When do you NOT spam cottages?

[TheMeInTeam]

If you follow the SE approach then any cottage will always be limited to 5 commerce by the end game civics and lose about 40% of its potential.

FS does not compromise specialists. If you have a lot of buildings, emancipation might not even compromise specs, but presumably the cottages in a hybrid setup are worked early and could easily be towns by the time you'd get democracy, if not sooner. The econ civic and religious civic do not seriously neuter either tile improvements (were we to discuss a workshop spam setup, then caste/SP would be nigh mandatory). The only thing you *really* have to give up running a hybrid with cottages in practical terms is US. This hurts cottages yes, but the early game acceleration could overtake that. It's 10-15 base hammers in one city, maybe two.

Also, if you go for espionage specs, nationhood does not then neuter the cottages, which can help out on the EP slider while running specs elsewhere. Bureaucracy is usually used in conjunction with what you're cottaging...so again, unless you're running vassalage for extended periods, how are cottages dragging you again? They are 7C in FS and their alternative uses in that civic branch each have reasonable potential (bit nerfed in nationhood). 40% potential is way too high.

 

[pi-r8]

So I had an odd thought about this topic recently. Maybe having the philosophical trait actually makes a SE WORSE. Not absolutely worse, but, relatively worse.

Here's my thinking. When you've got the philosophical trait, you have a strong incentive to run a lot of specialists (usually scientists) early, sometimes as soon as you research writing. That means you'll be getting a lot of great people early on, before you've got constitution or biology. That also means that the cost of getting great people later in the game will be very high, so you won't be getting a whole lot more, later, so you might as well just run cottages.

On the other hand, someone who's financial, and not philosophical, won't have as much incentive to run specialists early. They should still run a few, but they won't get as many great people. Therefore, when they've gotten biology and constitution, the cost of getting great people will be a lot lower. With a lot cost to get great people, it becomes a lot more attractive to run cities of farms + scientists. A biology, representative scientist is already competitive with a town, but if you haven't gotten a lot of great people yet this could really make it better. Does that make any sense?

 

[Izmir Stinger]

Does that make any sense?

It does, but that just means it is an internally consistent idea. That doesn't make it true. I don't think reality would bear it out. However, I know little about making SE work, so...

 

[Iranon]

@ pi-rate: I wouldn't say it makes a SE worse. After picking up 2-3 additional Great People or so, you can expect a similiar spawn rate to a non-PHI civ for the rest of the game... if you have many cities running specialists and a fairly weak GP farm the gap can widen, if your GP farm is very dominant the non-PHI civilisation can catch up.
I'd say that for deciding our long-term economy, PHI is barely relevant unless it causes you to break up a clump of food resources since you don't need a dedicated GP farm.

 

[MyOtherName]

Let me rephrase what I think pirate is saying, but from a slightly different perspective.


In a position where cottages and specialists are both feasible, one particular strategy is to use the specialists to generate GPP to rapidly bulb your way to a particular tech advantage. The rationale is that it's worth giving up the long-term development of working cottages, because you get your particular tech advantage more rapidly with bulb power, and you have a plan to capitalize on that tech advantage.


At some point, you get your tech advantage, GPP generation peters out, certain technologies come in, and so forth -- it may become more and more rewarding to turn your attention back to cottages for long-term growth (unless, of course, long-term no longer has relevance). A philosophical leader will get you to that position earlier, meaning you are more likely to find yourself in a position where you want to work cottages.

 

[UncleJJ]

FS does not compromise specialists. If you have a lot of buildings, emancipation might not even compromise specs, but presumably the cottages in a hybrid setup are worked early and could easily be towns by the time you'd get democracy, if not sooner. The econ civic and religious civic do not seriously neuter either tile improvements (were we to discuss a workshop spam setup, then caste/SP would be nigh mandatory). The only thing you *really* have to give up running a hybrid with cottages in practical terms is US. This hurts cottages yes, but the early game acceleration could overtake that. It's 10-15 base hammers in one city, maybe two.

