I know cottages help provide much needed gold as your empire's maintenance costs skyrocket. My problem is that I don't know when to start building them, or what squares are worth being sacrificed for them. For example, should I immediately build cottages (after I connect my second city) in my capitol area's grassland squares, or would it be more worthwhile to wait until my population is up before I start implementing them? Insight is appreciated :lol:

You want to build farms first and slowly replace them with cottages as you near the happy limit. But you definitely need to cottage spam your capital, and if you do it quicker, then they will be mature sooner.

Ah...so your capital should have the most cottages? But another problem is that I have pigs and rice in my work area, and my population is really suffering from unhappiness and unhealthiness because of my population size...it's about size 13 at 650 BC and growing. so should I replace virtually all irrigation with cottages at this point?

I think we need to sticky a Cottage master-thread with links to all the Cottage threads.

I've only played about 24 games so far. My rules of thumb are:

1. If Flood Plain then Cottage.
2. If Financial Leader and Grassland River then Cottage.

Otherwise it all depends. If you have some nice Mining terrain then you're probably going to need Farms (instead of Cottages) to support them, as resources are important in the early going etc...

I generally don't cottage Plains - unless I have some good Food resources near by to support them. If I have Plains/River some of those are destined to become Watermills so I take that into account when cottaging/farming as I'd rather destroy a Farm.

Oh, and I will also cottage the Calendar resources if for example I have Stonehenge and am in no hurry to tech that. Later on I will destroy the Hamlet/Village unless I have some extra resources of that type.

Alright...I have two flood plains, lots of grassland(with pigs and rice), some forest, and a couple hills, so I would probably want to cottage all but the hills and perhaps one or two grasslands then.

*Waits for DaveMcW to reply*

DaveMcW's rule of thumb I love to paraphrase: If a city can support 10 cottages and still grow then it is a commerce city, otherwise it is a production city. Commerce cities only need a granary and should focus on growing and working cottages. Production cities should be building your troops. I've also seen him write that he emphasizes production early on to wipe out a neighbour and then goes harder on cottages from that point onward. If you work too many cottages too soon then you have a hard time expanding your empire, which requires production.

Nothing happens without hammers. My capital is always a wonder spammer, after that i want 1-2 troop spammers depending what the terrain can support, and then i start building cottage cities. Not really sold on GP farms (without the mids) assuming i can get some early wonders up, except to make some scientists for academies.

Alright...I have two flood plains, lots of grassland(with pigs and rice), some forest, and a couple hills, so I would probably want to cottage all but the hills and perhaps one or two grasslands then.

First, do you have a river? Put the respective improvements on the resources for the health bonus. If you are suffering from unhappiness, new populations will not be able to do anything, so focus on commerce and production. Build buildings to increase happiness (do not be afraid to rush them with slavery). Replace all farms with cottages until your city is starving if that ever happens. Don't go out of your way to work food tiles, growth won't help much.

I usually don't have much production in my capital. I have it focus on commerce and build only commerce buildings and happiness and healthy ones. Otherwise I'll just build wealth so that my economy doesn't crumble from my occasional warmongering.

... I have it focus on commerce and build only commerce buildings and happiness and healthy ones. ..

Isn't that like nearly every building in the game?

I usually don't have much production in my capital. I have it focus on commerce and build only commerce buildings and happiness and healthy ones. Otherwise I'll just build wealth so that my economy doesn't crumble from my occasional warmongering.
Seems to be a silly use of what is bound to be among your best cities. The generator very rarely gives you a bad capital, so why not utilize it??

First, do you have a river? Put the respective improvements on the resources for the health bonus. If you are suffering from unhappiness, new populations will not be able to do anything, so focus on commerce and production. Build buildings to increase happiness (do not be afraid to rush them with slavery). Replace all farms with cottages until your city is starving if that ever happens. Don't go out of your way to work food tiles, growth won't help much.

I usually don't have much production in my capital. I have it focus on commerce and build only commerce buildings and happiness and healthy ones. Otherwise I'll just build wealth so that my economy doesn't crumble from my occasional warmongering.


