Strategy suggestions

[Regas]

well I'm really not the one to hold a serious discussion about this issue, as I lack experience
those were my observations from the games I've played. I should try cottaging more for comparison I guess.
I put some cottages on riverside in some cities, where food will not be a problem, but usually I opt for farms and more production.
also it would be interesting to calculate the return in gold in farms+mines city building wealth vs cottaged grasslands city.

 

[Dirk1302]

But the growing rate of SE is nearly the same as the CE - in most of the time they both have 2 food surplus! The only exception from this is when growing from size 1 to size 2 you have 3 food surplus and when growing from size 5 to size 6 you have again 3 surplus. But this is very short period and once you assign the specialist, it is back to 2 food surplus per turn. 1 food per turn for a very limited period of time does not gives you "much bigger production trough whipping" than working cottages.

I myself use the whip till it bleeds, but this is done trough good food tiles - corn, pigs, fish, etc, not growing on irrigated green.

So, I am still not convinced of the power of the irrigated green

The growth surplus for your example is much bigger (+8) if you don't cap it off with specs. You can get quite a bit of production out of that surplus through whipping. Capping with non relevant specs loses out against almost anything in raw output but it is flexible for reaching key techs like alpha or currency.

@Regas, mines are no better than specs. 1 farmed grass + 1 grass mine is +3 in coins or science using 2 tiles and it doesn't go through the library modifier. But this mechanism can be useful for reaching certain key techs as well.

 

[2metraninja]

@Regas, mines are no better than specs. 1 farmed grass + 1 grass mine is +3 in coins or science using 2 tiles and it doesn't go through the library modifier. But this mechanism can be useful for reaching certain key techs as well.

It actually uses the library bonus, as this is 3 gold, which will help you keep the tech slider higher, effectively using the library modifier, but it is still inferior to other methods, because for 1 tile, you get return of 1.875 beaker/tile. Using scientists with farms or having basic cottages, both with library, gives you return of 2.5 beakers per tile.

 

[Dirk1302]

True building wealth is usually better than building science for that reason if you have libraries and even better academies. However the 3 coins don't go through a modifier themselves pre forges. Scientists usually go through their lib if you don't use caste system to run them.

How does a scientist with library give 2.5 beaker/tile? 1 scientist through library gives 3.75 bpt. 2 farms are needed to support it so 1.875 bpt.

In your 6 tile example you'll get 7.5 science from the 4 tiles = 1.875 bpt. And it's actually worse since there are 2 tiles you're not working so actually it's 7.5/6 science output/tile.

 

[2metraninja]

How does a scientist with library give 2.5 beaker/tile?

Hmm.. I think I made a principle mistake - it is not beakers per tile I am talking about, but beakers per citizen involved

I already said I am not good at math, and having in mind it is BpC (Beaker per Citizen) instead of BpT (Beaker per Tile), I calculate it like this:

2 farmers feed 1 scientist. So, 3 citizens generate 6 science, which is multiplied by the library, resulting in 7.5 beakers. Divided by 3 citizens busy doing this, thats 2.5 BpC

while 1 farmer feeds 1 miner - thats 3 gold, which will help raising your science slider, which will go trough the library, resulting in 3.75 beakers output. divided by 2 citizens, this gives 1.875 BpC

edit: OMG - I will leave the office and go home - it seems I am too tired. This example is true if you are in Representation. You are right that normally it is far worst - it is like 1.25 beakers per citizen.... So what is going on - farms + building wealth beats non-Representation scientists? Thats cool

 

[Dirk1302]

, happens to all of us. But your initial statement was right imo, scientists don't do so well if you only look at raw commercial output.

 

[ecuwins]

scientists don't do so well if you only look at raw commercial output.

True this. I understand that this is done for simplicity's sake. However, any "real-word" analysis needs to include GPP generation. This does cloudy the waters a bit. How do you assign a value to how many beakers an academy will add, the 1600 beakers from a future bulb, golden ages, ect...

 

[Dirk1302]

We're talking about non relevant scientists here, used for capping of city growth for instance. If they're relevant to the GPP pool, scientists > commercial output in the early game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

, happens to all of us. But your initial statement was right imo, scientists don't do so well if you only look at raw commercial output.

They do when you start factoring in earlygame cap.

The problem with cottages is just that; you either dump food to work them or grow into unhappiness and whip them away, working very few total per city until you get some boosts. Some starts are very nice and a CHA leader with 2-3 resources can suddenly break pop10 before monarchy, which makes non-fin cottages look a hell of a lot better than they look when you only have +0 or +1 .

