Cottage Must Work...

[maxcavsm]

Okay, I don't have the instruction book. If a cottage is built and you get that phrase in the description after it's built, should you tear it down for a farm, or wait it out? Is it possible to wait it out? Thanks.

[sovietwaffle]

Wait what out?

That message means that in order to get that cottage to grow, you must have a citizen working the land, if not, it won't grow. It never changes, so, just move your citizens around if you have to.

[maxcavsm]

You mean the land AROUND the village must be...improved? So a cottage CAN become a village if there are enough improvements around it? I've got one right next to my capitol that has been sitting there for centuries not doing anything, and all but two squares have been improved (still have two forests near capitol).

Thanks for the quick reply, btw.

[Silver14]

Ok here are some cottages, villages and a town...



Below is an image on the city screen. The three circled in 'red' are being worked. Thats how they got so big and are each produceing a big bag of gold. The town on the left is produceing 6 gold the two villages on the right are produceing five gold. The two cottages in blue produce three gold. The two in 'blue' are not being worked by the city thats why they are still small. If I put someone to work on one of them after many turns they would grow from a cottage to a hamlet and eventually a large town. Note the blue and red circles were added by me, the white circles are part of the game and indicate which 'squares' the city is useing to produce food, production, and commerce.

[maxcavsm]

A job well done. It now makes sense. thank you for your beautiful and well graphick-ed description!

[nbarclay]

The rule is that one of your city's laborers (population points) has to be working the tile the cottage is on in order for the cottage to grow. If the governor doesn't allocate a laborer to work the tile automatically, you'll have to either change which tiles the city works manually (if you're willing to take the trouble and it makes sense to do so) or wait for the city to grow enough for the governor to allocate a laborer to work the tile. Another option might be to change what the governor is ordered to prioritize.

Getting that message does not mean that you should replace the cottage with a different improvement, and building other improvements around the cottage won't speed up its growth. (Exception regarding the "should replace" issue: if the city is small with potential to grow significantly without causing health or happiness problems, it may be worth considering building farms if possible even if it means replacing a cottage. But in that situation, it's better to plan ahead and build a farm instead of a cottage to begin with if a farm is what you'll end up needing or wanting. Later, once the city is up to size, the farm can be replaced with a cottage.)

Nathan

[Hauptman]

Whoever set wich tiles to be worked there should be tarred and feathered.... Giving up a gold mine for 1 hammer? are you nutz? oh and letting that fish square NOT feed the city???

[Silver14]

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Hauptman
Whoever set wich tiles to be worked there should be tarred and feathered.... Giving up a gold mine for 1 hammer? are you nutz? oh and letting that fish square NOT feed the city???

Aside from the gold mine, the big question in my mind is whether the city can afford to grow without health or happiness problems. If it can, the city should be working the unused water bonus tile as well as the gold mine. If it can't, it should still work that water tile until it's almost ready to grow and then go to the current configuration except working the gold mine instead of the plains forest. (I'm assuming the loss of a food would stall growth.) Then when the happiness situation improves, the city can switch to working the water bonus tile again and grow right away. (Of course that assumes the player's willing to do the necessary micromanagement.)

[Silver14]

Actually the player just loaded up an old save game to get some screen shots for maxcavsm. The short answer with what’s being worked is the governor did it and I didn't needlessly bother to make things look pretty for a screen shot. I appreciate all the concern.

[Silver14]

Originally posted by maxcavsm
A job well done. It now makes sense. thank you for your beautiful and well graphick-ed description!

No problem I thought it would be the best for you to see what to do.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Silver14
Actually the player just loaded up an old save game to get some screen shots for maxcavsm. The short answer with what’s being worked is the governor did it and I didn't needlessly bother to make things look pretty for a screen shot. I appreciate all the concern.

I guess we can consider this an example of the benefits of micromanaging instead of leaving things up to the governor. Not that there's anything wrong with leaving things up to the governor; a lot of people don't regard micromanaging as fun, so the game's more fun for them if they don't do it. But for those considering whether or not micromanaging might be worth their time, it's definitely a place where human brainpower can gain significant advantages over the AI.

[El Conquistador]

What the hell are you doing playing the game not owning a manual? Did your dog eat it, or are you using an illegal copy?

[Quillan]

You can buy the downloaded version of the game from Direct2Drive, and you get nothing in hard copy that way. If there is a manual with it, it's a PDF copy buried someplace in the game files.