Cottage Addiction

[Krick19]

I am totally addicted to cottages. I build them practically everywhere. I'd really like to know if there is a definitive guide that tells you all about city Specialization. Like that if there's a lot of food, it's a GP farm, and how to improve it. Or if there's a lot of hills, you mine them all and it can be a production powerhouse.

So what I'm looking for is a guide that tells you:
Where to put different types of cities(GP farm, Production cities) And what kind of terrain they should have/what sorts of resources.

How to improve these cities

And basically some advice on improving land.

 

[futurehermit]

Try my no cottages/no wonders game challenge.

Alternatively, just follow DaveMcW's rule of thumb: If a city can support 10 cottages pre-biology it becomes a commerce city. Cottage spam it. If it can't, then it is a production city. That means no cottages, just production improvements (farms/mines early; watermills/workshops added later). Your highest food city should be your gpfarm, get the NE, etc. Only farms in this city with some production for buildings.

Also, just try out some games with philo leaders and try out running a pure FE (farm economy). Farms everywhere. Get beakers from specialists and focus on whipping/drafting military until you conquer the world.

 

[slobberinbear]

OTAKU wrote a very nice article on this subject. Sisiutil's guide for beginners also addresses this. Both of these are in the strategy articles forum. Work on your search-fu, grasshopper.

My personal philsophy on city selection: everything flows from food. Without food, you have no city (unless it's some arctic outpost to grab whales, etc.). Map out your area and settle the food cluster areas. If there are a lot of commerce/river tiles, that's good for cottaging. If there is a lot of food but not much else, GP farm. If there are a lot of hills, production city.

But it all starts with food. Starting with a food-down approach makes it a lot easier to make these decisions, as the cities' specialization is essentially dictated by the tiles within the BFCs of the food clusters.

About the only city that can get away with no food bonus tiles is the pure cottage city. Every other city needs at least one food bonus tile or a couple of floodplains to provide a food surplus to grow, work hammer tiles, and/or hire specialists.

 

[MyOtherName]

Try doing a lot of warmongering -- so you'll have more use for non-commerce cities.

Try prioritizing caste system and the machinery & guilds technology line -- so you'll have useful non-cottage improvements available. (This synergizes quite well with the former idea)

 

[DaveMcW]

If it has one food resource and grassland, cottage it.

If it has 2 food resources and grassland, cottage it and run 2 scientists to build an academy.

If it has 3+ food resources, GP farm.

If it has mixed food resources and hills, production.

If it has zero food resources, raze it.

(Note: floodplains count as one-third food resource, two-thirds grassland.)

 

[Iranon]

The easiest way to kick cottage addiction is to think differently about city placement.
Focus on per-city-bonuses (shrines, religious wonders, trade routes, Mercantilism, Statue of Liberty, corporations) and spam cities everywhere. You will find that you have too little space to get a decent balance of cottages, farms and production squares, and cottages are the most expendable part.
When everything is a farm or a hammer tile, you have impressive production potential and specialists + the per-city-bonuses should be enough to keep your research going. This approach isn't vital to run a successful non-cottage economy but it's good for kicking the habit.

City specialisation is mostly trivial, and mostly come down to not wasting bonuses (e.g. don't run scientists in a Bureaucratic capital where direct commerce/hammers are more valuable than beakers, or in your Wall Street city where gold gets a much better multiplier; build your National Epic either in a GP farm or in a production powerhouse spamming wonders, that sort of thing).
A cottage economy also wants a few dedicated production cities so the cottage cities can do their thing without diverting production into units but a non-cottage economy can scrape together production as needed without a big loss.

 

[Diamondeye]

For city placement/specialization guides, I recommend OTAKUjbskis "WHERE I do it" article in the War Academy.

That said, a simple rule of thump; If a city can build and work 10+ cottages, cottage it.

Frankly, the last couple of games, I have totally forgot to build cottages. I'm doing fine techwise though

 

[Rameau's Nephew]

I tend to do it by looking for the hardest-to-find city types first. To me, on most maps, great early-mid game production cities are the hardest type of city spot to find. If a city has the potential to be that (roughly 2 food resources and 4 tiles with decent production), I'll make it so. Next most difficult to find is the GP pump, which preferrably has 3 food bonuses, but you can get by with only 2 if you have to. (Captured enemy capitols are often excellent in these roles.)

With everywhere else, just make what you can out of what you've got. You only really need one colossal commerce city (for Oxford U.). The rest can be either middling commerce cities or middling production cities, depending on what your empire needs more of.

And even if you're running a cottage-based economy, don't neglect the power of Specialists in the early going. 2 Scientists running in your capitol can really speed your research along through the classical-medieval era.

 

[Krick19]

OTAKU wrote a very nice article on this subject. Sisiutil's guide for beginners also addresses this. Both of these are in the strategy articles forum. Work on your search-fu, grasshopper.

Yeah, sorry bout that, just that I'm lazy.

Thanks for all the advice, it's perfect, since I think I understand the basics, just needed a few guidelines.

Edit: Wow, read Otaku's article- It was perfect. I would post in there, but it was kinda awkward; everyone was talking about necroing.

