Cottages vs. specialists: Pre-analysis discussion

Ok, well, there are a lot of critics of the specialist analysis #s I'm posting. I'm confident that specialists are superior, but there are many doubters. To settle the matter, I'd like to do a comparative analysis of cottages vs. specialists.

However, I wanted to do this pre-analysis discussion thread to discuss some of the difficulties, as I see it, in doing this comparative analysis.

1) The science slider and maintenance costs.

In a specialist econ, you set your science slider to 0% and use your commerce to pay your maintenance (especially commerce acquired through conquest). In a cottage econ, you have to divide your commerce between science and maintenance. Some ways people have for coping with this is to use binary science (switching between 100% and 0% science) or setting the science slider to a certain rate (e.g., 70%). The specialist way is easy to calculate, the cottage way seems more variable and difficult to accurately calculate, especially when coupled with some of the other difficulties...

2) Slavery and worked tiles.

In a specialist econ, you can use slavery to your heart's content, as long as you aren't slaving down to a population that sacrifices a scientist (i.e., past size 4 early on). In a cottage econ, when you use slavery, you are losing the working of some cottages until you grow back the population. Furthermore, during these, or other, growth periods, are you always working cottages? Or are you working food tiles? This leads to worked tiles. How many cottages can we assume you are working in a city? Are you working any food or production tiles at any point? All of these factors combined seems to lead to a variable amount of commerce being produced. *Unless* you are totally designating the city to commerce, not using slavery, and finding the required happiness to just consistently grow to add cottage after cottage, which seems contrary to how a game would actually play out.

3) Cottage growth.

Here's a difficult one. Cottages take time to grow and they are growing to different sizes based on when they are built, and how often they are able to be worked. How do I account for this variability? Like I said, if you're using slavery, this will also impact the growth of certain cottages.

These are the immediate difficulties I can see. I may think of others, and if anyone else can think of any, please feel free to post them. Also, if anyone can think of good solutions, please post them.

The goal is to get some stable numbers for the cottage econ to compare to the specialist econ, but I feel at this point that the cottage econ is quite variable based on the above-mentioned difficulties.

futurehermit said:

In a specialist econ, you can use slavery to your heart's content, as long as you aren't slaving down to a population that sacrifices a scientist (i.e., past size 4 early on). In a cottage econ, when you use slavery, you are losing the working of some cottages until you grow back the population. Furthermore, during these, or other, growth periods, are you always working cottages? Or are you working food tiles?

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That just means, in a specialist based economy you HAVE TO work some farms all the time. In a cottage based economy, you don't have to, since unlike specialists, the cottages are typically self-supporting foodwise.

Assume you have a city of size 3 with one 4F tile and 2 specialists. The city is stagnant.

Now in the same city you work 3 cottages for 6F - the city is growing at +2.

Now let's suppose, you have city size 4 with 2 specialists and two 4F tiles. You grow at the rate 4. In a cottage-based city, you have a flexibility either to work 4 cottages and grow at 2, or work 3 cottages and a 4F tile for +6 growth.

So, with certain micromanagement, you actually work more cottages*turn in the same city.

Well the only flaw I am seeing so far is that even a cottage strat will make use of specialists so they can get the best of both while the specialist requires intensive farming with an occasional cottage. It would however be a nice challenge to start a map and get several players to play different scenario's.
1. The first one only uses specialists and sets the science slider to 0%.
2. The second one only uses cottages
3. The third one uses everything to its own liking.
Play 3 different games like space race, domination and the first to reach future tech (tech trading off and no tech winning at peace conferences) for example and see who wins.

Killroyan said:

It would however be a nice challenge to start a map and get several players to play different scenario's.
1. The first one only uses specialists and sets the science slider to 0%.
2. The second one only uses cottages
3. The third one uses everything to its own liking.
Play 3 different games like space race, domination and the first to reach future tech (tech trading off and no tech winning at peace conferences) for example and see who wins.

Click to expand...

That contest would be of limited value. There are too many variables, randomness, and other decisions that impact when you finish the tech tree. Nothing statistically signifigant could be concluded.

I do agree that futurehermit's idea that you should have 0% science to run a specialist economy is somewhat confusing. Why shouldn't you run whatever science percentage keeps you in the black? Just more beakers for your empire.

BTW, I can buy the point where you set your science to 0% to pay income. However, if you do not work any commerce tiles, you get 0 commerce converted to gold. Where do you get that commerce, besides the 8 coins from the Palace and a few coins from farms on rivers, especially pre-Currency?

if you want to test, you must play the different scenarios yourself

if different people play, it's a contest between players, not a contest between strategies.

IMHO there is no "best overall strategy". You need cottages at some point, unless you dominate/conquer the world before emancipation. Also, you need specialists at some point (unless you stick with slavery and whip away population > workable tiles).
The biggest issue with specialists vs cottage isn't the commerce you can get. I'm pretty sure you do better with a cottage economy. The biggest issue is what is game winning?
You need troops.
Cottages give you no hammer up to US. So if a cottager needs troops, he'll have a production city (or a few of those). He may even have an engineer at work there . Or he will whip away pop. Slow to grow back without farms! So he will have farms/food ressources.
Then again, he will need libraries/markets/banks/universities... whip? chop? yes, ok. This jungle city won't get any chopped library. You need to work some food tiles to grow and whip or to get an engineer/priest/citizen specialist at work to get those hammers.

