Plains - Farm or Cottage?

[TheBackStabber]

Is it better to cottage or farm plain tiles in commerce cities? Please explain why.

 

[lymond]

If the city is strictly commerce, then it really comes down to available food. You still need to grow on more cottages, so if you have good food specials or farms there is no reason you can't cottage up the plains tiles. Just find the right balance. Riverside plains cottages are just as good as riverside grassland cottages except , of course, that they are food deficit.

 

[michmbk]

Sometimes I'll workshop them as well , so I have some hammers to build infrastructure (cottage cities can often be a bit hammer poor).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Workshops or farms at communism/biology, mostly.

Pre-building them before those technologies is OK as long as you've used up alternative uses of workers; I still wouldn't suggest working those tiles unless you lack better alternatives without the techs to boost them though.

 

[Mec AntiKythera]

Do you have food resources available? If so I would think that cottaging them is better in a commerce city.

 

[Kid R]

Exactly, you need say a 5 or 6 food surplus to keep the city growing, especially at larger sizes, but if you have that without farming flatlands, cottage away. The extra hammer is handy to build markets and grocers at a stage of the game when if you're short of hammers 2H0F workshops are poor value. Compare that to 3H1F grass hills which you could also cottage, but it makes sense to mine 2 or 3 of those, then maybe windmill or cottage them later when all the infrastructure is done.

 

[Benginal]

The rule I follow that somebody posted a long time ago, maybe DaveMcW, was to have the food surplus equal the happy surplus.

So if you need to stagnate/slow growth, a great way to do it in a commerce city is to work a plains cottage. I actually quite like plains cottages if there's the food to feed them. Late in the game, a riverside plains cottage will be getting two and a potential third if you run Universal suffrage.

I think cottages get hated on a lot because of their early game lameness. But later in the game and under optimal civics and techs (which obviously depend on a lot of other stuff), towns are superior to every other improvement. So if you plan to go late into the game I'd favor building cottages. Which would lead me to support cottaging the plains tile as long as your food surplus can feed it.

So in answer to your question I use something like this, using the time you plan to finish the game as your rubric:

Early Renaissance: Leave it alone, don't waste the worker turns on the tile.
Late Renaissance (guilds and steel): Workshop, the hammer bonus is what you want even in a commerce city (it will probably be slow building a few units).
Industrial (whenever bio comes): Farm is probably better as it will let you grow more and work more tiles, even if you end up with the same quandary of workshop or farm. Depending on your unit building, you might want to workshop it and then farm it when you get to bio. This is the point in the game my workers are often bored so you can do stuff like this. For super intense micro, you can build the farm to within 1 turn of completion and then finish it right when bio comes in to speed up city growth. This demonstrates one of the great properties of farms/workshops. They're both fast to build and you can switch back and forth depending on what your goals are at the time.
Modern: Cottages, ftw.

It also depends on the victory condition you're going for. If I make it all the way to the modern age, I'm going to space or maybe just finishing off a war that should have already finished, in which case cottages are better or it doesn't matter, respectively. It all depends really, . I guess the point is to try and have a victory condition plan in mind which should in turn tell you what techs you will have and what civics you will be running and then make the improvement decision based on that.

 

[Framesticker]

But later in the game and under optimal civics and techs (which obviously depend on a lot of other stuff), towns are superior to every other improvement.

False. While this has been WIDELY (<-understatement of the year) debated back in this forum's early time (check out TMIT's archives), there are two "general," (and please don't crucify me on specifics) ways to choose your improvements:

1) Use combination of Specialists, Workshops, Watermills, Windmills and Farms under (optimally) Representation, Caste and State Property

2) Cottage everything green and/or riverside under Universal Sufferage, Free Speech, Emancipation and Free Market

Many differences between the two ways. For example, Pyramids are immensely useful for option 1 while the Kremlin makes 2 a lot cheaper and efficient; You have to turn research down in order to generate money to rushbuy while option 1 generates enough commerce and production to sustain both at the same time; cottages take 100 turns to mature pre-emancipation (50 with it) while specialists are immediately useful (and the 3 W's with appropriate civics are immediately good improvements).

This leads us to one conclusion, which seems to be misunderstood enough to justify writing a guide about. Shall I?

SPECIALIZE CITIES, NOT EMPIRES​

 

[Windsor]

False. While this has been WIDELY (<-understatement of the year) debated back in this forum's early time (check out TMIT's archives), there are two "general," (and please don't crucify me on specifics) ways to choose your improvements:

Then tell me, which improvement can compete with optimal towns? Remember he said TOWNS, not cottages or hamlets. And there really isn't any point in debating in. Towns are the best tile improvement in the game when fully boosted.

SPECIALIZE CITIES, NOT EMPIRES

Rubbish. Civics and certain wonders certainly makes it more optimal to specialize your empire to fit a certain set-up.

Anyway, a plains tile should be whipped

 

[shyuhe]

@Windsor: Nobody doubts that fully mature towns provide the best return on a per tile basis. But that alone doesn't win you the game. Towns take a long time to mature and if your critical push comes before the towns mature, you're better off using farms, mines, workshops etc. since they immediately produce their maximum per tile benefit.

