I found that I don't use avoid growth option anymore, since most times I run slavery. So if I see a city that is unhappy and I can't do anything to increase happiness (i.e. temple, garrison, civic), then I whip the populace to produce buildings or units. Then my question is, does the avoid growth option have its use? and if so, when do you use it?

At the start of the game, on emporer +, when you dont have any early happiness ressources, the maximal citysize of your capital is 4 and of other cities is 3. When you employ slavery now, it will go down to 2 for 15 turns (on epic). I find that problematic, so I try to place the citizens so they dont make a food surplus once the limit is reached. And sometimes that wont work, then I use avoid growth.

It is completely useless. Having unhappy citizens costs you nothing. They are not helping your empire, but they don't cost you anything.* Instead, think of them as instantly productive citizens as soon as you secure something that will make them happy.

If you're not making them disappear with slavery, then let them sit in your city. Using the button to prevent growth is the same as throwing food down the drain.

*Except if you have 10s of them across your empire, in which case they could rise your civic cost.

Are you telling me that unhappy citizens do NOT eat two food ? That is why they are trash. Instead of letting your city get an unhappy (Which produces nothing and eats two food) you can use avoid growth to get your food box full , then you can add a specialist/work a higher hammer tile (until you can get happy resource)

It is completely useless. Having unhappy citizens costs you nothing. They are not helping your empire, but they don't cost you anything.* Instead, think of them as instantly productive citizens as soon as you secure something that will make them happy.

If you're not making them disappear with slavery, then let them sit in your city. Using the button to prevent growth is the same as throwing food down the drain.


What are you talking about unhappy citizens work no tile and they still consume food. I believe that certainly cost something.

Think of them as pure slackers just like it says in the book.

They do eat the two food. By all means, avoid growing unhappy citizens by working tiles that trade food for production or commerce. Or use specialists by a last resort. But the thread is about using the avoid growth button, which is ridiculous.

There are four options here.
Whip > Run @ stagnant growth > Let them sit in your city > Avoid growth button.

I usually just micromanage the tiles so that the city is exactly at its optimum productive state, which is when unhappy faces match happy ones.

Ok, I groc your statment now Lord Chambers.

And I myself have never used the avoid growth option I always try my best to micro manage.

It helps in micromanaging slavery for maximum effect. The best time to use slavery is not right after a pop increase, but right before it. Ideally, you want your food to be at 28/28, 30/30, or something like that when you pop rush, so that your food will drop to 28/24, 30/26, etc. after the the whip and from that high point, be able to regrow two levels quickly. So to use slavery at max efficiency, you wait until one turn before the increase which would lead you to unhappiness. Say you're then at 25/28. You then micromanage your tiles to give you exactly +3 food. Then you select avoid growth. Wait for one turn. You're now at 28/28. Deselect avoid growth and pop rush. That's it.

It's only useless if you're stuck on slavery. Your question may as well be, "Is everything except slavery useless?"

The answer is, of course, no.

It's only useless if you're stuck on slavery. Your question may as well be, "Is everything except slavery useless?"

The answer is, of course, no.

Slavery is available early in the early. When you have caste system, monarchy should be right around the corner. Then you can always deal with unhappiness by extra garrison, or by buildings. This way, your city will keep growth until it is limited by unhealthiness. So then there won't be as much reason to limit your growth, since extra population providedes more production and commerce.

It helps in micromanaging slavery for maximum effect. The best time to use slavery is not right after a pop increase, but right before it. Ideally, you want your food to be at 28/28, 30/30, or something like that when you pop rush, so that your food will drop to 28/24, 30/26, etc. after the the whip and from that high point, be able to regrow two levels quickly. So to use slavery at max efficiency, you wait until one turn before the increase which would lead you to unhappiness. Say you're then at 25/28. You then micromanage your tiles to give you exactly +3 food. Then you select avoid growth. Wait for one turn. You're now at 28/28. Deselect avoid growth and pop rush. That's it.

WOW, well I certainly will start to use the avoid growth that is awsome the whip just gets better and better.

Thx for the tip would of never thought of that.

