The Water Economy 101

[TinkerJohn]

The Water Economy is an interesting idea, similar to a cottage economy that requires no building of cottages, and relying on wonder-driven (then later technology driven) trade routes to provide cash.

The weaknesses of the trade economy is that it requires a fair amount of exploration and peace to allow enough money to be made from routes. Also water squares actually get worse crazyeye as you get more tech and make the Colossus obsolete. Luckily as you get more tech your trade routes get stronger and stronger, eventually providing more money then the extra colossus would. Not that that doesn't reduce the sting of losing them!

The basic idea is to build the Lighthouse and Colossus, which establish +2 trade and +1 commerce/square for all cities on the coast. At that point any new city you build on the coast instantly has 3 citizen free economy spots from trade, and every water square gives 2 food and 4 commerce. No workers needed!

Ironically the best way to run a trade economy is to minimize your coastal squares. Upgraded cottages are better then water squares after 3 growths (2 on a river) which is really a shame, considering in real life how important coastal cities are. However remember not all cities can be perfectly placed, and having free Cottage level 3 squares instantly for newly founded cities allows good early growth.

The Start
Basically there are three major trade wonders that you want to get. One of your first or second cities should be on a coast (minimize water squares) with maximized production. At the beginning of your game this city should be at maximum production to construct your wonders. The starting wonders are Temple of Artemis, The Great Lighthouse, and Colossus.

At the beginning of the game, the important thing to remember is that on harder difficulties you need to get the wonders before others do. The first techs you should get are Mining --> Bronze Working to establish chopping/mining early. The second techs should be Mysticism --> Polytheism to allow for building the Temple of Artemis. The Temple is often built early by the AI and on harder difficulties it should be your first priority. The second wonder should be the Lighthouse, then Metal Casing and the Colossus. Even on higher difficulties a focused growth plan should allow you to obtain these wonders.

LEADERS
If you aren't Financial, then you better be playing on a magical map where every city is connected to the sea with a narrow strip of water, or you're losing 33% of all finance from every water tile.
Of course, since you really want these wonders to establish trade. Hyuna Capec is tops. Later in the game Hannibal or Willem are both very strong for their UBs and Traits once you establish your wonders. As difficulty goes up, industrius trait becomes more important. Hannibal's Cothon is great, but the Dike really is unbelievably good as an UB. It provides an amazing boost to sea towns, however it could be argued that by the time you have it, you shouldn't need it. Hannibal's UB arrives early enough it makes a large difference to your game.

GREAT PEOPLE
One interesting thing to note is that this economy runs very similar to a cottage economy. All the wonders produce great merchants however, and great merchants can be settled (or put on a trade mission) to generate hard $$$ in a single great commerce city, thus allowing you to raise your science slider higher because more of your money is from hard cash, not commerce.

An extremely good guide to the nuts and bolts of trade routes can be found here. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159047&page=2

THE DOWNSIDES
I must mention some of the weaknesses of this strategy. Sea Squares with financial/Colossus provide 4 commerce and 2 good, very comparable or better then early game cottages...
Unfortunately all that ends as democracy and the subsequent boosts to cottages are reached. Late game cottage tiles are much much better fully developed. That being said, at the beginning of the game 2F/4C tiles are really powerful, and stay that way all the way up to the Industrial Era.

 

[Polobo]

The Water Economy is an interesting idea, similar to a cottage economy that requires no building of cottages, and relying on wonder-driven (then later technology driven) trade routes to provide cash.

The weaknesses of the trade economy is that it requires a fair amount of exploration and peace to allow enough money to be made from routes. Also water squares actually get worse crazyeye as you get more tech and make the Colossus obsolete. Luckily as you get more tech your trade routes get stronger and stronger, eventually providing more money then the extra colossus would. Not that that doesn't reduce the sting of losing them!

The basic idea is to build the Lighthouse and Colossus, which establish +2 trade and +1 commerce/square for all cities on the coast. At that point any new city you build on the coast instantly has 3 citizen free economy spots from trade, and every water square gives 2 food and 4 commerce. No workers needed!

You mean the Great Lighthouse.

Without an actual lighthouse you still only get 1 food from non-lake water tiles.

