The farming way to cottages

[Zombie69]

Well, as suggested this will depend on difficulty level (happiness) at a high difficulty level food has less value because of stronger hapiness limits (so fewer farms before conversion.) At Low difficulty levels, you can grow a lot bigger (which needs more farms) before needing to switch.

You're right. My first 4 or 5 games were played under Emperor. At those levels, it was worth it to build farms first and cottages second, because otherwise it would take too long to reach the happiness bonus. So i did build farms first.

Every game i've played since was at Emperor and above. At those levels, it's better to start with cottages right away since you'll hit the happiness limit very fast with only cottages anyway, and they'll start upgrading to hamlets and villages quicker, which gives you more money, which is a lot more crucial at higher levels because of higher upkeep costs and bigger science bonuses for the AI.

 

[jimbob27]

I always build a couple of farms in my cottage villages for a couple of reasons. I've never bothered working out the maths, but I've always found cottage cities to grow too slowly unless they've got one or two farms. I get jealous of the ai when they've got cities in the teens and twenties and mine are much smaller. I use a lot of slavery too so having big cities helps my war tactics. Sometimes I build entire armies out of slaves, when I want to declare war on someone, but my main army is fighting elsewhere.

The other reason is.... cottages are ugly!! I'm kinda whimsical like that. Farms look nicer, so I always have a few, just to make the game look nicer.

 

[maltz]

Every game i've played since was at Emperor and above. At those levels, it's better to start with cottages right away...

Recently I had quite a few games in Deity and more AIs than default. In those games, this entire question can be thrown out of my mind, because:

1) I reach my happiness limit in my capital before I get to work on all of the existing bonus resources. So I don't have to build any farm or cottage. After that you are right, usually only cottages are needed.

2) For all the subsequent cities, the Deity AI improved all of them for me. Those improvement are enough for a much higher population city, so I don't really need to do anything to it. The AIs usually over farm, so the only thing I do frequently is to convert a few farms into cottages. The farms are still useful to quickly bring the population back to maximum, though.

 

[atreas]

Happiness resources are very rare even by 500 BC. At Emperor and above, those cities will still be limited to about size 3-5, unless you have the Pyramids for Representation.

As you know (and I remember you do the same), yes I play much for Pyramids due to the happiness reason - I feel that in higher levels it's a very good way to achieve happiness (I don't like the option of Hereditary Rule, I never try for an early religion, and somehow I am quite unlucky with religion spread from neighbours). That's the main reason that I don't consider the population limit should be set so low.

But there is a second reason too - if I happen to either conquer or build a city at 500 BC (or just to start jungle cleaning at that date), it will also take some time for the city to reach pop 5 because I will usually rush a granary and a library for starters, especially if this is going to be a cottage city. That means there will be time to hook or trade some resources, so I think a more practical lowest population limit is about 8-10 for my examinations (either way, this population is achieved after 100 AD). Can you suggest an alternative number that you think I should use?

 

[Zombie69]

I would rather look at pre-calendar with about 4-6 max pop. In my experience, this is where most cities are started.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I would rather look at pre-calendar with about 4-6 max pop. In my experience, this is where most cities are started.

But it doesn't matter whether you start the city before Calendar or Monarchy. What matters is whether, by the time the city reaches 4-6 or so (and after possibly pop-rushing key improvements like Granary and Library), you have extra happiness resources. You don't need to have them at the instant the city is founded. And I think a lot of cities are going to end up well below the post-Calendar happiness limit for a long time, if you have no food resources and don't build any farms. Pop-rushing (or working mines, for hammers) is also going to be painful.

 

[Zombie69]

But by the time you do get those calendar resources, your cottages will be so well developped that you won't want to switch back to farms!

It depends really. But in the games i play (always financial = good cottages, emperor and above = very low happiness), going without farms at all is usually better.

 

[Mutineer]

How can you hit happiness limit so fast for so long?
Dramma - instand double of your population, actially tripling it, as 30% culture slider with dramma(theaters) or 40% with (theaters+Colliseums) are still benefit you.

 

[malekithe]

Dramma - instand double of your population, actially tripling it, as 30% culture slider with dramma(theaters) or 40% with (theaters+Colliseums) are still benefit you.

I'm not so sure relying on drama and the culture slider to increase your happiness level is all that good a thing to be doing (though it may work for your play style). If you increase the culture slider by 30%, the addtional population added will need to increase your commerce by over 40% in order to break-even. ((100% - 70%) / 70% = 43%) I don't see how 3 extra happines would double or triple your population. More likely it would add 3 extra citizens increasing cities from size 5 to size 8. This is a 60% increase in population, but you have to remember, that these extra citizens are going to be working the marginal tiles around your cities, and the cottages they begin working won't be paying off big for a longtime.