What Avoid Growth is useful for is the fact that it influences the AI governor to re-arrange your citizens to the maximum effect while maintaining a zero or negligiable surplus. If you don't want growth, and don't want too much micro-maneagement, then Avoid Growth is the choice for you. Size 7 with 1 unhappy is worse than Size 6 with 0, due to the fact of food consumption.

If you are using slavery however, Population = Production, so you really have no incentive to limit your growth. If you have :mad: it's just because you haven't :whipped: them yet. Maybe you are saving up? Who knows? Who cares? Just whip it.

I personally treat "avoid growth" just like any other governor function. It is "Emphasize No-surplus", and has the additional effect of preventing potentially harmful growth. When conditions become favorable, just turn it off and grow immedietly. I think it's better to be wasting 1 Food/turn due to inalienable surplus than 2 food/turn on a :mad:. The only reason you would ever want :mad: is if population itself is your goal, and not standard productivity.

What Avoid Growth is useful for is the fact that it influences the AI governor to re-arrange your citizens to the maximum effect while maintaining a zero or negligiable surplus.
Is this true? In my brief experience with the button, I recall it changing no tiles;it just didn't let the population increase.

Sometimes the governor-change doesn't take effect until the governor recieves an external stimulus like population change or you clicking on the city-center. Clicking on the city-center makes the governor arrange the citizens in what it thinks is the optimal configuration based on your settings.

If you've been micromanaging your city the governor will be turned off so he won't change any tiles around when you turn on avoid growth, but if the governor button is highlighted he'll often move things around when you hit avoid growth.

If you've been micromanaging your city the governor will be turned off so he won't change any tiles around when you turn on avoid growth, but if the governor button is highlighted he'll often move things around when you hit avoid growth.

Yeah, I make use of that on occasion. When I want to quickly change a city over to no-growth mode, I simply click the governor button, then click the avoid growth button. My citizens will be arranged to avoid food surplus as much as possible. If the surplus was completely eliminated, I then uncheck the governor and then the avoid growth (order is important). If the surplus wasn't eliminated I may leave the avoid growth checked (but turn off the governor, most likely). And, I always give the governor's actions a quick review before moving on to the next city.

They do eat the two food. By all means, avoid growing unhappy citizens by working tiles that trade food for production or commerce. Or use specialists by a last resort. But the thread is about using the avoid growth button, which is ridiculous.

There are four options here.
Whip > Run @ stagnant growth > Let them sit in your city > Avoid growth button.

i completely agree with that!
if your unhappy citizen eats food, what does it hurt you? if he brings you to a starvation, you will lose 1 pop point.
So what? you're back to where the no growth button would have brought you anyway!
Of course, MM like zombie said can be better, but it's really tedious IMHO.
I often do whip just or just before after the pop increase, and i have yet to notice a difference. Can't make up my mind on what is best.
What i know is you need the granary for those things !

One more thing :
to pop rush you need to have a pop size of at least the double of the pop-cost of the rush. Unhappy citizens count in the size.
So if you need to whip away 3 people for your library, you need to be at size 6 (or to wait until the cost drops to 2, and you then need to be at size 4).

Keeping a few unhappies ready to get whipped can give you a real boost in some occasions ;-) (spiritual is very useful for those things :) )

if your unhappy citizen eats food, what does it hurt you? if he brings you to a starvation, you will lose 1 pop point.
So what? you're back to where the no growth button would have brought you anyway!

Not quite true... When a city starves, the food box stays empty; it does not go back up to the top. So, if I'm at 5 population, 29/30, and +1 food, after 1 turn I grow to 6 population. If he's unhappy, I'm at -1 food and nothing in the box (no granary). The next turn my population shrinks. I'm at 5 population and +1 food again, but my food box is sitting at 0/30. If I'd just turned on avoid growth the first turn, I'd be sitting at 30/30 perpetually and could grow to 6 population as soon as I wanted.

