Cottages vs. Farms

[Eddi]

i have read a little throughout this forum, and the general opinion here seems to be that cottages are far superiour to farms, but every time i play the game, i get to the conclusion that farms give me more overall.

i typically go for representation, so a specialist equals 6 commerce, plus i usually have the sistine chapel for additional culture. higher population also appears to increase trade income, and with pacifism you get a good deal of great persons, which additionally boost your economy.

you need some focus on health and happiness, but if you trade for most ressources, you are usually fine.

I have just made a cultural victory on emperor this way, in a game where i never went to war. (got lucky with the neighbours, i guess).

i typically use Representation, Caste System, Mercantilism and Pacifism in the mid game, because they make for great synergy effects between them.

• Mercantilism provides free specialists
• Representation boosts specialists' output
• Caste System allows using the specialists properly
• Pacifism boosts the production of great people

later, i typically go for Emancipation and Environmentalism, because i need the health and happiness, but i typically keep Pacifism to not lose the various boni from the state religion (especially the culture boost from the sistine chapel is important)

 

[bob_x]

It requires TWO grasslands farms to support one specialist.

You get a lot more from three cottages, even if you're running Representation.

 

[Eddi]

When focusing on it, you can get Biology before you run out of food to grow your cities, in my experience, not many cottages have grown to town by then.

 

[Matthew5117]

Just like anyone else would say, its situational. Civ 4, let me say, is very, very, situational.

To say it quick, farms are better for Specialist Economies and cottages are better for Cottage Economies. Now, SE (Specialist Economies) are better for cultural victories in general because with the Sistine Chapel, it is very efficient. On the other hand, CE (Cottage Economies) are better for long games, because cottages does its best part in the end game, not the beginning. Thus, CE are useful for space victories.

Also, the map and traits also make farms or cottages better. In the map, if there is a lot of food, you don't need farms thus you can use cottages. On the other hand, if there is a lack of food, farms make up for that. Moreover, specific traits, like Philosophical is better suited for SE which requires farms. Financial is overpowered with CE which requires cottages.

As you can see, its very situational. I suggest you to try out a CE using cottages and a financial leader.

All in all, I say they are equally good.

 

[Yxklyx]

...

All in all, I say they are equally good.

Exactly. And if you get tired of always playing with Cottages then play on a dry (or water) world with very little grassland.

 

[DaveMurray]

It requires TWO grasslands farms to support one specialist.

You get a lot more from three cottages, even if you're running Representation.

However, it takes a long time for those cottages to mature into towns so right off the bat specialists give a bigger bang for the buck. What it really comes down to is long a long term investment vs. a short term payoff.

I almost exclusively use cottages but there are people on the boards that are beasts with specialists.

 

[r_rolo1]

Neither cottages or farms will serve you much if you're playing a map with lots of water

 

[Eddi]

It is usually also key in my strategy to get the pyramids, because it allows you to switch to representation very early.

I haven't actually played around with different leaders. I guess out of personal preferance, i only play with holy roman empire, who is (i believe) expansionist and protective. (giving production boosts to settlers and walls/castles)

I usually make an advanced start with one city and two or three settlers (depending on map size) and a worker. then it is key to establish a trade network (often along the coast or a river with sailing, less commonly by roads)

Anyway, speaking of trade, anyone have an idea where to find the formulas involved with trade? there is some mysterious "base" income and various boni, not all of which come from buildings, so i don't fully understand why a trade value is like it is.

 

[Tephros]

It depends on the city and your needs. Some cities should do farms, some should focus on cottaging. Obviously if you have gold or many production resources you're going to want to build farms to support them. Gems, on the other hand, normally occur in grassy areas that are better for cottaging on the other tiles. But if you have 15 tiles of grassland, 2 food resources, and 3 production tiles (to build infrastructure), that would make a great cottage city as it would not be great for production in itself. Then your heroic epic city is going to be more than 5 production tiles, hopefully, and farms to support them.

