Micromanagement is alive and well in Civ 4!

jar2574 said:
I whip the granery if it's going to be finished shortly after a pop increase. But I don't usually whip the others, because my goal is to completely maximize the number of citizens working in cottages. That maximizes my science centers' output in later turns.
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Note: the granary has been redesigned from previous civs so Slightly Before a pop increase is not much better than Slightly After a population increase.

If the Food box is filling for a pop increase, the earlier in that filling process the Granary is built, the better it is. (the more food will carry over)
 
But as you mentioned, and contrary to what jar2574 said, it's better before and not after. This is because to get back up two levels after whipping, you'll need 4 less food if doing it one level lower. But as you said, the sooner the better.
 
Codeman, i see your point now. But when they release what they're calling "the final patch", and glaring loopholes and bugs that were known a long time ago haven't been corrected in it, we're left with little hope and a lot of frustration.
 
Zombie69 said:
Codeman, i see your point now. But when they release what they're calling "the final patch", and glaring loopholes and bugs that were known a long time ago haven't been corrected in it, we're left with little hope and a lot of frustration.

Most people will just buy the expansion if they care about the improvements, much as people bought PTW and C3C for the improvements in those expansions. You certainly don't have to pay them any more money if you don't want to, but you've spent more than $30 of your time already just in whining about it.
 
I didn't buy the expansions to Civ 3 and i enjoyed that game up until Civ 4 came out. If you release a product and it's flawed, it's your duty to correct it and having another product coming out soon is no excuse. Look at Blizzard, Starcraft came out in 1998 and i wouldn't be surprised to hear that they just released a new patch for it this month. Lots of companies could learn from Blizzard as far as support goes. And since i bought this game, i also bought the right to complain about it as much as i see fit.

Edit : Just for fun, i went out and checked. Patch 1.13f for Starcraft came out April 21 of this year. The changes in version 1.13f? "Fixed several bugs that contributed to game exploits." Remember we're talking about 8 years after the game came out. Last year alone, 7 patches were released for the game! All the patches are provided in two versions : one for the original game and one for the expansion (you only need one of them). Now that's support. Compare that to Civ 4, where only about 6 months after release and with a product still full of giant holes, they've deemed it wasn't worth supporting anymore. This is the last time i buy something from them, you can be sure of that.
 
Zombie69 said:
But as you mentioned, and contrary to what jar2574 said, it's better before and not after. This is because to get back up two levels after whipping, you'll need 4 less food if doing it one level lower. But as you said, the sooner the better.

Does this apply if I'm only whipping one citizen to finish the granery? I could have sworn that whipping shortly prior to a population increase allows you to regrow one pop much more quickly than whipping shortly after a population increase.

As I pointed out ealier, in my science center I hate to sacrifice any population. So when I do whip graneries in those cities it's only for one citizen, and I whip in cases where the granery would be finished after a population increase.

But from now on if I am sacrificing more than one citizen to build a granery, I will take the advice that you and Krikkitone offered, and whip earlier rather than later.
 
Zombie69 said:
And since i bought this game, i also bought the right to complain about it as much as i see fit.

This is the last time i buy something from them, you can be sure of that.

Thank goodness you won't be whining about Civ 5.
 
jar2574 said:
Does this apply if I'm only whipping one citizen to finish the granery? I could have sworn that whipping shortly prior to a population increase allows you to regrow one pop much more quickly than whipping shortly after a population increase.

Suppose you're at size 4, and you whip one citizen, so you shrink to 3, and regrow to 4 next turn. Then you lost one tile of production (the difference between 3 and 4). Now suppose you grow to size 5 first, and you whip one citizen, so you shrink to 4. Then you're still giving up one tile of production. It's the same in both cases.

And, in the former case, you get a "benefit" of +2 food (because it costs 2 food less to grow from 3->4 than 4->5), which offsets the lost tile of production.
 
jar2574 said:
Does this apply if I'm only whipping one citizen to finish the granery? I could have sworn that whipping shortly prior to a population increase allows you to regrow one pop much more quickly than whipping shortly after a population increase.

As I pointed out ealier, in my science center I hate to sacrifice any population. So when I do whip graneries in those cities it's only for one citizen, and I whip in cases where the granery would be finished after a population increase.

But from now on if I am sacrificing more than one citizen to build a granery, I will take the advice that you and Krikkitone offered, and whip earlier rather than later.

If you only sacrifice one pop, then you'll only gain 2 food by doing it before the increase, rather than 4 food. However, in any case, every extra turn you wait also costs you half of the food you're currently making. In the case of the granary, you should always whip the second the option becomes open to do it with 2 pop points. This way, you'll actually operate more tiles, not less.
 
Update :

- Added a tip in the last paragraph of the prechop and pre-improve section regarding prebuilding improvements over forests.

- Added a bit about organized religion in the quick tips section.

- Added a paragraph at the end of the binary science section regarding science percentages at the beginning of the game which minimize lost fractions from the prerequisite tech bonus.

- Moved the sections around to put the most popular ones first and for more consistency between sections (for instance, chopping naturally follows worker movement, and prebuilding units naturally follows prebuilding improvements).
 
Zombie69 said:
However, the game always gives you an amount of hammers that's the smallest multiple of 30 needed to complete the build. This is total hammers, not base hammers. So in the case above, you'll get 60 hammers because 30 wouldn't be enough to complete it.

What about marathon speed where 1 pop hurry results in 90 hammers? Let's say I whip when 1+((90/5)*4)=73 hammers are needed. I have organized religion thus (73*5)/4=91,25 hammers are added from the whip. Now, how many hammers do I receive in total? 90, 120(90+30), or 180(90+90)?
 
