Cottages

[AndrewHk2]

Hey!

Thanks once again to those people who have so far given me advice. My experience of this community so far has been brilliant and I look forward to getting stuck in.

It's 950 BC in my first ever game and so far, so good! There is one question I have which might open up a can of worms:

- What use do cottages have?

On top of this, when I hover over the cottage it says:

"City must Work to become a Hamlet".

What does this mean?

Thanks once again in advance for your help.

AndrewHk2

 

[duckstab]

Cottages, when "worked", grow to hamlets, then villages, then towns. At each stage they produce additional commerce. It's the most common way of generating commerce for your empire.

Double-click on a city to bring up the city screen and you'll see certain squares highlighted with white circles. These are the squares your city is currently "working". You get to work the city center plus one square for each population point that isn't being used as a specialist. Cottages only grow when worked for a certain number of turns.

 

[kossin]

Cottages give .

Once you go in the city screen, you may assign a citizen to work the cottage tile to work it.

Cottages grow and become more valuable over time. Each new level adds 1 although this can be boosted by techs/civics later on.
Cottages>Hamlets>Villages>Towns

 

[Baldyr]

The beauty of Cottages is that the improvement grows ever better through out the game. It's like a seed that you plant in the very beginning, nurture it, and protect it from harm. (If it gets pillaged it gets behind one step. You don't want that!)

 

[Iranon]

Cottage: 1, becomes a hamlet after 10 turns assuming default game speed
Hamlet: 2, becomes a village after 20 turns
Village: 3 (+1 with Printing Press), becomes a town after 40 turns
Town: 4 (+1 with Printing Press, +2 with Free Speech civic, +1 with Universal Suffrage civic)

Cottages and their derivatives only mature when you are actively working them, and the Emancipation civic makes them grow in half the time (5 turns to turn into a hamlet etc).

Cottages require a bit of an investment, but with all bonuses towns yield 17 and are a contender for the best improvement in the game.

 

[Bradicus]

I'm new to the boards myself and I only ever seem to play as high as noble so I don't know if the advice I am about to give is really viable.

I tend to play Elizabeth a lot and she gives you a bonus to commerce. I tend to build cottages on grassland tiles adjacent to rivers. Cities will pick these up readily for they produce a reasonable amount of food. By mid game though the cottages will have grown so large that I have 8 commerce in that square... and thats a lot of cash my friend! The downside is that you sacrifice growth. Personally I adopt a balanced approach and farm some of the tiles I would otherwise throw a cottage on.

The money is important because it gives you flexibility. Somehow commerce contributes to science, in some sort of shady formula that sounds more like a backroom-under-the-table deal. Truthfully I don't know how exactly it contributes to science, I'm just told it does! Secondly, it frees up cash to either maximize your science slider OR expand by being able to support more cities without going into debt OR build a crap ton of dudes to go on a torrid rampage

Have fun, and use protection

 

[MyOtherName]

Somehow commerce contributes to science

That's what your tax rate does! Each is converted into some amount of , , and . If your rate is at 70% and your rate is at 10%, then every 1 your city produces will be turned into 0.7 , 0.1 , and 0.2 .

Additional things happen -- for every 1 you produce, your library will provide an extra 0.25 and your academy will provide an extra 0.5 . Some backroom-under-the-table deal determines how much research you get from each . But these are independent of how works.

 

[Bradicus]

Aroo!? So if one city makes 100 gold per turn and I have a science rate of 70%and culture 10% I would theoretically get 70 beakers, 10 culture, and 20 gold per turn?

*strokes chin in a manner akin to some old scary and mysteriously cunning japanese guy*

Dwell on this I must.... grasshopper....

 

[JujuLautre]

not 100 gold per turn, 100 commerce per turn And you would not only theoretically get those, but also practically

Now, if you have stuffs like libraries or markets you will get even more eventually.

 

[God-Emperor]

Bradicus,

As JujuLautre pointed out, there is a difference between commerce commerce and gold gold. Commerce is what you get from a cottage or town. It turns into research science, gold gold, culture culture, and espionage espionage based on the percentages you have set. (The terminology is made more confusing by the existence of a resource that is also called "gold". That is not the same thing as , which could have been called "money" or "cash" instead of "gold".)

It also depends on what you mean by "get".

Your civ's various costs are deducted from the being generated - city maintenance, unit maintenance, things like that (all multiplied by the current inflation value). Because of the costs, the that you actually get each turn will be smaller than what the percentage initially seems like it should produce. It's where the goes when the total output is less than 0.

You can also get from foreign trade (you might trade a surplus corn for 15 per turn, for example), in addition to what comes from your cities. This doesn't show up on any city's screen, it is shown on the financial advisor screen and a couple of the foreign advisor screens (like the active trades screen), and is included in the total.

 

[Bradicus]

Ahhh! Two good questions from God-Emperor's post:

1) How is inflation calculated? I've had wicked craaaazy inflation before and it crippled me. I went on a huge building and army raising tear and whamo! The inflation bat hit me... kinda like the same bat used by that greasy Sicilian guy I owe money too... speaking of which... I gotta go the juice is running...

2) I've never, even in modern times, been offered (or have been able to procur) a trade for any resource for anything more than 7 or 8 gp a turn! I've also heard guys talk about leveraging much more out of the AI! How is that done? Do you guys typically allow tech sharing/brokering as well? Seems to me the AI unfairly exploits the ability so I usually turn it off. Is it necessary at higher levels?

 

[Gorey]

I've never, even in modern times, been offered (or have been able to procur) a trade for any resource for anything more than 7 or 8 gp a turn! I've also heard guys talk about leveraging much more out of the AI! How is that done? Do you guys typically allow tech sharing/brokering as well? Seems to me the AI unfairly exploits the ability so I usually turn it off. Is it necessary at higher levels?

Are you saying they wont pay that much, or that they never have that much to trade?


If it's because they never have that much... here's something to try:

Say that an AI has 7gpt to trade. You trade him some cows for that 7gpt. After 10 turns you can cancel the deal or renegotiate it. After 15-20 turns the AI shows as now having an extra 3gpt.

Instead of trading him another resource for that 3gpt.. renegotiate your cow deal. Cancel the deal, then offer the cow again for his new 10gpt surplus. If he won't do it, then then trade him a happy resource instead. (always trade health resources to AI before happy resources).

 

[CivMcNut]

Basically to get back to what the OP asked, if you want to kick tail in researching throughout the game, put cottages in a lot of places, and then use them.

In the late game if you run free speech & universal sufferage your towns will be a powerhouse improvement that can put you in the lead of the game if you have enough of them.