Farms vs. Cottages: a simple simulation

[VirusMonster]

Ok guys listen, I play tons of high difficulty games and here is what happens.

I start with low pop, low happiness limited cities, but at one point in the game after heavy warmongering, my empire captures many cities, i.e. controls 20-30 total cities, but many of those cities have not enough population to support most of the cottages around the city. At that time, I usually have enough health and luxury resources to support at least 10 if not 15 or 20 size city. At that point, due to the large mass I conquered, I practically control every single health and happiness bonus resource in the game. I have many of such cities at around 5 population, and I was very curious what the most economically beneficial way for me would be to grow such cities. Cottages first or farms first?

I think this article just helped me on that point and that is what is great about the test he did. It is now clear to me that working the citizens on farms first will give me more commerce over the long term. And I will grow my city population for final score as well.

For the beginning of the game, you can develop any strategy you like, cottages first, hammers first, farms first. For example, in my quechua rush deity strategy, I prefer building 5 quechuas initally at 0 growth. Sometimes, I go 0 growth for a long time to pump out sufficient quechuas to capture several cities. I don't even have the luxury of working at cottages on that point; my priority is hammers.

But at one point in the game after heavy warmongering, you control many below 5-10 population cities that you would like to grow. At that point, I am convinced that working on farms first will yield you more commerce in the long run. Get high population first and start working on cottages later.
You get more final score too, because you can support a larger empire population. You might want to change some farms into cottages once you reach a certain size, but first build some farms on floodplains and grassland, LET THE CITY GROW You will get mass commerce with some patience when mass citizens work on all cottages instead of a few citizens working now and growing much slower.

Thanks again great article for those who can draw the conclusions. I vote 5 stars for the unique test idea.

 

[malekithe]

I start with low pop, low happiness limited cities, but at one point in the game after heavy warmongering, my empire captures many cities, i.e. controls 20-30 total cities, but many of those cities have not enough population to support most of the cottages around the city. At that time, I usually have enough health and luxury resources to support at least 10 if not 15 or 20 size city. At that point, due to the large mass I conquered, I practically control every single health and happiness bonus resource in the game. I have many of such cities at around 5 population, and I was very curious what the most economically beneficial way for me would be to grow such cities. Cottages first or farms first?

By the time you conquer 20-30 cities, depending on the size of the map, the game is mostly academic at that point. How best to secure and milk your advantage is a very different topic from how to create that advantage.

 

[VirusMonster]

By the time you conquer 20-30 cities, depending on the size of the map, the game is mostly academic at that point. How best to secure and milk your advantage is a very different topic from how to create that advantage.

Well, 20-30 city empires might be large for smaller maps, but I almost always play on a huge map, so 20-30 cities don't guarantee the win on Immortal or Deity. It is still very important to know how to milk most commerce out of your cities once you have a large empire, but low empire population.

The article definitely has its uses for commercial milking, not necessarily for score milking. Score milking is easy, biology mass farms.

 

[RemoWilliams]

It's pretty simple-minded, but it works well for me at Prince level. So, I have my own bias. My intuition tells me that I couldn't do as well using farms to grow my pop to the cap, and then replacing them with cottages. Here's my thoughts:
1) Using farms early means less money in the very early part of the game, which is the most critical part of the game.
2) There are times in the game when workers don't have much to do, and other times when they are busy and you wish you had more. I suspect that workers might be at a premium when you needed to convert farms to cottages.

Growth first is also applicable to Prince, imo.

As far as point #1: I don't agree that farms = less money at prince. I think at the very least you will break even getting your population up before you work cottages. This doesn't necessarily mean farms, if you have special resources, they will suffice.

I nearly always max growth when I have happiness available. You might give up a bit of production or commerce for a few turns, but you will be able to work one more tile afterwards, and this is nearly always better.

Slavery is absolutely key.

 

[RemoWilliams]

Ok guys listen, I play tons of high difficulty games and here is what happens.

I start with low pop, low happiness limited cities, but at one point in the game after heavy warmongering, my empire captures many cities, i.e. controls 20-30 total cities, but many of those cities have not enough population to support most of the cottages around the city. At that time, I usually have enough health and luxury resources to support at least 10 if not 15 or 20 size city. At that point, due to the large mass I conquered, I practically control every single health and happiness bonus resource in the game. I have many of such cities at around 5 population, and I was very curious what the most economically beneficial way for me would be to grow such cities. Cottages first or farms first?

