So, Cottage Economy...

[Hyoga]

I still can't do it!

In general it seems like economy is my weakest ability in the game. Even with a Financial leader, I usually find myself running in the red with the science slider at 100%.

I find that the only way to counter that is to have tons and tons of Merchante specialists with a specialist economy.

Except this means that I'll almost always only get Great Merchants and nothing else no I try to avoid having so many Merchant specialists.

Even then, as soon as the later era hits with Emancipation, I can't have enough Merchants around to support my economy.

I just don't know when I should start building cottages or how a CE works exactly. It seems like I need general economic help either way though. I check the War Academy but didn't really find any guide that helps me out too much on terms of economy.

Furthermore, it seems like Corporations totally change everything anyway, so all the guides in the War Academy would be outdated.

I'm just at a loss here. It seems that focusing on my commerce always causes me to get attacked because I'm not building enough units for defense.

So, does anyone have any tips to help me improve my money-game?

 

[AfterShafter]

Science slider usually runs into the red at 100% and I find I only hit it with a strong religion under my belt... 90% in the green is *great* with no religion. 80%'ish is normal.

Thing is, your economy can be *thriving* at 80% or less... The percentile is just a percentile of your total commerce income - so, if it's 80% of a huge total commerce income, what actual figure does 80% represent? Is it a lot of tech per turn? A guy with a thriving economy could be at 70% and be bringing in more tech per turn than a guy with a weak economy at 100%.

First tip for improving your cottage economy... Stop paying so much attention to the percentile, and start paying attention to the figure that percentile represents - how many beakers are you getting per turn. Your economy may be better than you think, and you're just under the mistaken impression that you should be at 100% on the tech slider with a CE.

Second tip, work your cottages, work squares that produce commerce... That's it. Cottage economy is simple - can be tough to balance between production and square, but, that's just a matter of practice.

Third tip, cottage economies take a while to really start up. Don't get yourself into a period where you tech stagnates early on... Like, you need Calender to really have your civ grow, you over-expand early to land grab, but your cottages haven't matured enough to support those cities yet... You can find yourself stuck waiting forever for calender (or whatever) while your extra cities cripple your economy, with your cottages try and catch up to your building.

Oh, I suppose one other thing.... If you're at 100% tech, things like banks and grocers aren't going to give you too much unless you're running a lot of merchants/have a religion, etc. If you're at 100% tech, 0% of your economy in your cities is going towards gold, so there isn't much for your grocers/banks/markets to multiply.

Hope this helps. Big switch between SE's and CE's.

 

[Lt_Kain]

Some few tips from me at 5 am morning after a big multi games with my friends!

Go for tribunal fast, i often build a mix cottage-farm in cities and i work early on my cottage. Go for gold mine, jewlery mines, silver, etc
If you are financial, the easiest way is too make city near the ocean, if you build colosse you can say goodbye to financial problem ... just use the title

Another way to make easy money is in the religion with the main building if you create a religion spread it and your holy city will become a big bank

expand wisely, build many working to make cottage - farm. WIp granary and tribunal if you have money problem, dont forget to contruct the forbidden city

And with all that don't forget to build troop like my friend alwais do

Personnaly my slide is alwais between 50 and 70 ... if i am at 70 i build colon and if iam at 50 i builds market and banks Dont forget there are easy bankable cities like thoses near rivers and shores just make phare and cottage and you ll see.

 

[Hyoga]

First tip for improving your cottage economy... Stop paying so much attention to the percentile, and start paying attention to the figure that percentile represents - how many beakers are you getting per turn. Your economy may be better than you think, and you're just under the mistaken impression that you should be at 100% on the tech slider with a CE.

So then if beakers are the more important thing, then should I focus more on Scientist specialists?

I know that wealth and commerce aren't the same thing and that Merchant specialists only give you wealth, but I've found that I seem to get better results from running a lot of Merchants and upping up the slider. Except then all I get are Great Merchants.

But if I have a strong economy, then I should be able to support my slider without needing so many Merchants and thus would be able to focus on Scientists? Does this mean that I should have cottages really early on in order to use them instead of Merchants, allowing me to use Scientists?

