What is the idea behind the "Cottage economy"

[Ghetsis]

How does it work? I recently increased the difficulty and am creating cottages along rivers, I dont really notice much change however

[LasagnaMan12]

You only get the bonus if the city is working on that tile with the cottage, beyond that I'm not sure how to help :P

[ghpstage]

The most typical definition I have seen is that 'most of your commerce comes from cottage type improvements '.

If taken as a blueprint for a strategy it's typically interpreted as cottage spam with cottage oriented civics. YMMV - What you get out of it will depend on the map, your leader traits and how well you know the basics of running your empire and building an effective economy.

If this sounds vague it's because it is. The main impact of both this term and its 'competitor' the specialist economy is to confuse less experienced players.

[Purplefairy22]

A cottage economy is the most simple and gives the biggest gains.
A fully developed cottage 'town' gives two food, two hammers (with levi) and up to 9 commerce (if financial trait).
An amazing tile to work, nothing else comes close.
(maybe state property water mills with a financial trait and electricity, and replaceable parts; a distant second)
The drawback with it is the lack of production before democracy. (we're talking 1200 ad+).

[red255]

There are things that come close.

Don't be silly.

Cottages take many turns to get turned into towns. they are good in your early towns, but late game when victory is more close, I go with as many watermills as I can manage.

cottages take 70 turns to become towns on normal game speed, or 210 turns on Marathon mode. 210/1500 is 14% of the game. and on marathon I normally win or have my victory assurred 800 turns in.

so 600 turns in you gotta ask yourself do I really want a cottage or will a watermill work?

Now a Town takes those turns....and gives you 5 coin with the research and civic.

a watermill is +2 hammer and +2 coin.

3 coin vs 2 hammer. Hammer wins man. Course theres some Civics that change things.

But I limit the amount of towns I go with later on because I just don't have the time. also the towns frequently get pillaged or otherwise destroyed. watermills if they get destroyed later on I can just replace with my worker army.

But yeah the point is to upgrade the cottages to Towns to get currency.

Personally I run my economy with university of sankore. and other religion stuff.

you get a great priest, stick a market/grocer/bank in the holy city with the great priest building, +2 coin per city you make. per religion.

every city with a relgion can make monestaries for +10% research. university of sankore is +4 beaker with temple and monestary.

I also throw in the sistine chapel (Culture) , Apolstalic palace (hammer), and Spiral minneret (coin) because they work the theme.

But its how I run my economy, I use religion.

Cottages are just straight coin, they work. eventually. but ...

Current game I have a continent, had myself and 4 other civs.

I killed 2 civs and took their land, the other two civs I capitulated. mostly intact.

I spread my religion to those cities, all of them. later my corporations. I can run at 100% research because I'm getting 2 coin per religion per city I don't have to maintain.

So yeah, with a larger empire, I'd say most of my commerce comes from trade routes and religion.

[Purplefairy22]

Originally posted by red255:

a watermill is +2 hammer and +2 coin.

only if its plains or you have replaceable parts.
If the latter, you could of had emacipation and grew a town super fast.

Originally posted by red255:

So yeah, with a larger empire, I'd say most of my commerce comes from trade routes and religion.

Potentially, Mostly though, being huge usually means your trade routes are worth more to your rivals.
Check your info in the demographics. If your imports-exports is negative your rivals make more from you than you get back.
If that numbers substantially different, mercantalism becomes very tempting indeed. Worth less commerce total to you per turn, but keeps your commererce per turn amount larger to a rival.

I had a game where mine was -183.

I was giving out 397 beakers a turn. from them i got 87 a turn in trade routes. I was losing 78% or they were gaining 456%. either way you want to look at it.

[red255]

Originally posted by Chris:

I was giving out 397 beakers a turn. from them i got 87 a turn in trade routes. I was losing 78% or they were gaining 456%. either way you want to look at it.

What EXACTLY do you want to look at.

there were 5 civs left.

Shaka, Wan Kon, Cyrus (Wang Kon's vassal), Frederick (my vassal), Joao II (my Vassal)

Had about 60-80 trade with all of them. except Shaka who was 0. Where would they list these negative trade values?

But yeah Trade with your own vassals, they research something its cool, they'll trade it with you.

Or worst case you could send a spy in and steal it, but thats never required.

Vassals getting beakers isn't really a problem. so the only real issue was Wan Kon was getting beakers

but from what I can determine, I'm getting plenty of beakers. We could possibly shut down trade with him with a palace decision.

but leaving Free market for merchantilism is a totally different economy (a specialist economy)

[Purplefairy22]

Originally posted by red255:

Where would they list these negative trade values?

In the dermographics - imports/exports

Originally posted by red255:

but leaving Free market for merchantilism is a totally different economy (a specialist economy)

depends, its totally situational.
If my imports/exports is massively negative; a free merchant or scientist in every city; will allow me to push 100% without binary research and extend the research gap to my rival.

I don't play with vassel states on, i'd like too, but the whole vassel mechanic is stupidly executed. So many times i'll declare war and the very next turn they've vasseled to someone else. That shouldn't be possible.

