So I'm thinking about writing....

[uberfish]

I think creative is a warmonger's trait actually, and best with leaders like Kublai and Augustus whose traits lead them towards early rushing.

Quick access to military resources without compromising on early city locations, quick border pop in captured cities.

I'm curious to know why you think cre/fin is overpowered though, pre-warlords Cossacks aside; I don't think it has the raw power of fin/phi, fin/ind, or fin/cha.

[One_more_turn]

Turn advantage of not worrying cultures in new cities. It's very important in early games.

[Velociryx]

Creative is, IMO, one of the best all-around, most versatile traits in the game. Quite true, it pays nice dividends for a conquerer, but it is badly unbalanced when coupled with a goodish many other traits, especially Financial.

In its most basic and elemental form, land = power. One of the most potent expressions OF this is in the form of commerce, which of course, Financial Civs have a far easier time at.

For a bit of ancedotal evidence, fire up a pre-warlords game, make sure Catherine puts in an appearance, and basically sit back and watch until the middle ages (no further, so as not to pollute the picture with Cossacks). Almost invariably (say 8 or 9 games in ten) Cathy will be the TOP AI in the field. Her trait combo is the reason for that. In addition to being of surpassing power, it practically plays itself.

Creative's fast moving borders mean faster expansion beyond the fat cross, which means faster pillage zones, which means a decrease in liklihood that an enemy stack will ever survive long enough to mess with your cottages. Further, those same fast-moving borders choke off the growth of nearby rivals, stealing critical resources and adding to your own power.

Then there's the quick and easy cultural defense bonuses (especially important for relatively peaceful builder types, but also good in battle...not only can you get the full fat cross early--and with zero hammer investment in culture, meaning you can drop in a courthouse as your first build and let the borders take care of themselves, a move that further enhances your profits--but you also get respectable cultural defenses more quickly.

Most compelling though, is the optimal city placement and ability to plan for use of the full fat cross with zero hammers invested. This creates huge hammer savings on the front end, and equally enormous turn advantage on the back end. Turn advantage that a Financial Civ can make better than average use of, thanks to improved cottage yields, especially on river tiles, where the benefit (with cottage) is immediate.

Pre-Warlords, nobody could touch Cathy or Washington in terms of the raw power of their trait combos, and I'm glad they nixed them in Warlords (though a little disappointed as well...they were my favorites because they were so forgiving...I could try the strangest, most bizzare strategy I could envision, and if it didn't work, it still wasn't fatal, cos those civs were just that amazingly strong). Good stuff.

-=Vel=-

[uberfish]

Creative is definitely powerful early game turn advantage, but the thing about turn advantage in civ4 is that if you don't use it quickly it fades. There are quickly reached caps on both vertical and horizontal growth, so the advantage does not keep compounding indefinitely a la SMAC supply crawlers. The hammers gained from the quick border expansion that bought you two axes now, only get one mace later on. And the two axes have vastly more impact in a rush. This is why I advocate rushing with Creative civs and making full use of the turn advantage when it's at its most powerful.

The AI doesn't use most of the traits to their full power. Cathy is one of the stronger AIs not because Cre/Fin is overpowered IMO, but because they are very easy traits for the AI to use and because she expands aggressively.

I, personally, rate Elizabeth (with a great library-wonder GP farm you have to be trying hard NOT to get to liberalism first) and Hannibal (extra happiness = more cottages worked) as the top Financial combos. It's good that we disagree, though!

[Velociryx]

Total agreement that it's all in how you use it! Also true that turn advantage tends to erode if you don't use it, although I would say that this is true of ANY game, and not particular (or even "more" particular) to Civ4.

Also a good point made re: the AI not using the full potential of their attributes, and this, coupled with my earlier comment that Cre/Fin practically plays itself is indeed a good and probable reason for why the AI is so consistently good with it.

On the other hand, I'd submit that it's hard to argue against a so obviously winning formula. Even "normal" expansion is quite "aggressive" thanks to those fast borders, enabling backfilling and the like. One need not rush to make tremendous use of the trait early on, and in fact, there are many cases when it might not be preferable to rush (tho pre-Warlord's Catherine was well suited to this also, starting with both Hunting and Mining).