Yes I am on a river, and my unhappiness is pretty high, and I have improved my pigs and rice. so I will pretty much mine my hills and cottage spam the rest.

Isn't that like nearly every building in the game?

No, there are also barracks, stable, but pretty much everything else is (besides most wonders).

Seems to be a silly use of what is bound to be among your best cities. The generator very rarely gives you a bad capital, so why not utilize it??

I usually see the capitol as one of the most versatile cities in the game. However, commerce is often a good route especially if you can run bureaucracy there. Some other immortal players which I'm trying to mimic will just move the capitol to a commerce rich site though, often using high-food original capitols for GPP or production.

Well, I'm still getting used to the whole cottage thing (pretty much just moved off of Civ 3) and it used to be that production in your capital was key. But strategies have changed, so I would believe a capital would make a good gold bank.

Production capitols are still viable, just depends on your tiles.

Cottages are pretty straightforward, you make a GP farm, production cities, and more commerce cities than production cities. Build lots of them, preferably next to rivers.

Every city should have a food source or two, so commerce cities will work mostly cottages, taking enough hammer tiles to actually product basic % modifiers.

It's a pretty easy concept in practice if you specialize. Commerce, GP farm, production. At higher levels you'll have to run scientists off the library to get enough early research, but it stays basically the same even there conceptually.

By late game I end up replacing most irrigation and such with watermills (by rivers) or workshops so i can actually get some unit builders for the late infantry/plane/artillery times, but I suppose I should only do that in the production cities. I also typically don't have a GP spawning city, mainly because I don't plan that out.

I know cottages help provide much needed gold as your empire's maintenance costs skyrocket. My problem is that I don't know when to start building them, or what squares are worth being sacrificed for them. For example, should I immediately build cottages (after I connect my second city) in my capitol area's grassland squares, or would it be more worthwhile to wait until my population is up before I start implementing them? Insight is appreciated :lol:

Just as a quick note: cottages produce commerce not gold.

Commerce only becomes gold if you run your sliders below 100%. If you have a good gold city with a religious shirne or two (add a corporation in the late game) and some gold multiplying buildings it is often possible to run your research slider (or one of the other sliders or a combination) at 100% in which case your cottages are not paying any maintenance costs at all but are rather producing whatever you have your sliders set for.

I'm sure that you probably already knew this, but I thought I would point it out just in case. The commerce (coins and money bags) are easy to mistake for gold if you are still trying to learn the mechanics of the game.

There was a thread about optimal cottage growth. Basically, there's a critical point (something like max size - non normal farm bonus food) at which you switch completely from farms to cottages, or as close as feasible.

Cottaging your capital, including plains.

There was a thread about optimal cottage growth. Basically, there's a critical point (something like max size - non normal farm bonus food) at which you switch completely from farms to cottages, or as close as feasible.

"Food surplus equals happiness surplus."

With pigs and rice, you don't need farms at all.

Agree with DaveMcW (surprise). Besides, a note for the author: Unlike Civ3, where, if you just have enough food, you can grow beyond happy cap by using "entertainers", this game provides a solid "roof". Above that, everyone will be unhappy and will just eat food without winning anything for the city. Each city has a toggle-able option of "avoid growth", which should be used (with caution, it is imperative to switch growth back on when happiness allows it).

I prefer to build Cottages on unwooded hills where you can and on green patches that you can't build a Farm upon. The brown patches are either Farmed or Workshop-ed. Using the non-chop style of modern play, forests are saved for Forest Preserves and Lumbermills. This allows one to have a focus of cottage building in an artful process rather than an ungodly "spam".

For example, should I immediately build cottages (after I connect my second city) in my capitol area's grassland squares, or would it be more worthwhile to wait until my population is up before I start implementing them? Insight is appreciated :lol:

Clearly, the cottages aren't going to do you any good until you start working them.

My own habits are that I don't generally start cottaging until after the initial expansion wave is complete. My capital (and my second city, for that matter) almost always have enough food that they will reach the happy cap while working resources and production tiles, and I'll continue to do that to shorten the time required to establish my other cities.