 

[lovetramy]

cottage spam is the way man , you going the right direction

 

[futurehermit]

cottage spamming can work great, but you have to understand the timing of it. in the early turns of the game, production is so important, especially if you have a rushable neighbour. once you've expanded a bit and have your production needs taken care of, then you can start working cottages to support your economy. by the mid-game you can have numerous specialized commerce cities all happily working cottages.

of course the exception is the capital where a cottage or two is fine due to the higher happy cap and greater number of special resources. especially if you have a financial leader. and especially if semi-early to early bureaucracy is a goal you have.

 

[UncleJJ]

The easiest way to kick cottage addiction is to think differently about city placement.
Focus on per-city-bonuses (shrines, religious wonders, trade routes, Mercantilism, Statue of Liberty, corporations) and spam cities everywhere. You will find that you have too little space to get a decent balance of cottages, farms and production squares, and cottages are the most expendable part.
When everything is a farm or a hammer tile, you have impressive production potential and specialists + the per-city-bonuses should be enough to keep your research going. This approach isn't vital to run a successful non-cottage economy but it's good for kicking the habit.

Agreed. Build more cities and pack them in between larger cities and try hard to make use of infrastructure that gives free output like temples under the AP and UoS and later in the game jails and intelligence agencies. Don't be afraid to part build a wonder in a city if you have the resource bonus, the gold can keep research high. This type of empire is ideal to whip and draft a large army from since you'll have lots of little cities. So traits like Aggressive and Protective or a UU like janissary make drafted muskets good and then rifles later. Just run Nationhood the whole time as you draft and use EPs to see who to attack and even steal a few techs to help research.

City specialisation is mostly trivial, and mostly come down to not wasting bonuses (e.g. don't run scientists in a Bureaucratic capital where direct commerce/hammers are more valuable than beakers, or in your Wall Street city where gold gets a much better multiplier; build your National Epic either in a GP farm or in a production powerhouse spamming wonders, that sort of thing).
A cottage economy also wants a few dedicated production cities so the cottage cities can do their thing without diverting production into units but a non-cottage economy can scrape together production as needed without a big loss.

In BtS I am beginning to think that city specialisation is a myth or at least many players make a lot more fuss over it that it is worth. Most cities in BtS can be hybrids and mix a few cottages with some farms and mines and build cost effective infrastructure. I think this is partly due to changes in the terrain on the maps and also due to the introduction of the per city bonusses Iranon is mentioning. A city with some commerce (cottages, coastal tiles, trade routes, resource tiles) and enough hammers and food to install good infrastructure (library, forge, market and AP temples etc) seems to outperform a "pure" commerce city with tons of cottages and little or no infrastructure due to low hammers during the middle part of the game (before towns and US hammers). Of course you still have to be smart and not build everything everywhere just the right stuff in the right place. More than 50% of my cities in BtS are better described as hyrids and don't fall into the simple it has to be a commerce or production city paradigm.

The game has gotten a lot more complex than vanilla where specialisation of ordinary cities made more sense. Of course I still optimise my cities that have special resources or a national wonder and these make up the remaining 50% of my cities. When I analyse my empire in the late game and take account of when they were acquired and how they were developed (at an empire size of 30 cities say) I realise that most are hybrids of some sort and contribute a little bit of everything to the overall economy. But they would not be much improved by specialisation nor would they have made a better contribution in beakers, gold or hammers as units if they had been developed in a more specialised way. I think this is a feature of BTS and is a sign of how much the game has developed since vanilla.

 

[Yxklyx]

...but, what if you're Financial and you have a lot of coastal cities? Isn't it better to just use those squares at the start since they'll give you 3 commerce each (4 with Colossus)? And if you do go this route how do you convert to the cottages later on?

 

[DaveMcW]

3 commerce is not enough to compete with grassland cottages, especially when you factor in the initial cost of building a lighthouse.

4 commerce with the Colossus is enough to make it useful.

 

[Winston Hughes]

3 commerce is not enough to compete with grassland cottages, especially when you factor in the initial cost of building a lighthouse.

What about the cost of getting the cottages built?

I don't disagree with your conclusion, but it's misleading to include the cost of the lighthouse and not include the worker turns.

 

[Yeosol]

Financial coastal squares offer a better short term gain then cottaging. However this bonus is really quite short as financial also helps cottages. So you only need 15 turns (on Epic) to get the cottage up to speed with the coast. Of course coastal city's produce more commerce if you are financial but cottaging is still important.

The Colossus does change this. With 4 gold per tile the Cottage will need 45 turn to get up to speed, and a total of 90 turns to surpass the coastal bonus. To really get mathy also realize after the 90 turns the town would need to work for another 75 turns to make up the gold lost while growing. So financial with the Colossus gives you about an 150-200 turn window to take economic advantage. However realize you NEED to do something with this as the renaissance will kill your economy. (appearance of free speech/printing press + loss of colossus.)

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I like DaveMcW's short and sweet "rules of thumb" that new players need. It's a lot better than a long-winded response with "it depends" in the beginning of each paragraph.