Third tip, cottage economies take a while to really start up. Don't get yourself into a period where you tech stagnates early on... Like, you need Calender to really have your civ grow, you over-expand early to land grab, but your cottages haven't matured enough to support those cities yet... You can find yourself stuck waiting forever for calender (or whatever) while your extra cities cripple your economy, with your cottages try and catch up to your building.

I always seem to expand too much trying to secure resources. I find that, seeing as how I'm more of a peacemonger, getting land early is the only way for me to get land since I don't go into much wars.

 

[ahandac]

in occ SE is the best of best

 

[BYC]

It doesn't matter what your slider is at as long as you're still keeping up or ahead.

In a current game with the Mongols, I've been running 30% slider, but it doesn't matter since I have so much land that all the beakers in the empire is still keeping me in the lead.

I don't know if there are any hard numbers, but your main science city should be around 150 beakers per turn around Liberalism, imo. If you can get about 40 beakers from your other cities, you probably are fine.

 

[AfterShafter]

So then if beakers are the more important thing, then should I focus more on Scientist specialists?

I know that wealth and commerce aren't the same thing and that Merchant specialists only give you wealth, but I've found that I seem to get better results from running a lot of Merchants and upping up the slider. Except then all I get are Great Merchants.

But if I have a strong economy, then I should be able to support my slider without needing so many Merchants and thus would be able to focus on Scientists? Does this mean that I should have cottages really early on in order to use them instead of Merchants, allowing me to use Scientists?



I always seem to expand too much trying to secure resources. I find that, seeing as how I'm more of a peacemonger, getting land early is the only way for me to get land since I don't go into much wars.

Hrm... I'm not entirely sure why you think you need either scientists or merchants. If you want to try some sort of hybrid CE/SE, I can't really help you since I have never tried that (I do pretty close to a purist form of either one). The main thing is, when I'm running a dedicated CE, I don't need any merchants or scientist specialists - everything I need (outisde of great person points) is provided by worked plots of land.

If I'm about to tell you something you already know, my apologies - but this may be your problem. Beakers and gold income are both products of commerce points from worked plots of land. A worked cottage, for instance, produces several commerce points - those little gold disks (or moneybags, representing five disks) on the plot of land with the cottage/gold mine/river square/whatever. You get commerce points from these plots of land, and then all your science/gold sliders do is control how much of that commerce is turned into gold, and how much is turned into beakers. So commerce points are actually a versatile resource, and you control what it does for your civilization with the sliders.

That's why, if you have enough cottages/gold mines/other square bringing in a good amount of commerce for you, all you need to do to regulate your economy is change your sliders to convert however much of that commerce you want into beakers, gold, or other things (spy/culture sliders). Specialists are just gravy (and you SHOULD have some - filling in weak points in city land plots, and great person points).

To answer a specific question though...

"But if I have a strong economy, then I should be able to support my slider without needing so many Merchants and thus would be able to focus on Scientists? Does this mean that I should have cottages really early on in order to use them instead of Merchants, allowing me to use Scientists?"

Yes, exactly. If you get enough commerce producing plots in your civ, you will need no merchants whatsoever - heck, for me, it was months into my play when I was almost done with Monarch that I even started thinking about using merchants/scientists to bolster my economy/tech. Now, getting a few cities going nuts with scientists is something I love on my non-religious civs. Merchants? I never touch. All you need is enough commerce - then don't let a low tech slider percentile worry you so much, just make sure that your actual tech/gold incomes are good. The percentile is just the ratio at which your commerce is divided between gold and beakers.

Hope this helps... Tough explaining CE to someone who is new to it - it's all second nature to me at this point.

 

[BYC]

-snip

All good points.

Let's also start from the very beginning.

is the key to the entire game. It's what keeps the empire running. Total is the what is important for the most part. After getting the , a player uses the slider to determine how much of is used for , how much to , and how much to .

For example, if I am getting 1000 a turn, and I have my science slider set to 90% with no other settings, I'm getting 900 per turn BEFORE modifiers like libraries, universities, and others modifiers like Free Religion, observatories, etc..

The reason a CE works is because cottages grow into towns, which generate a lot of to be converted into whatever you need. Therefore, spam a lot of cottages, make sure you work them, and try not to spend that much on upkeep, civics, and troops before you are able to. Once those cottages mature, you can expand/war as needed, making sure you increase your via markets, banks, and the slider while reducing your upkeep via civics and courthouses.