@OP: Like others have pointed out, farm or cottage will depend heavily on your food surplus and your city needs. I almost always farm my plains tiles, although they really aren't great tiles. Unless I need the extra hammers, I would much rather run specialists.

 

[Benginal]

I wasn't trying to say that towns are a better improvement overall. I was trying to say that if you optimize any improvement the town is the best. This I don't think is really worth debating. You get so much more yield from a town than anything else.

But I'm not claiming that they're the way to go. I'm finding more and more that a near-optimal strategy is to farm and run specialists until curi or cav and then take over a ton of land by whipping huge armies of mounted units. You can often win here just by chain capitulation or if you can't chain cap, you now have an empire twice the size of everybody else and a win is easy.

That's why I tried to emphasize in my post that OP should decide how he wants them game to end before deciding what improvement is best. Since that will dictate which improvement he should build.

@ Specializing Cities not Empire.

I think this depends a lot on the land. I played a Willem game recently that was a bunch of jungle most of it riverside. Why would I specialize cities in this case? I rushed two neighbors early with chariots and then just grew to ~25 cities with everything working cottages. My infra was crap but I had one heroic epic city keep me safe and I'm good enough at diplomacy that I stayed clear of war until the end. At democracy I bought gobs of buildings. By the end I was producing ridiculous amounts of gold, in the order of 1,000s of gold a turn. I bought a million nukes and won. I think it would have been silly to have some commerce cities and a GP farm or two and some production cities. With the appropriate civics and factories and power all my cities were excellent. Obviously this example isn't universal since I was financial, but I think the point's still there.

 

[Giaur]

That's a nice encouraging topic name ...
Farmed plain is a very weak tile, hovever it's better than farmed grassland under golden age. In oposition similar stats has ordinary sea tile in a city with Moai Statue, but with additional 2-3 commerce and it makes big difference.
I'd rather cottage plain tile, but under one condition - my city is going to work that tile and that means your city must have additional food resources, more than in grassland city usually. Sometimes grassland cities have no food resources at all and do fine. City placement is very important.
So decision is yours - to work cottaged plain or assign a specialist instead. Farmed plain gives no food support, but only one additional hammer.

 

[NetGear]

plain workshops are great for flatland cities that need production. Unless youre chopping/whipping, you still need to build so I'll probably workshop a few. And if they have plenty of hills, odds are it will be my production city anyway.

 

[Framesticker]

I wasn't trying to say that towns are a better improvement overall. I was trying to say that if you optimize any improvement the town is the best. This I don't think is really worth debating. You get so much more yield from a town than anything else.

But I'm not claiming that they're the way to go. I'm finding more and more that a near-optimal strategy is to farm and run specialists until curi or cav and then take over a ton of land by whipping huge armies of mounted units. You can often win here just by chain capitulation or if you can't chain cap, you now have an empire twice the size of everybody else and a win is easy.

That's why I tried to emphasize in my post that OP should decide how he wants them game to end before deciding what improvement is best. Since that will dictate which improvement he should build.

@ Specializing Cities not Empire.

I think this depends a lot on the land. I played a Willem game recently that was a bunch of jungle most of it riverside. Why would I specialize cities in this case? I rushed two neighbors early with chariots and then just grew to ~25 cities with everything working cottages. My infra was crap but I had one heroic epic city keep me safe and I'm good enough at diplomacy that I stayed clear of war until the end. At democracy I bought gobs of buildings. By the end I was producing ridiculous amounts of gold, in the order of 1,000s of gold a turn. I bought a million nukes and won. I think it would have been silly to have some commerce cities and a GP farm or two and some production cities. With the appropriate civics and factories and power all my cities were excellent. Obviously this example isn't universal since I was financial, but I think the point's still there.

Actually, the point isn't really there. True enough, you won with pratically no specialization, but what before going into a winning position is critical. I dislike Chariot rushes in general, but rushing 2 neighbours on high levels (Emperor+?) seems rather a feat of micro and specialization more than anything else, if even possbile on the high levels (though people have done it before me, I just generally dislike it). The thing is, once you have a lot of decent of not good cities (~25 according to you) while the AIs don't have nearly that amount of land, micro is really just going to take longer.

HOWEVER, and this is critically important, you don't always get to rush 2 neigbours on high levels and frequently you have to make do with 6-8 cities rather than 25 while staying in the tech race. Then you can start specialzing your cities according to your long-term plan. Got Pyramids? A city with lots of riverside and a good food resource can then run scientists for 6 beakers and farm all over the place instead of cottaging. However, having a good commerce city is good to have (so you can pay for more maintenance), so might instead decide to cottage it. Or farm and run Merchants.

