Chop/whipp saving using build science or commerce

So you want to get out a settler in one turn to keep that growth thingy going?

Whip a unit that you want and gives you surepluss hammers. Build science so it keeps the surepluss for a turn. Then whip again and keep the surepluss. If they get to angry /low city pop chill for a while and build science, then whip unit out and keep storing that surepluss This way you can pop out units in high food whipping towns and then pop out a settler in a turn or a worker in a turn keeping your growth going. Also you can use this teqnique to save up forest chops for wonders or units etc. Its especially usefull for saving up forrest chops for wonders where you havent connected a resource yet giving you bonus.

the idea of storing overflow is good. I use it too. BUt remember that the next build will use that overflow. The only way to affect the overflow to the settler is to spend a turn building one.
You can do what you described only up to the hammer value of the unit you whip, provided you whip without any hammer invested.

What I mean is you couldn't accumulate enough overflow to build a settler if you don't whip 100+ hammers units without any hammer invested .

I do use this technique (in some way) to maximize overflow going into a wonder = starting to build the wonder before it is available.
Often the best way to do it is whipping a building for which you have a bonus (like a wall with stone), since the overflow is only capped by the base value of the building (though the overflow will be reduced to take into account the bonus).

Example : you want to build the sistin chapel, but you're 12 turns from theology. You're spiritual.
You start a temple.
Next turn you whip it for 2 pop.
Next turns you build science (or gold, if you can), while growing pop as high as possible (1 above happy cap, the happiness penalty will disappear).
As soon as theology is in, you start the sistin chapel. You gave yourself a head start of 20+hammers.
Time to MM for max production with a 1 more pop than before (raised happy cap).
If you want to headstart harder, you will need to invest a few hammers into the temple, then whip a unit before the temple, then whip the temple.

With a lot of MM (and luck to have the right tiles at hand), you can make it this way :
- invest 9 base hammers (= 18 hammers with bonus) into the temple
- invest 4 hammers into the axeman
- whip the axe for 2 pop
(- regrow while building science if needed)
- whip the temple for 2 pop
- regrow while building science
- apply 58 base hammers to sistin chapel.

note 1 : the overflow is adding the hammers you would have gained from tiles on the turn you whipped.
note 2 : I fear it's capped before applying the correction for bonus. So it would be capped at 80 before correction = 40 after for a temple .
note 3 : Also remember that invested hammers start depreciating after 10 turns for a unit, 50 turns for a building, meaning you'd better start investing hammers into a building.

Maybe the best move is to whip more pops for a high cost building for which you have no bonus?
Like a forge when you're not industrious .

There is always a cost to all this : loads of turns invested here + high number of pop lost.
I need some testing, but I'm pretty sure the best way to do it would be to invest hammers in a lot of different buildings (like granary, temple, forge), then whip them with "overflow storage" in between. This way you could apply up to the cost of the highest priced building to the wonder + benefit from the effects of what you whipped.

The only way I can see to accumulate several hammer overflows is to manage the build queue and have several units and/or buildings under construction and partly built at once. Get each of them to the point where one or prefferably 2 pop is needed to complete. Then when you have a wonder you want the hammers to overflow into start building the wonder and after a turn switch in one unit and whip to complete. Build that unit and then switch in the next and so on... At some stage you need to apply the overflow hammers to the wonder or you risk loss of some of the overflow due to the unit not being big enough. Obviously this eats through the city pop at an astonishing rate and adds a huge amount of unhappiness that will take a long time to subside. This only really works in high food and high production cities.

I'm not entirely sure of the exact sequence that needs to be applied but it is certainly possible to use whipping and overflow hammers to speed up the production of a wonder, and it is similar to pre-chopping. It requires a lot of queue management but can be satisfying if you, like me, enjoy micro-management of your cities at key moments.

UncleJJ, I think we were crossposting, but do you know what would happen in my example (would it be 58 hammers overflow into sistin chapel or 40?)

cabert said:

UncleJJ, I think we were crossposting, but do you know what would happen in my example (would it be 58 hammers overflow into sistin chapel or 40?)

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Not so much cross-posting, you are editing your post substantially At least 2 edits already.

I am not entirely sure about how overflow hammers are affected by the production bonusses (+25% forge and +100% spiritual for temples etc.). The overflow hammers are converted back into base hammers (by dividing by the production bonusses) and then applied as base hammers to a future project and use its production bonusses. Sorry it is too complex an example for me to answer and I'm not sure of all the details, only that this is a powerful trick akin to pre-chopping forests. I suggest you set up a test using the worldbuilder; perhaps start a new game and give yourself Theocracy.

UncleJJ said:

Not so much cross-posting, you are editing your post substantially At least 2 edits already.

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I seem to edit every post .
Often just for typos, but also very often to add new things... Like an example or a counterargument to my own argument like above

am not entirely sure about how overflow hammers are affected by the production bonusses (+25% forge and +100% spiritual for temples etc.). The overflow hammers are converted back into base hammers (by dividing by the production bonusses) and then applied as base hammers to a future project and use its production bonusses. Sorry it is too complex an example for me to answer and I'm not sure of all the details, only that this is a powerful trick akin to pre-chopping forests. I suggest you set up a test using the worldbuilder; perhaps start a new game and give yourself Theocracy.