Comparing 1.5 to 1 or 2 is thus not truly fair or accurate in the time frame we are discussing; too frequently the scientists will EASILY carry you to cap boosters and/or techs that allow multipliers faster unless you have FIN contending with them.

Problem is, once you start hitting t80, t100, t120 etc the cottages are starting to look like they'll take too long to grow to be relevant unless you want to go a long time w/o offensive or defensive buildup in that city. That city will be behind on infra too so getting something like oxford becomes more problematic.

Riverside cottages placed early and with a higher earlygame cap available are a lot more attractive. Obviously FIN cottages are very attractive.

Another consideration here is the rate of payback on working a "bonus resource". Scientists are inferior long-term but allow a city to return its investment sooner in the game. When that means sooner oxford, sooner engineering bulb, etc often the commerce can't catch up.

 

[OneLeggedRhino]

I used to rely on cottages for research. (See my post earlier in this thread). But I just played a failgold / SE game, and scientists are fabulous for grabbing a tech when your economy starts to stall. If you need Currency, Code of Laws, or some other tech to fix your economy, you won't work cottages long enough to make them worthwhile.

So, if you have a long-term cottage city, sure, cottage it up early. But if not, there's no need to build cottages that you'll rip out later. Just whip some failgold, run some scientists, and get over the hump.

 

[2metraninja]

Now, guys, you are talking about "saving the day" methods compared to a stable long-term investment. Of course it is worth to get an early academy for the capitol, of course when you crash your economy to 0% research you will assign scientists to get you to to currency, of course GPs are cool. But except those "tricks", in my opinion cottageing the green land for a normal lasting game is far superior to farming it

 

[r_rolo1]

Now, guys, you are talking about "saving the day" methods compared to a stable long-term investment. Of course it is worth to get an early academy for the capitol, of course when you crash your economy to 0% research you will assign scientists to get you to to currency, of course GPs are cool. But except those "tricks", in my opinion cottageing the green land for a normal lasting game is far superior to farming it

Unless you play with no time limits the diference between "saving the day methods" and stable "long-term" investement is a little blurry ... and like a certain well known RL economist said , in the long term we are all dead

Now on the beef : The issue with cottaging green land is that cottages are food neutral and farms are food positive. Unless you have a food resource or two to boost things ( not assured at all ), you will have issues to both grow the city and to mature cottages ( cottages in it self are awful improvements and only when they get to villages they convincingly beat specs in a fair fight ), not mentioning that the techs and the civs that boost the cottage improvement line are middle tech tree ones ( especially emancipation ). So, even if you aim for cottages in the long term ( ) it is more lucrative to get your city to hap cap with farms and then cottage until it is food neutral ...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^ assuming enough worker turns, that is...but those cost hammers too.

 

[MarigoldRan]

If I'm FIN I almost always cottage, and if I'm not FIN, I almost always not cottage. Unless of course my economy is crashing and I desperately need money, in which case I start spamming it.

 

[r_rolo1]

^ assuming enough worker turns, that is...but those cost hammers too.

True, but I'm specifically aiming for that part of the game where you normally park your workers between improving all of your land and rails ( that BTW is the part where PP and Emancipation kick in ) and where worker turns are cheap. I'm pretty sure that in most games you can't hit hap cap in most of the cities before that if you rely in farms solely anyway in the conditions I was discussing ( note that all of the previous post talk was with the caveat of no food resources in a grassy land ... that BTW was borrowed from the poster I was responding to )

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Ugh, why would you ever start cottaging farmlands that late in the game? Maybe it's just how I play, but by then I'm already aiming for a victory condition.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Towns look cooler than farms.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Towns look cooler than farms.

Captured enemy towns look cooler than that.

 

[MarigoldRan]

But captured enemy cities WITH towns everywhere look super-cool.

Farms are like this pathetic little white patch on the ground. But towns with those high modern skyscrapers are like, "wow, this is what a civilization should be like."

 

[ReyLuis]

I find that cottage spamming most cities (unless the land is really crappy - but then I wouldnt settle there anyway) works well for me most times on Emperor regardless of what leader or civ I am - obviously it works much nicer if I'm a FIN leader.

But this is a very rigid way of playing and I've been 'found out' so to speak now I've jumped up a level to Immortal - a bit like Fabio Capello

This is a great thread and I've learnt a lot from it - thanks guys