(The basic notion here is that there are so many useful ways to invest hammers in the early going - settlers and workers, and defense and border pops, that I don't normally feel that I can trade turns on production tiles for turns on cottages).

When the initial wave of expansion is done - I have one city that can concentrate on creating my defensive units, and I'm starting to wonder how I'm going to pay for it all - that's about the point that the cottages start going up, roughly speaking "everywhere flat", and generally prioritizing the capital over other cities.

There are some options in sequencing, for any given city (do I work the green tiles first, or the brown ones?) I'm sure that folks will argue vehemently that their preference is most correct.

As far as expansion goes, I'm on a relatively small continent with four other civs, so expansion is pretty much over by now. I'm trying to amass a force to go on some conquestial expansion, and my capital and one of my main cities are pumping out units, whereas my third main city is building wonders. So at this point, there's more reason to build cottages than anything else because I can't improve many tiles to get shields and I'm already growing beyond my happiness. Also, does making scientists and such specialists in cities take people off working tiles?

There are some options in sequencing, for any given city (do I work the green tiles first, or the brown ones?) I'm sure that folks will argue vehemently that their preference is most correct.

Good luck finding anyone willing to support the brown ones. :lol:

Irrigated plains are useful in a production city before 3 hammer workshops become available. You can only use so much food for whipping before frownie faces become a problem.

Irrigated plains are useful in a production city before 3 hammer workshops become available. You can only use so much food for whipping before frownie faces become a problem.

Production cities should have hills, not flat plains.
2 pop @ plainsfarms: 2 * (0F,1H) = 2H and no food surplus
1 pop @ grasslandfarm + 1 pop @ grasslandhillmine: 1F0H + -1F3H = 3H and no food surplus.

Hence, Plains tiles should, in general, be avoided until biology, or cottaged/workshopped in cities that can feed them.

There are only so many hills. And plains are as good as grassland for production with emancipation/chemistry/biology.

There are only so many hills.

... Would you settle a city that had no access to hills or grass? I wouldn't. Not until Biology or unless you are blocking an AI. In that case, you will be having one of these cities, which can work as you say with farmed plains tiles (2F1H1C). It won't be supreme though, it will be below averagy.

I dont keep my cities small enough to only work the available hills. Why do you do something that silly?

I dont keep my cities small enough to only work the available hills. Why do you do something that silly?

I don't do that either. But while a city with 3 hills may be a poor production city later (happy cap 8+), it can easily crank out units early on (3 ghills + city tile = 10 :hammers: = 2 axes in 7 turns), which can grab you extra land. Later on, things such as rivers and the less superior tiles matter more. I don't settle cities I judge good at size 6 only, I settle cities I find can be of importance from the moment they are up to the end of the game. If this is impossible, I tend to grab whatever there is for the taking (I am not against some jungle cities that takes long time to get running and have no real production for commerce, but we are tlaking production here, and the earliest most effective ways of production (barring whipping) are Mines, then forests).

And you are right, keeping cities small is silly. Each city should have atleast one food resource, barring the cities that are just there to block AIs, which are prefered to have a such, but will work without (although they will be puny :sad:)

I just got back to this thread. Sorry that I took so long to respond to these.

Seems to be a silly use of what is bound to be among your best cities. The generator very rarely gives you a bad capital, so why not utilize it??

You can change your capital to a different city. There are only two ways that your capital gets a benefit: extra happiness, and extra commerce (also extra espionage if you have BtS). Find a good site for a commerce city that would not cause distance maintinence to increase by much, or preferably decrease it and build a palace in it. You get a bigger happy cap, allowing you to work more tiles, and +8 commerce which can be increased to 16-20 bonus commerce with the right buildings. And you are still free to use your starting location for whatever you want.

Isn't that like nearly every building in the game?

No! :gripe:

Assembly Plant, Bomb Shelter, Bunker, Courthouse, Every kind of power plant, Drydock, Factory, Forge, Industrial Park, Leeve, Lighthouse, Military Academy, Monument, Stable, and Walls.