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I'll try a test using ALC 10. With early Great Library as goal .
I'll try a theoric approach based on fact from sisiutil's game then a "live" approach implenting it (need to get home to have cIV + 1 or 2 SGs to play = not right now). More to come later...

Your right about overflowing cant be more than the unit you are whipping. BUT you can a) whip progressivly higher cost units (warrior - axe etc) to keep the overflow going or b) build workers that doesnt cost so many hammers. Its definitivly possible to use this teqnique for getting workers.

I actually was about to post that this wouldnt work for settler normally if you dont do high cost units myself, but i was a bit lazy when i realised it and played a game of civ4 instead.. Just one more turn...

Willburn said:

Your right about overflowing cant be more than the unit you are whipping. BUT you can a) whip progressivly higher cost units (warrior - axe etc) to keep the overflow going or b) build workers that doesnt cost so many hammers. Its definitivly possible to use this teqnique for getting workers.

I actually was about to post that this wouldnt work for settler normally if you dont do high cost units myself, but i was a bit lazy when i realised it and played a game of civ4 instead.. Just one more turn...

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lucky guy, I'd be rather playing too

A little theory, based on ALC 10
Bombay

Same settling date, same spot,
building order monument, granary, library, using prebuilding those buildings, and research inbetween whips.
It takes some 50 turns to prebuild all 3 buildings, whip and grow back, whip and grow back, whip and start Great Library.
You start the Great Library in 360 BC with 80 hammers in the pocket, size 3 city able to work 8 hammers/ turn, 1 unhappiness from the whip going down to 0 after a few turns (just before growth to size 4 in fact), + a lot of Forest available (5) + loads of turns going into cottage growth (89).
There is no hammer deperdition, since it takes only 50 turns total.

In this situation, the Great Library can be whipped for 2 pop in 40 AD.
(theory, probably earlier, i messed up the turn duration, and counted 40 years /turn)

A better planning (avoiding unhappies for instance, by working a little more hammers, or simply by connecting happiness resources) would give the 90 hammers overflow, probably, at the cost of a little less cottage maturing.

I wouldnt ever slave a wonder, i would allways overflow the hammers since the slaving wonder hammers are halved. One of the sgotm teams has a nice discussion where they use a working boat to overflow hammers for wonders.

And if there are forrests avialable i would definitivly chop.

So i tried it with sisiutil's game (save from 2440 BC, same 2nd city placement, but :
- finished hunting then went to priesthood (for oracle and temples!) then to writing, , took metal casting from oracle, alphabet, traded for poly, then literature
- built a few units in capital

I partially built an monument, a granary, a temple, a library, then whipped for monument.
I then noticed a flaw... You can only build science when you have alphabet!
Not a problem, since I was going for alphabet anyway.
But I "lost" the overflow from the monument.
In order to not lose it entirely, I started a foge. It went all the way to be rushable with a single pop, then I whipped the granary for 2 pop, waited a bit (building science at a very slow rate) for the pop to regrow and whipped a temple for 2 pop, waited a bit (building science at a very slow rate) for the pop to regrow , whipped a library for 2 pop, waited a bit (building science at a very slow rate) for the pop to regrow and whipped the forge for 1 pop and applied 84 hammers overflow to the great library.

Interesting results . I have a few thoughts on how to do this as well.

I think that you should build a granary in the city and use it to help growth, not part of hammer generating sequence. It will effectively double your food production and hence double your food-to-hammer conversion rate.

Also you need to be careful when the forge is whipped in as when it is built (as opposed to whipped but held unbuilt in the queue) it will affect the efficiency of future whipping and could throw off your calculations. Obviously finishing the forge before applying the overflow hammers will make them 25% more efficient.

that's what I did (I mean the forge) : applying 84 overflow hammers with +25%... I would have switched to OrgRel too, but I didn't have monotheism...

________, is that you???

Please see the pm zombie

sounds more like an exploit than something really useful...

a little exploit, yes
a lot of MM for a quite small gain.
80 hammers overflow is good, but it's costing a lot in growth.

Drake007 said:

sounds more like an exploit than something really useful...

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I don't see it as an exploit. You are only storing hammers gained in a legitmate way and applying them later. I'd call it an extreme form of micro-management.

UncleJJ said:

I don't see it as an exploit. You are only storing hammers gained in a legitmate way and applying them later. I'd call it an extreme form of micro-management.

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LOL. Obviously, to each his own.

Personally, I consider this type of "queue micromanagement" an exploit. It's similar to the pre-chop trick ("worker micromanagement"), or the "queue micromanagment" trick of stacking multiple military units before a civics switch -- both of which I also consider an exploit.

1) The AI is never going to be able to do them well.
2) They're very "game-y" techniques that are clearly the result of the way the game has been coded, not a result of what the game is meant to simulate.