 

[AfterShafter]

Wahoo, Burger King there knows his commerce

 

[Aurelius321]

Also good job with the visual aids

 

[Hyoga]

A big thanks to everyone so far. But a few more questions have been raised from your responses, which I hope you'll still indulge me with.


See, I feel like I've got a much larger grasp of CE now, but, let me just see if I got this all straight:

For a SE, you will be relying on to give you your and through your specialists. Get a lot of food, Caste System, and Representation and you're cruisin'. You'll also rely more on Wonders to give you a better edge.
But you'll also get with this, allowing you to "light bulb" techs to keep you in the lead, or all the other benefits.

For a CE, you will be relying on to give you your and through the slider. Get Universal Suffrage, Free Speech, and Emancipation and you're cruisin' with enough cottages.

Either way you want to have a good amount of cities so that you can generate a lot of either or in order to generate a lot of based on which economy you are using.

So here are my follow-up questions:

1) How do you get with a CE?

2) How much land is too much? Or, even more specifically, how far away from the capital is too far, giving too much maintenance?

3) For the SE, I build lots of farms. For the CE I build lots of cottages. When do I make the switch? Because it's going to take my Workers some time to change all those farms into cottages and then it'll take my city some time to make those cottages mature.

 

[MrCynical]

1) How do you get GPP with a CE?

Conventionally a CE runs a great people farm. This is a single city in a high food site with all tiles farmed to permit a high number of specialists. With the national epic boosting GP production, numbers of great people close to that of an SE may be generated. In the later game you can run a second GP farm in a forested area using the national park.

The GP farm is usually still used in the SE, though other cities contribute GP instead of (or ideally a few in addition to) the GP farm.

2) How much land is too much? Or, even more specifically, how far away from the capital is too far, giving too much maintenance?

It isn't really a case of how much land is too much, as any decent terrain can generally be made to pay more than its own maintenance costs once up and running with appropriate improvements. In any case, State property eliminate distance maintenance. It's more the rate of expansion that's the key - too many cities that aren't up and running with basic infrastructure will kill your economy.

Cities on a different landmass are a slightly different problem due to colonial maintenance, but distance in't actually the main problem there.

3) For the SE, I build lots of farms. For the CE I build lots of cottages. When do I make the switch? Because it's going to take my Workers some time to change all those farms into cottages and then it'll take my city some time to make those cottages mature.

Theoretically about the point where you get Emancipation to double cottage growth rate. I've never got this transition to work properly in practice though. Whether I'm running SE, CE, or a hybrid I don't go for that kind of mass improvement switch.

 

[Hyoga]

It's more the rate of expansion that's the key - too many cities that aren't up and running with basic infrastructure will kill your economy.

So what's considered basic infrastructure? How do I know if my empire is ready to handle another city? When the cost of running the city is lower than the revenue it generates?
I always find that I make new cities way slower than the AI. Like, I'm still working two cities while the AI already has five and is perfectly stable.

It also seems like the AI likes to put their cities really close together. Is there a benefit to this? Is it because it allows tiles to be worked more efficiently since the cities are closer together? I always try to make my cities decently apart so that fat crosses never ever intersect. Which means there's usually a degree of distance to travel between the capital and the other cities. The AI doesn't seem to do that.

Theoretically about the point where you get Emancipation to double cottage growth rate. I've never got this transition to work properly in practice though. Whether I'm running SE, CE, or a hybrid I don't go for that kind of mass improvement switch.

So then how do you switch from SE to CE effectively?

Should I gradually replace cottages with farms so that by the time I get Emancipation I already have enough cottages to support a stable CE? So then I'd be running a hybrid economy for a period?

 

[MrCynical]

So what's considered basic infrastructure? How do I know if my empire is ready to handle another city? When the cost of running the city is lower than the revenue it generates?

Keep an eye on your research rate. A common rule of thumb is that if you're running above 60% you're OK to expand. The situation you have to avoid is hitting 0% while turning a loss, or getting a very low research rate before you get crucial techs like code of laws and currency (once you have these you can generally expand faster). The key component of basic infrastructure is the courthouse, which cuts the city's maintenance cost in half (hence the importance of code of laws). I would also include the library, granary and in the case of coastal cities the lighthouse in the basic category. Improving surrounding resources before the city gets to work them is also important.

