Worker Chop - the (preliminary) Guide

EridanMan

Chieftain
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Nov 1, 2005
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ok - I'm a huge worker-chop fan, in now every game I've played- the worker-chop strategy has given me an enormous edge early-in-game that I've capitalized into a dominating (and almost not-fun) game situation.

I really need to stop playing noble... its far too easy.

But yeah - this strategy has worked consistantly, reliably, and it does make for a very fun early game - so I figued I'd share it and see what you guys think. I know there has been a lot of 'worker-chop' discussions, but I'd like to think of this as a preliminary 'guide' to making it work for you, and work-well.

Anyways, like anything- worker-chop needs to be played smart to be effective- a 'do-this-no-matter-what' strategy in Civ-IV is a recipe for failure... but, do not underestimate the capabilities of forests to bolster an early empire- and to really take full advantage of it - you don't even need to clear-cut your entire empire- a few well placed chopes can be worth their weight in gold in terms of putting you ahead during the most critical early-game stages.

The rule of thumb is simple- early in the game, a forest is worth-
2 warriors - 5 turns to completion
1 worker - 5 turns to completion
1 archer - 5 turns to completion
1/2 settler - 10 turns to completion

In my last game, I chopped exactly 5 forests around my capital (well, 3 that actually surrounded it, and 2 that were outside its radius)... I used those forests to create-

4 warriors
1 archer
1 settler

The warriors/archer were used to mount an extremely early offensive against the aztek's, who had a commanding early-game position next to 3 sea food resources... being able to come 35 turns into the game (20 for the first worker, 10 for the warriors, one for the archer) with such and overwhealming force garanteed a capture of his city (and his position). Another settler allowed me to to have 3 potent cities while my opponents still all only had one. 3 forest chops each in new two cities gave me two 2warrior/settler groups that I was able to use to set my boundaries early and block in my oppenents... then using all 3 to turn out chariots gave me overwhelming force to easily seize and capture a few japanese cities that were 'in my way' and estabilish myself as the sole controller of half of the continent (2 continent game). once my position was secure, owning 1/4 of the available productive land-mass in a 7 civ game made the rest of the game downright trivial in terms of building up normally and establishing a commanding tech advantage (realize, once you're done chopping, you have workers out earlier than most of your opponents- so you can get those hamlets started sooner (and get their commanding trade after 100 turns).

I think, total, I cut ~60% of the 40 or so forests in my starting area, leaving me plenty for health/lumbermills later in the game.

Now, granted - in this situation I got lucky - I started next to horses, so chariots were immediately available - and the Aztec's were close enough that I was able to basically get a 'free city' (and knocked out opponent) early in the game... But either way, the strategy stands- 45 shields early in the game can be a huge boost if used wisely.

The second part of the chop-strategy comes down simply to 'what to chop'... My rules of thumb are -

Hills first- A hill with a lumbermill and a hill with a mine produce identical production, minus the health benefit - but mines are available several eons earlier - meaning you can harvest that production MUCH sooner... So at least in my cradle, I care more about getting access to those sheilds a few hundred turns sooner than I do that extra half point of health. Not only does chopping a hills/forest give you the 45 sheild bonus initially, but you get the extra production per turn for hundreds of turns until lumber-mills come about... I'll take all that extra production over a half point of health any day.

Second- I chop river-side forests... the reason for this is simple - river-side tiles are just more flexible, between farms (early in the game), watermills (later) - you can just do more to wramp them up than you can other plains/grassland squares until very late (biology).

Between hills and river-forests, I usually have plenty to keep me going. obviously forests that are outside of where I believe me city ranges are good targets as well - keeping in mind where you eventually will be placing cities as to not 'rob peter to pay paul' so to speak.

Now - I've given you this one game situation- but there are other commanding situations where a few well-placed chops can be a serious boost-

A - new cities... just built a road to a new city? have your worker take 4 turns and chop nearby - those shields can used to A- either create a strong defensive unit (or two warriors) if your living dangerously and created the city undefended or B- Create another worker and get started improving that city IMMEDIATELY, freeing up your other worker to go back and keep improving your capital/whatever... generally I shoot for a worker first, and then if the city needs more shields (for expanded defence, EG) I use the cities new worker to chop a second time... 1-2 chops=30 turns saved getting a worker/defensive unit to the city... worth the 1 health point imho)

B- Wonders - need a wonder fast? Worker chops are worth _90_ shields if your wonder production is already boosted from stone/marble access... that's a lot of shields, and makes for a very quick wonder. Use wisely though - this is a very easy way to end up clear-cutting your starting territory.