It also makes it virtually impossible to expand when everytime (if your small yourself) and you pick on a equally small nation, and next thing you know your fighting a superpower aswell.

[ghpstage]

Originally posted by Chris:

Originally posted by red255:

but leaving Free market for merchantilism is a totally different economy (a specialist economy)

depends, its totally situational.
If my imports/exports is massively negative; a free merchant or scientist in every city; will allow me to push 100% without binary research and extend the research gap to my rival.

Or you could just close borders if you really feel the need to, but if your already larger there isn't much reason to care if they are benefitting more, and you could crush them easily if you wanted to.
Even if you closed borders with everyone, the internal trade route is likely at least as valuable as a non representation specialist, and if your using corps the loss of the maintenance discount would likely cost you hundreds of gold per turn.

Merc is very niche civic.

[Purplefairy22]

Originally posted by ghpstage:

if your using corps the loss of the maintenance discount would likely cost you hundreds of gold per turn.

If i see a corporation has been founded, i tend to raze that founding city. Like holy cities, if i'm not getting that bonus, you're getting that bonus. I'm really spiteful.

I find corps meh! i tend to avoid them.
They cost too much to spread, and if you're going for conquest/domination or spacerace, State property mines and mills do a great job. Cottages are useless on a victory push. its all about the hammers.

Originally posted by ghpstage:

The internal trade route is likely at least as valuable as a non representation specialist

not really, an internal route is worth 1-2 commerce. a specialist is worth 3.
unless you're at 100% that route of two is only ever worth one.
If you add on multipliers the specialist still always gives you more, and the birth of a GP is worth even more again.

[ghpstage]

Originally posted by Chris:

Originally posted by ghpstage:

if your using corps the loss of the maintenance discount would likely cost you hundreds of gold per turn.

If i see a corporation has been founded, i tend to raze that founding city. Like holy cities, if i'm not getting that bonus, you're getting that bonus. I'm really spiteful.

I find corps meh! i tend to avoid them.
They cost too much to spread, and if you're going for conquest/domination or spacerace, State property mines and mills do a great job. Cottages are useless on a victory push. its all about the hammers.

You may not like them (i'm not a big fan myself, I like SP workshops too), but corps are ridiculously strong. They are what makes the procution potential of Free Market so much higher than you can get in State Property. The only drawbacks are how late they come, setup time (the spread cost is largely a non issue) and the needed Great Person, this makes them difficult to use for continuing a big Renaisance push, but outstanding for very late wins like space, or late wars, or late runs on culture.

With the Kremlin and multipliers in place a towns production potential is actually comparable to a state property workshop, with the caveats that most of them are pooled andcan be used in any city, they are weaker when spent on wonders and can't build space parts.
Free Market of course doesn't stop you from building workshops, nor from doing so while running Caste, a food corp can feed workshops, and maybe additional specialists while a hammer corp can drive your production to obscene levels.
Its at no disadvantage in terms of production, it just plays a bit differently.

Originally posted by Chris:

Originally posted by ghpstage:

The internal trade route is likely at least as valuable as a non representation specialist

not really, an internal route is worth 1-2 commerce. a specialist is worth 3.
unless you're at 100% that route of two is only ever worth one.
If you add on multipliers the specialist still always gives you more, and the birth of a GP is worth even more again.

Domestic routes don't cap out at 1-2. Some overseas holdings can easily drive them to the 3-6 range surprisingly early and a food corp can drive them much higher. On occasion i've seen them top 10, with 13 being the largest I have seen without intentionally trying to break things ( i.e. not huge, marathon on big and small/low seas archipelago map with Sushi)

[Purplefairy22]

Originally posted by ghpstage:

Domestic routes don't cap out at 1-2. Some overseas holdings can easily drive them to the 3-6 range surprisingly early and a food corp can drive them much higher. On occasion i've seen them top 10, with 13 being the largest I have seen without intentionally trying to break things

So you have to settle land overseas, a huge expense in maintenance. To eventually gain a few extra beakers you deprived yourself of earlier.
To have lots of food resources implies you're very large or you have a massive tribute bill.
I which case why bother with a corporation? make a domination push.
And if your tribute bill is massive you'll deprive yourself of beakers or culture points slowing a push for victory through space or culture.

Corporations are Meh! I find there is always something else that would benefit me more.

[red255]

Corporations are Meh! because they usually are at a point where you've already won. Standard Ethanol really helps with a space race victory.

Sid Sushi, Creative construction, Civilized jewelerys stack and help with cultural victories.

But if you are just going for a straight military victory.... spreading the corporation vs simply making more units and killing the enemy is probably going to be make the units and kill the enemy.

Oh and standard ethanol provides oil. so theres that too. (and aluminum co provides aluminum)

but once you do spread the corporations (Mining inc and cereal mills usually) you will out produce everyone and steam roll them as you crank out units to murder them, take their lands and increase your bonus hammers and food.

[Purplefairy22]

Originally posted by red255:

Corporations are Meh! because they usually are at a point where you've already won. Standard Ethanol really helps with a space race victory.

How? It provides oil.
I go to war for three resources regardless if i can't settle or under cultural threat. Iron, Coal, and oil. If you haven't got them you're screwed.