Cottaging Flood Plains

[Creatureboy11]

I tried (Vanilla) Hatty on an Arid Fractal map. I was in flood plain heaven, and cottaged all the flood plains. I was teching very fast, and might have been a runaway HUMAN had it not been for my attempt to steal Mansa's worker... it didn't turn out well.

 

[NetGear]

Conclusion should be that its very situational. You can setup scenarios and modifiers that overwhelmingly prefers one over the other.

Generally cottaging is what most people go for though. Its not all that terrible rule of thumb and its def nice to have more income early before you can deal with maintenance problems in the early turns.

 

[Eerdna]

early cottage then go go watermilling?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

early cottage then go go watermilling?

Okay, that's a question that I'd like answered.

In particular, I tend to build some Cottages early on in the game but then don't bother with running either Universal Suffrage or Free Speech, meaning that the Towns are decent but maybe aren't the best improvement to still be working.

Assuming that it's relatively late game and that I haven't won (probably because I'm playing on a tough difficulty level) and thus I have idle Workers who could be paving-over existing improvements.

Let's say that I am about to learn Electricity and that I already know Replaceable Parts.

I also plan to use Corporations over State Property.

Should I be paving-over my Towns and if so, which improvement types would potentially be of value?

Similarly, should I be paving-over my Farms and which improvement types would be good to replace them with?

Since we're talking about Flood Plains here (although you can answer in general, too), we have access to Rivers--assume that "enough" of the squares are Watermillable.


So, given that I plan to have Towns or Farms on my Flood Plains, when, if ever, should I switch them, given my above Civic choices?

 

[A_Hamster]

So, given that I plan to have Towns or Farms on my Flood Plains, when, if ever, should I switch them, given my above Civic choices?

Perhaps go from Farms to Cottages a number of turns before you plan to switch to Emancipation (assuming the lead AIs are starting to run Emancipation and the Happy penalty is starting to mount). This is also assuming you've been running Slavery or CS and so farmed FPs are more valuable than cottaged FPs. That's for the GP farm, the production city should get the watermills once you have the techs to make them worthwhile and so get ready to build Ironworks and 3 Gorges Dam. Can't give you hard numbers though.

 

[civuminati]

Cottage with Darius.

Farm with Pericles.

Depends on the leader. Also the situation. It's possible, I think, to farm over those lovely cottages/villages early if going for an easy domination/conquest, even with financial leaders. But not in the capital.

e.g. Gandhi and Mansa are blocked in on your borders playing Darius, medieval era right when those villages and cottages are looking nice with financial. Both of them are disliked by Shaka. Gandhi has the shrine, Mansa has tech.

If I was short on land the I might choose domination/conquest right there. And if I go that way I usually go all the way max food output, farms.

 

[Um the Muse]

Voice of Unreason's analysis sounds good, but there's one more thing I consider: health. Before you have enough citizens, those floodplains are not yummy tiles, they're liabilities. So, in my mind it seems reasonable to build farms for one or two of your fp's, so that you can work the remaining fp's by the time you hit a cap (happiness or health limits). These farms can also serve as back-ups, in case you need to whip or your caps are raised.
One last thing to consider: farms are more easily replaced. I don't just mean from pillaging, though that can be devastating. I mean that if you've got enough workers, you can eventually trade-in the farm for a workshop to help you build, say, a university, then put a farm back when you're done. You can't replace your workshops with towns, though.
I imagine it only matters for slower games, where you actually have enough worker turns to do this consistantly, but then, I tend to play Marathon speed

As an aside, Cabert said that the game rewards going to extremes on tiles. I think it's a matter of timing. In the early game, your cottages should grow apace with your happiness cap if it's a pure commerce city. That's why he's found working cottages better for him; working a cottage is making your city grow without additional cost, whereas farming everywhere makes your population grow too fast.

 

[Larwin]

do immortal strategies work on lower dificulties ? I think some lower dificult stratgies may not work on immortal tho0gh.

 

[Eerdna]

do immortal strategies work on lower dificulties ? I think some lower dificult stratgies may not work on immortal tho0gh.

wont that be called overkill?

 

[Um the Muse]

I don't play immortal, but from what I understand, the strategies are mostly the same as monarch and emperor. You just start valuing the short-term more and more. The other difference I know of is that diplo matters more and more. You rely on others for your research, you need to set up power blocs, etc. At the individual city level, though, it seems similar.

 

[Iranon]

Regarding Immortal strategies on lower levels: If you base your tech order around what you assume to be available via trade, you will probably have to readjust. On high levels, you can get an ally/vassal/colony to win wars or do your research for you in a reasonable time frame; your own empire can be weak if you have someone else's weight to throw around. Not really feasible on low levels.
At other times, high-level strategies 'work' but are too conservative - why cripple a neighbour early when you can make their cities your own painlessly now or later.

*

Flood plains are too good to leave unworked. With lower health caps, this usually favours cottages.
Multiple flood plains aren't ideal for a GP farm (we want a few superb food tiles rather than multiple good ones and we will run into the health cap sooner than later), plains hill mines add less than 1 net value until double-digit sizes while desert hill mines make a loss... unless there's something like multiple gold resources and a small number of flood plains, I see little need for farms.

 

[NihilZero]

why is watermilling it all not an option?

Just to be an annoying pedant, it's usually not possible to watermill all your riverside tiles as you can't have watermills on opposite sides of the same river stretch of river. It always bugs me when my workers insist on putting down my watermills in such a way that I can't have as many as I should be allowed because the fools put them on the wrong side.