The thing is that cottages are simply easier to understand and are less micro-intensive, that's why many players (myself included) love them. However, I learned that on high levels, the game doesn't tolerate that. So may have to do some more.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Sorry guys, the best tile is a representation environmentalism national park preserved forest with an angkor wat priest:

2 food
3 hammer (1 from forest, 2 from priest)
2 commerce (from environ)
1 happy
1 gold (iirc)
3 science (from representation)

So, assuming 1 gold+3science + 2 commerce ~ 6 commerce, you just got two free hammers and a free happy.

For a more direct beaker-to-beaker comparison, run a scientists for 2 commerce + 6 beakers

(FIN and riverside levee etc work equally for towns and forest preserves so ignored here.)

 

[iggymnrr]

Workshops or farms at communism/biology, mostly.

Pre-building them before those technologies is OK as long as you've used up alternative uses of workers; I still wouldn't suggest working those tiles unless you lack better alternatives without the techs to boost them though.

Solid advice. Though a highly cottaged legendary city in a culture win may have cottages anywhere the food supply will support: hills, plains whatever.

 

[Gumbolt]

Back to original question cottage or farm plains tiles. Early on I would never farm a plains tiles. If your workers have nothing else to do pre 1ad something is wrong.

When a city grows in size it eats up 2 food to support the new population. Growing on a 2f plains gains you little or nothing. I would rather grow on a cottage grassland for the same result less 1 production. Long term cottages provide for your economy.

As others have stated once you consider workshops and other options later on plains have their uses. In a city that has grown past all its grassland tiles I might cottage if I had nothing better to use.

Overall you should not really be working many/any plains tile pre 1ad beyond roading.

 

[Benginal]

Sorry guys, the best tile is a representation environmentalism national park preserved forest with an angkor wat priest:

2 food
3 hammer (1 from forest, 2 from priest)
2 commerce (from environ)
1 happy
1 gold (iirc)
3 science (from representation)

So, assuming 1 gold+3science + 2 commerce ~ 6 commerce, you just got two free hammers and a free happy.

For a more direct beaker-to-beaker comparison, run a scientists for 2 commerce + 6 beakers

(FIN and riverside levee etc work equally for towns and forest preserves so ignored here.)

Merh. That's cheating. If we're counting national wonders, then the best tile is a riverside town in an oxford city.

@ Framesticker

I see your point about rushing. I think I was playing on monarch in that game ... so definitely something I couldn't do consistently. Though with horses nearby a chariot rush can pretty consistently take out at last one neighbor. And if that neighbor has good land and you don't have much else to do, then...

Also, I think specializing cities is true to a point. But some mechanics of the game, for better or worse, make specializing empires more attractive. There are two mechanics I'm thinking of. The first is the slider. The decision to invest commerce to gold or beakers is not a city right, it's a civilization-wide decision. This might not have as much relevance on specializing, though, as the second mechanic, which is civics. The fact that civics are empire-wide means that unless all your cities are on the same page, some are going to get the shaft regardless of which civics you run (I guess with the exception of Mercantilism and Environmentalism). This makes it more enticing to keep your empire's improvements consistent.

That being said, I look at many of my games and find myself specializing cities and not empires, . So you're probably right. But from a purely theoretical point of view this debate is pretty fun.

@ OP

Round 3 of ALC 30 has been played and will be posted shortly. I have some plains in the empire. Some of them have been improved and some haven't. I'll explain why I did what I did in that thread so that you can see an example of my decision making instead of all this what-if jibber jabber.

 

[Framesticker]

Merh. That's cheating. If we're counting national wonders, then the best tile is a riverside town in an oxford city.



I see your point about rushing. I think I was playing on monarch in that game ... so definitely something I couldn't do consistently. Though with horses nearby a chariot rush can pretty consistently take out at last one neighbor. And if that neighbor has good land and you don't have much else to do, then...

Also, I think specializing cities is true to a point. But some mechanics of the game, for better or worse, make specializing empires more attractive. There are two mechanics I'm thinking of. The first is the slider. The decision to invest commerce to gold or beakers is not a city right, it's a civilization-wide decision. This might not have as much relevance on specializing, though, as the second mechanic, which is civics. The fact that civics are empire-wide means that unless all your cities are on the same page, some are going to get the shaft regardless of which civics you run (I guess with the exception of Mercantilism and Environmentalism). This makes it more enticing to keep your empire's improvements consistent.

That being said, I look at many of my games and find myself specializing cities and not empires, . So you're probably right. But from a purely theoretical point of view this debate is pretty fun.



Round 3 of ALC 30 has been played and will be posted shortly. I have some plains in the empire. Some of them have been improved and some haven't. I'll explain why I did what I did in that thread so that you can see an example of my decision making instead of all this what-if jibber jabber.

DEBATE IS FUN!

If you don't waste it on time meant for sleep, like I do.

Though, just so we're clear, this whole argument assumes we actually take some time to micro our cities. We can all be TMITs and cottage over all non hill/resource tiles, right? ZING

 

[pi-r8]

Then tell me, which improvement can compete with optimal towns? Remember he said TOWNS, not cottages or hamlets. And there really isn't any point in debating in. Towns are the best tile improvement in the game when fully boosted.

windmills and watermills can both compete with towns when fully boosted.