Aquatic gameplay (CivBE)

Civilization: Beyond Earth

One of the biggest new features added to Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth in the Rising Tide expansion pack is floating cities, which greatly expand aquatic gameplay.

Aquatic cities

Main article: City (CivBE) § Aquatic Cities

In Rising Tide, players are able to build cities on Coast tiles, although only the North Sea Alliance and Chungsu can found their Capitals here. When starting a new game, players have the option of making all colonies start on a Coast tile.

There are several differences between land and aquatic cities:

• Aquatic cities can be moved from one spot to another.
• Aquatic cities produce 50% more Culture for Virtues, but do not expand their borders through Culture.
• Players must either purchase Ocean tiles or move their city to expand an aquatic city's borders.
• Aquatic cities have 50% less Unhealth rate.
• The production rate of naval units is doubled, while the production rate of air and land units is halved.
• Trade routes originating from aquatic cities yield 50% more Energy than those from land cities.
• Aquatic cities have half the defensive strength of a land city.

Objects previously on land only

Many resources and objects that were land-based in Beyond Earth are also found in the water in Rising Tide. Explorers, in turn, do more when embarked to exploit these resources.

• Firaxite
• Geothermal
• Floatstone
• Titanium
• Xenomass
• Resource pods
• Crashed Satellites
• Alien Nests
• Progenitor Ruins
• Stations

Buildings

Much of the information in this section is originally from a thread on Reddit, and has been updated and expounded upon by editors of this wiki.

Aquatic Only

• Drydock - +2 Production, +20% Naval Unit Production
• Mosaic Hull - +2 Culture, +50 City HP
• Thermohaline Rudder - +2 Science, -30% Production cost to Move City
• Tidal Turbine - +4 Energy
• Torpedo Battery - +20% City Strike Damage
• Sonar Net - +25 City Defense, Reveals invisible units with 2 tiles

Aquatic/Coastal

• Water Refinery - +1 Production from Water (originally Food in Base Beyond Earth)

Land Only

• Alien Preserve - +2 Culture, +2 Diplomatic Capital
• Borehole - +5 Production
• Progenitor Garden - +20% Health
• Repair Facility - +10% Land Unit Production
• Vivarium - +2 Food, +1 Food from Desert

Wonders

Much of the information in this section is originally from a thread on Reddit, and has been updated and expounded upon by editors of this wiki.

Aquatic Only

• Abyssal Mirror - +5 Diplomatic Capital, Orbital Units launched from this city may overlap the coverage area of other Orbital Units by 1 tile.
• The Akkorokamui - +5 Diplomatic Capital, Unhealth from population reduced by 50% in this city
• Benthic Auger - +5 Diplomatic Capital, +2 Production from Coast terrain worked by this city
• Euphotic Strand - +5 Diplomatic Capital, +1 Science from Coast terrain worked by this city
• Faraday Gyre - +5 Diplomatic Capital, Energy Maintenance for buildings and Improvements reduced by 50% in this city
• Guo Pu Yaolan - +5 Diplomatic Capital, Culture cost for new Virtues reduced by a percentage equal to this city's population

Land Only

• Crawler - +5 Diplomatic Capital, +25% Production for buildings and wonders in this City
• Holon Chamber - +5 Diplomatic Capital, Gain Science income equal to 10% of global Energy income
• Tectonic Anvil - +5 Diplomatic Capital, +5 Production from Canyon terrain worked by this City

Aquatic City Movement and Territory

Move city icon

As mentioned earlier, aquatic cities do not acquire new tiles through Culture the way land cities do. They have a special project they can access when choosing production. The project requires Production to complete; therefore, cities with higher Production can move more quickly. Each successful project will move the city one tile, and the city will then instantly claim all tiles around its new location. Therefore, a city has the potential to capture three tiles of territory each time it moves.