What i try to say is that there is no pure cottage vs pure specialist economy.
I tried a pure cottage city once. I never could build the bonus buildings!

Andrei_V said:

BTW, I can buy the point where you set your science to 0% to pay income. However, if you do not work any commerce tiles, you get 0 commerce converted to gold. Where do you get that commerce, besides the 8 coins from the Palace and a few coins from farms on rivers, especially pre-Currency?

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farms are next to rivers, remember!

You're wrong about production being a factor in favor of specialists. Pure commerce cities rely on slavery for production when needed. Meanwhile futurehermit style stagnated size 4/5 science cities only have 5 hammers or so and also use the whip when its called for. Whenever you specialize a city for commerce its likely going to lack in production, no matter you method of aquiring it.

Andrei_V: He's pretty much set on a continuous war strategy IIRC. That way conquering cities will take care of the money problem.

carl corey said:

Andrei_V: He's pretty much set on a continuous war strategy IIRC. That way conquering cities will take care of the money problem.

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Well, I can do the same thing in a cottage-based economy. I'll just set science to 100% and pay maintenance from looting and pillaging.

And don't forget> Financial trait + Universal Suffrage = superior cottages.

Andrei_V said:

Well, I can do the same thing in a cottage-based economy. I'll just set science to 100% and pay maintenance from looting and pillaging.

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Seems about right.

So, it looks like even in a specialist-based economy it's good to have a few cottaged cities (especially if they do not have any special food resources, but plenty of grassland.)

At 0% science they'd convert all that commerce to gold, which would help to pay maintenance.

In a cottage-based economy, you set your slider below 100% for the same thing.

The advantage of the specialist-based approach could be in city specialisation: In such commerce cities, you don't need any Libraries-Universities, etc, only Markets-Banks. The science cities don't need Banks and such.

I do agree that futurehermit's idea that you should have 0% science to run a specialist economy is somewhat confusing. Why shouldn't you run whatever science percentage keeps you in the black? Just more beakers for your empire.

Click to expand...

BTW, I can buy the point where you set your science to 0% to pay income. However, if you do not work any commerce tiles, you get 0 commerce converted to gold. Where do you get that commerce, besides the 8 coins from the Palace and a few coins from farms on rivers, especially pre-Currency?

Click to expand...

Are you not conquering in a specialist-based econ game? The reason you want science at 0% is so you can pay the maintenance of all of the extra cities you'er conquering. I keep trying to explain to people that the specialist econ allows you to conquer more cities than the cottage econ because you set the science slider to 0% to have a larger empire!!! You CANNOT, i repeat, you CANNOT, do this in a cottage-based econ. I have tried and tried and just can't get the same sized empire + tech rate with a cottage-based econ as I can in a specialist econ. Period.

Edit: This is because cottages take time to mature in your newly captured cities while specialists only require some quick food tiles and a library. You eventually run out of steam in the cottage-based approach.

Furthermore, you don't NEED to work commerce tiles to get your money, this is what I keep trying to say! You get your commerce from CONQUEST.

If anyone can speak to my 3 concerns mentioned above, I'd be appreciative. Thx

Andrei_V said:

So, it looks like even in a specialist-based economy it's good to have a few cottaged cities (especially if they do not have any special food resources, but plenty of grassland.)

At 0% science they'd convert all that commerce to gold, which would help to pay maintenance.

In a cottage-based economy, you set your slider below 100% for the same thing.

The advantage of the specialist-based approach could be in city specialisation: In such commerce cities, you don't need any Libraries-Universities, etc, only Markets-Banks. The science cities don't need Banks and such.

Click to expand...

Thats definitely one of the advantages to it. I still feel that the wonders that futurehermit advocates using everytime though would cancel that out. Pyramids are expensive.

And don't forget> Financial trait + Universal Suffrage = superior cottages.

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The specialist econ isn't for financial civs. I've never claimed it was. If you're financial, you should be using cottages. However, financial is getting lost in the xpac people...

Pyramids are expensive.

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The pay-off is worth it. If you don't believe me, try it out.

I still don't buy it. Even in a cottage-based case I can run specialists in the newly conquered cities (why I should not?)

Also, I definitely prefer to capture the Pyramids, rather than build them.

Financial is getting lost? What are you talking about?

Yes I have tried specialists before and I found it very lacking. Using caste system and the GL to great the super science city captures most of the power of your strategy. Beyond that I cottage things up even if I'm not financial. The primary exception being fishing villages with food resource that allows you to run a couple scientists. If you set them up early they'll often give you an extra GP or two over the game in addition to a tidy sum of beakers.

Knock it off with the specialist economy threads already! The first one was a pretty good discussion, the rest have been lame.

Another thing is when I get a starting location which is good for specialists, but not for cottages (plenty of food, too few grassland.)

I feel almost lost in this case, since I'm obliged to convert it to a GP farm, rather than growing cottages in anticipation of Bureaucracy.

I can move the capital to another city, all right, but I don't have enough time to grow the cottages.

However, if the capital is suited for cottages, I would not even think about anything else. +50% to commerce from Bureaucracy, MULTIPLIED by Library+Academy+such modifier...