Not quite true... When a city starves, the food box stays empty; it does not go back up to the top. So, if I'm at 5 population, 29/30, and +1 food, after 1 turn I grow to 6 population. If he's unhappy, I'm at -1 food and nothing in the box (no granary). The next turn my population shrinks. I'm at 5 population and +1 food again, but my food box is sitting at 0/30. If I'd just turned on avoid growth the first turn, I'd be sitting at 30/30 perpetually and could grow to 6 population as soon as I wanted.

well, count the granary, since it's the first thing you will whip for

so accepting the increase will give you a half full box, and plenty time to search for the whip

well, count the granary, since it's the first thing you will whip for

so accepting the increase will give you a half full box, and plenty time to search for the whip

The granary makes the situation more tolerable, but it's still not as efficient as just enabling avoid growth when you're at the previous population level. Those turns spent at -1 food are turns that could, instead, be spent at (effectively) +/-0 food. Each turn spent at -1 is one extra turn that will have to be spent growing your population after the whip.

The granary makes the situation more tolerable, but it's still not as efficient as just enabling avoid growth when you're at the previous population level. Those turns spent at -1 food are turns that could, instead, be spent at (effectively) +/-0 food. Each turn spent at -1 is one extra turn that will have to be spent growing your population after the whip.

true enough
but it's very situationnal

remember my example about a library
being pop 5 does you no good then, on the other hand, being pop 6 just in the right time is perfect (see Zombies' MM) : no lost food.

I don't like MM, so i favour leaving the unhappies. If i really have too much of them that i can't effectively whip, i move the culture slider (not saying anything about looking for ressources).

I even use the whip when they claim for emancipation, very late in the game (captured cities are sooo crowded, and so very unproductive, and sipritual is sooo much inviting).

Actually, if you really want to whip the library in the most efficient way, assuming you have a 25% production bonus (organized religion for instance, or a forge), then you want to be between 15 and 29 hammers done before you whip, and you want to be at the end of 5 pop rather than at the beginning of 6. Then you can whip, costing you only two pop but still giving you 90 hammers. Of course, without any production bonus, ignore what i just said. You'll need to go up to pop 6 and whip the inefficient way.

Because pop rushing is so grossely overpowered, and because the exploit is so easy to abuse, the first thing i build (pop rushed of course) in a city is always the granary, followed by a forge (of course, pop rushed as well). After this, every other building and unit comes so easily, it's almost like cheating.

WOW, well I certainly will start to use the avoid growth that is awsome the whip just gets better and better.

Thx for the tip would of never thought of that.

You can check out the thread Micromanagement is alive and well in Civ 4 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159109) in the Strategy Articles forum for the complete description of how to do this and some more micromanagement tricks.

Because pop rushing is so grossely overpowered, and because the exploit is so easy to abuse, the first thing i build (pop rushed of course) in a city is always the granary, followed by a factory (of course, pop rushed as well).
you mean a forge i suppose?

Yes, sorry. I'll edit the post. Thanks for pointing it out. Must be remnants of my Civ 1 days!

Not quite true... When a city starves, the food box stays empty; it does not go back up to the top. So, if I'm at 5 population, 29/30, and +1 food, after 1 turn I grow to 6 population. If he's unhappy, I'm at -1 food and nothing in the box (no granary). The next turn my population shrinks. I'm at 5 population and +1 food again, but my food box is sitting at 0/30. If I'd just turned on avoid growth the first turn, I'd be sitting at 30/30 perpetually and could grow to 6 population as soon as I wanted.

Folks, this little tidbit is worth studying.

I was going to post the same explanation, but malekithe already did. Using the avoid growth button is rarely useful, but when it is, it can make an entire citizen's worth of difference in a slow-growth city. Keep a sharp lookout for those cities ekeing out a +1 food surplus and struggling to grow, because that's where you really would hate to lose an entire granary bar's worth of food from one turn of oversight.

I wouldn't call it micromanagement, since it doesn't come up too often, but it can really matter at certain points in the game.

I wouldn't call it micromanagement, since it doesn't come up too often, but it can really matter at certain points in the game.

I wouldn't either. If you micromanage properly, there are much better ways to handle such situations.

I wouldn't either. If you micromanage properly, there are much better ways to handle such situations.

from your point of view, it's certainly no MM.
From my point of view it is, since i don't go through all my cities on every turn.
Don't get me wrong : i'm not saying it's wrong to circle through all your cities. I just point out the fact that it is tedious and can be considered by some (lazy players like me) as too much MM.