Coast and Lakes gives 2 commerce, Ocean 1. Add the 1 from Colossus and you get 3 and 2 commerce. How are you getting 4?

Ironically the best way to run a trade economy is to minimize your coastal squares. Upgraded cottages are better then water squares after 3 growths (2 on a river) which is really a shame, considering in real life how important coastal cities are. However remember not all cities can be perfectly placed, and having free Cottage level 3 squares instantly for newly founded cities allows good early growth.

The Start
Basically there are three major trade wonders that you want to get. One of your first or second cities should be on a coast (minimize water squares) with maximized production. At the beginning of your game this city should be at maximum production to construct your wonders. The starting wonders are Temple of Artemis, The Great Lighthouse, and Colossus.

At the beginning of the game, the important thing to remember is that on harder difficulties you need to get the wonders before others do.

Actually, on any difficulty you need to build the wonders before others do, only the difficulty of accomplishing this changes with difficulty levels.

The first techs you should get are Mining --> Bronze Working to establish chopping/mining early. The second techs should be Mysticism --> Polytheism to allow for building the Temple of Artemis. The Temple is often built early by the AI and on harder difficulties it should be your first priority. The second wonder should be the Lighthouse, then Metal Casing and the Colossus. Even on higher difficulties a focused growth plan should allow you to obtain these wonders.

LEADERS
Of course, since you really want these wonders to establish trade. Hyuna Capec is tops. Later in the game Hannibal or Willem are both very strong for their UBs and Traits once you establish your wonders. As difficulty goes up, industrius trait becomes more important. Hannibal's Cothon is great, but the Dike really is unbelievably good as an UB. It provides an amazing boost to sea towns, however it could be argued that by the time you have it, you shouldn't need it. Hannibal's UB arrives early enough it makes a large difference to your game.

GREAT PEOPLE
One interesting thing to note is that this economy runs very similar to a cottage economy. All the wonders produce great merchants however, and great merchants can be settled (or put on a trade mission) to generate hard $$$ in a single great commerce city, thus allowing you to raise your science slider higher because more of your money is from hard cash, not commerce.

An extremely good guide to the nuts and bolts of trade routes can be found here. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159047&page=2

Good start. I would include that settling cities (ideally 2 or 3) off your mainland makes you base trade route become 2 commerce instead of 1 due to them being overseas.

 

[Jerrymander]

He's assuming you'll use the Financial trait. See, this economy is very weak unless you choose a Financial leader.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Consider using good ol' William "the Silent" of Orange - the creative trait is generally wasted on archipelago style maps, but with him you can get scary water squares (a lake can become 3f2h4c! granted, only for the very narrow window between getting dykes and the colossues becoming obsolete, but the final yield of a coastal square is a respectable 2f1h3c and a pretty good 2f2h3c for the maoi city). [edit: sorry I guess you already wrote this... read before you post and all that...]

Edit2: you are building ToA before GLH. On immortal+, I find it very difficult to get GLH without beelining for it (being industrious would help here, so you could consider inca (they are ind/fin, right?) rather than william, depending on how long the game will last...). On what level can you consistently get both ToA and GLH? Do you play industrious?

If you do go after ToA, it might make sense to try the oracle as well to get MC. I haven't tested this, but if you can ignore military (archipelago) and use a second city for the oracle, you might be able to whip an industrious forge in before TGL...?

 

[vanatteveldt]

Just did a first attempt:

HC / immortal / archipelago / small / normal speed, Got a decent start, floodplains, cows, three hills and five forests (two on hill), no seafood resources though.

tech: poly (got hinduism, can be nice on archi), mining, bw, priesthood, wheel (for MC)
Build: Worker -> ToA -> quechua (to allow growth) -> settler (to delay oracle for MC prereqs)
worker: farm floodplains, mine hill, farm grass (wait for BW), mine forest hill, pasture cow, chop forest, mine forest hill

Got ToA built around turn 50, but AI built TGL on turn 58.