Now - again, in all of this - don't over-chop... That health IS worthwhile, and a lumber-milled Forest on a plains/grasslands tile will never quite be as well rounded as anything else (grassland/lumbermill's are especially nice - those 2 food for self-sufficiancy are key.. plains/lumbermill's are only somewhat useful, 1 food won't help the cities population nearly as much). Plan your chops carefully - and always work with a specific goal (military/domestic) in mind.

Oh - and don't bother chopping after the city can naturally build as fast as the chopping can...

So there - so far this strategy has made every noble game I've played an obscene cake-walk past 0 AD... The ability to put yourself in a commanding game position while your opponents are are all just founding their second city lets you A- dominate the portions of the map you need to and B- gives you an industrial base to overwhealm any early opponent with sheer numbers, even before you have a technology advantage.

Use it wisely, grasshopper;)
 
Ok, I forgot one important section - Worker Chop - the HOWTO-

The worker chop strategy is simple... the first turn of your game, set your starting city to produce a worker, it should take ~23 turns. You first tech - start researching bronze-working immediately. You should earn bronze-working right around the same time the worker completes... pick your target forests, and go from there.

I generally target for hunting or mining next (depending on starting techs)... Again - pay attention to your situation - do you need fishing? Animal Husbandry? Don't forget to get wheel ASAP - you'll find yourself with multiple cities sooner than you imagined - the ability to build a road network to them will help a great deal in terms of shuffling early units around (and sharing resources between them).

The only fixed rules of the worker chop strategy are the first turn - Worker and Bronze working - after that- its up to you utilizing those initial sheilds/research in the way to best capitalize on your situation.

Note- this assumes you start with Mining (I, as the russians, usually do). if you don't, there's an extra 10 turn step in there to get mining. what you do with that 10 turns is of course up to you, and depends on your starting situation- start with agriculture and have a good food resource near you? build the worker anyways and get that farm up ASAP - no good resource to utilize a worker until bronze working comes around? Build a warrior/scout first to help you defend/plan your next move... again - be adaptable... but get that worker/bronze working ASAP and move on from there.
 
Tx for the post, I'm checking out all the guides I can find and giving them a try. I'll get off settler one of these days :)
 
one addition - on hills, if you want to chop forests and build mine NEVER order workers to muild mine, instead order to chop, then build mine, or you'll get chopped forests only when worker will complete mine construction. Simply that means workers would complere chopping and mine building at the same time.
 
Phyr_Negator said:
one addition - on hills, if you want to chop forests and build mine NEVER order workers to muild mine, instead order to chop, then build mine, or you'll get chopped forests only when worker will complete mine construction. Simply that means workers would complere chopping and mine building at the same time.

Very good point -
Not just for hills, but for everything- always chop first, than build the improvement - you'll get the sheild bonus that many turns sooner.

sure we're only talking a turn or two - but if your goal is to maximize your early game advantage, every single turn counts.
 
at the beginning of the game it is fatal to waste turns so that little tricks help a LOT, especially when Stonehenge race started-you got SH first=>big chance of obtaining first GP in the game=> you can imagine what happen). Chopping can help a lot cuz now you can buy wonders - additional shields almost every time make wonder close to that point where you can buy it.
 
I see you number of turns are quite a bit off from my experience. I guess you are playing epic?

Also I wonder how well you can do with chops on higher levels. Doing a game on Prince and taken a definitive lead with chops.
 
Sometimes you don't want to chop before putting the improvement down. That's when the city needs to work that forest tile. Tiles become weaker when the forest is gone until they get a new improvement on them.
 
Great summary !

Chopping is in 100% of my games in the early stages now as it is just so powerful and any gains you make really launch you forward ahead of opponents and stay with you for 100's of turns.