You could warmonger with both a specialist and a cottage economy. With a cottage economy, you are looking at attacking with a huge stack of doom, while with a specialist economy you are looking to gain a tech advantage to attack your enemy with an equal-number army but a generation ahead in tech. I find it difficult to sustain a large army early in the game with a specialist economy, and usually end up lightbulbing my way to some military advantage before I attack. In the end I am still a cottage-economy player at heart, even though I know full well how the other approaches are done.

 

[MyOtherName]

A city with some commerce (cottages, coastal tiles, trade routes, resource tiles) and enough hammers and food to install good infrastructure (library, forge, market and AP temples etc) seems to outperform a "pure" commerce city with tons of cottages and little or no infrastructure due to low hammers during the middle part of the game (before towns and US hammers). Of course you still have to be smart and not build everything everywhere just the right stuff in the right place. More than 50% of my cities in BtS are better described as hyrids and don't fall into the simple it has to be a commerce or production city paradigm.

What you describe is what I would call a "cottage city". You describe a city whose task is to fuel your finances via commerce, mainly from cottages. It harvests hammers for the sole purpose of generating improving its ability to perform that task.

Only when the city generates enough surplus hammers to perform other tasks (e.g. military, wonders, expansion) would I call it a "hybrid city".

 

[InvisibleStalke]

In BtS I am beginning to think that city specialisation is a myth or at least many players make a lot more fuss over it that it is worth. Most cities in BtS can be hybrids and mix a few cottages with some farms and mines and build cost effective infrastructure. I think this is partly due to changes in the terrain on the maps and also due to the introduction of the per city bonusses Iranon is mentioning. A city with some commerce (cottages, coastal tiles, trade routes, resource tiles) and enough hammers and food to install good infrastructure (library, forge, market and AP temples etc) seems to outperform a "pure" commerce city with tons of cottages and little or no infrastructure due to low hammers during the middle part of the game (before towns and US hammers). Of course you still have to be smart and not build everything everywhere just the right stuff in the right place. More than 50% of my cities in BtS are better described as hyrids and don't fall into the simple it has to be a commerce or production city paradigm.

The game has gotten a lot more complex than vanilla where specialisation of ordinary cities made more sense. Of course I still optimise my cities that have special resources or a national wonder and these make up the remaining 50% of my cities. When I analyse my empire in the late game and take account of when they were acquired and how they were developed (at an empire size of 30 cities say) I realise that most are hybrids of some sort and contribute a little bit of everything to the overall economy. But they would not be much improved by specialisation nor would they have made a better contribution in beakers, gold or hammers as units if they had been developed in a more specialised way. I think this is a feature of BTS and is a sign of how much the game has developed since vanilla.

I agree with this strongly - overspecializing is as bad as not specializing. Cities which build national wonders should be heavily specialized, but there are lots of valuable cities that perform different roles as the game goes on - sometimes running specialists in the early game to help generate that scientist you need, sometimes running cottages because you are short on cash, sometimes whipping or drafting troops.

I still have my super specialized GP farms, HE city and super specialist or super cottage cities. But they are only built on the very best land. The hybrid cities get build on less optimal land and fill multiple roles depending on the needs of the empire at the time.

 

[siggboy]

Try a "trade economy" on an Archipelagos map (it works on other map types as well, but on Archi it's easiest). Spain is a good civ for this, but they all work well (you don't have to be Financial in any case). Portugal is another obvious choice for a civ.

In a trade economy, the bulk of your commerce will come from trade routes. They are totally zero maintenance (no cottages or micromanagement needed whatsoever), and get better and better with each new milestone tech.

The one thing you need is trading partners, so you should start exploring with Work Boats as early as possible to meet those other civs. Definitely don't wait until Optics with this.

Also, the Great Lighthouse is really important, as it gives two extra trade routes to all your coastal cities, and chances are you won't build a single city which is NOT coastal.

You do not need the Temple of Artemis or the Colossus, but they are both very nice to have (obviously).

Your key technologies will be

• Sailing (for coastal trading and the Great Lighthouse)
• Compass (so you can build Harbors for +50% trade income)
• Currency (+1 trade route)
• Engineering (+1 trade route from the castle; Spain gets the citadel instead and can make terrifying siege weapons in those cities)
• Economics (customs house for +100% to most trade routes; this obsoletes the castle/citadel so might need to be delayed if you play as Spain for military reasons)

Basically you can go crazy with expansion, because most cities will be profitable at 60-70% science right off the bat, due to the instant trade income they generate. Build harbors in all cities.

Most of your trade routes will be "inter-continental", which gives a huge bonus by itself. More importantly, the Customs House (unlocked with Economics) gives another 100% bonus to these trade routes. You can imagine what this means in our case...

I have tried out this strategy lately on Monarch difficulty, and my GNP (commerce) was almost DOUBLE that of my next best rival for hundreds of years all the way into the Medieval Age. I did have a few cottages but their contribution was quite marginal.

While this was not advice on how to handle cottages, you can try it to see how to actually live without them (you seem to be locked in to a cottage spam strategy at the moment, which is why I'm offering this radical alternative).