Whip training on YT (LHC Ramesses spoilers)

Yesterday I tried document something else with video recording then usual "Let's play" video and I think (or hope) that will be interesting to see.

here is the link to those 2 videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWD0kGWpnzo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zptvKvAAbrw

here is link to very good article about hammer overflow with some math basis
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=218272

I tried to employ the strategy that we talked about lately with lymond, dirk and other people in Gumbolt's Immortal game.
It's done on Monarch.
I didn't do any extensive math if the 5->3 whips was best way to go and I don't definitely claim that was best example of doing such thing.

I will welcome if it puts some discussion where I could improve this approach. Beware it's really micro intensive.
So ... enjoy .

Nice,
Imo if u don't gain research turns doing it, DON'T switch from the mine to the lake before starting growing again as u do (I noticed u switched just after whipping each time, but as the city can't grow during the interturn, it's best to work the powerfull mine , one more turn!)

Since this is educationnal, when u see a small island (east of mainland), build an exploring wb asap! Sometimes it's better than the mids (to find trading foes, and good islands to settle).

Also, I think u should add some words about when it is not wise to whip. because many people will find whip awesome after watching your vid (yeah, I can finally get all those hammers -read wonders- while still REXing) and will whip their cities to death (size 4 cities all across the empire in 1 AD, who didn't do it once? ), completly killing their research (the glh helps a bit here, but it can be a disaster on other maps).

Well done!

well the switch from mine to lake... there are still things I am a little missing and of course another reason is that I would probably next turn forget to actually switch that tile!

maybe another video called "when not to whip"? roll some horrible food start maybe...
will think about it.

And thanks for watching and nice words.

I wasn't sure about some things in the video. Like for example why the BUG mode proposes me that next turn I get for 2 pop whip 33 hammers, when I think what will actually happen is that it well be 1 pop whip with 4 hammers overflow.

And the gold overflow thing is confusing to me too.

I didn't demonstrate some bonuses in a good way too. Just the generic trait bonus. There was the stone bonus and I would have liked to show something with the forge for more hammers from the whip.
But such is life .

For me it was good experience, because I finally saw the behind of some sentences like "whip every 10 turns", when I usually thought "hey! I will long before overgrow the happy cap!!!"

Btw what about the granary? I didn't use granary yet. It seemed that it works, but if I would continue with the gameplay I think the granary is needed and do whips on higher size? Like 10->8? or something along the lines...

vranasm said:

roll some horrible food start maybe...

Click to expand...

This wasn't my point... my point is giving some exemples when it is beneficial NOT to whip even if u have abundant food (hard to resist )

I wasn't sure about some things in the video. Like for example why the BUG mode proposes me that next turn I get for 2 pop whip 33 hammers, when I think what will actually happen is that it well be 1 pop whip with 4 hammers overflow.

Click to expand...

I can't help since I don't have BUG (I use BUFFy but compute whip numbers myself so I know who to blame when something goes wrong )

And the gold overflow thing is confusing to me too.

Click to expand...

Well before the last patch, if you built an overflow bigger than (edit: two times) the cost of the whipped item, the surplus would have been converted in gold. (iirc, now the surplus is lost? Need to check)

I didn't demonstrate some bonuses in a good way too. Just the generic trait bonus. There was the stone bonus and I would have liked to show something with the forge for more hammers from the whip.
But such is life .

Click to expand...

Imo the best thing is to produce a table with the various amount of hammers the whip gives function of the multiplier bonus. This way everyone can compute the numbers, whatever the combinaison of bonuses is (stone + forge, ind + forge...). Then one can understand what amount of hammers is the threshold to create an optimal overflow, whatever the bonus is.

Btw what about the granary? I didn't use granary yet. It seemed that it works, but if I would continue with the gameplay I think the granary is needed and do whips on higher size? Like 10->8? or something along the lines...

Click to expand...

The ration food to hammer is basically two times better. THus it is approximatly two times more micro intensive I generally stop whipping the capital if it has some cottages or if I plan on running specialists there quite early. BUt there is nothing wrong whipping at size 10 (with a granary and proper happy managemement, it's generally better than working mines). I computed a table providing the food to hammer ratio function of city size, presence of granary, and number of population whipped some time ago (some years ago ). I will see if I can find it...