Lessons: I could have focused more (AH probably not worth it, could have started on oracle immediately), and getting oracle in capital probably delays TGL too much. However, with AI building TGL at turn 58 there is no way I could have finished both ToA and TGL in time (first 14 turns burned on worker, so 40 turns left to construct 550 hammers worth of wonders, 400 for industrious = 10 hammers per turn

I think TGL -> ToA has more chance of success than ToA -> TGL (although the early priest is really nice). Having marble in BFC would have helped, of course, as ToA is really expensive.

A starting location with wheat or fish, marble, and some forests would be ideal, I think. Will try again

 

[TinkerJohn]

Thanks for the immortal game example, thats exactly what I would have liked to post.

My personal best example with coastal economy wasn't immortal, but on Monarch and Marathon, using Hannibal, I achieved more science then I think I've ever gotten before using CE or SE by 500 AD. The combination of non-upgraded 4 commerce water squares on even the most backwater cities really pays off. As long as your navy is strong you are basically immune to 80% of pillaging. I got around production issues by having 2 cities (one coastal) that did nothing but produce troops and were very lucky with resources. I settled all the merchants in one city so I could raise the science slider as high as I could. I did start with marble in this game, and managed ToA, tGL, and Colossus.

There are flaws in this strategy. Mainly map based. By that I mean to really get the trade economy going effectively enough to be competitive you need...
A. Good production early to get your starting wonders.
B. A Coast
C. More coast, with good enough squares on it to make it worth it. Usually for my Trader games I find its very important to be willing to sacrifice coastline, especially at the start, in favor of a super production city. If you have to choose between a very strong production city or a coastal trade center, go with production first. Coastal cities generally have dismal production, early in the game you need troops.
However... if you do have a coast and decent land, this can be very very powerful.

My personal best example with coastal economy wasn't immortal, but on Monarch and Marathon, using Hannibal, I achieved more science then I think I've ever gotten before using CE or SE by 500 AD. The combination of non-upgraded 4 commerce water squares on even the most backwater cities really pays off. I got around production issues by having 2 cities (one coastal) that did nothing but produce troops. I settled all the merchants in one city so I could raise the science slider as high as I could. I did start with marble in this game, and managed ToA, tGL, and Colossus. Towns are great, but not all towns reach size 3-4, all coastal tiles are instantly.

 

[vanatteveldt]

I am just playing emperor game on a standard earth map as England. England has stone in that scenario; I forsook ToA but built stonehenge -> pyramids -> TGL - > colossus, and have a beautiful trade route system going on. I am busy colonizing America, and every new city gets 4x3 trade routes, London has 3x5+6. This means I can build a lot of colonies, even though each colony costs 20 maintenance (mainly due to colonial exp). I am getting versailles built, which should help quite a bit.

Mind you, this is before economics, which will get me +1 trade routes and +100%, so my capital should be at something like 50 trade commerce then. ToA in London would have been nice!

 

[TinkerJohn]

Hey! Van I was thinking of a strategy just like that! What a coincidence eh? My worry though, as England, would be how in the world do you get enough production to manage Pyramids, Lighthouse, AND the Colossus on harder difficulties?

 

[vanatteveldt]

The earth map I play ("Enhanced Troy") has ample production as England, London has fish and irrigated wheat (=+11f before lighthouse), three hills, one with stone (=-3f+10h) and a forest hill deer (+2f2h with hunting) and cows and horses after AH (+2f5h), so at pop four that is +5f+11h, and at pop 7 +7f17h, which is just scary. Before the industial age London and York have both around 20-25 base production, which is quite nice (the england start is overpowered actually given that you have three city spots and a fishing village, where a lot of european civs barely get two, and all trade is intercontinental. Granted, conquest is difficult, but even so...)

BTW, obsolete does fine building 2 workers, stonehenge and oracle within 30 turns using only one tile! http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=270001

 

[TheDS]

You have to chop to get that kind of production, maybe whip too.

That's really cool. I hadn't seen "Water Economy" anywhere else, but I use one a lot, and saw other people dancing around it a lot, and thought I came up with the name and basic characteristics for my Economies List post, with which I intend to compile a better list once I get some more input on it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Working non-seafood coast, even with colossus, is sub-ideal IMO and this is what hurts that particular wonder.

GLH, on the other hand, is a spectacular wonder, in that you can run pretty much any "economy" you want and yep, those trade routes are still there. Settling cities just to work water tiles seems weak though - even with those cities you're almost better off slapping some cottages down and working them first, or other improvements later.