If you don't open every city's screen, you won't be able to use the "avoid growth" option in a useful way.
And i think it's supposed to be a governor's option = something you would use to give the governor instructions, so you don't have to watch closely!

In my opinion, it's quite the opposite : it's only useful (in some weird way) if you watch the city closely enough to let it grow again when the happiness allows it.

Conclusion : as i don't want to watch very closely, the "avoid growth button" is more a risk to lose possible growth than a possible gain.

I use it if a city is about to grow, which will make it unhappy and/or unhealthy, and I don't have a civic to remedy that (i.e. cannot whip or buy a building). For me, there is a long time between slavery and universal sufferage when I cannot rush units or buildings. Unless I'm a spiritual civ, switching civics just to whip a temple so a city can grow in 1 pop. then switching the civic back to what I had before is completely pointless and wasteful. An increase in city upkeep for a citizen that's doing nothing but complaining is not worth it.

Unhealthy is nothing to worry about, all it is is that you have a new, productive citizen who eats 3 food/turn instead of 2.

I think there is a way to manage the governors in your city without having to go into the city-window. You can give build-orders from the map-view, so I think you should be able to do this too.

The real debate here, is not so much about the convenience of the button, but about whether is actually provides you with an advantage when you use it. I think it only really gives you an advantage if there is no benefit from having an extra citizen. If you have plans or uses for an extra population, then it's not going to help you at all. If you were building a settler, then you wouldn't really want -2 food hanging around, but then again there are some ruthless players out there who would say to whip-rush it.

But, I'll raise this question: Since whipping is basicly the conversion of food-surplusses into production, wouldn't it be more efficient in the long-run to just "avoid growth" by working a mine instead of a farm? Unless your city-plot is devoid of any additional production, you can by this manner convert 1Food directly into 1Hammer. I'm not sure whipping gives you quite as good a ratio as that. If you have the production-facilities to switch to, then whipping is basicly akin to chopping, only it's the limbs of the disobedient instead of trees, and citizens grow back. If you are on a super-fishing village, or on a vast swathe of grass, then whipping is going to give you benefits that re-arranging citizens never could have.

But, I'll raise this question: Since whipping is basicly the conversion of food-surplusses into production, wouldn't it be more efficient in the long-run to just "avoid growth" by working a mine instead of a farm? Unless your city-plot is devoid of any additional production, you can by this manner convert 1Food directly into 1Hammer. I'm not sure whipping gives you quite as good a ratio as that. If you have the production-facilities to switch to, then whipping is basicly akin to chopping, only it's the limbs of the disobedient instead of trees, and citizens grow back. If you are on a super-fishing village, or on a vast swathe of grass, then whipping is going to give you benefits that re-arranging citizens never could have.

you gave the answer to you own question , and i agree with the answer

I use it if a city is about to grow, which will make it unhappy and/or unhealthy, and I don't have a civic to remedy that (i.e. cannot whip or buy a building). For me, there is a long time between slavery and universal sufferage when I cannot rush units or buildings. Unless I'm a spiritual civ, switching civics just to whip a temple so a city can grow in 1 pop. then switching the civic back to what I had before is completely pointless and wasteful. An increase in city upkeep for a citizen that's doing nothing but complaining is not worth it.

for me there isn't a long time between slavery and universal suffrage
if i'm not spiritual, i stay under slavery for most of the game!

Since whipping is basicly the conversion of food-surplusses into production, wouldn't it be more efficient in the long-run to just "avoid growth" by working a mine instead of a farm? Unless your city-plot is devoid of any additional production, you can by this manner convert 1Food directly into 1Hammer.

Converting 1 food into 1 hammer is extremely inefficient. With whipping, you can get 3 hammers per food or even more. That's why it's almost always better to whip.

In the very best case scenario (starting at pop 2, whipping one pop, at 25% bonus production, with 31 to 37 hammers left to production, granary present), whipping can give you 60 hammers for a mere expenditure of 11 food. Once you get the hang of it, you'll practically never produce anything the normal way ever again!

For more info on how this works, check out the article in my sig.

