Cottage econemy

[Vampgelus]

Even with a SE running, the GA are powerful, if you take into consideration, that it will "cost" you less, as you are getting more GP anyway. Sacrificing GP in a CE has more impact on your GP supply, that's what i meant.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by wodan11

With BtS they changed it so that GA gives each specialist double GPP, but IMO that's a sinecure. Useful, for sure, especially if you're able to leverage it early in the game and also especially if you're able to get GP that you use for things other than a GA.

But, given that each GA costs a factorial progression of GP, and that you'll be able to run more specialists later in the game (because you have a higher health and happy limit) and thus that's when the double GPP is maximized, using the mausoleum to make more GP simply to make more GAs and get more GP is a no-win situation. It's a cycle that does nothing but feed itself.

Now, using GAs late game to feed off a CE with massive Town spamming nets you +1 commerce +1 hammer per tile. That's huge, especially going for a space win.

Wodan

... except that GAs are +1c no matter what, and that number is a higher percentage of earlier gains than of later. The GA gambit (Dominae's suggestion from several months ago) is quite effective, in actuality, because of this - you have a significant percentage increase over a large portion of the MIDDLE game, where it is most useful. Gains in the middle game tend to allow greater gains in the later game, so if you have more commerce = more tech in the middle game (say, ren era plus and minus an era) you will have much greater potential in the later game as a result. Quicker universities and other commerce boosting buildings, quicker factories, quicker heavy arms (tanks, anyone?) mean you can gain quickly on your opponents and expand much faster.

Waiting until the end game gives you a bit of a boost towards the space race, but getting that early lead gives you a significant boost that pays off in a quicker space race- if one is even needed

[MoonWolf]

I'm playing as the Dutch now and the FIN trait combined with some riverside cottages allows me to nearly spam cities. I have a good feeling for that game.

[The Priest]

Quite agree - that early game cottage producing three commerce really does turbo charge your expansion

[The Priest]

I'm confused as to why people say CE needs to have big cities. Surely its the other way round because the basic calculation is that in a CE you have two citizens, working cottages, when in a SE you have three citizens - two working farms, plus one specialist. OK there are lots of varients with food rich resources etc. but fundamentally a SE is all about citizens focusing on food rather than commerce, to allow extra specialists.

Therefore any given city will be smaller in a CE than in a SE. Or am I wrong?

[wodan11]

I think "people" tend to confuse a SE with a Slavery economy. Yes, it's often easier to regrow from Slavery if you plan to have a SE. And, you can easily have one city whipping while another city is running specialists. But, the two (SE and Slavery) are really contradictory strategies.

Anyway, a CE needs to have big cities because you generally need to have more commerce coming in to compensate for the lower production.

Wodan

[The Priest]

Thanks, but sorry, I don't understand the lower production point either? Why does a cottage economy have a lower production?

[MoonWolf]

I think it's because you need more cottages in the beginning to follow up on specialists. But that depends of course if you want to aim for techs or producing vital buildings, some units etc.

[Quillan]

Until you both switch to Universal Suffrage and have towns, cottages don't give you production other than any base the square has already. Working lots of cottages means you aren't working squares that would give you production.

[The Priest]

Well yes, but if you are wanting specialists then you will be working those same tiles but with farms to produce the food to feed your specialists, rather than the cottages, so no more production either.

[wodan11]

Priest: there are several valid types of SE strategy. Some have higher production than others. You're correct that with some types of SE, your production suffers as much as the typical CE production.

I think it's a fair statement to say that almost all CEs will have very low production (barring specific specialized production cities, which you can have in ANY economy). Up until Univ Suffrage, and even after that the CE will still have low production, compared to most other economies at the same stage in the game.

Wodan

[Unspeakable Horror]

Originally posted by Supr49er
BTW, I must be dyslexic because I always initially read this thread as Eco Enemy.

That's because it says "Cottage econemy"

[The Priest]

Genuinely trying to understand this, so I thought some figures might help, though its hard because it depends how big you say your cottages have grown to. But I've tried to be fair.

So say you have a city with the city square, a coast with lighthouse, mined hills and grassland cow. So that is size 3 plus 9 food, 6 prod., and 5 com.

We then add to that 2 grassland river, 1 plain river, 1 grass. on (a) they are farmed, on (b) they are cottaged

(a) food 11, prod 1, com 3
(b) - assuming the cottages give an average of 2 commerce each - food 7, prod 1, com 11.

So:
(a) gives in total 20 food, 7 prod., 8 comm with 7 tiles worked, add two specialists, leaving 2 food for growth
(b) gives in total 16 food, 7 prod., 16 comm with 7 tiles worked, leaving 2 food for growth

so the difference between the two is:

(A) SE - is size 9, with 2 specialists to assign
(B) CE - is size 7, with 8 extra commerce.

Are 2 specialists worth 8 commerce? Well, not quite in my book.
Yes the specialists give extra flexibility, because if you make them engineers or priests you would up the prod., or you can focus on research/coin.
But if you are wanting research/coins then the 2 specialists won't produce 8.

OK many other factors to factor in.
There are the GP points which the specialists give, which are valuable. But also, the cottages here have been assumed to give 2 commerce each - give time and that will be 3 and eventually 4.
And then the situational things:
FIN would increase the cottage income from 8 extra commerce to 12.
But pyramids would mean that the 2 specialists were producing more than 8 research.
PHIL and Mausoleum might alter calculations of the value of the GP points.
Some later civics and techs add to the benefits of cottages.

Overall though, I think that these figures show that:

1. SE involves bigger cities, so it is dependent on the caps being high enough.
2. Its hard to get a SE to perform as well as a CE without pyramids
3. SE does have the advantage of more flexibility - you can swap specialists around, and change from farm to workshop and back again, when you can't change your cottages for a short period without losing all the bonuses. And if someone pillages your farm it doesn't matter have as much as them pillaging your cottage.

I'm in no way trying to say that a SE can't be a good thing - I use it myself sometimes - but that in general a SE is worth it if you have pyramids, or if flexibility or GP are particularly valuable to you, and as long as your caps are high enough.

[wodan11]

Random thoughts:
-- why confuse things with the river?
-- SE early game generally can utilize lightbulbing to dramatically outperform a CE
-- SE late game gets Biology which means 1 worked farm = 1 specialist, instead of 2:1.
-- SE running Caste generally will benefit more from food resources than CE will. Your example only has cow, which honestly is as much a production resource as a half-food resource.
-- your conclusion "SE involves bigger cities" doesn't follow. I think it's safe to say that SE will generally grow faster than CE, and will hit the cap sooner.
-- your conclusion about "get SE to perform" also doesn't follow, primarily because you ignore lightbulb beakers. If I lightbulb for 2000 beakers, and it takes 100 turns to get that GP, that's 20/turn. Thus, the SE could be said to be generating 28 compared to the CE 16. And that's from just one GP... if you have a parallel SE (rather than serial with a GP Farm), then you're making multiple GPs at the same time.

Wodan

[TriMiro]

The two types of economy are different, but there is no clear cut solution to which one is better.

Proper usage of lightbullbs can give massive advantage. Be the first to get a tech and then trade it around (better yet be the first to get the alphabet).

Cottages are sometimes more flexible, since you can turn the commerce to either science, gold, culture and/or espionage. Put the cottage science bar to zero for a couple of turns and get a massive flow of cash to upgrade troops. The science beakers that Representation gives are only science beakers.

Synergies between civics and traits are very important in both cases.

Try experimenting in the game. I used to do cottage economy, but now I am more of a specialist player. I cannot give an answer to which one is better.