You also want at least one city that has a lot of food for specialists, via farms, fishing boat, or whatever, but in terms of generating great people you get diminishing returns from doing this in multiple cities.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

i typically go for representation, so a specialist equals 6 commerce, plus i usually have the sistine chapel for additional culture.

This line is pretty suspect. You're not getting representation w/o pyramids or constitution - and constitution is starting to get past the age of merc and possibly caste/pacifism. Pyramids come with a hefty price tag w/o stone, and might not be worth their cost if you have other options (and you do). Sistine requires an interesting tech path that is usually suboptimal, unless you're going culture where the base culture it adds to your cities is quite nice.

You get more per pop from cottages and more per tile from specialists.

However, by far the most important aspect of specialists is their contribution to great people. Beyond that, their advantage over a cottage or even building wealth/research and working a mine is really minimal (or non-existent w/o rep). The ability for fast conversion of GPP to isn't to be discounted, however.

 

[dirtyparrot]

I suspect it's very situational (both the map and the traits). Generally, I prefer building cottages more inland and farms on the borders. But, a thing that should not be discounted is that the short-term rewards can be much more important than the longterm/ideal rewards because it will allow you to better expand your empire early.

 

[budweiser]

This line is pretty suspect. You're not getting representation w/o pyramids or constitution - and constitution is starting to get past the age of merc and possibly caste/pacifism. Pyramids come with a hefty price tag w/o stone, and might not be worth their cost if you have other options (and you do). Sistine requires an interesting tech path that is usually suboptimal, unless you're going culture where the base culture it adds to your cities is quite nice.

You get more per pop from cottages and more per tile from specialists.

However, by far the most important aspect of specialists is their contribution to great people. Beyond that, their advantage over a cottage or even building wealth/research and working a mine is really minimal (or non-existent w/o rep). The ability for fast conversion of GPP to isn't to be discounted, however.

No. If you get the pyramids, you have pretty much won. Philo can be bulbed with the first GS if you have alpha, math and COL. You can sometimes get 2 religions in 1 turn.

Then I think you need CS to unlock Nat (taj/GA) then get rep, then go for lib. You dont always need lib first, it just that the 100% culture it brings is the beginning of the end for the poor ai. Thats how you play culture.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Pyramids = win is a joke. If you are building pyramids w/o stone/IND and have any neighbors at all, it's almost certain you're slowing yourself down for non-culture. For culture I have no idea, but I don't recall Lexad or Jesusin talking about the pyramids much...and I'll take the word of the deity culture whores in regard to that . IIRC Lexad holds the deity record with a pre-1000 AD win.

Edit:

Here we go, straight from Jesusin's culture guide (keep in mind he's one of the best culture players on the forum and a top flight player in general):

- Pyramids: they can help your research in food rich maps. They are very expensive, so they will hamper your developpement and you will find you have no land to settle all the cities you need. Also they keep you weak and small, calling for an early dow. Getting a GE is not a great thing, you prefer a GA. Use it on Parthenon or Sistine's. Don't use it on GLib!

So if you don't want to believe me (who is more known for smackdowns and diplo wins than anything involving research), go with that.

 

[budweiser]

You know all the HOF games are setups with optimal conditions. A culture HOF isnt going to have a neighbor like Shaka or Monty in it which you might get on a random start. If you do, then you need defense, which means you have to keep teching.

But anyway the OP knows what he is talking about. Rep is very desirable for a culture game because it allows all your artists to still create some beakers. Pacifism, Caste, Merc all help maximise this.

So yeah, you get the mids, by building it or taking it and you are set.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Jesusin's guide isn't on winning HoF games. It's on winning culture games on high levels. He may be a top HoF player, but it's worth noting that he also happens to place consistently in BOTM and can run culture games in standard-settings deity.

You can use those 10+ towns in each culture city to tech through rifling and delay culture a little if necessary.

I think you'd be hard-pressed to keep up with an academy bureaucracy capitol running cottages using artist specialists for research. That means the cottage setup hits liberalism sooner than a suboptimal (non stone) run at pyramids then using rep. If you go scientists for rep, you pollute GPP and potentially get more than the 1-2 scientists you need while trying to get lib in a timely fashion.