Converting 1 food into 1 hammer is extremely inefficient. With whipping, you can get 3 hammers per food or even more. That's why it's almost always better to whip.

In the very best case scenario (starting at pop 2, whipping one pop, at 25% bonus production, with 31 to 37 hammers left to production, granary present), whipping can give you 60 hammers for a mere expenditure of 11 food. Once you get the hang of it, you'll practically never produce anything the normal way ever again!

For more info on how this works, check out the article in my sig.

true, you get much more for low pop whips, but it's limited to low cost buildings!:(

Converting 1 food into 1 hammer is extremely inefficient. With whipping, you can get 3 hammers per food or even more. That's why it's almost always better to whip.

In the very best case scenario (starting at pop 2, whipping one pop, at 25% bonus production, with 31 to 37 hammers left to production, granary present), whipping can give you 60 hammers for a mere expenditure of 11 food. Once you get the hang of it, you'll practically never produce anything the normal way ever again!

For more info on how this works, check out the article in my sig.

Right, I forgot about the effect of granaries, they double the efficiency of whipping. At small sizes, you can convert food into production at a 1:3 ratio; 11 food yielding 30 production.

Adding a production bonus does not raise the efficiency of whipping, since conventionally acquired hammers would also recieve the same multiplication. But on the whole, Slavery looks amazing. This does somewhat change my outlook on avoid growth now.

Adding a production bonus does not raise the efficiency of whipping, since conventionally acquired hammers would also recieve the same multiplication.

Wrong. Played well, a 25% bonus can double your output from slavery, yeilding 60 hammers for 11 food instead of only 30. Doubling is better than only adding 25%!

Also, once you've doubled your output, and used half of your 60 hammers to produce overflow, that overflow gets another 25% bonus on top of the doubling!

So with 25% bonus, 11 hammers on average = 13.75 hammers.
In the best case scenario, with the same 25% bonus, 11 food give you :
- 60 hammers towards production
- of those 60, 29 max can go towards overflow
- this overflow gets an additional 25% production bonus
- therefore, you get a total of 31 + 29 * 1.25 = 67.25 hammers

Compare that to the 13.75 hammers you would get from 11 hammers instead of 11 food, and tell me that slavery isn't overpowered!

67.25 hammers is the equivalent of 53.8 base hammers, so you've basically just turned 11 food into 54 hammers! That's 5 for 1!

ACK!! math!!

Such mircomanageing is just plain amazing in my point of view.

Wrong. Played well, a 25% bonus can double your output from slavery, yeilding 60 hammers for 11 food instead of only 30. Doubling is better than only adding 25%!

Also, once you've doubled your output, and used half of your 60 hammers to produce overflow, that overflow gets another 25% bonus on top of the doubling!

So with 25% bonus, 11 hammers on average = 13.75 hammers.
In the best case scenario, with the same 25% bonus, 11 food give you :
- 60 hammers towards production
- of those 60, 29 max can go towards overflow
- this overflow gets an additional 25% production bonus
- therefore, you get a total of 31 + 29 * 1.25 = 67.25 hammers

Compare that to the 13.75 hammers you would get from 11 hammers instead of 11 food, and tell me that slavery isn't overpowered!

67.25 hammers is the equivalent of 53.8 base hammers, so you've basically just turned 11 food into 54 hammers! That's 5 for 1!

How pray tell did 11 food get you 60 hammers in the first place? If it were due to something like building a Temple as a spiritual Civ then, as I said earlier, that bonus would be applied to conventional production as well. Thus, though you may have improved the food/shield ratio for whipping, it changed by the same amount for conventional production. The only real difference here is in the amounts of overflow whipping can produce. As far as I recall, overflow production does not retain any of the bonuses of its creation, so you can't even really exploit it there either.

I have already agreed with you that whipping yields a far better converion ratio of food-> hammers than conventional production does, but I will not agree that the production gained from there gets any extra bonuses that could not be equally applied to conventional production.

I will not agree that the production gained from there gets any extra bonuses that could not be equally applied to conventional production.

Then you don't understand how whipping works.

