Mines in Commerce Cities

[TheBackStabber]

Is it a better idea to cottage as much as possible and work all of the commerce tiles and then work mines last or should I work some mines and mostly cottages in my commerce cities while it is growing so I can build multipliers?

 

[iggymnrr]

Personally I love a brown cow in a commerce city. In general get food going first, growth will let you grow on to cottages and undeveloped tiles can be whipped.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

so, you need some infrastructure, so it's very helpful to have a mine or 2 or a couple of workshops. a way to think of it is that the multipliers give 25% commerce bonus, so it's better to build one than add a 5th or 6th town. I often use windmills, though...

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Is it a better idea to cottage as much as possible and work all of the commerce tiles and then work mines last or should I work some mines and mostly cottages in my commerce cities while it is growing so I can build multipliers?

As a rule, I prioritize growth over production in commerce cities, so I'll tend work the mines only when I'm closing in on the happy cap.

The "it depends" part: a larger food surplus makes it more likely that I'll work a mine earlier. The difference between growing +5 instead of +6 is marginal early and mid game, the difference between growing +2 instead of +3 is large.

If you are into micro, you start plotting out how many turns of food you can spare, and when it is optimal to spare it, to ensure that you are getting the best possible value. The nominal trade is cottage turns for extra production, but you need to pay attention to when you lose turns because you grow a turn "late".

There is, somewhere, a study someone did of the specific problem of constructing a granary/library in a new commerce city. You might try to track that down.

 

[Danelius90]

without going into the maths of it, it makes sense to have some mines/workshops around the city otherwise buildings like the university, or Oxford will take an age to complete. Specialising a city doesn't mean "no mines!!"
At that time, you can replace them with cottages, as there's very little you'll need after that for those cities.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

What I like to do is whip a Granary in my Cottage Cities, since generally you will see payoff in population by doing so.

Other buildings, I like to slow-build using Organized Religion and working 1 Hills square alongside my Cottages, giving me the one bonus Hammer per turn. That way, I am not missing out on the Organized Religion bonus, but I can also focus on growing my population and improving my Cottages.


If your economy isn't crashing, it can help A LOT to have a few Farms in your Cottage Cities and to work a balance of Farms and Cottages while growing your City... more Farms initially if your economy can handle doing so, and less Farms as you approach your Happiness (or Healthiness) caps. I would think that this detail is far more important than whether or not you work a Mine or two--generally, a poor Cottage City is one that has less than 5 Food surplus per turn, while a better one will have 5 or more Food surplus per turn, which often means having to work some Farms alongside the Cottages and the occasional Mine. As I said above, as you approach your Happiness (or Healthiness) caps, you can lay off the Farms a bit, but until that time, you'll generally see more gains overall if you get a reasonable amount of Food surplus for City growth.

Ideally, you will also aim to be bringing in 4+ Hammers per turn or 8+ Hammers per turn if you have your State Religion in that City and are running Organized Religion... perhaps a Grassland Copper or Plains Horse square exists in that City, which could mean that you wouldn't need to work any Mines at all in order to get your base 4 Hammers or base 8 Hammers.

 

[Mylene]

~2 mines are good, for stuff you don't want to whip like Monasterys.
These buildings are good in beaker cities, specially if you have to fear culture, but usually not worth using the whip.

 

[Iranon]

Whipping generally beats regular production in efficiency if you do it well; mines mostly support it at the end of a whipping cycle (growing into unhappiness) unless you need more production than Slavery can give you.

Don't work production tiles before you've grown into stable growth caps - grow and whip is a lot better because you get to work more tiles in the meantime.

 

[Kid R]

In typical games I find the tech speed means commerce cities never have enough time, hammers and food to both grow to happy cap and build all the multipliers they'd like. So the perfect commerce city is more of a hypothetical thing. Realistically there's either a lack of hammers or a lack of food or both, and you just have to make the best of it to get the really essential things done according to the game situation.

I'm not sure if that answers the question, which seemed to be "is it good to build multiplier buildings while growing", in which case the answer would have to be no. Work the highest-food tiles available to grow to happy cap as fast as possible, then when you get there switch over to hammers if you have them and if you decide the multiplier buildings available are good value at that time in the game. Otherwise stay on all commerce tiles (or food tiles to grow above happy cap if you plan a big whip in the near future).