I think this article just helped me on that point and that is what is great about the test he did. It is now clear to me that working the citizens on farms first will give me more commerce over the long term. And I will grow my city population for final score as well.

For the beginning of the game, you can develop any strategy you like, cottages first, hammers first, farms first. For example, in my quechua rush deity strategy, I prefer building 5 quechuas initally at 0 growth. Sometimes, I go 0 growth for a long time to pump out sufficient quechuas to capture several cities. I don't even have the luxury of working at cottages on that point; my priority is hammers.

But at one point in the game after heavy warmongering, you control many below 5-10 population cities that you would like to grow. At that point, I am convinced that working on farms first will yield you more commerce in the long run. Get high population first and start working on cottages later.
You get more final score too, because you can support a larger empire population. You might want to change some farms into cottages once you reach a certain size, but first build some farms on floodplains and grassland, LET THE CITY GROW You will get mass commerce with some patience when mass citizens work on all cottages instead of a few citizens working now and growing much slower.

Thanks again great article for those who can draw the conclusions. I vote 5 stars for the unique test idea.

Finally someone gets it.

Yes, after an expansion war, max growth in all of your cities. It makes a huge difference. In fact, if you have to choose what your captured workers will do, it is often best to build whatever farms/food resources you need to get pop up quickly.

I am fairly sure food is also the most important in the early game, and I am going to try to prove it in such a way that people will not be so argumentative about the results. I'm still working out a test procedure that will be less controversial.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[RemoWilliams]

Well, if we're discussing Civ strategy, then the viability of different approaches at different levels is fair game. I'm no diety player (trying emperor now, getting butt kicked) but I understand that what works on Diety will work on lower levels, but the reverse is not true. So for a player that wants to get better, it's not good to invest in learning a strategy that is not scalable with levels.

Well, I think growth first is quite applicable after your expansion war(s) as well, as VirusMonster pointed out above. At that point, you have a big happiness surplus, and I'm pretty certain you don't want to work the cottages at the expense of growing to your happiness cap.

I tend to max growth after expansion wars, and after Biology as well. I know from experience that this yields better results than maxing commerce and growing slowly. I knew this would be a controversial topic but I decided to take it on anyway.

The point to stop growing, imo, is the point where either:

1) It will take a long time (30-40 turns on marathon)
2) Happiness cap is reached.

If you get to 1, before you get to 2, time to build a farm or connect a food resource, and in the meantime, max commerce or production, or work the tiles manually, whatever you prefer or the situation calls for.

 

[Naismith]

This doesn't necessarily mean farms, if you have special resources, they will suffice.

I almost always hook up and work special resources as a first priority, especially happiness resources. I'm certainly not going to work a cottage in a one pop city when a 4 food, 2 hammer cow is available, or almost any other special resource, for that matter. You also have to balance hammers in low pop cities, especially in the early game. If I have rice and corn hooked up, I'm not going to work three cottages if my happiness cap is 5. I will mine a couple of hills if available instead. Of course, some people who are smarter than I am might see that as an opportunity to use the whip.

I nearly always max growth when I have happiness available. You might give up a bit of production or commerce for a few turns, but you will be able to work one more tile afterwards, and this is nearly always better.

It might be a lot more than a few turns. Again, this is very situational. If I'm in a war, and I'm fighting for my life, I won't even consider giving up production or commerce in any city. I suspect you would agree on this - you have to survive to enjoy the benefits of growth. If I've just conquered serveral cities, and I know my new neighbor Monty has a stronger military than me, and a different religion, farming isn't exactly a priority. I'm concerned about production for making military units, and commerce so for (hopefully) military techs that will give me an added edge. Commerce can be especially critical if your conquests have temporarily brought you to a shakey financial situation.

Having said all that, if I've conquered a city with pop of say, 5, and it has a happiness cap of 10, I will concentrate on growth in that city if I can grow the population fairly quickly. Depending on the circumstances, my first two builds are often a theatre (to expand city borders), and then a granary to maximize growth.

I am fairly sure food is also the most important in the early game, and I am going to try to prove it in such a way that people will not be so argumentative about the results.

I hope you are not trying to imply I am argumentative. I think I've already learned a few things from this thread, and probably brought a few other things into clearer focus. By all means, create some more scenarios.

 

[RemoWilliams]

It might be a lot more than a few turns. Again, this is very situational. If I'm in a war, and I'm fighting for my life, I won't even consider giving up production or commerce in any city. I suspect you would agree on this - you have to survive to enjoy the benefits of growth.

