Balancing between irrigation and cottages

[LawLessOne]

For the sake of knowledge please explain. As far as I know it is as Draetor and CleverHandle explained.

If it was a 50% increase to commerce then Financial would be ridiculously overpowered and you would indeed put Towns everywhere.

From the Manual: Financial: +1 gold on plots with 2 gold. Double production speed of bank.

In conclusion I think my 2 cents were worth it.

I will have to go back and check it out. Now your up to 4 cents, care to make it an even nickle?

 

[Finite Monkey]

I will have to go back and check it out. Now your up to 4 cents, care to make it an even nickle?

Your on!

I'd be the first to admit the manual has led me astray in the past by my poor interpretation though.

 

[Synex]

Here is how i work it out:

Every square i want worked will require 2 food. So if i cottage a plains square (1F), i'll need a farm on grassland (3F) to cover for it.

However. Say fex. you have 2 squares - 1 Grassland River, 1 Plains

Thats:

Plains (1F/1P/0C)
Grassland River (2F/0P/1C)

Irrigate Grassland, Cottage Plains
1F/1P/1C +
3F/0P/1C =

4F/1P/2C

or Cottage Grassland + Irrigate Plains
2F/1P/0C
2F/0P/3C

4F/1P/3C

So it'll be clearly better to cottage the grassland + farm the plains if you get the chance it'll give you a benefit in the shortterm, even though you'll end up the same in the long-run. Thats how i work it out anyways. Confusing huh?

 

[DaveMcW]

That example only works for 10 turns. Then the cottage is a hamlet, and both tiles are getting the Financial bonus.

 

[Draax]

I hate number crunching hehe. Not my strong suit and not something I enjoy, at least not in this type of game (put me in an rpg and I'm the biggest numbernerd you've ever seen).

My general rule is at least 2 tiles that make 3+ food, at least one that does 3+ production, and the rest of the tiles are for specialization.

 

[SES-Eugene]

At the beginning, happiness is always an issue so my rule is usually, grassland that can be self sustaining in cottages, those with 2 food, build cottages.

It will depend on whether your civ has the Financial Trait, which will bias your decisions greatly towards cottages.

 

[mutax2003]

I usually irrigate river and lake side, then I make sure to build cottages on grassland first, since the food is enough to support one pop. I also build cottage on plains, but later on when I get civil service, I change some plain cottages to farm so my cities can grow big and have enough food to work all the cottage squares.

 

[Padmewan]

I need to do the math on this, but there's an interesting tradeoff between pop and ec growth here. First, I want to point out that the issue isn't maximization until your city reaches max pop, but rather of marginal benefit. If your city needs growth now, putting it at some theoretical "optimum" isn't always the best option if you are sacrificing growth to build commerce that can't be exploited.

If you build a farm now, you sacrifice the growing of cottages to towns. If you build cottages now, you sacrifice pop growth.

As others have pointed out, in the early game esp. you often need to stop growth -- but that doesn't mean that the best way is to grow your cities slowly! It could be that you should grow the city as fast as possible, then switch them from working farms to working cottages. For that reason, I think the earlier posts that suggest setting up diverse tiles that you can switch amongst may be a smart move, so that you can work cottages or mines when you don't want growth but switch to farms when you do. Following this logic, building farms on rivers and cottages inland makes sense, although then a Financial civ sacrifices several turns of bonus gold from the river tiles -- so maybe for them there should be more cottages than normal on rivers.

 

[Corbeau]

Personally, I try to build my improvements so that each tile gives a couple food. That way, as long as I settle near a bonus for early growth, I can sustain a large population with steady growth.

Though I've been known to go crazy with workships and watermills once State Property rolls in.

 

[LawLessOne]

Your on!

I'd be the first to admit the manual has led me astray in the past by my poor interpretation though.

I checked the manual and got the same interpetation you did so I started a new game on Prince as a Fin leader.

You are 100% correct. 3 commerce for cottages on rivers. 4 for Hamlets. 5 for Villages. 6 for Towns. That is one extra commerce, not 50% extra.

I can see your point about an early bonus commerce but I still favor the farms because it really helps your city grow. After 10 turns when your cottage becomes a hamlet you lose the bonus anyways.

 

[Proteus]

If with bonus you mean the +1 gold for financial civs,
it doesn´t get lost as soon as the cottage turens into a hamlet.
It is still there.
It doesn´t increase with increasing town size, but still your hamlets, villages and towns make 1 more gold per turn than the hamlets villages and towns of a civilization without the financial trait

 

[Synex]

If your playing a Financial civ, you should do everything you can to get 2commerce in a square, as then you are taking full advantage of your traits.

 

[jerry247]

I will have to go back and check it out. Now your up to 4 cents, care to make it an even nickle?

if he was a financial civ it is already a nickle!

I try to get enough food to work all the tiles in my city and cottage the rest. I always mine hills, unless near a river and I'm financial. GP cities need all the food they can get.

of course, later in the game I will drop a watermill or two in a city w/ no hills and a windmill os two in a city w/ no food. so basically I play it by ear!

 

[azzkicar]

For me, commerce is king. So I build all cottages on grasslands, unless the following:

- there's a specific resouce I can get.
- if the tile is near hostile enemy territory, I'll go for farm.
- if the city has 4+ terrain that produce 1 food or less, then I need to get a farm or 2 in so the city won't starve early.
- the city is a GP farm city (I only have 1 GP farm city ever, regardless of size of my empire)

Otherwise go cottage go!

Note: I considered the theory of going all out farm first, once pop max is reached without unhappiness, switch to cottages. I tried it, and while I can see the benefits, it requires a lot of micromanagement, not to mention that my tech slowed down considerably when maxing out food. So I went back to mass cottages (for all non production, non GP farm cities) and that worked out better.

 

[LawLessOne]

One GP city only? You never build Wonders or other GP producing structures in any other city? Or do you mean that this is the only city where you concentrate these structures?

 

[jerry247]

One GP city only? You never build Wonders or other GP producing structures in any other city? Or do you mean that this is the only city where you concentrate these structures?

there is a hella long post at apolyton.com forums that details GP production and the conclusion was one city, maybe two would be good for maximizin GP