Cottage - a new land improvement

One very useful (and new) land improvement is the cottage.

It can be built after the pottery tech is discovered which means pretty early and that's the interest of it.

Its main benefit is extra gold and gold IS important in Civ4, especially since roads/RR don't get you trade which is a huge change.

But the amount of gold it produces can vary. Indeed a cottage tile worked by a city can evolve after a certain number of turns into a hamlet then into a town. And these are even more productive. Of course special civics and later techs can also add extra bonus. With all that you must understand building some cottages early (especially on flood plains if you are lucky enough to have some near your starting place) can be extremely productive on the long term.

Precise description by Pragmatic : Cottages provide money: +1 at cottage; +2 at hamlet (after 10 turns of working); +3 at village (20 turns) (+1 with Printing Press); +4 at town (40 turns) (+1 with Printing Press tech; +2 with Free Speech tech). They also can provide hammers (+1 with Universal Suffrage civic).

So especially if you are used to previous Civ games, don't focus on usual mines/irrigation/roads and keep your mind open for these cottages ! However don't overbuild them as farms and mines early on provide you with useful food and hammers too. Just think about integrating cottages in your early strategy as well !

YOu double threaded(you probably already noticed but jsut in case)
Why are cottages considered so great in civ4 dont roads get jstu as much stuff and what if you need productions do they only increase gold output or do they have other effects too?

Roads are for transportation, for hooking up to other cities (foreign and domestic) for trade routes, and for hooking up to special resources. They don't, in and of themselves, provide commerce bonuses. So no need to put a road on every tile any more!

Cottages provide money: +1 at cottage; +2 at hamlet (after 10 turns of working); +3 at village (20 turns) (+1 with Printing Press); +4 at town (40 turns) (+1 with Printing Press tech; +2 with Free Speech tech). They also can provide hammers (+1 with Universal Suffrage civic).

Bear in mind what cottages do NOT provide. Remember, you can only have one terrain improvement (not including roads/railroads) per tile. Cottages do not provide food. Cottages do not provide hammers, except with the correct civic. They don't provide defense. They don't utilize special resources. Build too many cottages, or else you'll cripple your civ.

I really enjoy the way the road network looks now because of this change. No more repeating pattern, just roads going to and from the things it should, like cities and resources. It's also brilliant how you can build roads to the rivers, which then act as roads.

Pragmatic said:

Roads are for transportation, for hooking up to other cities (foreign and domestic) for trade routes, and for hooking up to special resources. They don't, in and of themselves, provide commerce bonuses. So no need to put a road on every tile any more!

Cottages provide money: +1 at cottage; +2 at hamlet (after 10 turns of working); +3 at village (20 turns) (+1 with Printing Press); +4 at town (40 turns) (+1 with Printing Press tech; +2 with Free Speech tech). They also can provide hammers (+1 with Universal Suffrage civic).

Bear in mind what cottages do NOT provide. Remember, you can only have one terrain improvement (not including roads/railroads) per tile. Cottages do not provide food. Cottages do not provide hammers, except with the correct civic. They don't provide defense. They don't utilize special resources. Build too many cottages, or else you'll cripple your civ.

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Now it hadnt occured to me before that cottages essentially replace the money providing function of roads.

But, as I understand it you can't put cottages into every terrain type, which you could do with road and rail. The growth of cottages into hamlets, etc, compensates for this somewhat it seems.

I haven't got the game yet as I live in the UK (good thing too, judging by the number of graphics card problems) but I reckon that a careful balanced approach to city growth (a little of everything - making full use of every resource you have available) will be the best.

Can anyone who has played the game comment on this?

Indeed I should have mentionned that. Roads don't provide trade anymore (thought it was mentionned and clear for everyone already).
A balance of everything is indeed needed but some improvements (plantations, mills, sawmills for instance) only come with later techs so you can actually change improvements over time.
I just wanted to stress the importance of early cottages because their importance develops over time. A few cottages that develop can get you enough money to support a few early cities, especially as roads don't provide trade. Of course it does not mean you must build cottages everywhere. But they are a long-term improvement that needs early planning.

BTW to rip the benefits of resources you need special improvements (a mine for iron, coppern aluminium, coal), a plantation (for spices, sugar,...), a winery for wine (!), a fishnet (for crabs, fish, clams, whales), a farm (for corn, rice, maize, wheat), a rig (for oil, both inland and offshore).

Edit the first post to be more precise and to include the most precise decription by Pragmatic.

Trogg said:

YOu double threaded(you probably already noticed but jsut in case)
Why are cottages considered so great in civ4 dont roads get jstu as much stuff and what if you need productions do they only increase gold output or do they have other effects too?

Click to expand...

I had not seen the double post actually (the submit thread was so slow I actually pushed again). Not mch I can do, I cannot report my own threads but if someone wants to report the other thread for a mod to delete, go ahead.

UKScud said:

I haven't got the game yet as I live in the UK (good thing too, judging by the number of graphics card problems) but I reckon that a careful balanced approach to city growth (a little of everything - making full use of every resource you have available) will be the best.

Can anyone who has played the game comment on this?

Click to expand...

Well, there is still a bit of the old Civ style to it... pump up the food with irrigation so you can use those low food, high shield/hammer squares and still grow. But you do need to balance more because, as mentioned, roads don't give trade/gold, and even worse, unhappy citizens kick in earlier than I remember from the previous titles (even at the easier levels), and you don't have those quick improvements to the morale problem in the early game, like martial law and temples. Oh yeah, and you'll probably run into negative health effects that stunt your city crowth.

From what I've played so far, the best solution seems to be to get that first city up to size and production ASAP with the usual irrigation/mines combo civ players are used to, focusing on building up scouts and warriors while you wait. Then, when your city reaches the size where new citizens are unhappy, start building those cottages in real force so you can switch out switch out some food for trade, and start building those bloody settlers and workers in force (which stop city growth this time around), as any further growth would just result in an unhappy citizen who won't do anything anyway... and this time, the quick fixes like temples and unit effects on morale are much slower in coming. It requires a fair bit of tech to get those tools, which means trade... which you need cottages for.

And, of course, you have to manage those special resources well at the same time, gaurd against maruading barbarians, animals, and rival civilizations and maybe try to build up a building or two too. And, this time around, tile improvements usually take longer (by about 2x) to complete than they did in the older Civs titles. Irrigation might take 8 turns this time around (depending)... after you spend upwards of 12 turns building the worker in the first place. Net result - one farm, 400+ years in the making. EEP!

But I could be wrong, I've been getting my ass kicked on Warlord difficulty all night. :/ That hasn't happened since I first played Civ I. Civ IV defintely doesn't seem to favor the time tested production blitz or uber tech strategies that I'd used for the previous three titles. It isn't as simple as irrigating all the plains and grasslands and mining everything else this time around, that's for sure.

popewiz said:

It's also brilliant how you can build roads to the rivers, which then act as roads.

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Yes! I was very pleasantly suprised when I founded a new city along a river and noticed that it immediatly had access to all my civs resources even though I did not build a road to it yet. I then realized that one of my roads crossed that river much further up stream, so the river acts as a free road for trade and resources. You still need to conect you cities with roads just for the sake of moving units quickly but its nice that you can get all those bonus resources right away.

CitizenCain:

Well.. "the usual irrigation/mines combo civ players are used to" is to mine forests. Which can't be done in Civ 4. Well, you can put in a lumber mill for +1 hammer (and +1(or maybe -1, I haven't actually built one yet) food), but you need replacable parts(!) to allow that to happen. And of course there's always wind/water mills.