I think for me what puts that particular combo over the top is that it just stacks too many terrain advantages in the favor of the player with both traits. More land on average, and more productive land in aggregate....it just sets up an impossible to lose set of conditions.

I like Phi/Fin (I'm doing this from memory...this is Elizabeth's combo, yes?) as a combo, but don't regard it as quite as dangerous, and here's why:

The traits are essentially at odds with themselves, at least on the city level. That is to say, Fin requires tiles to be worked, and Phi requires specialists to be created. No good way to do both in any individual city....you can have a commerce city that will be more productive than just about anyone else's, and you can have a speicalist city that will crank out G-Men faster, but you must, with this trait combo, gear your game toward specialization from turn one. This isn't a bad thing at all....specialized cities are more efficient and have better returns on hammers invested, but they are also vastly more fragile, and if you're unaccustomed to playing like that, then a single misstep can cause you no end of grief.

Having said all that though, I'm glad we disagree (that Fin/Cre is overpowered)! It only underscores that there's more way than just one to skin the proverbial cat in Civ 4!

-=Vel=-

[couerdelion]

I read through this section yesterday and made a few notes on it. I then forgot to bring them with me so I’m replying here from memory, so here goes

1) Well written, as ever

2) Spell checking will be needed for this to be “print-quality”. But the standard spell check probably won’t pick up Ghengis. I think you’ll want to pass the document through some standard proof-reading anyway and if you can organise this in a same systematic way you play the game, all those little mistakes will be cleared up

3) You mention the asset game as being some sort of “catch-all” for games not falling into some other category. I think here, you are using assets in the narrowest sense of the word as meaning resources. If you consider assets in the broadest sense of the word then I would argue that ALL games are “asset-based” in the sense that we are attempting to increase our “assets” as much as possible over certain defined time-spans. But this definition of assets includes:

a) Cities and population
b) Gold
c) Technology researched
d) Units (including promotions)
e) Great People points
f) Buildings
g) Culture (both city and tiles)
h) Land within city and cultural borders
i) Resources
j) Improvements
k) Civics
l) Religions (both state and those resident in each city)
m) Diplomatic relations
n) Leader traits

I’m sure there are even more to add.

If we take “State Religion” as an example, when I thought about this, I first wondered whether or not it had a specific value. But it’s obvious really because we lose x turns or anarchy to switch to a state religion so it must be worth at least that.

One of the things about the asset-based approach is that we can recognise the value of any individual element of the game will change throughout the course of a standard game. However the price does not so we can think in terms of looking to buy “undervalued” assets. Your comment about warriors being hopeless units needs obviously to be taken in context. Let’s suppose we have one wounded archer in our capital and barbarians are at the gates and we have other units that can only get to our capital in two turns. Another warrior in the capital would be worth a hell of a lot more than 18 hammers so if that’s all you can get to keep the city until reinforcements arrive.

The only problem with the more complete theory of viewing the game as a combination of assets applied to increase their value is that it is actually quite difficult to assign values to anything in the game.

4) In your guide, there are two sections in the game that are not often discussed but I think are important elements of gameplay. The first is “Tile-selection for city workers” and I include discussions of specialist among these sorts of decisions. The second, if I remember my scribblings of yesterday, was some commentary on city placements and the broader questions of specialisation. No doubt you’ll emphasise the importance of city 2 in all this.


On the Genghis strategy, I would probably have given some sort of opinion on the pros and cons of settling on or next to the hypothetical copper site. Unless, that is, your view differs from mine but I would personally state the option to improve the mine is the stronger long term play and is effectively the default option to select unless there are compelling reasons to settle on the tile itself. But that’s just my view

I did, however think that the Genghis scenario needed some play testing so I decided to see how the strategy panned out with just two variations – I moved it up to Emperor level and played at epic speed. Now as games go, I can’t recall getting much more of a dud start. The initial position was OK but as things developed it never really moved up a gear for me. I made the immediate move of the settler to the plains hill and gained myself immediate use of the floodplains tile and added a second pig-tile to the fat cross – later found out that I’d lost a spice from the fat-cross so I thought the move was a good one. Animals was the obvious tech choice and I thought a rapid scout build was the order of the day. I often give up growth in the first few turns if I can get that second scout out and popping huts - in a sort of window within the window.