By the way, the "spawn next to shaka" argument in favor of pyramids is crap. If I spawn next to shaka, pyramids are probably the LAST investment worthy of making. Kill him or put those hammers into something that actually WILL help, like units to defend.

In very favorable starts pyramids can help. Otherwise, they're an overrated waste of time, but many players are so blinded by rep and don't know the expansion/alternate options that they don't see that the opportunity cost of pyramids is too great.

 

[Iranon]

For a culture win, I will run a hybrid because culture in the other cities is usually wasted.

For a fast culture win (teching to liberalism, then going straight to victory) I will get my culture from towns. Other non-production cities will run specialists - usually with a focus on spies or artists: I'm not trying to run away in tech so spies will have enough to steal; they can also come in useful in other ways. Artists give a fair bit of research with Representation and additional Great Artists speed up my win.

For a late cultural victory - winning with the modern entertainment wonders and corporations - I'm fond of a pure SE if I can get the pyramids without making undue sacrifices. I think pretty much any approach can work for this though, and the map will dictate the optimal approach more than the goal itself.

 

[bob_x]

With only 10 turns of patience, 3 cottages produce 6 commerce (assuming you aren't Financial and they aren't adjacent to rivers). That's twice as much as you get out of a scientist if you don't have the Pyramids, plus the cottages will just keep growing more powerful.

Farms should only be built in low food cities. Or sometimes I'll put an farm on a flood plain early for extra food, and then cottage over it later.

 

[Eddi]

In this particular game, i had a good shot at the pyramids, because i actually had just established a city near stone, and my capital was already built up with several fish, the Moai Statues, a few mountain forests and a mine. also i already had settled all the cities i intended to by that time, and it was the only wonder left that i could build (i already had stonehenge and the great lighthouse, which gave me an early great prophet, which additionally boosted production)

my neighbours on the continent were Catherine of Russia and Justinian of Byzantine, who shared the same religion as me, so i did not fear a surprise attack and concentrated on building up my cities. Catherine built a few cities near my border, so i tried to gear up a city to attempt cultural takeover. another city who was close to Justinian's border i had to settle a great artisan in because i got into border troubles there, losing two flood plain tiles. these two towns plus my capital then formed the cities i pushed to legendary.

On the other continent, Gilgamesh of Babylon attempted a cultural victory as well, and he was a little ahead of me, but i could catch up, because i was able to gather 5 religions (+250% from cathedrals) in my cities, even though i could not found any religion myself.

Over the course of the game, i was slightly behind in tech usually, but i could make a few good trades with a few side techs to keep up. most people were relatively friendly.

In the late game, a few people got the Apollo Project before me, but i managed to get the Internet, so i could probably have made the space race, but Gilgamesh would have made the cultural victory before, so i eventually spread sid's sushi and creative constructions, resulting in +1200 culture per turn (game speed was epic, so 75000 was the target. apart from my capital, my cities were at 45000, while Gilgamesh was at 55000)

I did not hand pick the opponents, but there was only one war (that i know of) throughout the entire game. Other minor players were Dareios, De Gaule and Willem van Oranje.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

With only 10 turns of patience, 3 cottages produce 6 commerce (assuming you aren't Financial and they aren't adjacent to rivers). That's twice as much as you get out of a scientist if you don't have the Pyramids, plus the cottages will just keep growing more powerful.

Farms should only be built in low food cities. Or sometimes I'll put an farm on a flood plain early for extra food, and then cottage over it later.

I love cottages, but you're applying irrelevant considerations. Unless financial, a cottage is only EVER 1 commerce past that of a farm (although obviously more as it grows), which means you'd need to have 3 hamlets for your comparison to be true (which isn't too much of a reach however).

However, specialists have their place. Early scientists in a GP farm can be worth close to 50 beakers/turn on average if you apply the great people correctly...not something you want to forgo. The marginal benefit of adding additional cities to make GPP goes down as you add more food-based cities however ---> start looking to cottages or hammers eventually.