Runnning and Maximizing a Cottage Economy

[DaveMcW]

The rest of your post is basically agreeing with me, so I'll only reply to this part:

But if you only have a +3 food tile and 12 grasslands (cut out of the jungle) then a granary alone is going to lead to a weak and slow growing city. Then working a few farms and whipping in key buildings can make the city grow faster. You can always cottage over the farms later once the buildings are in place.

That city is growing every 3-4 turns, I'd hardly call it slow. It's probably growing faster than your workers can cottage over the jungle!

 

[UncleJJ]

The rest of your post is basically agreeing with me, so I'll only reply to this part:

I don't think so. You missed a lot of important detail in your perfunctory summary

That city is growing every 3-4 turns, I'd hardly call it slow. It's probably growing faster than your workers can cottage over the jungle!

At size 8 (normal speed) it takes 18 food to grow 1 more pop. Assuming we work the +3 food tile and 7 grassland cottages we have a net + 3 food = 6 turns to grow. And it gets slower as we grow bigger.

You seem unduly optimistic about those cottages Dave

 

[DaveMcW]

+2 city tile +3 bananas = +5 food

18 / 5 = 3.6 turns for growth.

 

[UncleJJ]

+2 city tile +3 bananas = +5 food

18 / 5 = 3.6 turns for growth.

No. It was my example and it was just a 3 food tile, not a 5 food tile. I see where you were confused and if it was a banana then you would be correct.

 

[DaveMcW]

I have nothing against building a farm if you crunch the numbers and find that it gives you more developed cottages in the long run.

But whipping buildings in your +3 food city is a waste compared to having fully developed towns under universal suffrage.

 

[lilnev]

Priority techs: Printing Press and Democracy. Emancipation is the most important civic for developing your late-game economy. I'll often take Liberalism->Nationalism, then research Constitution and Democracy if I don't need to war). Printing Press can be hit by a GS and then finished off in just a few turns. This route also gives you tremendous trade bait to fill in Gunpowder, Chemistry, Astronomy, etc.

For a fast space race, you want to secure land early, and plan to fight quite a bit with maces and trebs. Sometimes you'll still be adding land with grens and cannons (or sometimes cavs or rifles), but sometimes you'll be done and just growing larger cities. Fighting later than this doesn't seem productive, except maybe in limited circumstances (finishing off a crippled and hopelessly backward neighbor; grabbing a late resource like Coal or Aluminum; dogpiling someone who's losing anyway to secure some of the spoils for yourself).

peace,
lilnev

 

[futurehermit]

So, basically, it seems to me that you should prioritize monarchy and pottery early on to get your cities growing cottages. Then beeline to liberalism using some GSs to help out while also taking out at least 1 neighbour. Continue to get your land to sufficient size while then beeline to democracy, again using GSs to support. Then, once you are done warring, grow your cottages as much as possible and settle in with CE civics while triggering as many GAs as possible.

Does this seem reasonable?

 

[bardolph]

So, basically, it seems to me that you should prioritize monarchy and pottery early on to get your cities growing cottages. Then beeline to liberalism using some GSs to help out while also taking out at least 1 neighbour. Continue to get your land to sufficient size while then beeline to democracy, again using GSs to support. Then, once you are done warring, grow your cottages as much as possible and settle in with CE civics while triggering as many GAs as possible.

Does this seem reasonable?

Reasonable, yes, but realize that you will have MUCH fewer Great People overall. You will be relying mostly on pure raw commerce to power through the tech tree. In the late game, your per-turn commerce output will indeed make Golden Ages very profitable, but it is unlikely you will generate enough Great People to have more than 2 GAs.

 

[lukep]

Most of the advice here has been good, so I won't repeat a lot of it....

Every city needs access to a food surplus. +3F minimum, generally I prefer access to +4F or even more. So you can whip in cottage cities just fine, generally.

I've run some sims and +5 (with granary) is even the turning point.
growing from around size 6 to size 14-15 is way shorter and as your pop is much bigger, you produce same amount of commerce in the duration.

having more is overkill.

 

[popejubal]

I find that I have money problems in Cottage Economies too. Mostly because running the slider at 100% does not let me earn much money from my cottages. If I'm not at 100%, I figure I have a money problem.

The way I look at it, I can build a bunch of wealth enhancing buildings in all my cities and get 1/2 value from them by running at 50% (and halve the value of all of my libraries, etc)... or I can try to generate a huge amount of money in one city and just multiply the money that that city generates. Because of that, I tend to try to get a religion (usually Philosophy since I'm too busy to get any of the early religions or to get Code of Laws of Theology) of my own and I'll try to conquor a holy city in which one of my neighbors has built a shrine. It's then missionary spamming time and I can (mostly) ignore the wealth generating buildings in the overwhelming majority of my empire.

 

[futurehermit]

Reasonable, yes, but realize that you will have MUCH fewer Great People overall. You will be relying mostly on pure raw commerce to power through the tech tree. In the late game, your per-turn commerce output will indeed make Golden Ages very profitable, but it is unlikely you will generate enough Great People to have more than 2 GAs.

I've seen some CE games that had 4-5 GAs + 1 from the Taj Mahal.

You just have to have a solid, dedicated GPfarm with NE, etc.

