Cottages on rivers?

[tetley]

Hi, I'm a noob to Civ4 (played plenty of Civ3 though), and one thing I don't get:

The game tutorial and Velo's slingshot both mention river squares as great locations for cottages. Why?? Don't you want to farm those? I'd think you would want to grow your pop first and then put the new pop on your landlocked tiles, where you can build cottages there. thanks

[Silver14]

The reason why is extra gold. River squares add 1 gold to the resources that are on them except for forests. I tend to put cottages around rivers when possible and only irrigate one or two squares just to pull the irrigation out to inland squares once Civil Services is discovered.

For financial civs this benefit is even higher, as cottages produce 1 gold...the river produces 1 gold. Since they are financial they get 3 gold right off the bat. Putting cottages in floodplain squares are the best, 3 food lots of gold.

[couerdelion]

The point being that if you have an option of a river tile and a non-river tile, the cottage on the river tile will initially produce no more than the plain river tile. You'll be working that tile first anyway so those would be the priority for cottages.

But the points regarding leaving space for some farms is also important if you're a little short of food in the area.

p.s. Given the choice of floodplains and grassland river, if you have to farm one then do this on the grassland river.

[Datajack Franit]

Cottages are always to be put near rivers unless the terrain is a floodplain. That´s the only exception. If your city doesnt grow, wait for windmills, and watermills for production.

[Arrian]

I tend to farm floodplains, actually. Say I have a mix of floodplains and grassland-on-river. I'll farm the FP and cottage the grass. More flexible that way, IMO (thanks to Dominae for point this out to me).

-Arrian

[kittenOFchaos]

If financial (and who really plays without that mother of all traits) you are looking to get to the natural production of 2 and then 4 and then 6 gold ASAP. Putting the cottage on a river ASAP will do that for you.

[tetley]

This may be a noob question, but is there some hard synergy between cottages and rivers that makes it appealing? i.e. do the cottages themselves yield more gold, health, or something? Or is it just that you have limited population farming tiles and you want the cottage and +1 gold from river all in one place?

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Arrian
I tend to farm floodplains, actually. Say I have a mix of floodplains and grassland-on-river. I'll farm the FP and cottage the grass. More flexible that way, IMO (thanks to Dominae for point this out to me).

-Arrian

I don't quite understand this point except that I can see that one produces a 3/0/2+ tile and a 3/0/1 tile while the other produces a 4/0/1 tile and a 2/0/2+ tile.

How, in practice, do you use this greater diversity?

[Boppo]

Any tile that produces two food is a good candidate for a cottage, which the river tiles and floodplains do. This allows the tile to support itself. The floodplains produce 3 food which means you can help support another pop point as well.

As stated you want to get the cottages up early, to let them grow and start pumping out the commerce. Then watch your tech research take off.

[Alkis2]

How, in practice, do you use this greater diversity?

There are times, for example you got a new resourse and your city is allowed to grow more, that you want the city to get bigger. Greater divercity does it faster.

[tetley]

Do you ever find yourselves tearing down villages in later ages to support more pop/specialists? I guess I'm still in the Civ3 mindset where pop for settlers & hammers were everything, and tech broker your butt off for gold.

[Quillan]

Originally posted by tetley
This may be a noob question, but is there some hard synergy between cottages and rivers that makes it appealing? i.e. do the cottages themselves yield more gold, health, or something? Or is it just that you have limited population farming tiles and you want the cottage and +1 gold from river all in one place?

Well, there are two points here. First is that commerce is the lifeblood of Civilization. Commerce generates scientific research for the techs, money to support your infrastructure, and culture to keep your populace happy and expand your area of influence. The more commerce you get, the better it works, and squares bordering rivers generate 1 commerce automatically (aside from forests). The other point is the trait Financial. If your leader is Financial, any square that generates 2+ commerce gets a one commerce bonus. If you build a cottage, it generates 1 commerce, 2 commerce once it becomes a hamlet, 4 at village and 8 when it becomes a town (many turns later). Build that cottage on a river, and the 1 commerce becomes 2. Cottage+river+Financial means 3 commerce from that square immediately. That's big.

[xxFlukexx]

Originally posted by couerdelion


I don't quite understand this point except that I can see that one produces a 3/0/2+ tile and a 3/0/1 tile while the other produces a 4/0/1 tile and a 2/0/2+ tile.

How, in practice, do you use this greater diversity?

It's mainly for higher difficulties where you meet your happy caps very quickly. In the case where you have a 4/0/1 and a 2/0/2, you can switch to grow mode, then when you grow to your happiness cap (and a good amount of food towards your next pop) switch to the grass cottages to stop your growth and gain some cash. Now if you used the 3/0/2+ tiles, the danger is that you would have to switch off of that tile because you are growing too much and are going to exceed your happy cap. Now if you have some plains hills or something to balance your growth out on the 3/0/2+ example, then that's fine too. Goal is to grow to your happy cap as fast as possible and at the same time not having to pull workers off of any developed cottages. Hope that made sense, it's just micro'ing your workers so you don't have to take any workers off of cottages(like 3/0/2+ tiles) because you will grow past your happy cap. Oh yeah that, and because farmed floodplains give you more food for more specialists, and scientist specialists are very good in the early game unless you are FIN.

[Deity Dude]

for a financial civ the best improvement IMO is the cottage in the floodplain

[johnmcd]

I think it's a real shame there is no signifier for 10 of anything off a tile, it doesn't even do the 5 one twice.

Financial Civ on a town on a flood plain in a golden age with Printing Press will cheerily do you 10 commerce a turn but it shows as five. If you've put that cottage on gems on a river bank then it's really quite annoying cause you have to work it all out.