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

[Jon Shafer]

If near a river, then Market, Harbor Aquaduct. If no river, then Harbor, Aquaduct, Market, but probably for slightly different reasons than others here have posted for. With a river you can utilize the extra gold and use it with the Market. However, for the rest of my post I will assume there's no river nearby.

First: Harbor opens up the use of the water tiles. Without it, it's just another land city using up tiles. With an Aquaduct you can grow, and especially powerful: You can add pop via Workers. Pump it up to size 12, and share the land shield tiles until you finish the Market/Lib (if you haven't already built them before this situation arises).

You can always pop out a few Workers if you reach siez 6 before your Aqua finishes (likely), and add them back later. I like building lots and lots and lots of Workers though... insta-pop boom when you need it.

[Shogun Gunner]

I accidently selected the wrong one. What I wanted to select is

Harbor, Aqueduct, Marketplace/Cathedral

I'm assuming that the city is not too far away from the capital city. The big population boost is ideal for a coastal town. Lots of trade in those water tiles.

[bvoncranium]

Temple, banana, harbor, banana (rush this), granary, banana (again rushed), Settler, Marketplace, banana x 3, Aquaduct, banana...

My goal is usually to set at least one coastal town up as a banana-factory.

- bvc

[Mad Bomber]

My Build would go like this

1. Temple
* Provides 2 happy faces
* Povides 2 cultural points
* Cost: 60s

Temple decreses unhappy persons and is also needed for border expansion (a critical need on a coastal site as most coastal sites need a BE in order to gain bonus resources (fish/whales, ect)

Cathedrals only produce one more CP with a cost double of a temple. Libraries do provide 4 CP but do not increase happiness.
and cost 80s

2. Harbor
*Increses food in coastal and sea tiles by 1
*Allows production of Veteran Naval units
* Cost: 60s

Increases food in sea tiles absoultely necessary if the tiles around the city are not capable of producing growth. Also, since Naval production is a high priority for me, a harbor is the highest priority for a costal city.

3. Marketplace
* Increases Commerce by 50%
* Povides happiness with luxuries.
* Cost: 100s

Since the tiles worked in the city will mainly be sea tiles increasing commerce of the city will be a high priority, with 3 luxuries the happiness increases more than justify its relatively high cost in shields.

[vmxa1]

Temples do not provide any happy citizens. They make one content citizen.

[lethe]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
My Build would go like this

1. Temple
* Provides 2 happy faces
* Povides 2 cultural points
* Cost: 60s

Temple is 1 content face.

It's slightly cheaper than a library for the culture expansion, but if you use the luxury slider at all the temple is 60s in the sea. It costs 1 in upkeep, and 1 coin would provide that 1 content face anyway.

[Krill]

if you use the luxury slider at all the temple is 60s in the sea. It costs 1 in upkeep, and 1 coin would provide that 1 content face anyway.

But it also costs you alot more gold in all your towns/cities/metroes when you use the luxary slider, so the choice is 60s, 1gpt, or ~15gpt late ancient era/ middle ages. It might be just me, but i would pick the temple because of the cultural expansion

[lethe]

Krill: Yeah, I should have added the caveat that in pretty corrupt cities temples might very well be the best way to get that content face. (As you don't want a library in them anyway, and you need 10 cp from somewhere.)

But as this town was going to actually be built up some we can assume that the corruption is decently low.

If corruption is high then it's just harbour. (If even that, unless you can work a few irrigated grassland you won't be able to make many specialists.)

[Krill]

Lethe: If corruption is low/town is near capital, then th first option is granary, and build a few settlers, (I REX a bit more than I should), but out of the given options, habour, marketplace, aquaduct, (then library).

[dojoboy]

Aqueduct -> harbor -> courthouse -> marketplace

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber Cathedrals only produce one more CP with a cost double of a temple. Libraries do provide 4 CP but do not increase happiness.
and cost 80s

The equation changes a bit if you have Sistine, of course, but also the Temple isn't optional if you want the Cathedral.

Originally posted by dojoboy
Aqueduct -> harbor -> courthouse -> marketplace

Lots of shields for the courthouse, often for very little benefit. What's your break-even point in terms of corruption for building or not building the courthouse?

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by lethe
Krill: Yeah, I should have added the caveat that in pretty corrupt cities temples might very well be the best way to get that content face. (As you don't want a library in them anyway, and you need 10 cp from somewhere.)

But as this town was going to actually be built up some we can assume that the corruption is decently low.

If corruption is high then it's just harbour. (If even that, unless you can work a few irrigated grassland you won't be able to make many specialists.)

I would build the temple mainly for the border expansion even though it provides only one content citizen. A library would be my next build after the marketplace, followed by an aqueduct.


I am shocked that most would build an aqueduct before they build the means to increase direct growth (harbor) as the premise of this question indicated that the tiles surrounding the city were poor growth sites (presumably hills, mountains, and/or tundra)

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
...the premise of this question indicated that the tiles surrounding the city were poor growth sites (presumably hills, mountains, and/or tundra)

Many responses have been conditional, depending upon the number of inland tiles available and their (food) quality. The scenario presumed a lack of available inland tiles rather than poor food tiles, so depending on the starting town size and the number of reasonable inland food tiles available, you may be able to squeeze in an aqueduct before you actually need the harbour to sustain growth.

But I would agree - in the extreme situation where there are no inland tiles available for use, you would probably have to build the harbour first to restart growth towards size 6 before bothering with the aqueduct.

[Theseus]

Um, this presumes a Temple, Colosseum, or Library has been built, yes?

Harbor, Aqua, happiness.

I'm in real estate, so I grew up with "location, location, location."

This is Civ, so "population, population, population."

[vmxa1]

I think it is with nothing built. IIRC.