Between my two scouts I managed to pop just three huts and these netted me 76g and a warrior – who later managed to pop four unfriendly warriors and subsequent became and ex-warrior of no experience. The scout that I built lasted about 10 turns when he was mugged by a mixed gang of black panthers and wild wolves. My initial scout got his woodsmen promotion but finally ended on a square next to a barb warrior and became a footnote in history. So much for the early scout gambit!!

Back in the city, I got myself animal husbandry just before a worker so all was well there – except that I had no horses on my map. There were significant areas of the map close to the capital that were still uncovered so perhaps I should have taken time to throw out another scout but my capital itself was also starting to run into a little trouble because it was so rich on food but little production to get out archers to defender workers or new cities. Here the extra level really starts to bite since an unguarded capital can only grow to size 3 – or 2 with whip unhappiness. There was also no happiness resources nearby except an incense and the spices.

When I finally got to Bronzeworking – took too long here too without any real sources of commerce – I was given copper. It was only 21 tiles from my capital so I decided to stop playing that game because it was such a foregone conclusion that I would win a conquest victory by 0 AD

Not to be put off I started again and got myself a very unusual city. Clams, Corn, three Flood Plains, Wine, Spice and two Ivory. Nothing wrong with a bit of variety and the nearby resources included cows, wheat, fish, whales, silver and rice. Who cares about Emperor bonuses when you’ve got those resources on the doorstep. Obviously the route to Bronze was a lot quicker here although once again I was denied a viable source. Instead I was gifted with horses so I am in two minds about whether I go for a rapid chariot rush or look for early city expansion for those resources and then run go with a Chariot/Keshik/Elephant rush after Gers.

p.s. On the comparison of Chariots to Axemen, I can see why you favour the stronger unit (Barracks units can start with 6.75 against Archers while Chariot maximum is 5.4) But the speed of the Chariot rush is much earlier so there are merits in this too – the units are cheaper than Axemen, they move faster and you only need one tech to open the resource.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Velociryx
The traits are essentially at odds with themselves, at least on the city level. That is to say, Fin requires tiles to be worked, and Phi requires specialists to be created. No good way to do both in any individual city....you can have a commerce city that will be more productive than just about anyone else's, and you can have a speicalist city that will crank out G-Men faster, but you must, with this trait combo, gear your game toward specialization from turn one. This isn't a bad thing at all....specialized cities are more efficient and have better returns on hammers invested, but they are also vastly more fragile, and if you're unaccustomed to playing like that, then a single misstep can cause you no end of grief.

-=Vel=-

I'm interested in your claim that specialised cities are vastly more fragile. If you argue that specialisation is more efficient, then we should really be producing more of everything - and that includes military.

If we have stronger defences then we are less fragile.

Maybe its terminology but I am a big fan of specialisation, requiring every city, even in its own little way, to do one thing first - and best. The jack-of-all-trades city that produce mediocre commerce and production are every bit at risk of a surprise attack from 60+ jaguars

In fact, if a specialised city is so crucial and vulnerable then I probably WILL stick 3 longbows, 2 maces, 2 spears there as garrisions and another 3-6 units within 1-3 turns away. Either that or I start a war to remove the threat.

[Velociryx]

Howdy and g'morning, Lionheart! And I truly appreciate those notes!

Absolutely 100% correct that a print copy is going to have heavy editorial review. As it was, the snippet posted here didn't even get the benefit of a spell check...come to think of it, the work, now some 6k words long, and climbing, STILL hasn't been spell checked...a thing I'll prolly wait till the very end to begin doing, but it'll *definitely* get the full treatment!

Asset-Game....correct again...perhaps I should get even more specific and call it a visible tiled resource game or somesuch, because at the end of the day, what Civ is really about is the collection and proper application of assets vs. your rivals (whatever those assets may be). The name for the "catch-all game" is quite likely vague--and it should be noted that since the original posting, the basic "list" of types of games has undergone an expansion as well!