Although I haven't had a chance to look at the videos yet, V, this is a good idea and probably a long time overdue. Hopefully, it will spur on some conversation that will help clarify one of the more complex and important aspects of the game. Maybe some of the good whipaholics around here will add on. I see so many newer players not even using the whip at all - much less knowing the benefits of whip overflow and it can be difficult to explain in a vacuum. I'll take a look soon and add comments as well.

@vranasm.

Thank you for doing this. Very informative. Just a question about the production bar in the city screen:

When it says you can, for example, whip 2 pop for 26 and 19 , is that what you get NOW if you press the whip button or do you have to press the "next turn" button first? So does the production bar indicate what you can whip now or at the beginning of the next turn?

I assume it's the next turn since you were trying to configure your hammers accordingly.

Here is a small sheet giving the number of hammers u will get by whipping, function of city size and the type of whip.

There are tables for
single pop whips, double pop whips, three pop whips, with or without granary. All numbers are for normal speed (the ratio hammers by food themself don't change with game speed anyway, but the other numbers do)

Enjoy! (well don't know if "enjoy" is the proper word for this but )

edit: If someone doesn't get something, just ask (I know it is ugly at first, but it can be very usefull)
edit2: example of how this sheet can be used: while building settler/worker, food to hammer conversion ration is 1, as everybody knows. You can see on the sheet than any whips (I mean any) give better return, provided there is a granary in the city. That's why most civfanatics recommand whipping settler/worker rather than slow building them.

yanner39 said:

@vranasm.

Thank you for doing this. Very informative. Just a question about the production bar in the city screen:

When it says you can, for example, whip 2 pop for 26 and 19 , is that what you get NOW if you press the whip button or do you have to press the "next turn" button first? So does the production bar indicate what you can whip now or at the beginning of the next turn?

I assume it's the next turn since you were trying to configure your hammers accordingly.

Click to expand...

it should be whip in next turn. The only complication being that i think at some point it is blatantly lying or i don't understand the whip correctly...

for example as I cited the example from video where it promised 33 hammers overflow next turn, but I would pass the point of 29 hammers in worker I think it was... very confusing.

^perhaps BUG doesn't account for the food to hammer conversion when building settlers/workers.

I think BUG adds the actual per-turn production to its OF estimate. It's also confusing because it does this without accounting for the population loss once the whip is actually done. I ignore it typically.

Finished the second part. Very informative. So basically, you get the best overflow when you 2-pop whip a settler with 69 hammers already invested and 29 hammers if whip a worker.

I didn't notice it but what are the thoughts about staking whip anger? So say you are fortunate enough to get a few happyness resources or you decide to get early Monarchy, would it make sense to stack the whip anger to get settler and workers out w/ wonders faster, or should the raise in happy cap be used to grow the city?

stacking anger without means of battling the unhapiness this early will basically screw you up, you need those 4 citizens working at least.

I can see how you will do it later with HR and some overflow using into units. i think Duckweed in BOTM 37 suggested something like it.

from the spreadsheet RRR provided it seems to me to whip best for 2 pop at size 6. You can stack unhappy but you should have enough happy to have the 5 citizens available to work.
This i still have to test a bit ;-).

yanner39 said:

So basically, you get the best overflow when you 2-pop whip a settler with 69 hammers already invested and 29 hammers if whip a worker.

Click to expand...

imo you should remember how u get there instead of the result. Because you will find out that those numbers are wrong if u put any production multiplier in the mix (for instance with a forge, u get 37 h instead of 30 for one pop, so the magical number not to pass is then 62 for a two pop whip of a settler...)

@ RRR, what is the best whip efficiency to have. I am guessing the higher the number the better. In which case whipping at pop 4 with a granary is most efficient. So 2.6 is good going down to 0.45 being bad bad?

It seems a 1 pop whip on a size 2 city seems quite efficient too. Also adding a library adds to efficiency.

So when should you not whip a city??
1. When whipping below the 30 hammer mark such as whipping a warrior. - BBP I have never whipped a warrior! Relax!
2. When you are at your happiness cap? Of course in some instances this may not be true.
3. When you need to grow a city to use cottages.
4. When the food a city produces is such that it would take 10+ turns to regrow.