Now if you're more heavily vested in specialists or hammers, I can see how you would benefit. If most of your economy revolves around commerce, though, the culture slider should never be a permanent change unless you're actually looking to increase culture.

 

[Zombie69]

I don't usually beeline for drama, and when your cities are limited to 3 happiness (Emperor and above), they get there pretty fast! Even more so when the first building you make is a granary, and you even pop-rush the granary, like i tend to do.

This is why the Pyramids are so powerful at high difficulty levels.

 

[DaviddesJ]

But by the time you do get those calendar resources, your cottages will be so well developped that you won't want to switch back to farms!

Of course not. The point is to build one or two farms early, so that when you get the extra happiness resources you're right at the limit. Putting in the farms later would be completely illogical. But not building farms because your happiness limit is low, i.e., ignoring the fact that by the time you actually reach that limit it will be higher, is also illogical.

But in the games i play (always financial = good cottages, emperor and above = very low happiness), going without farms at all is usually better.

How can you know if it's better without trying it both ways? Also, why play only Financial and not enjoy the other 75% of the game?

 

[A+ombomb]

I usually farm 1 tile to get the city growth going, but after that you are better off cottaging if your goal is fast tech (mostly due to the health/happiness caps). A particularly good strategy is to place cities in such a way that several of them can use 1 abundant food resource in alternation. For example, city 1 has a cow, grows up in size quickly and switches to all cottages, then passes the cow off to city #2 so it can then grow quickly, and trade to all cottages, and so on. Using this overlap strategy, you can optimize your cottages while not wasting valuable tiles on excessive food. However, way down the road, you will want most of your tiles to be food, if you plan on attaining the highest possible scores, so keep that in mind as you come near to finishing your game!

 

[opensilo]

I'm not so sure relying on drama and the culture slider to increase your happiness level is all that good a thing to be doing (though it may work for your play style). If you increase the culture slider by 30%, the addtional population added will need to increase your commerce by over 40% in order to break-even. ((100% - 70%) / 70% = 43%) I don't see how 3 extra happines would double or triple your population. More likely it would add 3 extra citizens increasing cities from size 5 to size 8. This is a 60% increase in population, but you have to remember, that these extra citizens are going to be working the marginal tiles around your cities, and the cottages they begin working won't be paying off big for a longtime.

I'd hate to be wrong about this, but I'm away from the game for a while and so can't check it right now, but...I think you get one happy face per 10% culture (this is the part I'm not sure about, but I thought I remembered seeing it and being surprised in a recent game). You get another happy face per 10% culture with a theater. A colosseum gives you another happy per 20% culture in addition to the one happy it gives you initially.

If this is correct, then 40% culture with a theater and a colosseum gives you 4(culture)+4(theater bonus)+2(colosseum bonus)=10 extra happy faces. That's probably worth it in an otherwise size 5 city. And you won't even care about the unhappiness you incurred by poprushing the theater and the colosseum because it'll take so long to build you population up to the new greatly increased limits.

(Even if each 10% culture doesn't give you a happy face, 40% culture is still at least +6 (4-theater + 2-colosseum) happy people.)

Another point is that a good reason to get drama is for trade bait. And when calendar comes online, you can get happiness resources and lower your culture rate. The benefit is that you've been working those cottages or getting those hammers for longer.

With such high population limits, the farming question that this thread addresses becomes relevant.

Drama also provides a mechanism to deal with war weariness while you take over those last couple cities.

Just some thoughts. If I'm wrong about that culture effect, let me know and I'll edit this post.

 

[malekithe]

If this is correct, then 40% culture with a theater and a colosseum gives you 4(culture)+4(theater bonus)+2(colosseum bonus)=10 extra happy faces. That's probably worth it in an otherwise size 5 city. And you won't even care about the unhappiness you incurred by poprushing the theater and the colosseum because it'll take so long to build you population up to the new greatly increased limits.

You're right, I hadn't thought through that all the way. Increasing the culture rate would probably lead to a short-term commerce decrease, followed by a longterm increase. I may have to look into more frequent use of the culture slider.

 

[DaviddesJ]

And you won't even care about the unhappiness you incurred by poprushing the theater and the colosseum because it'll take so long to build you population up to the new greatly increased limits.

The thing is, by the time you research Drama and Construction, and pop rush your Theater and Colosseum, and regrow your population, you could long since have had Calendar and Monarchy, and gotten several additional happiness points for nothing, rather than for 40% of all of your culture.

 

[voek]

The problem is that by the time i hit Calendar, my cities are already well established, and any more cities i'll add to my empire will be from conquest and will start with an already high enough population that they won't need farms.

Established maybe, but your city's can still grow suddenly to a higher pop. I could imagine a few farms to quickly boost your pop. to max size and then turn over to new cottages. I think it might be more benificial. It should be tested.