 

[oyzar]

Working non-seafood coast, even with colossus, is sub-ideal IMO and this is what hurts that particular wonder.

GLH, on the other hand, is a spectacular wonder, in that you can run pretty much any "economy" you want and yep, those trade routes are still there. Settling cities just to work water tiles seems weak though - even with those cities you're almost better off slapping some cottages down and working them first, or other improvements later.

Sometimes you don't have the land to plop down those cottages though. Working water tiles works great as financial with collosus if you don't have to do anything... Compared to a grassland cottage it'll take 30 turns before the cottage even produce the same as a coastal tile(or 1 more with printing press), that is of course 10*2+20*10=40 more commerce that the coast have produced, with pp it then takes 40 turns before the cottage catches up, without it'll take 80 turns! so 70 or 110 turns before a grassland cottage is equal to coast. Depening on the point in the game this might mean that often coastal tiles can be better than cottages as more commerce now is often better than more commerce later...

 

[TheDS]

The real benefit of coastal cities, even without GLH (but you're right, GLH makes it MUCH better) is Harbor+Customs House+Free Market+Airport+One Currency (add as needed).

Harbor allows you to get up to 3 more Health, meaning coastal cities can be larger. Late-game, it's Health that limits, unless you're warring or Food economy a lot. +1-3 Trade routes multiplied by 150% (more if they're foreign), and your coastal cities will get all the good trade routes. The higher pop gives you a higher trade muliplier too, which FURTHER encourages grabbing up all the best trade routes.

Water economy has hidden powers, and is effective even in late game when most of your power isn't coming from working water tiles, but from trade routes. It's a good tool to prop your normal (Cottage or Specialist) economy on. Most people use it without realizing it, and because of that, don't take full opportunity to maximize it. I've had several cities get more than 40 Commerce through trade in a single game.

Naturally, YMMV depending on situation.

 

[oyzar]

You can't really maximize traderoutes on a pangea style map though...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sometimes you don't have the land to plop down those cottages though. Working water tiles works great as financial with collosus if you don't have to do anything... Compared to a grassland cottage it'll take 30 turns before the cottage even produce the same as a coastal tile(or 1 more with printing press), that is of course 10*2+20*10=40 more commerce that the coast have produced, with pp it then takes 40 turns before the cottage catches up, without it'll take 80 turns! so 70 or 110 turns before a grassland cottage is equal to coast. Depening on the point in the game this might mean that often coastal tiles can be better than cottages as more commerce now is often better than more commerce later...

That's true, particularly for financial civs with LIMITED LAND TILES TO WORK this nets out pretty well. Often, if you settle a seafood city there's really no alternative. These wouldn't comprise a player's first 6 cities but they can definitely be useful - first as commerce and later as extra draft/whip bait.

Those 1-5 tile islands that grant you extra domestic commerce in all cities often have little choice. They're not bad cities to settle at all though.

 

[TheDS]

You can't really maximize traderoutes on a pangea style map though...

It definitely depends on situation, but a coastal country should get a good early boost over its inland cousins. You can build Harbors for the extra Health and Trade bonuses, and if you're the friendly sort, Foreign trade plus Customs Houses can help you rack it up. Competition for GLH and Colossus should be lessened.

You don't want to pursue it with reckless abandon. You need to scout your surroundings and see who your neighbors are. If you've got a close weakling, you could potentially Axe-rush. A close rusher, though, you may need the Axes for defense (Rome). In either case, though, you should be able to tech up faster and get to GL before anyone else, then let that prop you up while you improve your infrastructure.

So in short, unless I've got an early rusher civ, I will try to get to the water and use it for an early boost. I can't say how this works at higher diffs, though.

 

[Single Malt]

I am just playing emperor game on a standard earth map as England. England has stone in that scenario; I forsook ToA but built stonehenge -> pyramids -> TGL - > colossus, and have a beautiful trade route system going on. I am busy colonizing America, and every new city gets 4x3 trade routes, London has 3x5+6. This means I can build a lot of colonies, even though each colony costs 20 maintenance (mainly due to colonial exp). I am getting versailles built, which should help quite a bit.