You can run FS with the other SE civics and that might be more beneficial than Nationhood in some rare circumstances. I have done that during short periods with a SE or Hybrid more often for the 100% culture than the cottage boost (since I tend not to have many in a SE). Let me rephrase my statement that you quote:

If you follow the SE approach then any cottage will nearly always be limited to 5 commerce by the end game civics and will then lose about 40% of its potential.

However, I disagree that FS does not compromise specialists. For a SE, in the biggest cities the benefit of Nationhood is mostly about the +2 happiness and that combined with the +3 from Rep means less infrastructure is needed. When Biology arrives a city with farms requires growth to use the extra food for more specialists. You can't have large cities without enough happiness and for a given set of resources that extra happiness comes either from civics or from infrastructure, so if you can get it reliably from civics (running Nationhood consistently) you don't need to build unecessary infrastructure.

Also, if you go for espionage specs, nationhood does not then neuter the cottages, which can help out on the EP slider while running specs elsewhere. Bureaucracy is usually used in conjunction with what you're cottaging...so again, unless you're running vassalage for extended periods, how are cottages dragging you again? They are 7C in FS and their alternative uses in that civic branch each have reasonable potential (bit nerfed in nationhood).

Cottages are severly nerfed under Nationhood compared to a farm supporting a spy, particularly under the ideal conditions with a jail and int agency. The town gives 5 commerce which is split into gold and EPs, (say 50% each) so 2.5 with +125% EPs = 5.6 EPs and 2.5 gold (no modifiers). Bulldoze the town for a farm and run an extra spy, for 9 Eps and 4 beakers (no modifiers) so that's 8.1 useful output versus 13, and this is 62% for a loss of 38% ... I'd call that dragging.

40% potential is way too high.

Maybe. I will be happy to see your reasoning and maths to support this. I was assuming the loss of US and FS even if that wasn't clear from my statement. I reckon the hammer from US is worth 2 commerce, so with CE civics we get 9 output for a town and with SE civics only 5, that's a 45% loss. Your maths may vary

Please note: I am taking a theoretical approach here. I fully appreciate that it is not always possible or necessary to make the changes once a game is already won. However it is useful to have a clear idea of of which approach is more efficient. I simply say Hybrids are theoretically less efficient than either the SE or CE used in the same situation.

 

[pi-r8]

Let me rephrase what I think pirate is saying, but from a slightly different perspective.


In a position where cottages and specialists are both feasible, one particular strategy is to use the specialists to generate GPP to rapidly bulb your way to a particular tech advantage. The rationale is that it's worth giving up the long-term development of working cottages, because you get your particular tech advantage more rapidly with bulb power, and you have a plan to capitalize on that tech advantage.


At some point, you get your tech advantage, GPP generation peters out, certain technologies come in, and so forth -- it may become more and more rewarding to turn your attention back to cottages for long-term growth (unless, of course, long-term no longer has relevance). A philosophical leader will get you to that position earlier, meaning you are more likely to find yourself in a position where you want to work cottages.

yeah, that's what i was saying. I'm not totally convinced though. If you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose, I'd go with what Iranon said- you can make a long-term economy based on either cottages, or farms+scientists+representation, and it'll work well regardless of what traits you have.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

YOU lot take this all much to seriously, get a life, its a game. I play for fun and to try out new things.

O.K. I'll never play at 'Deity'...but I have fun at Emperor. I'm currently playing about with the map Mad Scientist made for the Barbaric Monty, open role playing challenge.

I'm currently trying a NO cottage, Spam all the wonders game. I've achieved one game, where I missed 1 wonder, because I completely forgot about it at all. In the end game period, I was running a base science rate of 10K, with cites, building various things, and cash flow positive at 100% in Mercantilism.

To me this is much more fun, playing to a self imposed set of rules and just having fun. It's really opened up my eyes to the power of the Sacrificial Alter, I had unhappy whips of over 200 turns, such great fun.

