I have recently been trying too specialize my cities, but the thing is that I cant\wont understand why people are putting cottages on floodplains in a commerce city. Example: If I have a commerce city with: 4 plains, 2 hills, 4 floodplains and 10 grassland. I my head it would be best to cottage everything exept the hills and 2 floodplains, wich I would mine and farm.
The reason I would like to farm floodplains instead of the grassland is that I would still have the +1 commerce from being adjacent to a river with the floodplains, but not on the grasslands. (Or am I completely wrong:blush: ?)

Perhaps a bad example but my point is that most people seem to cottage every floodplain tile?

Perhaps a bad example but my point is that most people seem to cottage every floodplain tile?

Well at least if you play financial, the cottage on flood plain immediately give you three golds and a a one food surplus for growth.

The thing in most peoples mind, would you rather +4 Food or +3 Food and a ton more Commerce and a hammer. Especially as a Financial Civ, with Printing Press, you can 7 Commerce on those Tiles with the loss of only 1 Food and the gain of a hammer (with certain civics). Most people would much prefer that over one extra food point. Same with Grassland to an extent.

The reason I would like to farm floodplains instead of the grassland is that I would still have the +1 commerce from being adjacent to a river with the floodplains, but not on the grasslands. (Or am I completely wrong:blush: ?)

It makes no difference. If you put a farm on one of the grasslands and a cottage on one of the floodplains, or if you put a farm on one of the floodplains and a cottage on one of the grasslands, the result from working those two tiles is exactly the same, either way.

If you're going to build some farms and some cottages, planning to work both, it's probably better to put the farms on the floodplains and the cottages on the grasslands, as this gives you more flexibility to emphasize food production, if you want. But it's basically the same either way.

I have been playing a financial civ, so any tile that gives 1 commerce gets a cottage (for a total of 3). I also make sure that I do not cut off my water supply so that I can farm those grassland tiles that don't have access. But if I can, I will route a farm string from outside the city radius and still cottage the rest of the river tiles.

It depends on what you want first. You want your city to work the floodplains before the grasslands (because they're +1, plain and simple they're better tiles).

So, if you want the city to grow faster, then farm the floodplains.

Most people, by far, want the money first. So, cottage the floodplains. You'll get money instead of food. Plus, you'll get your cottages to Towns earlier in the game, so long haul it's better as well.

Wodan

The net food increase is a large reason of why people do it. Since it costs 2 food to feed the poor point of population working the flood plain (as it does every other tile), and a cottage on a floodplain generates 3 food, the cottage on a floodplain leaves a little left over to ultimately work a tile that can't support itself.
They're handy to use early on, because your city can grow and gain commerce effectively, but I recall that they might take longer to build on. So, for early "build farms and then demoloish to build cottages when you approach your ideal population" techniques, you may want to dodge those tiles since it will take extra time to rebuild.

Obviously if you are going for a commerce city (which you seem to be doing, since you have at least 1 cottage in the city) then you should do as follows:

10 grassland -> all cottage
4 floodplains -> all cottage
4 plains -> all cottage
2 hills -> all cottage (or windmill)

You don't mention if it's plains-hills or grassland-hills, which makes a difference. You can cottage grassland-hills, but not plains-hills. You also need 40 food total to work those 20 tiles, and if the 2 hills you mention are grassland-hills build cottages on them, if they are plains-hills go with windmill.

With the full line of tech and the right civics (and financial trait) this city will be 161 base commerce + 1 more for each tile next to a river, so most likely 170 or so base (provided both hills are grassland-hills). That is one of the best base commerce I've ever seen, my best are usually around 150 or so. If you build Oxford and an academy in the city we're talking about roughly 600 beakers, without any specialists. Not bad!

Thanks for the input everyone. It cleared up things a bit...:goodjob:

Btw in your example the only reason I can think of that you would build a farm in this city is that you either want specialists in the city, or you want it to grow to size 20 faster.

My thoughts on this is that it depends on how fast you want your city to grow. If it's going to grow too fast and stagnate due to unhappiness then growth control can by all means be cottages, but if you have hereditary rule or lots of happiness resources, then farm all floodplains and farm/cottage grasslands and resort to cottages on plains. Another benefit of farming floodplains is that there's a lot more food for specialists to eat. So, "it depends".

When I am planning a tile should be in cottages or farm, I just follow the rule "2 Food in 1 tile". It is obviously a optimal choice for non-GP farm cities. Of coz, for a GP city, it is good to farm all tiles that produce tones of food to feed the specialist. But for other cities, plan before you work on is important. Especially with the tech of Civil Service and Biology that can make a great difference with you city planning.

I have recently been trying too specialize my cities, but the thing is that I cant\wont understand why people are putting cottages on floodplains in a commerce city. Example: If I have a commerce city with: 4 plains, 2 hills, 4 floodplains and 10 grassland. I my head it would be best to cottage everything exept the hills and 2 floodplains, wich I would mine and farm.
The reason I would like to farm floodplains instead of the grassland is that I would still have the +1 commerce from being adjacent to a river with the floodplains, but not on the grasslands. (Or am I completely wrong:blush: ?)
Lessee...
10 Grasslands can feed themselves, and 4 Flood Plains can feed the 4 Plains regardless of improvements. So...what kind of Hills are those? If they're Grassland hills, then the city tile will feed them, and thus you'll be able to work every single tile in the city radius without a single Farm. However, if they're any other sort of Hills, your city tile will only feed one, and you'll need 2 Farms to feed the other. Also, what tiles are next to the river? Flood Plains obviously are, but are there any Plains or Grasslands on the river?

