As noted in another thread:
"Fishing boats are too expensive to build, way too expensive to buy, the tile yields aren't as good as in Civ 4 and the sailing tech path is an expensive early game detour that limits the effectiveness of pretty much every early game strategy (CB rush, NC rush, building the GL, rushing to your UU...)."
To this, I will add some thoughts of my own:
It is generally agreed that the Colossus is a pretty terrible wonder. Furthermore, the only strategic resource available from ocean tiles comes very late in the game and is available earlier and cheaper on land. Since land-based Oil mostly shows up either in deserts (where Petra is strong) or marshes (where clearing them makes the tile self-sufficient in Food anyhow), coastal oil is rarely worth it.
Only two naval wonders are good: The Great Lighthouse and the Sydney Opera House.
The Great Lighthouse is like God Mode on Archipelago, and if you play Elizabeth and go Commerce, it's basically unfair. But if there are no coastal cities to assault, there is virtually no benefit to building it, and if coastal cities continue to suffer these various disadvantages, no one will want to build them.
Meanwhile, the Sydney Opera House comes very late in the game. If you are playing for a cultural victory, particularly on higher difficulties, you should desire a defensible location with a lot of production for wonders and defensive military units. Coastal cities typically do not meet this goal. If you find one with a long, snaky, single-tile connection to a larger water body with only one hex from which to attack your city, maybe consider it. But the map scripts I've seen don't produce such places often.
With sea and river tile gold going away, I'm beginning to wonder why anyone would bother settling on the coast at all. This goes counter to the almost universal human tendency to settle on the coast.
I know gameplay is more important than realism, but gameplay with realism is better. And making coastal cities a sign of a novice player is a little too gamey for my tastes, and I assume I'm not alone.
Possible suggestions:
*Coastal tiles should have a base yield of 2 Food rather than 1. Ocean tiles retain their normal yield.
*Get rid of the generic "Fish" tiles, and divide them evenly between Herring, Mackerel, Tuna, and Swordfish, four new luxury resources (+1 Food, +1 Gold, +1 Food with Fishing Boats). On sea-heavy maps, trading the same three things (which most city states will also have) over and over again gets old fast.
*God of the Sea, Harbors, and Seaports should increase the yield of Atolls the same as they do for Fishing Boats.
*Either reform the single-use nature of the Work Boat, or make them much, much less expensive. 30 hammers max on Standard. Or maybe make them multiple-use.
*The Colossus should provide +1 Gold and +1 Production from coast and ocean tiles. This will make it much better (particularly if the next expansion gets rid of gold for coastal tiles and doesn't include some other mechanism for gaining it back).
*Steam Power should increase the effective population of cities with harbors for purposes of calculating trade route gold. By how much, I don't know.
*Instead of a single ocean tile preventing travel between two adjacent islands for the first five thousand years of play (though, absurdly, a city in the right spot could work tiles on the other side's green-water coast despite nobody knowing how to get units there), Ocean tiles should act like Mountains do for Helicopter Gunships: dealing 50 damage if they end their turn on them (except for Polynesian units, which take no damage). This damage is reduced by half if you have discovered Compass. They should also be +1 MP cost per tile before discovering Compass (this does not apply to Polynesian units).
*I know trade routes are changing in the next expansion, but friendly river tiles should connect cities (for whatever good that is worth sans trade route) and speed movement upon researching Sailing, much the way Forest tiles do for the Iroquois with the Wheel. Also, for those who don't upgrade, they should serve to create trade routes in the G&K and Classic style.
"Fishing boats are too expensive to build, way too expensive to buy, the tile yields aren't as good as in Civ 4 and the sailing tech path is an expensive early game detour that limits the effectiveness of pretty much every early game strategy (CB rush, NC rush, building the GL, rushing to your UU...)."
To this, I will add some thoughts of my own:
It is generally agreed that the Colossus is a pretty terrible wonder. Furthermore, the only strategic resource available from ocean tiles comes very late in the game and is available earlier and cheaper on land. Since land-based Oil mostly shows up either in deserts (where Petra is strong) or marshes (where clearing them makes the tile self-sufficient in Food anyhow), coastal oil is rarely worth it.
Only two naval wonders are good: The Great Lighthouse and the Sydney Opera House.
The Great Lighthouse is like God Mode on Archipelago, and if you play Elizabeth and go Commerce, it's basically unfair. But if there are no coastal cities to assault, there is virtually no benefit to building it, and if coastal cities continue to suffer these various disadvantages, no one will want to build them.
Meanwhile, the Sydney Opera House comes very late in the game. If you are playing for a cultural victory, particularly on higher difficulties, you should desire a defensible location with a lot of production for wonders and defensive military units. Coastal cities typically do not meet this goal. If you find one with a long, snaky, single-tile connection to a larger water body with only one hex from which to attack your city, maybe consider it. But the map scripts I've seen don't produce such places often.
With sea and river tile gold going away, I'm beginning to wonder why anyone would bother settling on the coast at all. This goes counter to the almost universal human tendency to settle on the coast.
I know gameplay is more important than realism, but gameplay with realism is better. And making coastal cities a sign of a novice player is a little too gamey for my tastes, and I assume I'm not alone.
Possible suggestions:
*Coastal tiles should have a base yield of 2 Food rather than 1. Ocean tiles retain their normal yield.
*Get rid of the generic "Fish" tiles, and divide them evenly between Herring, Mackerel, Tuna, and Swordfish, four new luxury resources (+1 Food, +1 Gold, +1 Food with Fishing Boats). On sea-heavy maps, trading the same three things (which most city states will also have) over and over again gets old fast.
*God of the Sea, Harbors, and Seaports should increase the yield of Atolls the same as they do for Fishing Boats.
*Either reform the single-use nature of the Work Boat, or make them much, much less expensive. 30 hammers max on Standard. Or maybe make them multiple-use.
*The Colossus should provide +1 Gold and +1 Production from coast and ocean tiles. This will make it much better (particularly if the next expansion gets rid of gold for coastal tiles and doesn't include some other mechanism for gaining it back).
*Steam Power should increase the effective population of cities with harbors for purposes of calculating trade route gold. By how much, I don't know.
*Instead of a single ocean tile preventing travel between two adjacent islands for the first five thousand years of play (though, absurdly, a city in the right spot could work tiles on the other side's green-water coast despite nobody knowing how to get units there), Ocean tiles should act like Mountains do for Helicopter Gunships: dealing 50 damage if they end their turn on them (except for Polynesian units, which take no damage). This damage is reduced by half if you have discovered Compass. They should also be +1 MP cost per tile before discovering Compass (this does not apply to Polynesian units).
*I know trade routes are changing in the next expansion, but friendly river tiles should connect cities (for whatever good that is worth sans trade route) and speed movement upon researching Sailing, much the way Forest tiles do for the Iroquois with the Wheel. Also, for those who don't upgrade, they should serve to create trade routes in the G&K and Classic style.