I think thats all. Please tell me if I forgot any.:)

Is it really that important to have city specialization? What if all your cities had balanced production, growth and commerce? You would still have the same total amount of hammers and commerce than if they were specialized, right?

Balanced
CITY 1: 30 hammers, 30 gold
CITY 2: 30 hammers, 30 gold
TOTAL: 60 hammers, 60 gold

Specialized
CITY 1: 50 hammers, 10 gold
CITY 2: 10 hammers, 50 gold
TOTAL: 60 hammers, 60 gold

The only reason I see is maintenance costs: if you specialize, then you don't need to build forges or factories in city 2, and you don't need to build markets and banks in city 1. But still, I'm not even sure if the maintenance costs are significant enough to justify specialization...

I'm a CIV IV noob BTW, so if I'm totally wrong, please explain ;)

@ the OP:
Before we get into cottage placement, lets get back to a few fundamentals. If you have a pop 13 city in 650BC with massive unhappiness (big surprise) you need to whip them away. You are supporting unhappy citizens who just eat food and don't produce anything. There are lots of good articles around for boosting happiness, whipping, etc.

@ ithaka:
Yes, you are totally wrong for a few reasons, but maintenance is not really one of them. Mainly, the problem is the hammers it takes to build every stupid building in every city. Not to mention the way National Wonders are used to enhance certain specializations. For example, science cities need not produce buildings like grocer and market and stick with libraries, universities, etc. A production city will build barracks and forge but skip gold/science multipliers. Your hybrid cities might be great in 2050AD but my specialized cities are leveraging an advantage much earlier in the game.

Before we get into cottage placement, lets get back to a few fundamentals. If you have a pop 13 city in 650BC with massive unhappiness (big surprise) you need to whip them away. You are supporting unhappy citizens who just eat food and don't produce anything. There are lots of good articles around for boosting happiness, whipping, etc.

Yes, this is very true. When my capital got really big, I just whipped up some Macemen for some military power. I got 1 unhappy face, but whipped away three :)

Balanced
CITY 1: 30 hammers, 30 gold
CITY 2: 30 hammers, 30 gold
TOTAL: 60 hammers, 60 gold

Specialized
CITY 1: 50 hammers, 10 gold
CITY 2: 10 hammers, 50 gold
TOTAL: 60 hammers, 60 gold

Don't forget the buildings:

Balanced
CITY 1 + market + forge: 37 hammers, 37,5 gold
CITY 2 + market + forge: 37 hammers, 37,5 gold
TOTAL: 74 hammers, 75 gold

Specialized
CITY 1 + forge: 62 hammers, 10 gold
CITY 2 + market: 10 hammers, 62,5 gold
TOTAL: 72 hammers, 72,5 gold

Economy of 210 hammers, used for example for a bank (200 hammers), which results in:

Specialized
CITY 1 + forge: 62 hammers, 10 gold
CITY 2 + market + bank: 10 hammers, 87,5 gold
TOTAL: 72 hammers, 97,5 gold

In this over-simplified example (simplified cities + building time not included), you trade 2 hammers for 22 gold and are able to get units faster out of the gate; still find specialization is worthless? ;)

Well, the ideal cottage economy is US and FS with towns all over and all gold and science multipliers in every city, factories optional. Specialization is really just a transition, with the exception of that one hammer city for space parts and maybe a bunch of settled specialists somewhere.

(and before someone inevitably says it, its not a matter of "setting up" something like this so much as it is switching to US when it becomes available)

I just recently played a game where I put cottages on almost every tile that wasn't a resource or hill. It worked out wonderfully. As the game went on and I had the civics/tech, I built a lot more watermills, but it was a mostly cottage game.

Honestly, if you get a large enough empire, you can do whatever you want and still win, which was the case for me that game. I played pretty sloppy for half of it, but I was so massive and had such amazing production compared to the other civs, it didn't matter.

Huh, that was a bit of a tangent, but I meant to say that you can basically spam cottages everywhere and be fairly succesful since the AI is horrid at pillaging.