I always play on normal speed, so you'll have to test it out yourself at other speeds. Sorry but i can't help you there!

As for your specific question, since the hammers needed are less than what you get from one pop increase, you won't get anymore than that (so you should get 90). Next time, try to whip when more than 90 hammers are needed, and look at how many pop points it says it will cost before you click.
 
There aren't many sweet spots for whipping on Marathon. Your immediate target should be 91-113 hammers remaining for a building with a 25% production bonus. This will get you 120 hammers for the cost of 1 population. A similar sweet spot doesn't happen again until 211-226, when you get 240 hammers for 2 population.

I set up a spreadsheet to calculate optimal times to whip. You can adjust the base hammer output to the speed you normally play. Basically, it's a simple look-up table where you find the hammers left in the project and the production bonus in the city. There's a sample below, and the full spreadsheet is attached. If you need to add more rows, just copy the last row and paste it as many times as needed.

Code:
Left	Receive	0	25	50	75	100	125
26	30	100%	80%	67%	57%	50%	44%
27	30	100%	80%	67%	57%	50%	44%
28	30	100%	80%	67%	57%	50%	44%
29	30	100%	80%	67%	57%	50%	44%
30	30	100%	80%	67%	57%	50%	44%
31	60	100%	160%	133%	114%	100%	89%
32	60	100%	160%	133%	114%	100%	89%
33	60	100%	160%	133%	114%	100%	89%
34	60	100%	160%	133%	114%	100%	89%
35	60	100%	160%	133%	114%	100%	89%
36	60	100%	160%	133%	114%	100%	89%
37	60	100%	160%	133%	114%	100%	89%
38	60	100%	160%	133%	114%	100%	89%
39	60	100%	80%	133%	114%	100%	89%
40	60	100%	80%	133%	114%	100%	89%
41	60	100%	80%	133%	114%	100%	89%
42	60	100%	80%	133%	114%	100%	89%
43	60	100%	80%	133%	114%	100%	89%
44	60	100%	80%	133%	114%	100%	89%
45	60	100%	80%	133%	114%	100%	89%
46	60	100%	80%	133%	114%	100%	89%
47	60	100%	80%	67%	114%	100%	89%

EDIT: I make no guarantees regarding the accuracy of the spreadsheet. I've tested it some, but by no means thoroughly.

EDIT2: Updated the spreadsheet to include hammers granted from the reapplication of the production bonus to the overflow hammers.

EDIT3: Undid most of EDIT2 (it was incorrect), fixed some problems with non-normal speeds.
 

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Sounds like there are relatively exactly as many sweet spots as in normal speed (just multiplying by 3). However, they may span over relatively more numbers in normal speed.

In normal speed, the first sweet spot is between 31 and 37. In marathon, between 91 and 113. It spans over 7 hammers in normal speed and over 23 hammers in marathon. So far they're equivalent.

The second sweet spot in normal is between 72 and 89. In marathon, according to you it's between 211 and 226. It spans over 18 hammers in normal and 16 hammers in marathon. Here normal speed has a huge advantage.

The 3rd sweet spot in normal is theoretically between 96 and 119. It spans over 24 hammers, still a good one.

You may be right that it's easier to do in normal speed. However, whatever the speed, sweet spots do exist and can be aimed for. After a while, you learn to build all your projects to one of the sweet spots, then put them in queue waiting for your next pop rush. It's extremely effective.
 
I also want to point out that the percentages presented in your table seem to assume that you get no bonus after the immediate one during pop rushing. This is false, as any amount that overflows then gets the normal bonus applied to it as well as whatever it has already received. Call it another bug or another exploit.
 
Zombie69 said:
I also want to point out that the percentages presented in your table seem to assume that you get no bonus after the immediate one during pop rushing. This is false, as any amount that overflows then gets the normal bonus applied to it as well as whatever it has already received. Call it another bug or another exploit.

Thanks. I had forgotten about that. I updated the spreadsheet and the sample table to include that bonus.
 
Zombie69 said:
I also want to point out that the percentages presented in your table seem to assume that you get no bonus after the immediate one during pop rushing. This is false, as any amount that overflows then gets the normal bonus applied to it as well as whatever it has already received. Call it another bug or another exploit.


Actually any amount that overflows First has the Bonuses from the last build removed and Then is added in to get the Bonuses form the next build.

So assuming you are building the same type of thing, it has no effective 'extra bonus'
 
I was about to post the same thing, after finding out about it when looking carefully in my current game. Thanks for beating me to it and sorry for misleading!
 
I just did a little more experimenting, verifying the numbers I had for non-normal speeds. Turns out, for the most part, I was way off. Apparently, in 1.61, they fixed the problem where non-normal speeds would still always give hammers from pop-rushing in multiples of 30. Now, they give hammers in the correct multiples for the speed you're playing (20, 30, 44, 90). Well, somewhat correct, the 44 on epic is a little unusual.

Other speeds do still have the production bonus bug that allows you to get more hammers than you're supposed to out of a pop-rush. The main thing that changed is: pop-rushing on epic will always give at least 44 hammers, whereas before, if you pop-rushed something that needed < 30, you'd only get 30. Also, you no longer get a free bonus for pop-rushing something that has 31-44 left. Before, you'd get 60 hammers for your one pop on epic. Now, you get the "expected" 44. So, they fixed some of the bugs, but still left the production bonus one for us to exploit.

I updated my spreadsheet (again...) to reflect this. I also removed the calculation I had recently added that incorrectly applied the production bonus again to the overflow hammers.
 
This thread is a huge piece of nerdism if I've ever seen one- but I like it. :D I little too much emphasis on pop rushing imho but that's just b/c I never use slavery, but I love the part about workers. :)
 
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