Cottage Economy

[Aleenik]

Difficulty I use-Monarch latly at least, havnt finished a game on it though i dont think, actually in all the years iv played civ i dont think iv ever finished a game to victory like domination or what have u, even if i play 1 for a while i usually end up quitting playing that save eventually..other times i just play a couple turns cuz world builder is there and makes me want to give myself extra...help


Ok ill start off saying im not the best at managing workers, in fact I usually prefer to automate cuz on the things I like to play, earth maps, currently been playing giant earth mod latly(giant earth maps) there is so many tiles to manage and I just don't feel like it but I guess its needed to control your own workers so ya

what im wondering is say if im Australia, they got a lot of plains tiles I belive, how do you put cottages on these plains tiles while still having enough food to grow? is there a set number of cottages u should have per city? Should hills always be mined for some production or just cottage all hills as well and mainly wondering how to provide enough food to keep growing

Are watermills useful or use a cottage or farm over a watermill
Workshops ever useful?

Basicly im wondering what improvments to use, farm and cottage only, farm cottage and mine only, or use windmills and all also

and about specialist, how do i balance getting them when i need food so i can work the cottages

civic wise i think go for emancipation, free speech, universal sufferage(the +1 hammer for towns seems nice.....and others i dont know

(If a place is all dessert i know to make windmills on hills, but thats about all I know )

I hope someone can help me


(I have read some guides on cottage economies but answers to these specific questions would be nice )

[Greek Plunder]

Growth is important. Extremely. Without growth, no one will be living in that city to work cottages in the first place, so concentrate on that, first.

I think you would benefit from the War Academy on this site. The knowledge of how to predict if your city has maximum growth (to 20 population) or not, and knowing how to get it as close to 20 as possible is very important.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/stra...ialization.php

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/stra...ialization.php

Read these articles. In particular, read the "Feeding your city" section in the 2nd.

If you concentrate on city specialization, it will be up to you how many hammers you want to produce in a commerce city (based on the cottage economy), but the article helps a bit, there, too.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/stra...ialization.php

^^^ This article's a bit more in-depth and gives some suggestions on how many hammers should be produced in a production city, etc. It can help you with deciding which improvements to build.

[Aleenik]

Originally Posted by Greek Plunder

Growth is important. Extremely. Without growth, no one will be living in that city to work cottages in the first place, so concentrate on that, first.

I think you would benefit from the War Academy on this site. The knowledge of how to predict if your city has maximum growth (to 20 population) or not, and knowing how to get it as close to 20 as possible is very important.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/stra...ialization.php

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/stra...ialization.php

Read these articles. In particular, read the "Feeding your city" section in the 2nd.

If you concentrate on city specialization, it will be up to you how many hammers you want to produce in a commerce city (based on the cottage economy), but the article helps a bit, there, too.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/stra...ialization.php

^^^ This article's a bit more in-depth and gives some suggestions on how many hammers should be produced in a production city, etc. It can help you with deciding which improvements to build.

thanks! the feeding your city part does seem rather helpful havnt really read the other stuff yet but ya, thanks!

so if a city is all plains, ud pretty much have to farm every tile to keep growing so wouldnt end up having any cottages there, I guess

My cities will prolly end up having overlap on the earth thing if i play a scenario or something so I gotta try to figure that stuff out somehow, how much food i should allow each city to have.

I settle on the blue circles a lot that the game reccomends even though i herd I shouldnt o well

[dirtyparrot]

I think that city specialization is far more important than picking a type of economy. Some maps lend themselves to different type of economies, but not all do. I almost always run some type of hybrid based on the land around my cities.

[Iranon]

Food is a resource that you need the right amount of. Too little and you won't be able to work otherwise worthwhile tiles. Too much and you won't get a good return on it.

Example: Without high-food tiles, a desert gold mine might not even be worth working... 3 grassland cottages will soon overtake 2 grassland farms feeding the gold mine. However, if you need to burn food because you have 3 food resources that you can't share with other cities, you will be glad to have a desert gold mine as it gives a good return on excess food.

Plains cottages are awesome if you have a good food resource or two nearby. 2 fish, some coast and 10 plains to cottage makes for an excellent commerce city with enough production to build required infrastructure, without having to work any mines.
Just start off with the water squares until you're at your cap.

*

Regarding improvements: Watermills and Workshops are very good with State Property; workshops are occasionally good enough with just Caste System. Mostly in cities with more excess food than they can use effectively; personally I prefer Slavery though.

If you're running the full gamut of cottage civics, I'd cottage everything that I can keep fed. No need for production outside the Heroic Epic/Ironworks city; without those a town + rushbuy beats regular production, even State Property/Caste System workshops (unless building wonders/projects...).
As such, I find windmills a great companion to a very cottage-heavy approach.

Consider being limited by food in the late game with all bonuses from techs and having a few idle plains hills. Is it worth farming over a town to support a mine? Possibly... gain of 4 hammers for the loss of 7 commerce.
Is it worth it to farm over a town to feed two windmills? Almost definitely - gain of 5 hammers, a loss of 3 commerce or a gain of 1 (under Environmentalism).