Is it really that important to have city specialization? What if all your cities had balanced production, growth and commerce? You would still have the same total amount of hammers and commerce than if they were specialized, right?

Balanced
CITY 1: 30 hammers, 30 gold
CITY 2: 30 hammers, 30 gold
TOTAL: 60 hammers, 60 gold

Specialized
CITY 1: 50 hammers, 10 gold
CITY 2: 10 hammers, 50 gold
TOTAL: 60 hammers, 60 gold

The only reason I see is maintenance costs: if you specialize, then you don't need to build forges or factories in city 2, and you don't need to build markets and banks in city 1. But still, I'm not even sure if the maintenance costs are significant enough to justify specialization...

I'm a CIV IV noob BTW, so if I'm totally wrong, please explain ;)

Please, read an article on city specialization. Obviously, having two cities with 30(!) hammers yield is awesome, but then, don't waste them on markets. Barrackses, forges, factories, and troops, troops, troops.

Read Jujulautres (?) reply for an example of how specialization pays off.


I just recently played a game where I put cottages on almost every tile that wasn't a resource or hill. It worked out wonderfully. As the game went on and I had the civics/tech, I built a lot more watermills, but it was a mostly cottage game.

Honestly, if you get a large enough empire, you can do whatever you want and still win, which was the case for me that game. I played pretty sloppy for half of it, but I was so massive and had such amazing production compared to the other civs, it didn't matter.

Huh, that was a bit of a tangent, but I meant to say that you can basically spam cottages everywhere and be fairly succesful since the AI is horrid (at pillaging.)

Fixed. Anyway, yes, cottagespam is strong when you have lots of cities (and therefore, more resources and a higher happy cap), but they will still be even better with specialization (ie: When to cottage and when to farm? How much food surplus? Any specialists? Any :hammers: needed?).

Furthermore, if you are feeling you are winning without even struggling, why dont you raise the bar a bit and move a level up?

Three things.

1) If you have serious unhappiness, whip away the excess. Using the whip creates one more :mad: for a while, so always whip two or three at a time, unless you're whipping something like a Temple that creates more happy.

2) The Bureaucracy civic gives a 50% bonus to all commerce generated in your capitol. This is very powerful in the early middle game. (It's much less powerful in the later game, but never mind that now.) So, having lots of cottages/hamlets/towns around your capital lets you take full benefit of this.

3) Your civ's attributes affect the attractiveness and timing of Cottages. For instance, if you're Philosophical, you're much more likely to run a "Specialist Economy", with much of your research coming from specialists and the Great People they produce. Contrariwise, if you're Financial, you want more and earlier cottages, since they'll produce more commerce for you. (If you're Financial, cottage-spam early and often, and worry about the details later.) And if you're Aggressive, you may choose to emphasize production over commerce in order to crank out units for an early rush.

Waldo

I cottage mostly when I don't have anything better to do. Unless we're near a tech that gives a bonus merely by being known (Currency, Corporation etc) I make production a higher priority than research: Getting that library built, then doing some research is better than the other way round. The same applies to any other useful infrastructure.

Hence my reluctance to go overboard with cottages at the start; most cities start building granaries and then enter a whipping frenzy. Cottages might enter the picture if they can keep up with infrastructure unassisted, or when I'm lacking fresh water.

If you are philosophical or lucky enough to have pyramids you may not need cottages. there are monarch+ players who do not build a single cottage. am i wrong?

One theory could be just Farm and then hit stop city growth then expand doing the same to the new cities, then go back and cottage non farmable land after reaching Monarchy. Then unclick stop city growth and churn out units in slavery for a few turns, preferably war elephants that need to be both financed and fed.

there are monarch+ players who do not build a single cottage. am i wrong?

Yes you are wrong. Those are emperor players who can beat monarch with a no-cottage handicap. ;)

Yes you are wrong. Those are emperor players who can beat monarch with a no-cottage handicap. ;)

Or Obsolete, who builds 6 cities and no cottages, and nukes the world into the stone age before launching his space ship on immortal. :crazyeye:

http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/signs022.gif

CE vs SE debate aproaching....