As I have continued the writing, I have moved the "Classic Rush" to be a standalone article, outlining the basic methodology as being applicable to any Civ, then, in the Mongolian section of the guide-in-progress, I have notes that modify the basic parameters. The expansions I've made to the articles as they stand at present go into more details about the pros and cons of varous "branches" in the decision tree, but I do not believe them (the articles/notes) to be "finished" just yet...still more work to be done!

So far, I've also written two variants of the "Classic Rush" (Chariots and Hyper-Early (Warriors/Archers)), and I've definitely made a note that for the Mongols, the Chariot rush can be a powerful alternative--although, in my later notes, the comment was that this is most often true if you have cows or sheep in your starting radius (because in this case, there's a certain synergy to your tech choice....you'll be wanting to choose Husbandary to boost your food outputs anyways, and it has the additional benefit of answering the all-important question, "where are the horses?"

Finally, there are some additional notes about "guessing wrong." If you go for bronze and get no copper, you're under a certain amount of time pressure if you still want to rush, and the opposite is also true (if you go for husbandry and get no horses). Not to say that it cannot be done, but it (the "lost time" )changes the equation somewhat, and practically guarantees that your target will have at least one additional city.

-=Vel=-

EDIT: To your entire point 4! Consider it added! And now, on to your next reply!

[Velociryx]

Regarding questions on specialization, efficiency, and fragility, I mean the following:

* I would argue that, on balance, specialization (or at least a certain amount of it) is a good thing. Some city sites are just naturally better than others at doing certain things (ie., a city that's replete with hills in the surrounding terrain strikes one automatically as being a rather good place to center production...assuming the rest of the terrain will support a high enough food output to allow it, of course).

* I also freely admit that from a "hammers spent" perspective, the returns you get on those invested hammers are relatively higher in specialized Civs than more "generalized" Civs, however, having said that, I'd also point out that having a better ROI on hammers spent does not necessarily mean having more aggregate hammers to spend, and quite often, this nod goes to the more generalized Civ because cities that are going commerce or specialist heavy in a highly specialized game will have almost no hammers to contribute, while the hammer-heavy specialist cities won't be able to make up the difference when comparing the hammer counts of a more generalized approach...in fact, unless the specialist empire is significantly larger--and this is seldom the case...in my experience, highly specialized empires tend to be relatively small....partly, I think this is because of the intense micromanagement that highly specialized cities can lead to--it won't even be close. In my mind, it's rather akin to a guy investing 10,000 extremely well and earning 12% interest, vs. a guy who's a bit less savvy...he might only earn 6%, but if he's got 25k to start with, I'd still rather be in his shoes.

The other problem is this (and this is where the fragility comes into play). Let's say you're geared up such that you've got a HUGE commerce city, replete with all the bells and whistles to multiply your incoming coin, and life is good.

Some joker starts a war and you just plain miss something.

A little pillager gets through and starts ransacking your cottages.

In a more generalized civ, that will be annoying, but no big deal. Kill the pillager and go back to what you're doing.

If those cottages belonged to your highly specialized commerce city tho, MAN DOES THAT HURT! Those tiles are so insanely valuable because of all the multiplicative effects that the effect of losing them is also magnified.

Even worse, imagine losing your best commerce city to some unexpected event....your income would plummet like nobody's business.

This seldom happens in a more generalized Empire. It's not quite Borg-like, but very nearly, and can easily withstand even a significant loss and keep right on trucking.

Finally, there is the matter of terrain. Sometimes the terrain itself just dictates that this city will have a bit of everything....it's not all grassland with a river running through it. In those cases, the choice is to either willfully ignore the terrain that doesn't fit with that city's specialization (which is inefficient use of one's land), or to just give a nod to a more generalilzed approach, even if it doesn't fit with the city's chosen speciality--a perfect example of this would be if you discover a source of iron in the thick of your best commerce city. A purestrain specialist would likely not work the mine, cos hey....this is a commerce city....I'd shrug and work it, cos hey...that's a lot of hammers!

-=Vel=-

[padillah]

Well, I would never presume to offer you strategy advice, I suck at this game. So I will offer the next best help I can, editorial.

Not so much for Vel but for others I'm sure will misinterprit my intentions: I mean no harm. I'm simply making observations and providing the reasoning behind them. Vel is free to make changes or ignore me as he sees fit. I have known and worked with Vel before and will simply ignore anyone telling me to "leave Vel alone".