 

[NaZdReG]

I know my post is late but markets/grocers shouldn't be ignored.. you cant stay in hereditary rule forever... so extra health and happiness are damn useful.

not to mention say playing as english.. the raw power of turning off research, rush building grocers. rush build markets. rush build banks. now all your cities are producing 2x as much gold as they used to. rush buy redcoats, cannons. and a decent navy and go pound someone with it

if you have enough military by then you can switch back to regular production and resume teching. I find this process to take 10-15 turns at the most

NaZ

 

[Hold The Onion]

I agree with markets and grocers. i say banks too if you don't have a build that takes priority in those cities. the more you multiply that leftover commerce, the more you can creep that slider up. In a game the other day i was running 70% at -2/turn. After geting my buildings in I had 80% at +35/turn allowing me to accumulate money for running US or upgrading. Or at times running 90% at -15/turn because 1 turn at 80% would pay for 2 turns at 90% if i needed to focus on research.

Wound up getting a nuclear victory on that game. Once I had nukes, i turned science to 0% and built/bought nukes and let a fury of them go on some enemies so that my votes, combined with my buddy Cyrus and my vassal Ragnar were enough to be proclaimed the winner.

 

[Jet]

You can often stay in hereditary rule forever, but sometimes I want to play for space with only just enough expansion to win. That can leave me with a shortage of resources, which makes it harder to adopt Universal Suffrage. I end up with fewer cottages than I'd like.

 

[NaZdReG]

rush buying is what can make a CE BROKEN and borderline exploitive against the ai.. there is a reason why you don't get access to that ability until the late game.

 

[mice]

rush buying is what can make a CE BROKEN and borderline exploitive against the ai.. there is a reason why you don't get access to that ability until the late game.

This hints at CE for domination as opposed to space race. I wonder are there any big differences in setting up a CE for domination?

 

[popejubal]

I agree with markets and grocers. i say banks too if you don't have a build that takes priority in those cities. the more you multiply that leftover commerce, the more you can creep that slider up.

...and the more you get that slider to creep up, the less benefit you are getting from your markets, grocers and banks.

I'm all in favor of building markets and grocers for their happy and health benefits. The extra cash you get from them is also a handy bonus during those times when you have to run about 50% science/cash. Later in the game, though, you'll want to be running a higher science percentage.

With just 1 shrine in a Wall Street city, you can almost pay for new cities under communism. With 2 religions, you can entirely pay for each city under communism. (6 gold per turn max number of cities maintenance, then halved for Courthouse). That means you'll be able to run very close to 100% science... as long as you have a shrine set up properly.

Just remember to focus the wealth buildings in cities where they will do the most good. You can even run a few merchants in the cities where you build your cash multipliers (you'll need 6 banks for Wall Street anyway, so why not build them somewhere useful?). Once the buildings are there, go ahead and let those cities generate all the wealth you need for normal maintenance and the rest of your cities can concentrate on building military, infrastructure, or science.

Sure, this is a cottage economy, but there is still a place for specialists when they are used properly.

 

[Hold The Onion]

...and the more you get that slider to creep up, the less benefit you are getting from your markets, grocers and banks.

not at all. Less money ending up in your treasury, sure. But i consider the 10-20% higher my slider is able to run as the benefit or those buildings. I'm not getting "less benefit" from them, I'm getting a different benefit- that being higher science.

 

[futurehermit]

This hints at CE for domination as opposed to space race. I wonder are there any big differences in setting up a CE for domination?

Clearly CE can be used for domination win, but I think FE lends itself more toward this kind of a victory. The faster regrowth from whip/drafting and the ability to do it in pretty much all of your cities is really appealing when going for a military victory.

 

[Mutineer]

I will give my 2 cents.
Disclamer, I am not a cottage economy specialist.
I never going after fast space victory, because it is not my stile.
My stile is mostly in slowing down opposition and keep myself in a sweet spot just little bit ahead of the pack.

I am firm believer in natural progression of the game.
If one was not able to finish the game in time of mace/muskets/greens, riffles, then It is time to convert from domination to diplomatic/space victory.

Cottage wize, I do build cottages, but when and where?

I allmost allways farm alone the rivers, no matter is it floodplans, grassland or plain ties. Food reign supream early on.
Generally my worker priorities are:
1) Food specials.
2) Other specials.
3) farm floodplains
4) build mines
5) Farm river Grassland
6) farm River plains
7) cottage the rest. again, it is last priority to work.

There no any special benefit for building cottages alone the rivers, except +10 turn of +1 commerce for finacial. Ability to work farm for regrow is essential.
I fionished allways wanting to work farms, so, if I do not farm alone the rivers I found I am loosing +1 commerce from river all the time.

So, early on Expansion is priority N1.
first by settler, then by whip/produce war.
then by whip/draft war.
Then by whip/draft/upgrade war.

If by any reason (like high dificulty) I did not win by domination on some stage I made desision to swich to diplomatic or space race.

Generally at that moment it mean to switch from war civics(Nationalism, slavery) to tech race civics(free speech, Emancipation).

Only after all my towns mature and I prodiced 10+ of GP's I migth switch to US from representation. Generally I never had workers avalible to switch some non river farm I was forced to build in low food cities to cottagess, but I do it sometimes.

So, at that moment I am more or less run hubrid economy, useally untill end of the game.

I believe that this is the most relieble way to win Civ game no matter what game trow at you.