You can win every level with or without cottages if you're good enough.

Now if we're talking about if cottages are easier or not.... :dunno: I use both styles and I really don't know.

Now if we're talking about if cottages are easier or not.... :dunno: I use both styles and I really don't know.

The math is pretty simple: if cottages are fun, you should use them. If they aren't fun, you should not use them.

The math is pretty simple: if cottages are fun, you should use them. If they aren't fun, you should not use them.

That's some good math!

It depends on the map tiles available also...having tons of seafood and very little land for a large # of your ideal city sites would make running cottages in meaningful numbers pretty difficult. Likewise, if there's practically no commerce resources around and you're in a situation where you don't get much coastal land either, you'll need at least SOME cottages to avoid dropping into the red after like 4 cities.

Generally speaking though, it's as VoU says, do what's fun :).

I believe they have much better uses for small empires. On A large empire late game (low difficulty) I have maybe -5 to +5 gold with 100% science and culture with over 16 cities, but with about 10 I can have a surplus of over 30 gpt.

I believe they have much better uses for small empires. On A large empire late game (low difficulty) I have maybe -5 to +5 gold with 100% science and culture with over 16 cities, but with about 10 I can have a surplus of over 30 gpt.

I think you are misunderstanding the economics a bit. You shouldn't put so much stock in your +/- gold situation or how high the science slider is. The important thing is beakers per turn. With an SE the science slider can often be very low or turned off altogether while still teching at a reasonable rate.
As far as empire size I find my self typically relying more on cottages the larger I get, either because captured territory already has matured cottages or because it becomes easier with emancipation/PP to make money that way.

I think you are misunderstanding the economics a bit. You shouldn't put so much stock in your +/- gold situation or how high the science slider is. The important thing is beakers per turn. With an SE the science slider can often be very low or turned off altogether while still teching at a reasonable rate.
As far as empire size I find my self typically relying more on cottages the larger I get, either because captured territory already has matured cottages or because it becomes easier with emancipation/PP to make money that way.


I suppose that is true. But any cities you capture late game don't tend to be redeemable science/commerce-wise because of how long all the improvements take, and how many of them there are. But I can sometimes remedy that situation by using my +gpt to rush those improvements if I have a small empire, (since those captured cities don't have much pop to begin with, especially with rioting). If I have a larger empire with no surplus, however, I can't do that.

I believe they have much better uses for small empires. On A large empire late game (low difficulty) I have maybe -5 to +5 gold with 100% science and culture with over 16 cities, but with about 10 I can have a surplus of over 30 gpt.

:eek: Only 16 cities in the late game! That is not a large empire! And still at -5.

I usually have +20 cities and like +20 to 30 GPT by the mid-renaissance.

What level do you mean by "low difficulty"? Warlord or noble, right?

@. For example, science cities need not produce buildings like grocer and market and stick with libraries, universities, etc. A production city will build barracks and forge but skip gold/science multipliers. Your hybrid cities might be great in 2050AD but my specialized cities are leveraging an advantage much earlier in the game.

Not entirely true.

The production city can avoid science buildings for the most part. Though i build a library and university in a few when i get Education, because they can crank them out quickly to get the minimum for Oxford. But they don't NEED them.

With regard to gold multipliers, you should keep in mind that the first 2 gold multipliers market/grocer also provide happiness and health respectively. Both of which are needed in both science and production cities.

And the OP is asking about cottages which implies his science comes from cottage commerce. Every gold multiplier you build in a cottage/commerce city is essentially a science modifier because it allows you to raise the slider higher. Thus increasing your beakers. There is a rather large gap between libraries and universities unless you beeline it ignoring military or production techs. Building a marketplace is a good way to spend that time. It has a potential for +4 happiness +3 when you lose the whales) and it boosts your gold, which in turn boosts your science.

Example: a civ has 100 base commerce and 50gpt in city/unit costs with libraries alone it generates 62.5 bpt. at 50% science. With libraries AND markets it can run at 60% science for 75bpt. The point being that in a CE there are no "Science cities" or "Gold cities" There are "Commerce cities" And each extra happy face is one more cottage worked.