Example:
A city with a +25% production bonus whips when 35 hammers are needed to complete something. The required population is calculated by determining the base hammers (35*(1/1.25)=28), dividing by 30, and rounding up, for a total of 1 population whipped. The total production generated is the modified hammers (35) rounded up to the next multiple of 30, for 60 hammers.

Now you have 35 hammers + 25 overflow from whipping one population. Now those 25 hammers, when applied to the production on the next turn, are considered *raw hammers* and still eligible for the 25% bonus, gaining you another 6 hammers.

A forge used optimally under normal production will turn 30 hammers into 37. A forge used optimally under slavery will turn 30 hammers into 67.

The situation gets even better when you have the Globe Theater and whip every turn, because that overflow keeps racking up the extra 25% as you carry it over every turn. The overflows sit and gain compounded interest until you hit the overflow cap or dump it into something very expensive.

true, you get much more for low pop whips, but it's limited to low cost buildings!:(

For expensive buildings, you whip a low-cost military unit and dump the overflow into the more expensive building. This lets you whip the building piece-meal at basically the same population cost as whipping it all at once, but also gives you a bunch of free units.

Since catapults are useful for the entire game without being upgraded, I'm usually whipping them in every city as fast as the population will remain happy and dumping the overflow into buildings. A huge military will pay for itself as you can then frequently demand tribute from rich opponents to cover the upkeep.

Besides, it's not like you'll ever go to war with too many catapults on hand...

The total production generated is the modified hammers (35) rounded up to the next multiple of 30, for 60 hammers.
The what? So that's what Zombie69 was talking about for getting 60 hammers from one population. Sounds like a bug, but one too juicy to pass up. Looks like it would be very finicky and micromanage-y to pull off easily, but cool nonetheless.

Forget about the bonus being reapplied to the overflow, i had that part wrong, as i noticed in my game shortly after posting that. Still, 11 food does give you 60 hammers, which with a 25% bonus equals 48 base hammers, so more than a 4 for 1 ratio and quite respectable.

For expensive buildings, you whip a low-cost military unit and dump the overflow into the more expensive building. This lets you whip the building piece-meal at basically the same population cost as whipping it all at once, but also gives you a bunch of free units.

Since catapults are useful for the entire game without being upgraded, I'm usually whipping them in every city as fast as the population will remain happy and dumping the overflow into buildings. A huge military will pay for itself as you can then frequently demand tribute from rich opponents to cover the upkeep.

Besides, it's not like you'll ever go to war with too many catapults on hand...

Catapults are indeed a good choice. Since they cost 40 hammers at normal speed, all you need is to build them normally for one turn, making anywhere between 2 and 9 hammers, and then you can whip them with 1 pop, getting 60 hammers, nearly 30 of which can go towards your expansive building (or wonder).

For low production cities, spearmen and axemen can make an even better choice than catapults (if you can use them), since they only cost 35 hammers, which means that if you only produce between 1 and 3 hammers doing the one turn of normal production, you'll get 5 more shields going towards overflow rather than towards the unit.

I almost always use this for rushing wonders, since this avoids the penalty for rushing wonders by working around it.

For expensive buildings, you whip a low-cost military unit and dump the overflow into the more expensive building. This lets you whip the building piece-meal at basically the same population cost as whipping it all at once, but also gives you a bunch of free units.

Since catapults are useful for the entire game without being upgraded, I'm usually whipping them in every city as fast as the population will remain happy and dumping the overflow into buildings. A huge military will pay for itself as you can then frequently demand tribute from rich opponents to cover the upkeep.

Besides, it's not like you'll ever go to war with too many catapults on hand...

good points here :) (and thank you zombie for the confirmation)
hadn't thought of this possibility.
So basically, in a size 2 city, you can whip 30 hammers towards a library every 5 turns, building a catapult on the way...
giving you a library after 15 turns, and 3 cats to defend it :goodjob:

Well, theoretically every 10 turns, if you take into account the time it takes for happiness to get back to normal. But you can bring happiness down a few points by rushing 3 times in 9 turns, and then wait for 21 turns so your happiness could go back up. Or maybe you meant every 5 turns because it takes the city that long to grow back the one pop? In the best case scenario, a city at pop 2 can have +6 food. With a granary, you only need 11 food to grow back, so again, theoretically you can do this every other turn until unhappiness stops you.

