Question re: new commerce cities

Let's say you build a fresh new commerce city with say 1 food source (e.g, grassland cows/rice) with a river running through the bfc and the city is on the river. The rest of the tiles are grassland. It's a nice commerce city, but doesn't have an abundance of food driving its growth.

Let's say you have the health and happiness to grow easily to size 15 right away.

Would it be better to:

1) Cottage the 19 non-food tiles and grow slowly, adding and working cottages along the way?

2) Farm the river tiles and grow to size 15 asap then cottage over the farms?

3) Add a couple farms to help growth, but then add cottages?

Slow growth with max cottages? Fast growth while delaying cottages? Medium growth with a mix of farms and cottages?

I would cottage from the get go.

That's what I usually do, but I wonder if it is optimal?

I think it depends on the tech era.

Early in the game, cottage from the get go.

After Printing Press / Free Speech, work enough farms to give yourself +6 and cottage the rest.

It seems optimal to me to have a few farms in the mix to aid growth, then cottage over them when you get to your desired size. Farm everything and it will take too long to get some villages and towns that you need. Cottage everything, and you'll have some tiles not getting worked for a long time. So I would say medium.

I presume that the food city yields 6F1C, other tiles 2F1C unimproved.
growing to size 5 with farms would be
22(?) / 6F (4 from ressource, 2 city center) = 4 turns, 4 overflow, +4C
+ 24(?)-4(overflow) / 7F = 4 turns, 6 overflow, +8C
+ 26(?)-6 / 8F = 3 turns, 4 overflow, +9C
+ 28(?)-4 / 9F = 3 turns, 3 overflow, +12C
+ 30(?)-3 / 10 = 3 turns, 3 overflow, +15C
= 17 turns, totally yielding 48 Commerce without the commerce from city square.

Cottages would be:
22(?) / 6F = 4 turns, 2 overflow, +4C
+ 24(?)-2 / 6F = 4 turns, 2 overflow, +12C
+ 26(?)-2 / 6F = 4 turns, 0 overflow, +20C
+ 28(?) / 6F = 5 turns, 2 overflow, +38 (3 from 1 grown cottage)
+ 30(?)-2 / 6F = 5 turns, 2 overflow, +49 (5 from previously grown cottage, 4 from new grown cottage)
= 22 turns, totally yielding 123 commerce, without the commerce from city square.

the 5 turns in the first example can be converted into 45C (2 from each cottage and 1 from farm), resulting in a total of 93C. Add to this that the cottages in the second example has grown reasonably more than the first.
I don't have the concentration to continue the math to 15, but atleast early on, I think cottages pay out best. Add to this that has a larger impact the earlier they arrive.

Well, I'm talking mid-game I guess since I'm talking enough health and happiness to hit size 15. Perhaps with an expansive leader and access to corn/wheat/rice asap (which I've had sometimes) and on a river you could hit 15 pretty early, when combined with hereditary rule.

So, let's take that as an example. Let's say you are playing an expansive leader and you have corn in your capital, wheat in city #2 and rice in city #3, which is the city in question. It's artificial, I know, but bear with me.

Let's say you beelined monarchy for HR or took it off the oracle or something. So you're in the BC era still, but you have the means to get this #3 city to size 15 asap.

Should you still just work cottages and grow slowly toward that size 15 cap or should you add more food to grow more quickly?

By the time I could grow a new city to size 15 I'd be so sick of micromanaging that I would set the city for auto optimal commerce, queue the workers to cottage spam and be done with it.

I'd stick with commerce in that case, as exp makes graneries cheaper, so I'd grow a pop, whip a granery, then just grow with the 6F from the corn. It'd take only 2-3 turns per pop. Farms for one extra food will puch the barrier between 2 and 3 turns by one pop only, not worth it.

In the city in question you only have let's say irrigated rice 5F = +3. Is it worth growing on +3 food only, especially as the city grows in size where more food is needed?

futurehermit said:

In the city in question you only have let's say irrigated rice 5F = +3. Is it worth growing on +3 food only, especially as the city grows in size where more food is needed?

Click to expand...

You forget the free 2f from city square, 5F is definately good to grow on, although adding a farm or two wouldn't bug me.

My gut feeling is go with +5 and a granary. (Farm 1 grassland if the rice only gives 4f.)

The actual answer depends on how many workers you are able to spare for the city. You want to reach size 15 at the same time the 14th cottage is finished.

Diamondeye said:

You forget the free 2f from city square, 5F is definately good to grow on, although adding a farm or two wouldn't bug me.

Click to expand...

Right, that's a good point, I forgot the 2f from the city square. 5F is ok, but I wonder if it's enough to drive the city quickly to working 14 cottages, which is of course the goal?

My gut feeling is farm two grassland to get +5 and a granary.

The actual answer depends on how many workers you are able to spare for the city. You want to reach size 15 at the same time the 14th cottage is finished.

Click to expand...

What if we assume infinite amounts of workers? Still 2 farms and a granary?

Definately a granary, and then, what is the foodreq with granery for size 8 (mid between size 1 and 15, meaning that the entire food required for 1->15 will be dividable with the amount size 8 reqs).
So, if size 8 reqs 18 with granary, 6F surplus constantly would get you to size 15 at (15*18/6) = 45 turns with no overflow. That is if 6F is obtainable with one worker. If only 5, it'll take one turn more, and with 3 surplus.

If you've all the workers you could possibly want, my gut feeling would be to have about 8-10 farms, before adding cottages and cottaging over the farms you've built.

Assuming you're running slavery rather than emancipation, you'll want to whip a granary, library, courthouse and university to get what's a low-production city off to a good start, which will likely mean cycling between size 3-6 or 4-8 to get the larger buildings whipped. This means you want to maximise food for that phase of city development, requiring a corresponding number of farms.

With infinite workers, farm everything and convert everything to cottages when you hit 15.

I seriously doubt it is worth to go over the 4 or 5 food you get from the resource for only a size 15 city.. I did some calcs on it some time ago at some different circumstance where we found out it was not worth to farm from 2 to 3 food(although that was only happy cap 7 or something). Going from 4 to 5 is such little gain though that you are prolly not up in commerce by the time you hit the happy cap...

DaveMcW said:

With infinite workers, farm everything and convert everything to cottages when you hit 15.

Click to expand...

this is what I was looking for. so, basically, ideally you would want to grow to 15 asap and then swap the farms out for cottages immediately.

the situation that prompted this thread was that I founded this kind of city mid-game. i had a bunch of spare workers at the time and i wasn't sure if it would be better to farm then switch or just grow slowly (most of my other cities were size 15+ at this point and i wanted the new city to join them asap).

thanks all!

What I usually do is to farm only until there is infrastructure in place. I use slavery+forge+organized religion to get max output from whipping buildings.
Typically I would whip granay, forge, courthouse, library and perhaps more buildings later. When the city is new my goal is to get the infrastructure as quickly as possible. Since some buildings will require whipping 3 pop, it is important to get to size 6 fast.
There are exceptions though. A financial leader with grassland would probably make it better to cottage the riverside ASAP and get immediate 3 commerce per tile.
I didn't check the math... but I like whipping so I farm a lot.

futurehermit said:

this is what I was looking for. so, basically, ideally you would want to grow to 15 asap and then swap the farms out for cottages immediately.

the situation that prompted this thread was that I founded this kind of city mid-game. i had a bunch of spare workers at the time and i wasn't sure if it would be better to farm then switch or just grow slowly (most of my other cities were size 15+ at this point and i wanted the new city to join them asap).

thanks all!

Click to expand...

Pretty sure this isn't the case... Food does only so much...