It also seems like the AI likes to put their cities really close together. Is there a benefit to this? Is it because it allows tiles to be worked more efficiently since the cities are closer together? I always try to make my cities decently apart so that fat crosses never ever intersect. Which means there's usually a degree of distance to travel between the capital and the other cities. The AI doesn't seem to do that.

While the AI does sometimes put cities too close together, some overlap between cities is generally advisable. Most of the time this is necessary just to ensure that all your useful land tiles and resources can be used. While two cities can't use the same tile at the same time, it'll be a long time before they get big enough to use all the tiles in their radii, hence overlap has no detrimental aspects until the later stages of the game.

So then how do you switch from SE to CE effectively?

In two words; I don't. My standard approach is to run a CE with one or two GP farms, and once the food from corporations is available begin running additional specialists on top of my normal cottage cities. An alternative is to run a straight SE all the way through.

The only occasion when I make a major switch is if I conquer a very large land area from AI civs. If it's heavily cottaged I'll leave it like that even if I'm running an SE, and I'll go for Free speech - hence hybrid economy. If I capture a badly improved (or badly pillaged) chunk of land in the late game I'll always run that bit with specialists - there simply isn't time for cottages to reach their full potential.

The only real problem with this kind of mixed economy is getting the right civics. Caste system I usually give up on, and go for emancipation. You should have enough buildings in your cities by that stage to run plenty of specialists without caste system, though you do have to take pot luck on what type of GP you get. The unhappiness from not running emancipation gets very problematic as well. The other tricky choice is between Representation and Universal sufferage. I generally favour Representation in the later stages for the extra science. Costs a little production from towns by not running universal sufferage, but it's not too bad. If Spiritual or when I get the Cristo Redentor wonder I'll flip between these civics to buy stuff with US, or to maximise golden age effects.

 

[BYC]

A big thanks to everyone so far. But a few more questions have been raised from your responses, which I hope you'll still indulge me with.


See, I feel like I've got a much larger grasp of CE now, but, let me just see if I got this all straight:

For a SE, you will be relying on to give you your and through your specialists. Get a lot of food, Caste System, and Representation and you're cruisin'. You'll also rely more on Wonders to give you a better edge.
But you'll also get with this, allowing you to "light bulb" techs to keep you in the lead, or all the other benefits.

For a CE, you will be relying on to give you your and through the slider. Get Universal Suffrage, Free Speech, and Emancipation and you're cruisin' with enough cottages.

Either way you want to have a good amount of cities so that you can generate a lot of either or in order to generate a lot of based on which economy you are using.

You have the basics. That's how the 2 different styles work. I don't know who discovered SE, but I certainly didn't realize the game could be played without a lot of . Definitely good game design to allow radically different styles of empire maintenance.

So here are my follow-up questions:

1) How do you get with a CE?

MrCynical already mentioned it, but basically a GP farm. It's the most efficient way for the CE to get GPs because it's inefficient to pull population from cottages to be a specialist instead.

2) How much land is too much? Or, even more specifically, how far away from the capital is too far, giving too much maintenance?

Distance is somewhat of a factor, but if you can pay for it, it doesn't matter. Basically, a player expanded too quickly if he cannot keep up due to having to get more to pay for everything. If you ever ran into a situation where your slider is 40% or lower (assuming CE) and you are STILL in the red for money per turn, and you cannot seem to keep up in tech, then you've expanded too quickly.

MrCynical addressed a lot of it as well, but I'll chime in a bit more. A CE sorta requires most of its cities to be able to pay for itself (more or less). A SE can specialize a few cities, usually coastal for trade routes and extra income, to pay for the majority of the empire, and then have all the rest of the cities chip in a little (via the slider usually, sometimes a merchant specialist). I could be wrong, but CEs usually expand more slowly because every city needs to pull its own weight in somewhat. A SE can expand more quickly because it can have highly specialized cities devoted towards paying for the entire empire. This is because since the CE's is mainly controlled by the slider, it's harder to make a non-holy city into a moneymarket, and players certainly don't want to reduce a city's by using specialists to generate more

All that being said, a few things never change. If you have a holy city with a lot of the religion spread, that city NEEDS to have a market, grocer, bank, and Wall Street. City details will reveal how much a city is generating in , and the highest ones usually get markets, grocers, and banks. Those cities usually end up being coastal cities due to trade routes and harbors.