Did I worry about this or that..no...I just played for fun, I'm going to have another try now, and try for 100 cities, with Monty going into a whipping frenzy come..oh say...Industrial era, whip and cash rush buildings, with the mantra running through my head, 'If my people don't fear me, how can they love me??'...Mad Barbaric Monty, I've coined this game set.

On Original topic, cottage spam or not, MANY MANY PEOPLE have shown you don't need it, I actively have avoided it Because, its a CRUTCH FOR THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE in the game, not the HUMAN BRAIN POWER.

Think about that in your arguments.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Cottages are severly nerfed under Nationhood compared to a farm supporting a spy, particularly under the ideal conditions with a jail and int agency. The town gives 5 commerce which is split into gold and EPs, (say 50% each) so 2.5 with +125% EPs = 5.6 EPs and 2.5 gold (no modifiers). Bulldoze the town for a farm and run an extra spy, for 9 Eps and 4 beakers (no modifiers) so that's 8.1 useful output versus 13, and this is 62% for a loss of 38% ... I'd call that dragging.

Money comes from somewhere. Your phantom allocation of 50% is highly arbitrary. Without additional commerce, you're going to drop your commerce slider to let other more passive commerce pay the bills instead, and that's going to cut your EP too. You do get the 9 EP 4 beakers, but if you do this globally you cut your rate too.

I agree that the beakers you get here can let the spies come out ahead, IF you have the research multipliers in place also. It's 4 EP 4 science against 5 commerce...once you have empire wide flexibility to make good use of both EP and beakers, the latter is obviously better... If you're comparing it to 1 town, not 2. This brings us back to tile efficiency against pop efficiency, but for 2 food-neutral cottage pop you get 10 commerce by then, against 4 EP 4 science (also food neutral). You can argue the latter is better for production, and it is, but since we're discussing a hybrid setup, those cottages were probably helping you get into this period earlier, when spy specs and possibly rep were not available, and certainly not EP multipliers.

Although you might have the means to push the caps up, the output/pop of your towns in nationhood are quite competitive. A drag? Maybe a slight one. 40% reduction? If you base math on improper assumptions, any computation can look sound.

Edit:

I actively have avoided it Because, its a CRUTCH FOR THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE in the game, not the HUMAN BRAIN POWER.

Think about that in your arguments.

People have certainly shown it is not necessary to use or spam cottages (known somewhat for my tendency to cottage, I have nevertheless won quite a few IMM games w/o building many or any). However, what I quoted is complete garbage. The AI is coded to prioritize a range of improvements depending on AI flavor and situation. Some AI build few or no cottages...I've seen late game gilgamesh have almost all workshops/farms for example.

Think about accuracy in your arguments .

 

[Tecibbar]

Wrong, wrong and wrong. Why do people always assume that you can't tech while stealing techs? Can't they see that 1 in the hover? And besides that, running spy specialists does not force you to not use the slider , so you can still continue your tech path of choice and steal the rest...

when you finish your tech path with "that 1 ", probably everyone already have it.

If you want to steal tech profitably(<70%) before constitution, you have to use the espionage slider, that 1 spy per city won't net your many Gspy.

 

[Bibor]

I'm a monarch player, but I burnt myself one times too many to have a binary approach to the CE/SE dilemma.

Let me offer a different approach. In the beginning, cottages, specialists, mines, food tiles all fall into the same category -- they are actually a bunch of city-states that work for a common goal. Every city will produce some culture, science, units in emergency etc.
As the game develops, your empire will grow from city-states into a network of specialized cities that depend on each other. Congratulations, you just introduced your poor citizens to the concepts of the assembly line. A production city will depend on the science city to get him the tech and on the commerce city to pay for the bills, while the stated two cities will depend on the production city for protection.

Although specialists can substitute for cottages, in my opinion they are not supposed to. Not because they can't get the job done (they can), but because they are better used as "fine tuning" of your cities, whatever the city's job is. Thus, engineers will assist your mines and workshops by working in factories and assembly plants, while scientists or merchants (or spies etc.) will assist your "cottages".
Also, I don't think farms and cottages are mutually exclusive. Yes, they do cover the same tiles, but it is dictated by need: "do I need to have a farm here? Nope? Ok, lets plant a cottage. Would I benefit more from having farm and running an engineer? Yes? Ok, farm it is.".