I agree wholeheartedly. The times you want to max growth are almost always peaceful times.

I started this thread because I got burned by the cottages first strategy, and found that when I grew population instead, two things happened:

1) I won by a lot bigger margin
2) Ofen a side-effect of max growth is that cottages/hamlets/villages/towns are the tiles to get worked anyway, since they are typically on grassland and flood plains, meaning they are the best food tiles. Therefore science doesn't take much of a hit when you max growth, but obviously, production does (although, as I've pointed out several times, in this simulation, no cottages were worked until 6 pop).

 

[RemoWilliams]

It might be a lot more than a few turns. Again, this is very situational. If I'm in a war, and I'm fighting for my life, I won't even consider giving up production or commerce in any city. I suspect you would agree on this - you have to survive to enjoy the benefits of growth.

edit: oops, sorry, double post.

 

[Zombie69]

Well, I think growth first is quite applicable after your expansion war(s) as well, as VirusMonster pointed out above. At that point, you have a big happiness surplus, and I'm pretty certain you don't want to work the cottages at the expense of growing to your happiness cap.

One doesn't have to be at the expense of the other. The point is that most cities will have at least one or two food resources, and once those are worked, you grow quickly enough that you can afford for everything else to be cottages.

Back when i played noble, prince and monarch (which laster all of 4 games), i did build farms first. But on my first emperor game, i quickly noticed that cottages first was much better due to the low happiness. Try it at emperor or above, you'll see. There's no need for any farm (except on resources, in the GPF and in the production center) at those levels.

 

[SuperSatan3]

So in summary, Should the number of farms you build be based mainly on the number of happy citizens you can support?
If you start near a resource you can exploit early on to provide happiness(gold which requires mining, or elephants or fur, both require hunting) then you could have more happy citizens.

As far first cities go, I usually go for growth and production, building farms and mines wherever I can(FYI, I never played anything higher than Noble, which I win at most of the time). I usually try to crank out wonders and settlers(in my capital city), in addition to making soldiers to defend my less developed towns.

After I get a high great person birth rate(which I usually do by building a national epic), I build a science academy and Wall Street. On Lower difficulties where happiness is hardly an issue, I usually grow large populations and make specialist to compensate for the lack of money from building farms instead of cottages.

 

[DaviddesJ]

So in summary, Should the number of farms you build be based mainly on the number of happy citizens you can support?
If you start near a resource you can exploit early on to provide happiness(gold which requires mining, or elephants or fur, both require hunting) then you could have more happy citizens.

Usually you'll have access to 1 or 2 of the early luxuries (gold, silver, gems, ivory, fur). If you have 3, yes, you might treat that as encouraging a bit more growth. On the other hand, if you have more luxuries you'll probably have fewer health resources, and perhaps be more constrained by health.

 

[RemoWilliams]

So in summary, Should the number of farms you build be based mainly on the number of happy citizens you can support?
If you start near a resource you can exploit early on to provide happiness(gold which requires mining, or elephants or fur, both require hunting) then you could have more happy citizens.

As far first cities go, I usually go for growth and production, building farms and mines wherever I can(FYI, I never played anything higher than Noble, which I win at most of the time). I usually try to crank out wonders and settlers(in my capital city), in addition to making soldiers to defend my less developed towns.

After I get a high great person birth rate(which I usually do by building a national epic), I build a science academy and Wall Street. On Lower difficulties where happiness is hardly an issue, I usually grow large populations and make specialist to compensate for the lack of money from building farms instead of cottages.

Well, I prefer to build enough excess food to be able to recover very quickly from slavery. This, for me, does not equal just enough for the happiness cap, but it depends on the city as to whether you build several farms or just a couple. For example, if my "true" happiness cap was 10 (without pop rush penalties), and I had 2 irrigated rice paddies, I'd probably want 2-3 flood plains farms too, if I had them available.

Flood plains look like mines to me.

And where do I put my cottages? Gasp! On regular ol' plains tiles, mostly. I prioritize in the following way:

1) Any flood plains I have left over that I'm not planning to farm (rare that I have enough so that this comes up)
2) Any plains next to river tiles
3) Any grassland next to river tiles
4) Anywhere else

Why 2? Because a farm on a plains is almost useless. Basically it's just a self-sustaining tile you get 1 hammer from. I hardly ever build workshops until I get to state property. Plus, I don't have much problem being able to work a 1 food tile, because I have all the excess food from the big food tiles.