Not entirely true.

The production city can avoid science buildings for the most part. Though i build a library and university in a few when i get Education, because they can crank them out quickly to get the minimum for Oxford. But they don't NEED them.

With regard to gold multipliers, you should keep in mind that the first 2 gold multipliers market/grocer also provide happiness and health respectively. Both of which are needed in both science and production cities.

And the OP is asking about cottages which implies his science comes from cottage commerce. Every gold multiplier you build in a cottage/commerce city is essentially a science modifier because it allows you to raise the slider higher. Thus increasing your beakers. There is a rather large gap between libraries and universities unless you beeline it ignoring military or production techs. Building a marketplace is a good way to spend that time. It has a potential for +4 happiness +3 when you lose the whales) and it boosts your gold, which in turn boosts your science.

Example: a civ has 100 base commerce and 50gpt in city/unit costs with libraries alone it generates 62.5 bpt. at 50% science. With libraries AND markets it can run at 60% science for 75bpt. The point being that in a CE there are no "Science cities" or "Gold cities" There are "Commerce cities" And each extra happy face is one more cottage worked.

Certainly there are exceptions to every rule in Civ, especially those relating to city buildings. You hit on a few of them, like when you want your production city to crank a university to unlock Oxford, markets for happiness, etc.

Markets, though, are one of the crappiest buildings, IMO. Rarely do you have enough of the happy resources to make it worthwhile and +25% gold is crap compared to the equivalent number of disposapults in terms of potential gain.
More importantly, the OP was talking about running 100% science. This is not something I experience very often (it usually means you need to expand more) but I would imagine +25% gold doesn't do much at 100% science.

As for specialization in CE, it is certainly less of a priority when your empire is commerce-heavy. I was primarily trying to simplify things to help with a common mistake (no offense to the OP ;)) That is, trying to build every stupid building in every city. A lot of those gold-multiplier buildings are crap until much later in the game. They cost far too much in hammers for such a marginal gain. In many cases, whipping units is a much better course of action.

If you're warring to the brink of over-expansion though, the gold multipliers can get quite a bit of mileage. Although I tend to whip courthouses in captured cities so I don't go under, I like the gold buildings in those games where the slider is often hovering at 20-30 % science. When you're down there the gold bonus is worth more than the libraries to commerce and of course even 1-2 of the :) resources tips the scale IMO. Generally science multipliers win out if you can run anywhere near 50% +.

That aside, what bothers me most about city specialization while running mostly commerce (aka cottages) to fund gold/research is that when you're at 40-60% science you probably want both kinds of buildings, with emphasize/priority to science. Still, when you're at 40% and you can make a market or a university on a commerce city (which tends to be hammer-poor), which do you go with? Let's assume you have enough of them for oxford already (or just compare to an observatory). They are both 25% multipliers, although now the market is the cheaper one in hammers...and potentially grants 1-3 happiness usually (you tend to have one of the happy resources it grants at least, or can trade for it). Building these is theoretically more efficient in that scenario, correct? Same can be put forth for grocers, especially when health is an issue (the grocer health resources are relatively common at least in my experience).

Obviously no gold building can touch a library unless you're in desperation mode, but I'd hardly rate markets as crappy unless you're playing a small empire until the renaissance for some kind of rifle-tech push, or otherwise stay small until other means of keeping the slider or BPT decent come into play.

Your cities don't exist in a vacuum. If you have 6 perfectly equal cottaged commerce cities, why not start 3 science buildings and 3 gold buildings? Then switch. Best of both worlds.

:eek: Only 16 cities in the late game! That is not a large empire! And still at -5.

I usually have +20 cities and like +20 to 30 GPT by the mid-renaissance.

What level do you mean by "low difficulty"? Warlord or noble, right?

Yes I mean Warlord to Noble Difficulty.

And I said at least 16 cities, one game I was running 27 (and losing gold fast, mainly because I captured some crappy tundra cities which I should have just razed).

And same here about the gpt during Renaissance.