In one Noble game on a small map, one island, I was in the middle surrounded by AI. I chopped a settler and built 2nd city next to iron (very lucky starting position !). Chopped 6 swordsman soon as and then went on rampage. Killed nearest AI taking 3 cities, then razed two other capitals while taking about another 4 cities. Never built another settler and the game was over really in 100 turns or so.

Could forest chopping be too powerful ? I need to see what happens at higher difficulty now though :)
 
I just wanted to say that I tried the worker/chop/settler strategy for the first time and LOVED it. I was able to chop a forest here or there and still have 3 forests near my capital for health/future forest growth for late game use.

Also the fact that you can chop a far away forest and get those bonus hammers for speeding up wonders is insanely helpful, I encourage everyone who hasn't tried it yet to give it a go!
 
I really think it is almost too powerful... Maybe if they restricted it to only chops within you city radius or within your cultural borders, but you can chop outside of your borders too and get the hammers! If you have any trees near your starting loc you are insane not to chop. You can still usually get to a judaism, even with researching Bronze Working first.

Edit:

I should note that in my latest game (Prince) I started in a city with 5 forest and only 1 hill. I elected not to chop inside the city radius because I was so production poor. I probably did make a mistake though by not chopping outside of my city radius to the northwest where there was a large forest and no good spot for a city. I think I might start over on it tonight...
 
I've definitely used chopping to enhance production, particularly early, but I haven't quite gone to this extreme. I'll try it out even though it seems somewhat exploitive (seems silly to be able to crank out units due to chopping down trees - I hope it gets changed).
 
So, what is the deal here? Chop down a forest? Doesnt that just give you some gold for your treasury???

Im confused :sad:
 
Malodium said:
So, what is the deal here? Chop down a forest? Doesnt that just give you some gold for your treasury???

Im confused :sad:


Chopping forrests gives you production(hammers, AKA shields).
 
OMG, I didn't know you could get hammers from OUTSIDE your city radius :mad:
 
Just an update-

Yesterday I ate a nice fat slice of humble pie by trying to take on Monarch... It seems at that level, using forests to bolster your production isn't even an option - if you want to have any hope of keeping up with the jones's it is the only way (and even turning guys out as fast as I possibly could, I still could barely keep in the game...) I've come to the conclusion that in Monarch, all of your opponents automatically start with a worker and archer tech - at least, every civ I came across, even two civ's that were less than 10 tiles away, the second I got to them they already had workers improving their terrain with archers defending.

My normal noble 8-Warrior rush to conquer the nearby persians met with sad, sad failure.

So yeah - more and more I'm considering chop-rushing not only a an 'edge' strategy, but absolutely essential for competitive play in the higher levels.

Yesterday I also experimented around a bit with letting the city grow one level before starting my worker... I found that this was a viable strategy _ONLY_ if A- my city started next too a floodplain or food resource or B- I don't start with mining (and have an extra 10 turns to kill anyways)... but the price on my total game is pretty catastrophic.

Starting with Mining and building a worker straight off, I (almost always) get my first settler in 23 turns, and bronze-working in 26 (leaving me with 3 turns of down-time for my worker (and innefficiancy that bugged me), and I usually used to move my worker out of the city radius to less-detrimental chop zones. This would allow me to start my first chop at turn 26.

Now same situation (starting with mining), if I found myself both near ahilled plains (3P) and a good food resource (3F), I could set my production to warrior for 11 turns while the city grew, then the second It grew, I set both the production to Worker, which with the additional production gave me 18 turns to a worker... unfortunately, even in this situation, no additional trade was available (hilled plains and corn not near a river), so I didn't speed my research, meaning it was 26 turns to bronze working, and 29 turns into the game I finally had my worker- but I still had too wait one turn to move my worker out to the nearby forest, meaning I couldn't start the chop until turn 30 - a full 4 turns later. Now - I did have 11 shields saved up at that point... but lacking any other tech, they were only ready for a warrior - at it wasn't enough to get me much of an advantage production-wise...

Now, the only advantage I had at this point was that I could set both population of the city to work plains-hills, giving me 7 total city production (where usually I would only have 3-4)... over a 4 turn chop, that was 12 extra production per chop - enough for oen full extra warrior every few chops... A definitive production advantage, but was it really worth waiting the extra 4 turns to get out? (I'm not sure myself) - especially since the situation necessary to get it (both a food resource and two hilled plains immediately in the city boundary) is such a lucky start to begin with?