Liberate your overseas colonies, force mercantilism and run it yourself, and you have exclusive foreign overseas trade routes, and a friendly vassal for diplo purposes (AP or UN). Then the 20 maintenance is nullified. Or use state property, no maintenance can beat the hell out of +1 trade route on a large empire.

 

[Joshua368]

I did a water economy once... played archipelago as willem, on monarch. I got the Great Lighthouse and Collosus, and I have to say that during golden ages it was very fun to see coast squares have money bags. I was placed on a bunch of really small islands, one city per island and the amount of good cottage sites could be counted on your hands. Coast/trade route economy all the way!

Teching ahead of everyone was extremely easy in the early-mid game, it was almost like a few difficulty levels up. I managed to grab Assembly Line with Liberalism... and it just so happened that at that at the time my economy started to stall. So using my newfound infantry (and dikes!) I created a large amphibious army and started pounding away on everyone, one after the other. Those with far better islands than me had lots of great towns to keep my economy afloat in the endgame. It was a fun transition.

 

[noto2]

I would disagree with the OP that cottages are a good idea on the land squares. The strength of getting commerce from water and trade routes is that you don't need to build cottages. This does two things - 1, it allows you to focus on production improvements, like mines, farms, windmills, etc (and you will need production badly if you have mostly coastal cities) and 2, it frees you from running cottage civics. Towns are really only powerful later on if you run US and FS. If you have no towns in your empire, or very few of them, you are free to run other civics, like PS, Rep, bur, vas, etc. Thus if I was building lots of coastal cities and focusing on trade routes, I'd use more of my land tiles for food and hammers and would be hesitant to build cottages on them. Also remember that certain improvements other than cottages provide commerce, such as watermills and windmills. With electricity, these two improvements provide a nice commerce boost.

 

[georgjorge]

Necro!


An interesting article that got me thinking...some remarks:


I think the Colossus and Lighthouse can have some synergy, but also some differences. The most obvious is that the tech that makes the Lighthouse better, Astronomy, shuts off the Colossus. Also, the Lighthouse makes me very inclined to REX, while the Colossus can be used to support that, but could also give you a great technological surge in the early game with a six-city-empire instead. Both, however, have a limited timeframe, the Lighthouse less so than the Colussus, which doesn't only expire with Astronomy but also because at some point cottages will overtake it. Because of that, I don't think basing a late game economy on it with Custom houses and such will work well. For me, their role is to fuel early-game development (either technologically or by REXing), which at some point will be converted into additional gains (most likely by making war, either with superior technology or whipping a bunch of units, and taking real land). Each of the wonders on its own can do this, but if the map is right having both of them can make sense.

Also, I don't think the strategy is too heavily reliant on Financial leaders (which I usually don't play). A leader which I found to fit well is

Joao of Portugal - use the wonders to support his heavy REXing, a very nice combination, and also starts with Fishing. I'm undecided about the Feitoria - it seems to fit perfectly since it supports both wonders, but Economics seems a bit late to be relevant for the early-game push I mentioned above. Also, Custom houses without Astronomy don't make sense.




I've also played a variant of the strategy coupling the Colussus with an early specialist economy for some really fast teching at the start, recommended for maps with not very good land but a few sites heavy with seafood. The leader was Gandhi, who is Philosophical and starts with Mysticism. The key was using the Oracle-Pyramids gambit (building the Oracle and taking Metal Casting, chopping out a Forge and running an Engineer and using it to build the Pyramids), which not only enabled a strong specialist economy but also gave me a very easy shot at the Colossus. This worked on Immortal, though I wouldn't recommend it if there was a lot of land to settle. In that particular game, I used the Great People and Colossus commerce to get to Guilds very quickly (only three techs from Metal Casting) and conquer better lands, but I'm sure many other things can be done with it. The combination of Spiritual + specialist economy + Colossus + Pyramids also makes you incredibly flexible because you can switch from research mode to production/war mode in one single turn - no worries about cottages not being worked and no anarchy, just put citizens from coastal tiles and specialists to mines and workshops and go from Representation + Caste to Police State + Slavery and you'll be able to build an army from scratch in a very short time.