So best case scenario with at least +4 food (easy) and 3 extra happiness (not so easy), you can make the library in 9 turns :

1. Start a low cost unit
2. Whip the low cost unit
3. Apply overflow to library
4. Start a low cost unit
5. Whip the low cost unit
6. Apply overflow to library
7. Start a low cost unit
8. Whip the low cost unit
9. Apply overflow to library

Of course, this will cost you a lot of unhappiness. A method that would be far less unhappiness intensive, but yield fewer free hammers, would be to produce 15 to 29 hammers on the library while growing to size 4, then whip 2 pop, yielding 90 hammers, and only costing you 1 unhappiness instead of 3. In most cases, this would be the best approach for something as small as a library, and which doesn't get a penalty when pop rushing like a wonder does. An exception would be a city with the Globe Theatre, where unhappiness is not an issue and the above method is better, giving you 3 units on top of the library.

As an aside, using this method to rush the Globe Theatre itself (i.e. rushing units and using the overlflow) is a great idea because as soon as you actually finish it, all the unhappiness that it cost you will instantly disappear.

Well, theoretically every 10 turns, if you take into account the time it takes for happiness to get back to normal. But you can bring it down a few points by rushing 3 times in 8 turns, and then wait for 22 turns so your happiness could go back up. Or maybe you meant every 5 turns because it takes the city that long to grow back the one pop? In the best case scenario, a city at pop 2 can have +6 food. With a granary, you only need 11 food to grow back, so again, theoretically you can do this every other turn until unhappiness stops you.

i meant 5 turns to grow back from pop 1 to pop 2 with a +3 food (a flood plain cottage, or an unimproved food ressource), and never have more than +2 unhappiness from whipping.

I must read that pop-rush overflow thing over again. Maybe it's just a bad idea to wait 1 more turn, and maybe building a library in 9 turns is worth the +3 unhappiness for 22 turns.

I added a lot more information above, not realizing you had already posted a reply. Check it out to find out more.

I added a lot more information above, not realizing you had already posted a reply. Check it out to find out more.
done, reply edited
thank you for this analysis
very well described :goodjob:

Hereditary rule solves the happiness issue in the short term by negating the whip penalty. If you aren't going to use those catapults immediately, just leave them in the city. This way you can whip as often as you want right now and just deal with the unhappiness later when you have more luxury resources and technologies to combat it.

The other thing to do is just whip a fast-growth city into permanent unhappiness by whipping every other turn and stockpiling units under Hereditary Rule. If you make one city permanently useless, but produce 50 catapults from it, letting you conquer a dozen or more cities the moment you can build courthouses, that's a good tradeoff.

And since whipping a catapult every other turn gives you 60 hammers with a 25% production bonus, and you only need 40 of those hammers to build the catapult, you can put the rest to good use by applying it to other types of units. No point in making any buildings (except barracks of course), since you plan for this city to be permanently unhappy and therefore useless for anything but production.

Once the city has outlived its usefulness (e.g. because you don't need anymore units and don't want to pay more unit maintenance), i suppose you could then gift it to another civ to get rid of it.

That's a pretty good plan Paeanblack, i'll try it next game if i have a chance!

Could you gift it to the civ you're about to conquer with the units? Thereby capturing it back and losing that all the whipping unhappiness?

I just (last week) discovered the avoid growth button and found that it has it's usefulness in making the AI reshuffle the working tiles automatically (I have never turned off the city manager that I just found posted earlier in this thread), though sometimes nothing changes if there is no better alternative.

Then I discovered whipping yesterday by perusing these same posts (which is advanced as superior to using the avoid growth button). However, I still checked the avoid growth option just to see if the priorities they picked were adequate, and actuallyl stuck with the selection for a couple turns... I can see a limited use for the button, but I agree the whipping concept seems much better from a resource standpoint when taken in moderation.

On a separate note, I like that concept, gifting your horribly whipped city to a soon-to-be-dead-enemy just to wipe the frown off their faces! I think I'll try it and see how well it works!

SR,
New player less than one month, vanilla Civ4, v1.61, Prince, Terra Map