In particular, I tend to build some Cottages early on in the game but then don't bother with running either Universal Suffrage or Free Speech, meaning that the Towns are decent but maybe aren't the best improvement to still be working.

Assuming that it's relatively late game and that I haven't won (probably because I'm playing on a tough difficulty level) and thus I have idle Workers who could be paving-over existing improvements.

Let's say that I am about to learn Electricity and that I already know Replaceable Parts.

I also plan to use Corporations over State Property.

Should I be paving-over my Towns and if so, which improvement types would potentially be of value?

Similarly, should I be paving-over my Farms and which improvement types would be good to replace them with?

Since we're talking about Flood Plains here (although you can answer in general, too), we have access to Rivers--assume that "enough" of the squares are Watermillable.


So, given that I plan to have Towns or Farms on my Flood Plains, when, if ever, should I switch them, given my above Civic choices?

If you aren't using state property then watermills are obviously not as great as they are with SP, so that changes the equation a lot. I would say that under SP in non-commerce specialised cities (and when switching to SP you can change a lot of cities over to production with good results) that you should watermill as many tiles as possible because in general higher pop = more high hammer tiles worked and at that stage of the game you can usually use excess food for engineers for even more hammers.

However, with corporations...well, you are going to be in Free Market which means an extra trade route, so there is a case to be made for higher population to increase the likelihood of attracting better trade routes. That argues for farms. On the other hand, Corporations almost always means the Sushi and Mining combo, in which case you should have adequate food with a decent sushi to get your pop as high as you like - which argues against farms which are clearly the worst improvements if you have excess food. In the case of adequate sushi food, I'd say cottages or workshops depending on city specialisation.

It is, however, completely pointless to build cottages late game without emancipation. And since you said you won't be using Free Speech I assume Bureaucracy, in which case cottages and towns are really only worth building in the capital.

Also, you said no Universal Suffrage either, so no massed rushbuy. Sounds like you'll be running Representation, Bureaucracy, Free Market, and if you can get away with it, Caste System (since emancipation is not so exciting unless you intend free speech and probably US - by late game your capital will have grown almost all its cottages to towns and won't benefit). You don't mind having excess food because your Rep specialists are strong, so high food tiles are good (again, sushi dependant). Workshops are nice because you have CS, if you have enough happiness.

In conclusion then, Cottages are your worst choice outside the capital since you aren't running cottage-friendly civics. Aside from that, your choice of watermills, workshops or farms depends on city specialisation - are you going for production or specialists. My guess is most of your cities will be geared for production (I know that's what I'd be doing), making workshops and watermills your best improvements in general, even without state property.

Oh, and financial changes the equation, obviously, but if you're FIN you might switch to more cottage-orientated civics.

 

[Iranon]

A lategame farm feeding a specialist is better than a 5--cottage... but you lose a little direct output in the time it takes to grow to the new size and this isn't going to be worth the effort if your growth caps are an issue, quite likely with corporation food.
Farms-feeding-specialits may get decent yield-per-tile, but yield-per-pop is never going to be convincing.

Post-electricity watermills aren't bad... 2 is usually better than 3. Watermills will have better average yields than a combination of vanilla towns and mines. If you're FIN and still decided against a focus on cottages, watermills and windmills become even better.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Generally, they get cottaged for me.

If i can help it, I don't make cities with floodplains production cities, for a couple of reasons:

1) Health - factories, etc, screw up health enough. Add a few more FP, and it's a pain in the ass
2) Production cities often have tiles change (farms/watermills/workshops) to meet the needs of the city. Floodplains take longer to work.

Also, near FP is often desert - I prefer my production cities, if possible, to be able to use all 20 tiles. Commerce cities, however, can be helpful with many fewer tiles.

 

[JammerUno]

I cottage most of them since they tend to get generated in clumps and that significantly reduces the value of the food surplus. There's certainly something to be said for farming the odd one, when that helps an otherwise foodpoor city.

Also, workshops, watermills.

 

[Rusty Edge]

I normally use a floodplain city for Great Person purposes. I used to be a farmer and I don't like flooded basements, so I don't build cottages in floodplains.

I've captured enemy cities with towns on it's floodplains. From a gameplay standpoint, I suspect it's usually the better approach.

 

[prayandr]

I normally use a floodplain city for Great Person purposes. I used to be a farmer and I don't like flooded basements, so I don't build cottages in floodplains.

I've captured enemy cities with towns on it's floodplains. From a gameplay standpoint, I suspect it's usually the better approach.

nice! firaxis shouldve worked this into the events: too many cottaged flood plains = +1 unhappiness (and maybe unhealth) for massive basement floodings

 

[Kaosprophet]

I normally use a floodplain city for Great Person purposes. I used to be a farmer and I don't like flooded basements, so I don't build cottages in floodplains.

One would think that the architects would generally shy away from designs with basements in areas prone to flooding...

Of course, what one would think doesn't always correspond with what actually happens.

 

[cabert]

nice! firaxis shouldve worked this into the events: too many cottaged flood plains = +1 unhappiness (and maybe unhealth) for massive basement floodings

already done.
there is a permanent unhealth penalty for flood plains

 

[Krill]

Don't think of farms as an end in and of themselves; farms provide an input (food) and are just a tool to get more population to gain more output (commerce, gpp, hammers, beakers etc)