cow while the interior reasserts control on production power of land tiles. With a goal of getting coastal towns / cities to the "cash cow" stage, the question is how much early production power will be drained from interior cities - and the overall opportunity cost of that in terms of other game needs (units, for example).

I want cash cows as early as possible -- but I need to balance that against the trade-off of lesser early production in interior cities. That is the interesting tactical challenge, IMHO.

Catt

[joncnunn]

Hum, I'm a fan of "natural city placement" instead of fixed distances and so unless both of these cities would be along the river, I wouldn't have placed them that close.

[vmxa1]

It does not matter if anyone would use this scheme. It is just what we were given in the problem. Any answer must take into account the available tiles in a 3 tile approach or not fit the facts as given.

Actuall a 3 tile approach is quite valid, especially on a small island.