Obviously, if you plan for a domination victory in mid 15th century, then you don't have time to step up from city-states anyway

 

[Iranon]

@ IPEX: Some people enjoy their obsession... many games pretty much require some degree of it (roguelikes, old-school platform hell in the vein of I Wanna Be The Guy).
Others like the civ series and many classical board games are enjoyable whether you're an obsessive nerd or a more casual player.

*

Regarding Free Speech and compromising a SE: Post-Biology, 2 happiness could be 1 more specialist... and that's optimistic since you'd need open grassland. Replacing 2 farms+specs with 2 cottages reduces our happy AND health cap troubles.
Nationhood meshes well with some lategame SE styles (no upkeep is nice, spies are good specialists, Nationhood makes them better and the draft enables us to live with less conventional production... possibly saving a few headaches saved when opponents switch to Emancipation) but it's hardly essential.

Any of the bottom 3 legal civics can be attractive for a lategame SE depending on our focus. We could be running Free Speech anyway just because we're aiming for an artist-fueled cultural victory. Not the fastest way to put away a game, but we give up very little in terms of overall economy (and therefore have many tools at our disposal if something goes horribly wrong).

 

[fed1943]

About bulbing in the begining:
I do not understand how a GScientist is worth 1500 beakers, if all available
techs cost much less.

 

[UncleJJ]

YOU lot take this all much to seriously, get a life, its a game. I play for fun and to try out new things.

<snip>

Why bother to come to this forum and tell us that?
Can you be under the illusion that we care what you think?

It is more than a little ironic that you wasted your own time to try converting us to your way of thinking. Do you think this might not have occured to us anyway?

I don't normally offer personal advice but since you were so kind as to give us the benefit of your wisdom, here's mine:

The Exit, it's over there =>

 

[Bibor]

YOU take this all much very seriously

Civfanatics forums are serious businesses. That's why I'm here, taking breaks from calculating how wide is the mine shaft gap!

EDIT: I consider it a privilege to be able to write and read civilized and intelligent posts, without being forced to meet new people every day and taking calls ever hour from people that want something from me, while most meetings and most calls being from utter morons being absolutely certain that they have the most brilliant offer in the history of mankind. Since this game takes more intellectual capacity than 90% of jobs or hobbies on Earth, I also consider it very much life in one of its purest forms, sure as hell beating "trying to kiss a drunk girl while myself being tipsy at an overcrowded techno party" or "leaving and coming home at night, doing some really unpleasant and humiliating job for a chick who is -5 years my age but happens to shag the manager", which is life. At least for many, many people. Is that the life you're reffering to? Oh no wait, you mean good life? Life lived by architects, top management, engineers, economists, IT (real) experts et cetera; the very population that plays games like Civilization, Sim City and the like? Yes, these forums must be the wrong place for us to be

 

[UncleJJ]

TMIT: You cheater

No, I am not going to let you slip away with that old conjuror's sleight of hand. You don't get 2 cottages and I only get 1 farm. Play fair. A properly played SE is about being tile limited not pop limited. If happiness is a problem then share the tiles between more cities. If that is too difficult then switch horses and adopt a CE and run the cottages properly. There is still no room for a Hybrid either way.

Economic multipliers come at a cost and cottages need more of them to support your argument. The lean mean efficiency of a SE is about matching the specialists to the best multipliers and cutting out the flab. A hybrid running cottages has to make the same investment in infrastucture as a CE but doesn't get the full benefit, that is often a poor investment option.