Why is 3 not higher on the list? Because later on my grassland may make good farm land, since it will produce surplus food even before biology. These days I take a quick look 'round the tiles surrounding the city, and I already have planned out which tiles will become which improvement. A big factor to consider is what the city will look like after civil service, when you can chain-irrigate, and a lesser concern is what will happen after Biology (until you get closer to Biology time, that is).

To me, Biology is as big an event in the late game as Civil service is in the early game. My civ takes off like a rocket, pun intended.

Ironically, as big as I am on farms, I've been leaving the GP farm alone for a while now. Mostly I've been working on the space race aspect of the game, and for a GP farm to be really effective for the space race, it needs to produce scientists and engineers. Scientists you get with caste system, but you have to give up slavery, which is a really big deal breaker for me. Engineers you only get through various buildings, and buildings take about a million years to build in a GP farm, especially if you're running caste system. If I hold off on caste system until I get the buildings I want with slavery, I end up never switching to caste system, just keep putting it off.

Plus, I don't play philo leaders.

It just takes me too long to get to the point where I'm producing the GPs I need, and in the early game I have a city that's not doing a lot for me. It just doesn't seem to fit with my style. But maybe there's folks out there who can set me right.

 

[RemoWilliams]

One doesn't have to be at the expense of the other. The point is that most cities will have at least one or two food resources, and once those are worked, you grow quickly enough that you can afford for everything else to be cottages.

Back when i played noble, prince and monarch (which laster all of 4 games), i did build farms first. But on my first emperor game, i quickly noticed that cottages first was much better due to the low happiness. Try it at emperor or above, you'll see. There's no need for any farm (except on resources, in the GPF and in the production center) at those levels.

Well, I believe you about the higher difficulty as far as the early game is concerned, but I think you're making a pretty big generalization beyond that.

"Quickly enough" is pretty vague. If I have 3 citizens, but enough happiness for 10 citizens, there better be enough food for me to get to 10 pretty quickly, or I'm wasting everything that city can do for me. With a granary, this means I want it to take about 5-6 turns (on marathon game speed) at each level, and no more than that. The only way you can convince me that it's better to grow really slowly and work cottages is if you do an experiment like the one I've done, or at least throw out some math that supports your position.

Now, I certainly could be wrong, and please don't take offense at my presumption here, but I suspect that you're not much of a builder, are you? At really high difficulty, you just about have to be a warmonger from beginning to end, which is why I don't really like to play those difficulties. It's not that I cannot do it, I just don't enjoy it that much. If I get the itch for some warmongering though, of course I'm not gonna play Noble.

As VirusMonster pointed out, you can have a pretty good size happiness cap in the mid-late game, even on high difficulty. Think about it: every turn you don't have max population is a turn that you could be producing something from a tile and you're not. Growing as fast as possible, even at the expense of other things, if necessary, is nearly always the right play, assuming you have large excess food.

Looks like we may have to just agree to disagree on this one. Cest la vie.

 

[RemoWilliams]

Very interesting thread. I'm kind of a combination of stuck in a rut and lazy - I have never *once* used slavery to whip anything. I played with it a bit in Civ3 and thought it was overrated. I assumed the same was true for Civ4. I'm very much aware that I'm revealing my own ignorance here.

Instead, I am a cottage-spammer. Well, I almost always build cottages on flood plains and green squares, unless a city is seriously food-challenged. I build farms on plains. I tend to build a lot of windwills, once they become available. Mines where the food surplus allows it. I like to cities with a surplus of at least 2 food, 3 is more normal. I try to get pottery as one of the first 4 techs or so - BW first of course.

It's pretty simple-minded, but it works well for me at Prince level. So, I have my own bias. My intuition tells me that I couldn't do as well using farms to grow my pop to the cap, and then replacing them with cottages. Here's my thoughts:
1) Using farms early means less money in the very early part of the game, which is the most critical part of the game.
2) There are times in the game when workers don't have much to do, and other times when they are busy and you wish you had more. I suspect that workers might be at a premium when you needed to convert farms to cottages.