I would put Mines on the Hills no matter what happens. If the Hills are Grass AND have no hammer bonuses in them, I'd put up to 2 Watermills, preferably on Plains, or on Grassland if no Plains are next to the river, with Flood Plains as a last resort. If the Hills are non-Grass, I'd put Farms instead of Watermills, with the same criteria for selecting which tiles to put them on. If the Hills are Grass AND have a hammer bonus in at least one of them (like Iron or something), I'd just throw Cottages on all the flat land.

The big thing with the layout I just stated isn't that it's Cottages on Flood Plains, it's Cottages on everything, since such terrain is so easy to feed.

Irrigate the flood plains and put workshops everywhere else, then build lots of tanks and kill people.

Irrigate the flood plains and put workshops everywhere else, then build lots of tanks and kill people.

Don't you mean "build lots of swordmen"? It's hard to reach tanks with no cottages!

err build 100 warriors and rule the world

Don't you mean "build lots of swordmen"? It's hard to reach tanks with no cottages!

Get all of your required techs, then plow over the cottages to build farms and workshops? :evil:

(j/k)

It really depends on what the city needs.

In my commerce cities, I like to have enough food to grow quickly. So if I have to farm a FP or two, I do it. I can always go back and cottage them later, when growth isn't needed, for whatever reason. I'd rather farm the FP's than the grassland though, it gives you more versatility (one four-food tile instead of two 3-food tiles).

As for the hills, I mine them to start. I also put workshops around, so that I can build infra for the city at certain points, whatever it may be. If I can use slavery if there's a lot of food around, or UniSuff later on, then I will. But those aren't always the best options, or even available.

Remember, you can always go back and change tiles around to suit your current needs. It's the best way to improve your game actually, because you pay more attention to each city, and optimize each one constantly. But it's very painful to have to tear down a developed town, so think about what you'll need later on before you start tossing them down on every tile.

I always farm the floodplains.

I work under the idea that it's better to specialize the terrain than to have a mixed bag.

Arguments against?

I always farm the floodplains.

I work under the idea that it's better to specialize the terrain than to have a mixed bag.

Arguments against?

Specializing the terrain is only particularly useful if you're intending to omit some of the squares some of the time.

As someone else pointed out above, if you have 3 tiles you're going to be working as a farm and two cottages, every combination of a farm and two cottages will produce identical results, with the small exception of in the case of a finacial Civ, where a river tile will produce additional 1 commerce for 10 turns or so (once the cottages reach hamlet, it's all the same again).

It's better to specialize the city, not the terrain. If you want a cottage in your city, than you want every square in that city to be a cottage if at all possible. This way, the city can focus on building libraries and other buildings that help commerce, and forget everything else. Same for wonders. Much more efficient this way.

Start doing this and your play will improve so much, you'll jump ahead two difficulty levels.

(double post)

It's better to specialize the city, not the terrain. If you want a cottage in your city, than you want every square in that city to be a cottage if at all possible.

I don't agree. If you don't build any farms, and you don't have any food resources, so your city is only growing at 2 food/turn, it takes forever for it to get to a decent size. You do better with some farms so that it grows faster. You can always switch those farms to cottages later (or just have farms and cottages and move workers around, depending on whether you want growth or commerce now).

Agreed, but long term, you'll want all cottages.

For a commerce city, in most situations, it's best to have a couple farms and some hills, along with your cottages. Work the farms if you need growth, and work the hills if you need to build something. If your city is at it's health/happy max, then you can just work all cottages.

If your city is size 20 with all upgrades, then 20 cottages is a good idea, but that won't happen until the game is almost done. Most of the time, you want to have the option to move citizens around to work whatever is the most appropriate.

On the other side, a city you designate to pump out military should just farm/mine from the start and never build a cottage.

I ran a few tests from scratch (new game) and I encourage others to do the same. Under no circumstances that I've tested do farms yield as many game points as towns. That's because towns generate more gold and therefore beakers towards the discovery of your next tech.

I reloaded several times and created farms instead of towns. While the farms allowed me to access mines for more hammers and subsequent world wonders, I always got more game points when using towns instead of farms.

Here's a screenshot of the starting city I was testing. The 3 farms along the river were the only 3 tiles I tested. I also developed the 2 mines to the west.

http://fapomatic.com/02/civ4screenshot0015.jpg


In this screenshot, the control, they were farms. In the experimental game, the farms were cottages and eventually villages. In both cases I chose the exact same techs to research and built the exact same buildings in the exact same order. Also, my starting warrior and all subsequent units did not explore the map looking for huts as I was trying to reduce randomness (which entering the huts is).

In the control game, with the farms, the production was much higher and I ended up building several warriors while waiting for Machinery to finish being researched.

On a commerce city, what I do, near the beginning, is all grasslands (including grassland hills) cottages, plain hills mines or windmills if available, and floodplains farms. However, I make sure that my worker works in this specific order:

1. resource tiles
2. grasslands
3. floodplains
4. repeat 2-3 till there's none left
5. work on non grassland hills

That way at any point in time, I have the flexibility to micromanage my citizens to work between food and commerce. The ability to do this, particularly on epic and marathon games, really help.

the result from working those two tiles is exactly the same, either way.
There is one case where this is not true: financial civs. A financial civ would get 3 total if you cottaged the river but only 2 total if you cottaged the grassland.

Also, there is a case where it doesn't apply: when you only use one of the two tiles.

Pros of cottaging the floodplain:
-Until you use both the floodplains and the grassland, you will have a better overall balance (food and comerece, not just food). If you have alot of floodplains, it will take a long time of growing before you start using the grassland.

-Since the govenor AI will use the floodplains first (since it is a good idea to because it gives more food), the cottage will grow while you use it. If you put it on the grassland, it will not grow.


Pros of farming the floodplain:
-Easier to irragate stuff later with civil service. (Usally there is a grassland or plains near the river aswell, though).

-Four food allows you to grow faster so that you can use both quicker.