Alright to Starve your City, kill your population just to Rush a Great Person?

[wc3promet]

Alright to Starve your City, kill your population just to Rush a Great Person?

It seems to be as evil as Slavery, only that it produces far better results. It's only workable on Large Cities.

Warning: This will inevitably kill off 1 pop per turn until you are left with only 1 pop.

[Toshiro126]

I didn't even know you could rush a Great Person. I thought rushing production was only for buildings and units.

[kurdi]

I did that once in order to produce a great artist that I badly needed before year 2050 in order to put my third cultural city over the 50,000 culture points mark. The city had a population of 14 or so and by the time the great artist finally popped out it was down to 6.

Although it did work and I won the game, it really wasn't very satisfying. I mean, cities that are being starved to death reasonably do not churn out a Shakespeare or a Raphael in the real world. Creating armies through slavery makes much more sense than that, imho, because its factually plausible.

[Toshiro126]

Interesting. I guess the only time I would do it then is in Kurdi's situation, when you are going for a win. Other than that I don't think it is something I would do.....

[petey]

If you're over your happiness/health cap, then those extra citizens aren't doing anything anyways, so if you can get a productive specialist to help generate GP points, then it's very much worth it.

[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by kurdi

I mean, cities that are being starved to death reasonably do not churn out a Shakespeare or a Raphael in the real world.

Aww, come on. It's completely plausible for great poets or painters describing pain, torment and suffering to spawn out of a place like that. They'd probably be the rich kids that didn't do the actual starving though.

[DementedAvenger]

Since when have great poets been rich?

[Tristram]

Originally Posted by kurdi

I mean, cities that are being starved to death reasonably do not churn out a Shakespeare or a Raphael in the real world.

But plague infected cities do sometimes generate Isaac Newtons...

[Lone Soldier]

Originally Posted by kurdi
I mean, cities that are being starved to death reasonably do not churn out a Shakespeare or a Raphael in the real world.


Isn't that where the term 'starving artist' came from?

[walkerjks]

Starve away. Just don't starve them off too quickly (unless you need the great person super fast). Putting a city with a granary at -1 food, the extra specialists will last a lot longer than simply sticking the same city at -7 food. It's not worth 3 more specialists since you will lose the bonus specialists (and the population) very quickly.

[Smirk]

Its not really starving until your granary is empty its just a negative food supply.

[MikeH]

Originally Posted by DementedAvenger

Since when have great poets been rich?

They have to be, they make no money from their poetry, so the income from owning half of Scotland keeps them going .

[Carewolf]

Starving cities are generally something to consider in the end-game. I noticed it the other day in a game where I was getting behind in Space Victory (had focused on domination but the conquest grinded to a halt). I switched necessary farm-land and windmills to workshops and mines, and moved people working ocean to being engineers. Sure the city would drop a point every 10 turns, but I could produce a spaceship-part every 5 turns.

[jeremiahrounds]

good idea. hmm

[larsonwd]

North Korea starved its cities to complete the Mahattan project (build nukes) in real life....That wouldn't work in a democratic country.

Perhaps if you use representation or universal suffrage, you couldn't assign specialists if the city is starving....just a thought...