Now - without mining, the math works a bit different:

mining adds about 10 turns until chop becomes available... a worker-rush strategy leads to worker at turn 23, but no bronze working until turn 36... now- this is viable if, say - your civ starts with agriculture, or you have good resources to mine nearby - it gives you 13 turns in which to impove your city after you complete the first worker - which can be huge for getting the food/production up (those 4 prod or 4 food squares are huge early in the game)... But even then, you're not starting 'hardcore' production until turn 36, a full 10 turns (or two chops) after you might have if you'd started with mining - two chops means that a mining-start civ already has a settler and is on their way to two warriors to defend it (or they have two warriors and a worker, or two more workers)... I.E, there's no denying that you're playing to catch up at that point... but its still viable.

Still more wrenches get thrown in if, say- you start with fishing, but no mining and there is a sea food resource nearby... The one time I had this happen, I build a fishing boat until pop-2 (turn 11), built my worker, and was then able to complete the fishing boat and get a free warrior out of the deal, all by turn 40... not shabby at all, but then think, if you'd had mining to begin with, you could have started chopping at turn 26, and almost have completed 3 chops by turn 40 - giving you the fishing boat, and any combination warriors/workers/settlers you want...

My conclusions in all of this are two-fold.

A- If you start with mining, waiting for the city to grow before fielding your second worker _WILL_ incur you a penalty- the extent of that penalty depends on the situation (most notably, if you have both 3F and 3P squares in your initial radius its only 5 turns or one chop)

B- If you don't start with mining, expect a 10 Turn down-time and there really isn't a hell of a lot you can do about it (exept pray for a tech goody)... Use that time to either save of sheilds for later, grow your lead city, or improve good resources near you- the choice is yours (and depends on your situation)- but understand that you will be 10 Turns behind a mining-start in terms of total ability to crank out the expensive, civ-growing units.

Now, once you start chopping, I have discovered an initial 'chop pattern that I really like for a boosted start-

AFTER YOUR FIRST WORKER:
2. worker (choprushed) 5 turns (for a total of 2)
3. warrior (choprushed)
4. warrior ^
5. warrior (choprushed) 7 turns
6. warrior ^
7. settler (choprushed x2) 5 turns
8. settler (choprushed x2) 5 turns

This is a fairly expensive start (forest-wise) but it allows you to field 2 full defended settlers in only 22 turns (after the first chop), and gives you the workers necessary to follow/road to them and chop-start their production as well. You can save one forest by not creating the second worker, but then it will take you 35 turns to get this same combo out, AND you can only choose to improve one of them at a time... I've found the extra worker is worth the forest.

But then again, it only works if you have seven forests you can sacrifice from your capital without crippling it for the game...

One thing I also want to try tonight is using the above strategy, but only create 3 warriors, letting the spare sheilds roll over to the first settler, and (hopefully) carry down to the second settler, so you can get it with only 1 chop plus wait a few turns... That would give you the same base effect with one fewer chop...

But Unfortunately, I have real work to do before I can check that out... so on that note;)
 
Mujadaddy said:
OMG, I didn't know you could get hammers from OUTSIDE your city radius :mad:


Not just outside your city radius... OUTSIDE YOUR CULTURAL BORDERS!

Send a worker off into the wilderness with an archer and chop chop chop...
 
The extent of the 'playbalancing' I believe Forest chopping needs is that the penalties for distance should be higher...

say - 45 for the ring that immediately surrounds the city, -10 for each tile distant... So chopping a forest one outside the city's cross would be worth 25 production, etc.

Although, as an added 'tweak', I think that the distance penalty should be nulliffied if a road connects the given forest to the destination city... I.E, if you want to harvest a road outside your culture boundaries, you have to build a road to it first, or suffer the penalty.
 
I know science beakers carry over in the case of overproduction, but do hammers carry over into the next item you choose to make? I've never taken the time to check, and have done some pretty clunky build orders to be sure I didn't waste most of the chop at times.
 
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