Overall it seems whipping at low pops is best as cities grow back quicker. I also like to whip when it is clear a build would take 10-20 turns without it.

@ vranasm - I too have not watched your vid yet Vranasm. I have issues with my PC speakers. Need to replace them. I do hope you will be taking all this knowledge into the game we are doing.

Gumbolt said:

@ RRR, what is the best whip efficiency to have. I am guessing the higher the number the better. In which case whipping at pop 4 with a granary is most efficient. So 2.6 is good going down to 0.45 being bad bad?

Click to expand...

Hum I see "whip efficiency" was misleading: this column gives you how much hammers is worth one food when whipping at this size.

I will take your 2.6 example: when you whip at size 4 down to size 2 with a granary, you are trading each food against 2.6 hammers.

What do u get from knowing this?

If you can work more green hills (a green hill trades one food against 3 hammers) without going unhappy and your build isn't an emergency (say there is no incoming stack ), you should work them rather than whipping.
If only brown hills (one food equals 2 hammers) are available, implementing whipping cycles are then your best bet.

It's about optimising production.

It's not straightforward, but it's generally better to work good tiles (not just cottages - mines) then it is to whip. If you can, for instance, build a granary faster by working two mines than you could regrow from whipping away those two mines, you're better off slow-building it. Exception being specific OF management. Similarly, once your city (starting with capital) breaks the happy cap and gets more improvements, you wanna grow it. This is assuming you have some mines to work so you can keep building as needed, ofc. If the city is seriously hammer poor (common with seafood-based cities, for instance), you wanna use Slavery to get all basic infra built before growing. The goal is to get basic infra done asap, and to abuse OF if needed for any wonders, I think.

General note on granary whip: the building stores 1/2 bin (12f when growing from size 2 to size 3), which means you ideally wanna whip it so that you end up with 12f when done. For example, if you had dry corn + FP farm (+7fpt at size 2), you'd ideally whip it with 5f in the bin. You'll then get up to 12f on the turn of the whip.

Edit: xpost with Ras

RRRaskolnikov said:

imo you should remember how u get there instead of the result. Because you will find out that those numbers are wrong if u put any production multiplier in the mix (for instance with a forge, u get 37 h instead of 30 for one pop, so the magical number not to pass is then 62 for a two pop whip of a settler...)

Click to expand...

Ah yes. Thanks for the reminder. Nice looking spreadsheet btw..

RRRaskolnikov said:

Hum I see "whip efficiency" was misleading: this column gives you how much hammers is worth one food when whipping at this size.

I will take your 2.6 example: when you whip at size 4 down to size 2 with a granary, you are trading each food against 2.6 hammers.

What do u get from knowing this?

If you can work more green hills (a green hill trades one food against 3 hammers) without going unhappy and your build isn't an emergency (say there is no incoming stack ), you should work them rather than whipping.
If only brown hills (one food equals 2 hammers) are available, implementing whipping cycles are then your best bet.

It's about optimising production.

Click to expand...

I can see the case for not whipping high production cities. I always assumed whipping was to speed up production of cities with low production. Whipping stuff like libraries, workboats, workers and settlers early on seems quite sensible in high food cities.

I guess it is one thing to understand the mechanics of whipping it is another to understand when it is best to whip!

Thanks for putting this up; it was very informative. Apparently I've been whipping all wrong.

If I whip just one thing in the build queue (ie. nowhere for the overflow to go), then, before hitting end turn, put something in the build queue, does the new item get the overflow, or is it gone?

Burning Stone said:

If I whip just one thing in the build queue (ie. nowhere for the overflow to go), then, before hitting end turn, put something in the build queue, does the new item get the overflow, or is it gone?

Click to expand...

I think somebody has confused you badly.

Whip kills the population mid turn, and applies the hammers to the targeted build mid turn, but the overflow doesn't happen until the unit/building is produced at end of turn.

Overflowing hammers don't go into a unit, but rather go into the production bin waiting to be applied to thing you build next. Whether or not that thing was in the queue on the previous turn is not relevant.

In other words, the game doesn't make you work that hard to get the right thing to happen.