Here are some points to consider while developing an effective aquatic city strategy:

• City movement is based on Production. While it can be tempting to try to move a city as soon as it's founded to gain territory quickly, it may be better to buy or purchase Production-boosting buildings first.
• Regardless of your level of Production, no city can move more than one tile per turn, and every city movement project will take at least one turn to complete.
• Units stationed in the city when it moves will stay in the city and move with it (though there is a bug with stationed aircraft that will sometimes cause them to get left behind when a city moves, and they vanish if not immediately rebased).
• Cities can move into tiles occupied by hostile units; the hostile unit will be displaced.
• Cities damage whatever they pass over. Improvements will be destroyed by the passing of a city (which creates a wonderful opportunity to use cities to destroy improvements on tiles without resources so that the tiles can be improved by weather satellites or Orbital Fabricators) and Alien Nests will automatically be looted without a warning message.
• Cities cannot move too close to other cities or to stations.
• Aquatic cities work tiles in the same range as normal cities, up to three units away from the city's location. Tile assignments will be automatically performed each time a city moves.
• Cities moving into new areas may suffer sudden, massive swings in resource generation. Because a city can only work tiles which are claimed and are close enough to be worked, when heading into virgin territory cities will have very few particularly productive tiles to work from. Grower specialists can help through some of the rough patches by keeping Food production up.
• Moving an aquatic city onto a Hydracoral destroys the Hydracoral and causes no damage to the city.
• Units who are told to move to a city are actually told to move to a particular tile. If the city moves while the unit is in transit, the unit will not update its pathing to try to reach the city's new location. When sending units long distances to an aquatic city, try to plan to send the unit where the city will be.
• Likewise, units in the orbital layer are locked into the tiles where they were launched. Orbital units providing bonuses to cities within the area of effect are trickier to use with aquatic cities which are regularly moved.
• Territory claimed by an aquatic city will be lost if the city itself is lost.
• Just because an aquatic city claims territory doesn't mean that city needs to work it. Try having a few "trailblazer" cities that do little more than wander around claiming massive amounts of territory, and then backfill the newly claimed territory with other cities.
• Following normal city behavior, strategic resources are added to the player's resource totals whether there's a city close enough to work that tile or not. Aquatic cities can excel at quickly claiming strategic resources across huge areas; they can be improved by workers to gain the resources without needing to keep a city close by to work the tile.
• Aquatic cities (particularly for the NSA or factions allied with them) can be thought of as super-massive carriers. Well-developed cities can usually get movement time down to one turn, allowing for them to be used as mobile invasion platforms. What better way to take out a pesky neighbor than by bringing all your cities right to their borders?
• Aquatic cities have trade routes just like normal cities. Because aquatic cities (particularly if used for offensive military action) can have trouble keeping enough Production and Food, internal trade routes are particularly valuable. When using a city as an assault base, consider redirecting trade routes to sustain your forward base of operations.
• Aquatic cities can build wonders. Some wonders are land-exclusive, and some are aquatic-exclusive.
• If you're building an aquatic city with the intent of working an area of ocean, consider founding the city on the edge of the territory you want it to work. After building some initial Production boosters, walk the city in a spiral on the area you want it to work, finally ending up in the center.

Unique aquatic gameplay in other games

• There is a bug in Sid Meier's Civilization that allows Settlers to build roads on water tiles. Land units cannot travel on these roads, nor can sea units travel faster on them. However, cities do gain the trade bonuses afforded by roads.
• Sea Colonies and Undersea Tunnels can be built in the Call to Power games.
• Sea bases can be constructed in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
• In Civilization VI: Rise and Fall, the Dutch civilization can build Polders and the Indonesian civilization can build Kampungs. The city in which Governor Liang is established can build Fisheries if she has Aquaculture.
• Civilization VI: Gathering Storm allows late-game aquatic improvements - Seasteads, Offshore Oil Rigs, and Offshore Wind Farms - to be built. The Māori civilization starts the game in an Ocean tile.
• In C-evo and Gathering Storm, Canals can be built on one-tile-wide isthmuses. In Civilization IV, Forts double as ports for ships - when two Forts are built next to each other on an isthmus 2 tiles wide, that can be used as a canal as well.
• Call to Power, Alpha Centauri, and Gathering Storm have global warming mechanics which cause sea levels to rise.

Images

Hydracoral, and a Rising Tide embarked Explorer

Water Alien Nest

An ocean-bound Floatstone quarry, as shown in a Rising Tide loadscreen

An aquatic city, as shown in a Rising Tide loadscreen

A Kraken and a Submarine, as shown in a Rising Tide loadscreen