Amazing City Site - Farms or Cottages?

[Kadazzle]

Hello! In my most recent Emperor game I'm not sure what to do with this city.

As you can see, it has lots of commerce and actually decent production for a commerce site, of course, the 4 gold tiles help. Now, my question is, should I be farming or cottaging the flood plains? My first impression is always to cottage the flood plains, but the extra growth would make it so that I could work the 4 gold resources sooner. What should I do?

 

[DaveMcW]

2 farms, the rest cottages.

 

[MkLh]

What's your happy cap? If it's only 5, 2 farms and 3 goldmines is the richest setting.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

ditto. A couple farms to feed the goldmines and then cottages galore. The cottaged floodplains will still provide food to feed the other goldmines.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

2 farms, the rest cottages.

At size 7 I would want to be working four gold mines, and therefore three farms (assuming that health issues didn't get in the way). I want at least one more farm to jump to after size 8 opens up, so I suppose my solution would be 4 farms, cottage the rest of the FP, replace the farms when the time comes.

 

[DaveMcW]

At size 7 I would want to be working four gold mines

If you can reach size 7, you might as well reach size 8 with two cottages instead of one farm.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

If you can reach size 7, you might as well reach size 8 with two cottages instead of one farm.

If I'm going to magic wand the caps to any level I want, I'm not likely to choose 8.

Emperor level and Epic speed right? So the caps currently look like

• 4 (+1 when the gold is mined)
• 4
• 2 (floodplains)

 

[DMOC]

I would farm at least 2 of the floodplains.

To work the 4 gold, you need a food surplus of +8.

+2 from city center
+4 from 2 farmed floodplains
+2 from 2 cottaged floodplains

You can farm another floodplain tile if you have room for happiness.

 

[DigitalBoy]

Personally, I would farm 4 or 5 floodplains just so you can work all the gold mines at pop size 8 or 9 and still be growing quickly.

 

[Draco Spirit]

Am I the only one going? Thats a serously powerfull city location for commerce. As above however, two farms and cottage spam seems the best path forwards.

On a diffrent note I try to avoid using the city for drafting and be carefull with slavery, just spam those liberies and markets type buildings and let the commerce roll in!

 

[Delenn]

My rule is at least 2 farms in cities like that. Maybe 3. Gold sort of makes up for cottages.
I tend to overuse slavery for the 'big push'.

 

[civver_764]

What the hell kind of map script puts four gold hills in a row? That's not even fair

 

[SurahAhriman]

What the hell kind of map script puts four gold hills in a row? That's not even fair

I had a continents game a few weeks ago where Mansa Musa's starting city had a grassland cow, SIX GOLD, and all the rest floodplains.

I was playing Liz, and when I got alphabet, I saw that he was waaaaay ahead of me. Opened up WB to see what was up, and then immediately quit the game

Wish I'd thought to grab a SS.

 

[oawiefga]

Can you share that opening save, 4000BC?

 

[DMOC]

I had a continents game a few weeks ago where Mansa Musa's starting city had a grassland cow, SIX GOLD, and all the rest floodplains.

I was playing Liz, and when I got alphabet, I saw that he was waaaaay ahead of me. Opened up WB to see what was up, and then immediately quit the game

Wish I'd thought to grab a SS.

Speaking of such great land, my brother and I created a deity scenario loosely based off this map.

Mansa starts with 5 gold in his capital and has an additional 20 sources at his disposal. 25 total. With floodplains and irrigated corn everywhere. Oh and stone and marble.

 

[Iranon]

Cottages. Desert goldmines are mediocre tiles. They only become good if you have excess food to burn from resources.

*

Size 7 is nice for comparison's sake because you can have stable food situations for either approach, with 3 farms + 4 mines or 4 cottages + 3 mines.

4 cottages will rival the output of a gold mine as soon as they have become hamlets and will be a lot better once they have become villages. This city requires no farms because you can grow just fine with cottaged flood plains; taking the gold mines off is no sacrifice.

At growth caps where things don't match up quite as nicely, you can simply swap your last tile from cottage to mine or back whenever you'd grow/shrink from your optimal size.

 

[StuntedAzrael]

I would settle 1S. Just enough farms to feed miners. Then I would settle another city on wine. This city would work floodplains cottages.