That being said, here's what I've noticed so far. I'm still at work so I'll get a little more detailed later.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

General Concepts and Terms

Pop-N-Chop
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* A bit lengthy. Contains elements of strategy. Leave this for the main article, stick to definitions here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
General Concepts and Terms

The Window
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* A bit lengthy. I would trim a little here and then expound when you start talking about the actual game.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Broad-Based Early Game Strategies

Later Religious Gambit
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* A bit lengthy. I would trim a little here and then expound when you start talking about the actual game. Compare "G-Man Game" to this entry and you'll see what I mean.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
General Guidelines

Mongolia

Situational:
...or a boost to research (ie., bever).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* "Beaver" is misspelled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Questions

2a) And if there are no horses?
...and you'll make for Pottery, and the to Ironworking...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* I believe you mean:
"...and you'll make for Pottery, and THEN to Ironworking..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

***
Agin, I hope this helps, I'll really dig in when I get home. You have a real gift for non-fiction. I've not read any of your fiction stuff so I can't comment on it but you have a knack for explaining non-fiction in a very acceptable way. It's not like you are yelling at the reader or bored with what you are writting so pass that on to the reader.

Keep up the good work of saving morons like me from ourselves

Tom P.

EDIT: If I understand later posts the guide is being reformated into "Generaic Strategy" and then a chapter specialised for each Civ. This sounds great! I would highly recomend this since it covers how most people think: Get a broad sense and then take the exceptions into account.

[Velociryx]

Hiyas Tom! And I'm glad you're reading here!

Believe me, I can use all the editorial help I can get! I'm hoping that you, Lionhart, and everybody else who has written in so far can keep me on the straight and narrow!

I've admittedly not even spell checked the document, so I'm actually surprised you didn't find MORE stuff (sometimes, when I get into the groove, my fingers just GO! and I don't even think about the words....that comes later...I just type from the gut...LOL...not sure if I should have fessed up to that or not!). That said though, I'm glad to have another pair of eyes on the material! Keep 'em coming!

And thank you! Kind words indeed on the state of the writing, even in its draft form! I'm slowly hammering it into better shape, and hoping that when you see the finished goods, it'll totally knock your socks off!

-=Vel=-

[couerdelion]

I think specialisation is really appears as a Classical/Medieavel age feature when you get access to the Epic buildings. That’s when you have to decide where to place your GP farm and military production centre.

Now at this stage you’ll have 5-10 cities probably depending upon how developed your different cities are or whether you’ve executed an early rush. Here there should really be no great risk to one city pillagers because you don’t have only one city producing your science and there ought to be 2-3 which are production centres that can be put on a war-footing. It’s simply a question of not putting all your eggs in one basket. I agree that some cities can produce a bit of everything but the question is what you WANT a particular city to be doing – given the available tiles. If you want to add commerce then you convert grassland tiles to cottages and if you want production then they’ll be workhouses or windmills – for me this seems to be the only choice where improvements differ from one city to another. With a little work you can make any non-descript site into a fairly respectable specialised city. And this helps with new cities in the middle game because you don’t have time or production to build everything. If you want science in a city then build the science modifiers. For gold, build markets, grocers and banks. For military it’s a barracks and stable. By limiting the building plan you get to where you want to be much quicker.

As for the stray pillager, I recall this situation well from my only Warlords game where I’ve played well into the Renaissance era. My immediate neighbours were Asoka (North), Hannibal (East) and Saladin (South). Having executed a standard slingshot, I was in a very strong position and was building settler for a fifth city when Monty declares war on me – we don’t even have a border. Since my capital was central and bureaucratic, his attack on my second city (high commerce) was really a small side show and all he achieved was to pillage my gold mine and to break the irrigation link to my rice field. Of course it hurt a little at the time but I was also just getting iron hooked up and bringing my fourth city (military production) into full working order. At outset, my units were wholly geared to barbarians so Chariots were not much use against the Jaguars. But with a little time, my cities were able to crank out a smallish army which used the small war to nearly build enough points for a GG – who arrived after my first city attack against India.