All cities, CE or SE, require the basic infrastructure. This will vary from player to player, but I believe the following are needed in all cities:

Granary (for growth)
Theater (for culture)
Courthouse (for acceptable maintenance)

That's it. You'd be surprised how efficient you can make your play if you cut down on the extras that aren't needed. Markets, grocers, and banks just aren't needed for most cities. Same with libraries even. Theaters are just so much cheaper than libraries that until a city matures and produces lots of commerce or science, a library is worthless and a waste of hammers. Even if a civ gets cheap libraries, I'll hold off until a bit later, unless the number of hammers is lower than the theater.

This will definitely change depending on your style and goal for the game. For example, when I play Shaka, I build ikhandas, granaries, and theaters first. I skip the courthouse until my upkeep is insane because of the ikhanda's upkeep reduction ability. Also with the ikhanda, every city of mine can build the most efficient troops, and they almost always do to keep up the war machine.

3) For the SE, I build lots of farms. For the CE I build lots of cottages. When do I make the switch? Because it's going to take my Workers some time to change all those farms into cottages and then it'll take my city some time to make those cottages mature.

I'm not very good at making the switch myself, but usually when I play SE, I war a lot. If I can quickly capture a city, I do so and fit them in as SE or CE depending on the improvements. If I cannot, I will usually pillage, and once I do get the city, I go the SE route.

The other method I've heard is having river and coastal cities build cottages no matter what, but start small and get growth from farms and other food improvements first and then ease into it. When new cities are founded or captured, use SE for them.

Stay with Caste System with the hybrid, because of the workshop buff in BtS, plains can easily produce 4 hammers before Liberalism, allowing all cities enough of production to keep the empire growing.

 

[Underdawg]

I'm not very good at making the switch myself, but usually when I play SE, I war a lot. If I can quickly capture a city, I do so and fit them in as SE or CE depending on the improvements. If I cannot, I will usually pillage, and once I do get the city, I go the SE route.

The other method I've heard is having river and coastal cities build cottages no matter what, but start small and get growth from farms and other food improvements first and then ease into it. When new cities are founded or captured, use SE for them.

Stay with Caste System with the hybrid, because of the workshop buff in BtS, plains can easily produce 4 hammers before Liberalism, allowing all cities enough of production to keep the empire growing.

Key parts in bold on Hybrid Economy.

 

[MrFelony]

here's an example of a decent cottage site. I was actually in the process of re-engineering it to be a watermill/production city.

Spoiler :

Washington is actually that city you can see about the top right corner of the box on my map. I built my first 2 cities down here to block Egypt's expansion (which he didnt do a lot of...)

and here is my other city that was already transformed into a watermill production site. I actually built this as my forth city for more blocking on Egypt. being organized and rushing a courthouse helped me expand these cities pretty well, that and cottages/dye. also for the 2nd city, every non-forest tile was a town

Spoiler :

unfortunately as you can see, i made the mistake of capturing cities instead of razing and mehmed was able to win because of the apostle palace. was going to be my first domination on emperor too

 

[Leader_H]

i just know that one can use State property, caste system, and build tonnes of workshops on grassland, but watermill in plains... and production will rock

for commerce i always try to make a few cottage cities.

 

[MrFelony]

tis true. with a city that has all grassland tiles, it could pump out 80 base hammers a turn

 

[Wodan]

1) How do you get with a CE?

I wouldn't worry about it. Figure out how to run a straight-up CE first, before you try to do a CE with a GP Farm.

3) For the SE, I build lots of farms. For the CE I build lots of cottages. When do I make the switch? Because it's going to take my Workers some time to change all those farms into cottages and then it'll take my city some time to make those cottages mature.

One rule of thumb is that when you're 3-4 techs from Emancipation, whenever a city generates a GP, send workers in and change just that city's farms to cottages en masse.

Again, though, I'd suggest you figure out how to run a straight-up CE first, before you tackle how to do a SE that transforms to a CE midgame. MrCynical and BYC are giving good advice. (The only thing I could add is from experience doing a lot of experimentation with doing SE-CE switch games effectively, but at this point I think that would just confuse the issue.)

Wodan