 

[Zombie69]

Of course not. The point is to build one or two farms early, so that when you get the extra happiness resources you're right at the limit. Putting in the farms later would be completely illogical. But not building farms because your happiness limit is low, i.e., ignoring the fact that by the time you actually reach that limit it will be higher, is also illogical.

Actually, even without farms i'll hit the limit and have to stop growth one way or another, hence why farms make little sense in most cases.

How can you know if it's better without trying it both ways? Also, why play only Financial and not enjoy the other 75% of the game?

I have tried it, it proved inferior at higher levels and i don't do it anymore. In rare cases where i see that i won't reach the happiness limit in time, i'll build farms first if i can (but most of the time, this only happens in cities without fresh water so i can't build farms anyway).

I'm not missing 75% of the game. Each leader comes with two traits, and for my second trait i mix it up as much as possible. When financial stops being so overpowered, i'll stop picking it every game.

 

[opensilo]

The thing is, by the time you research Drama and Construction, and pop rush your Theater and Colosseum, and regrow your population, you could long since have had Calendar and Monarchy, and gotten several additional happiness points for nothing, rather than for 40% of all of your [commerce].

You make good points. I still think the drama/culture route is worth considering. Note that the colosseum bonus is small compared to the theater/culture bonus. Also, you'll be headed for construction anyway for catapults. And since the AI prioritizes construction and calendar and monarchy, if you go for alphabet drama and maybe beyond, you can trade and have them all.

Theaters cost about as much as one and a half units, and once they're built, they're free.

Drama is an especially good choice if you have few calendar resources. I find this a not infrequent situation with isolated or crowded starts.

And the monarchy happiness isn't "for nothing." It takes a lot of production and unit support--probably on par with the lost commerce from the culture slider--to get those troops in the cities. If you have the Pyramids, you'll probably want to run Representation. Heriditary Rule is medium upkeep, and you'll be making lots of troops that won't see offensive action that you'll have to pay civic costs to support.

But it's tough to beat the by-city optimization you can do with Hereditary Rule.

And if you trade alphabet or drama for monarchy, you can do both. Maybe only run 10-20% culture to get one/two-two/four (with theaters) extra happy faces everywhere and run HR to get lots of happy people in exceptional city sites.

Theaters also give another happy if you have or can trade for dye.

And theaters are cheap post-calendar cultural expanders.

Hmmm. I'm writing as though I'm a lot more zealous about drama/theaters/culture than I actually am. I might even be convincing myself to take another look at them. In the appropriate situations, of course.

 

[atreas]

Very good points made so far. In the meantime, I had the opportunity to make some preliminary tests. There were many problems that I needed to address, especially the following:

1. At what moment you build the granary, and whether you build it with pop-rushing or not.
2. Are you going to pop-rush anything else in this city?
3. How much is the population limit of the city?
4. What food resources do you have in this city?

In fact, the question 3 is the least important of them, for the following reason: either way you ARE GOING to discover at some time Monarchy/Calendar/Drama, and that means your city will eventually grow big. In the one case you will have a road like "1-6-16" while in the other it will be like "1-9-16" - you shorten one part but you make the second part bigger. It's like the cars - you care BOTH for the 0-100 Km time and the 100-140 Km time.

Now some first results: It seems that for the first phase you must strive to achieve +4 Food surplus (+2F from city tile, plus 2 more extra food). If you have a food resource available, that's enough. The "break-even" point is a city with 2 Floods and grasslands, and an early pop limit of 8. Since I didn't include pop-rush in my calculation (it's very difficult and subjective), you can imagine that even in this specific case early farming would be better (it recovers earlier from the rushes). So, my first conclusion is:

At early times, build farms early UNLESS you have a food resource available, or more generally until you have +4F in the city. The more rushes you will need, the better you will benefit from farms.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is true IF the city builds a granary AT MOST as early as it gets to pop 4 WHITHOUT pop-rush (for example, you build it through chop-rush). Each pop-rush makes farms more beneficial. Additionally, for each turn that you delay the granary you would have more benefit from farms.

Even more interesting is the second phase of city expansion - for example, let's suppose we have a city with size 8 that now has the possibility to grow up to size 16. Due to the increased food for each pop growth, my first tests show that it's almost always better to farm first the remaining available tiles. But I will have to make some more tests before I have a clear picture.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I'm not missing 75% of the game. Each leader comes with two traits, and for my second trait i mix it up as much as possible. When financial stops being so overpowered, i'll stop picking it every game.

Boy, you sure are. It's pretty obvious that leaders with the financial trait will emphasize certain aspects of the game, and de-emphasize others. I'm not going to take your opinion seriously in a discussion of the tradeoffs involving cottage cities when you've only played the game with the financial trait, which significantly shifts those tradeoffs.

If you really feel you have to choose the financial trait just because it's stronger than the others, I feel sorry for you. The whole reason the game has different handicap levels is so that you can play any style of game you want, and adjust the difficulty to the level that's interesting for you.