A farm on a plains is almost, but not entirely, useless. What do you gain from it? 1g if it is next to a river, and 1 hammer either way. Wow! Only after Biology does it produce excess food, and become useful. I'd rather pre-chop forests than build a pre-biology farm on a plains tile. It sure doesn't help you work any of those cottages. On the other hand, a single farm on a grassland lets you break even by working a cottage on a plains, and you have more pop for slavery. A single farm on a floodplains lets you run 2 cottages on 2 plains tiles, or 2 cottages on 2 grassland, and 2 cottages on 2 plains.

If you aren't using slavery, I hope you're using caste system and have a badass little GP farm going on. That's the only excuse I see for not using it, at the very least in your science or culture cities. I used to be shy about slavery as well, but now I recognize that it is an essential part of the game.

Try it my way, worst case, maybe it won't fit with your style and you'll write me off as a crackpot.

 

[DaviddesJ]

At really high difficulty, you just about have to be a warmonger from beginning to end

No, not really.

 

[RemoWilliams]

No, not really.

Hey, I bet you can't argue with this:

"This statement is contradictable"

 

[Zombie69]

Now, I certainly could be wrong, and please don't take offense at my presumption here, but I suspect that you're not much of a builder, are you? At really high difficulty, you just about have to be a warmonger from beginning to end, which is why I don't really like to play those difficulties.

True that i'm generally more of a warmonger, but wrong that you have to wage war to compete at high difficulty levels. In my current game, at Immortal, i didn't wage a single war until Redcoats. The only cities i conquered were barbarian cities. Yet, by the time i got to Redcoats, i had climbed all the way up to number 1 in score, peacefully. All by micromanaging my way into outproducing the AI.

As VirusMonster pointed out, you can have a pretty good size happiness cap in the mid-late game, even on high difficulty.

Yes, but by then your cities are already pretty high in pop. You're never more than 4 or 5 points lower than your cap. That is, unless you're talking about conquered cities, but those are a totally different scenario altogether, and shouldn't even be compared to an article that talks about starting size 1 cities.

Think about it: every turn you don't have max population is a turn that you could be producing something from a tile and you're not. Growing as fast as possible, even at the expense of other things, if necessary, is nearly always the right play, assuming you have large excess food.

Think about it : every turn you're not working a cottage is a turn where it's not growing. At high difficulty levels, you'll quickly find yourself out-teched and out-gunned by the AI if you go with farms instead of cottages.

Like i said, your way works at low difficulties, but it's extremely sub-optimal at higher levels.

 

[Naismith]

Think about it : every turn you're not working a cottage is a turn where it's not growing. At high difficulty levels, you'll quickly find yourself out-teched and out-gunned by the AI if you go with farms instead of cottages.

When I am playing the early game at Prince or Monarch, my one overriding concern is to get my finances going strong ASAP. The only way to do that (other than the obvious need to hook up special resources) is to get early cottages going. If you are building farms instead, you are losing the immediate commerce, and the extra turns you would have worked the cottages. If you have a high enough happiness cap, and you don't get completely left behind in the tech race, then maybe it works out for you.

Getting into the tech race early is critical. If you reach Alphabet late, you don't get a chance to catch up (and possibly surpass) other Civ's by using your temporary trading advantage. If you fall behind in tech early, you are also more likely to get involved in an early war where you are fighting better military units at your most vulnerable time in the game.

It's much nicer to reach the tech for cats well ahead of your neighbors, for instance. You can leverage your military advantage into more commerce by taking over your neighbor's cities, and building more cottages

 

[RemoWilliams]

When I am playing the early game at Prince or Monarch, my one overriding concern is to get my finances going strong ASAP. The only way to do that (other than the obvious need to hook up special resources) is to get early cottages going. If you are building farms instead, you are losing the immediate commerce, and the extra turns you would have worked the cottages. If you have a high enough happiness cap, and you don't get completely left behind in the tech race, then maybe it works out for you.

Getting into the tech race early is critical. If you reach Alphabet late, you don't get a chance to catch up (and possibly surpass) other Civ's by using your temporary trading advantage. If you fall behind in tech early, you are also more likely to get involved in an early war where you are fighting better military units at your most vulnerable time in the game.

It's much nicer to reach the tech for cats well ahead of your neighbors, for instance. You can leverage your military advantage into more commerce by taking over your neighbor's cities, and building more cottages

The point is that when you have a big happiness surplus, you will make more commerce by getting your population up, and then working the cottages, than you will by working the cottages and growing slowly. The whole point of this article is to point out that sometimes you max your commerce by maxing population first.

Would you rather work 1 village for 30 turns, or 3 hamlets? That's what this thread is about.