Research multipliers in the late game cost 440 hammers, MGB costs 500 hammers and the basic EP set up of jail and IA costs a mere 300 hammers. A fully functioning CE city can justify that heavy investment of 1240 hammers using the US hammers and some gold to speed up the process. The combination of towns, CE civics and good infrastructure is what makes the CE a powerful economy. Many of my late game cities under SE civics just get a library and the espionage set up, costing 390 hammers. The saved hammers translate into many units. My capital and a few first class cities do get the whole lot but they will have been around a long time and are working many good tiles that justify the investment plus they will have the national wonders. Explain to me what economic infrastructure you build in cities in a hybrid economy. Do you have a plan for what to build where? What do you build in cottage heavy cities (and how), what in specialist cities and what in cities with a mix of farms and cottages?

40% reduction? If you base math on improper assumptions, any computation can look sound

I have already invited you to present your own assumptions and computations. It is unfair of you to say mine are wrong and then not show me how. Provide a high level estimate and a low level one, if that helps. I genuinely want to find out if I am wrong, so convince me. I need numbers not opinions.

Incidentally, I often run a gold surplus of 100 per turn while in espionage mode using that gold to upgrade troops, like CG grenadiers to machine guns. That accounts for the high slider assumption. In the previous example each 10% increase in the EP slider above 50% will add 1.125 EP at the cost of 0.5 gold, a net gain of 0.625. The cottage loses out even at 100% EP slider.

 

[ori]

Moderator Action: Please keep the discussion civilized - no need to discuss each other - discuss the topic instead, please

 

[r_rolo1]

when you finish your tech path with "that 1 ", probably everyone already have it.

If you want to steal tech profitably(<70%) before constitution, you have to use the espionage slider, that 1 spy per city won't net your many Gspy.

First, read the sentence in context. The poster I was responding to was implying that you can't outtech while stealing techs, a thing that it is emphatically untrue.

Second, and unlike it seems if you take the sentence out of context, the discussion had nil to have with a economy based on stealing techs. It was simply a discussion of the comparative merits of a specific tile improvement vs a non-rep spy. But if you want to bring this to here, I still maintain that most people in here underestimates badly espionage ( BTW your second sentence pretty much implies that you are running cottages en masse ... )

 

[karadoc]

A properly played SE is about being tile limited not pop limited. If happiness is a problem then share the tiles between more cities. If that is too difficult then switch horses and adopt a CE and run the cottages properly. There is still no room for a Hybrid either way.

I don't understand why you think there is "no room for a hybrid." I run a SE/CE 'hybrid' in pretty much every game I play. Some cities are better suited to cottages while others are suited to specialists. I think it would be pretty rare to have land that would even be suitable for a pure CE or SE. When you've got 'too much' food in a particular city, you have basically no choice but to run specialists. When you've got a city surrounded by resourceless grassland that is difficult to irrigate, then clearly cottages are the ticket. For civics, the only significant conflict of interests is between representation and universal suffrage. Hybrid ftw!

 

[pi-r8]

First, read the sentence in context. The poster I was responding to was implying that you can't outtech while stealing techs, a thing that it is emphatically untrue.

Second, and unlike it seems if you take the sentence out of context, the discussion had nil to have with a economy based on stealing techs. It was simply a discussion of the comparative merits of a specific tile improvement vs a non-rep spy. But if you want to bring this to here, I still maintain that most people in here underestimates badly espionage ( BTW your second sentence pretty much implies that you are running cottages en masse ... )

I never meant that you can't spy and tech at the same time. But, you do have to make some sort of trade off. I mean, running a spy spec obviously produces less than a scientist or a cottage would, so you're sacrificing some science in order to do spying. And 1 spy won't give you enough to steal a tech, so you'll probably have to either run a lot of spies or use the slider. Or use a great spy, but then you don't get a great scientist. So while it doesn't PREVENT you from researching, it will slow down your research, and it might cause you to not be the first one to research some critical techs.

I do think spying can be great, in certain situations. But I think it's so situational and game-specific that you can't really make a straight comparison between a spy and a cottage/scientist. You might as well try cottages with working a mine, to build axemen and conquer another city. That might be a lot better, sometimes, but it's so different you can't compare it directly.