In fact, the gold mines in a commerce city do hurt more than anything, the loss of a cottage is really very small while developed ones take a lot of pillaging to destroy. If a lone pillager is able to do that on a flat tile then I would suggest that the local defences were already too weak even for barbarians!!

Oh and please excuse my rather "fundamentalist" views on specialisation

[Velociryx]

No sweat man, that's what makes the game so much fun! The fact that there are genuinely so many different approaches one can take!

I think that we're prolly arguing from a fairly similar position, actually.

I'm all about hyping up a city for a certain "primary use" (be that money or hammers or specialists) and running with it, but I don't go to the extremes that I've heard other folks mention (both here and at civ fanatics)...that is to say, I'm not going to NOT work an Iron Mine simply because it happens to fall inside the boundaries of my big commerce city. Instead, I'll thank the gods that my relatively poor hammer city has a nice boon and run with it!).

Doing at least that much (building all your research boosters in a city that has lots of coin that is generating a good number of raw beakers) is a good place of beginning, but in practice, I seldom have any difficulty in building all the infrastructure I want, in whatever city I want, and in truth, this sort of specialization really only cuts out two "classes" of buildings (ie., if you want a commerce city, then you'll build markets etc., and tend to steer clear of hammer multipliers and beaker boosters, but once you've GOT the "primary" infrastructure in place (which is generally easy enough to do)....if you can make a return--even if it is a lesser return--why not? That's always been my philosophy, anyways.

Sure, build the things that will give you the BIGGEST bang first, but when you're done....assuming your hammer heavy cities are doing their job and keeping you in military....why not accept the lesser returns and keep building stuff? It's still a greater aggregate return, which carries zero downside.

In the end though, what this does is tend to "blunt" the specialized nature of the cities. They may start out with a fairly sharp focus, but then...the game happens. You build all the science mulitipliers and....now you've got a free queue. Groovy.

Then there are a good number of buildings that I consider must-haves in EVERY city:

Granary - don't matter what the city's ultimately going to do for me...I want this in each city. Either for faster growth or for more potent whipping (or both).

Barracks - Yeah, I'll have my main unit producers, sure...but sooner or later, something's gonna come up and I'm gonna whip across a broad cross-section of the Empire for troops (usually to gear up for a war). When I do, I want decent troops for my pop. Later, when I get the tech for it, I may flirt briefly with Nationalism for some free troops while building infrastructure, and again, the barracks are indespensible.

Courthouses go everwhere in my Empire...maybe not right away (there IS some evaluation that gets done, and if the gain by cutting expenses isn't as compelling as building something else, then of course, it gets delayed, but sooner or later, everybody gets a courthouse).

Harbors/Lighthouses - Not *everybody* of course, cos there will be some inland cities, but everybody who CAN get these buildings, certainly will!

Happiness/Health/Size Cap increasers (temples, aqueduct, etc)...as needed...no sense in sitting at an artificially low population cap if the city's capable of further (profitable) growth, so of course, these will wind up in every city sooner or later too!

All that considered, IMO, the notion of "specializing" a city for a particular purpose really doesn't shave too many buildings off of the list. For me, it's more about creating a system of priorities to let me know what to build when...sooner or later, if I'm good, smart, and efficient, I'll have enough turn advantage built up to build every *profitable* improvement, regardless of specialization, and even if my overall ROI is somewhat less, I'll still be adding to my lead.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

By the way...these are GREAT discussions and notes! It is just this kind of thing that's going to help ensure that the Strat Guide is the best that it can possibly be! I appreciate it more than I can express, guys!

-=Vel=-

[uberfish]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Total agreement that it's all in how you use it! Also true that turn advantage tends to erode if you don't use it, although I would say that this is true of ANY game, and not particular (or even "more" particular) to Civ4.

I think the erosion is more pronounced in civ4 than its predecessors, because of the steeper maintenance costs for horizontal expansion.

The way I play Elizabeth, I usually build great library + national epic + any other useful wonders I can get in one city (often the capital), hire a couple of scientists or an engineer there if I have spare food, and just let it happily pump out GPs, while the rest of the empire works cottages. I get the best out of both parts of the trait combo that way. This sort of city is, I imagine, why Ind/Phi doesn't exist as a combo.