Using CivAssistII I have discovered an awful lot of waste in my approach to production. Trouble is, I'm not sure what to do about it
I keep getting a warning that my capital, say, is about to overrun production by 87% in producing a settler. It turns out to mean 7 shields are going to be wasted. What I am not sure of is what to do about this. I want the settler and I don't see any better squares to devote to production. Should I be calculating the number of shields I need before I develop tiles...
In a word, yes -- see below.
In this case, my city is adjacent to a lake and also adjacent to two tiles with cows each producing, when developed (road and irrigation) two shields, three food and one gold. This is under despotism. Nearby I have a hill with gold which produces 1 food 2 shields and I dunno 5(?) gold when roaded and mined.
Do you know how to set up a settler-pump, because that sounds like an awesome spot for one -- 2 Cows (= bonus shields
and bonus food),
and access to freshwater (=no 'Duct needed for growth to Pop7).
First you build (and fill) a Granary, then you need to juggle that town's worked tiles so as to produce 30s and 20f (i.e. the cost of a Settler) over (ideally) 4T, as the city grows by 2 pop-points -- either from Pop4 to Pop6, or from Pop5 to Pop7. The city then drops back down to its starting Pop, ready to start the cycle again. This is not as complicated as it sounds. Assuming that all worked tiles around your city are producing at least 2FPT (NB especially under Despot: irrigate Plains, mine Grass), since you already get +2FPT from your city tile, you only need another +3FPT to get the magic +5FPT -- and that's where the food bonuses come in.
City growth is calculated before city production on the IBT, so you also need to tell your City-Governor to 'Emphasise production' (but not 'Manage moods'). This way, your new civizen is temporarily assigned to a shield-rich square (e.g. a forest or mined hill), and then puts those 2s (under Despot) straight into the production box, so you can actually get a few 'free' shields on each city-growth IBT (if you need them, e.g. for a food-rich but shield-poor city). Depending on what tiles you have available, you can then either leave the new civizen where they are, or reassign the civizens after growth, for the magic numbers. An 'ideal' pump will need little to no micromanagement, and will run something like this, starting at Pop4 (or Pop5, if your city has freshwater access or an Aqueduct):
- Turn 1: +5Fpt, 6-7Spt
- Turn 2: +5Fpt, 6-7Spt
- IBT: Growth, new civizen assigned to shield-tile => 14-16s in production box
- Turn 3: +5Fpt, 7-8Spt
- Turn 4: +5Fpt, 7-8Spt
- IBT: Growth, new civizen assigned to shield-tile => Settler completes => city drops back to Pop4 (or Pop5), cycle restarts
...but there are lots of other possibilities, e.g. you can make a 5T-pump (producing an average 5.2SPT + 4 IBT-shields) which takes 3T (e.g. 2T at +3FPT, 1T at +4FPT) to grow from Pop4-5, then 2T from Pop5-6 -- or vice versa. In the Emperor-level SG I'm currently 'helping' with (led by Lanzelot), we used multiple Settler-pump configurations in our (Floodplain-based) capital under Despotism.
This page discusses some of them. We even (briefly) actually managed to set up a 3T pump (although I haven't located the page where Lanzelot described it in detail, there's a reference to it on p.14 or thereabouts), growing from Pop5 to Pop6 in 1T (i.e. +10FPT!) and then reassigning civizens for 5FPT and max. shields over the next 2T, with very little wastage.
EDIT:
Found the place where the 3T Settler-pump is described: p.13, post 241, Handover notes:
Oasenstadt can now build settlers in 3 turns: on the first turn use 4 floodplains for +10fpt to grow to size 6 immediately. Then set it up for +5fpt and 8shields as it is right now. And in the third turn cash-rush an archer so the shield-box has 20s.
i.e. from Pop5, with Granary (needs 10f to fill), in Republic, set production to Archer (20s):
- Turn 1: City + 4iFlood + mOasis = 20f, 3s (Pop5 eats 10f)
- IBT food calc.: 0f+10f => growth to Pop6, new civizen to mHills (1f,3s)
- IBT prod. calc.: 3s+3s (= 6s/20s stored)
- Turn 2: City + 2iFlood, 2mOasis, 1iPlains, 1mHills = 17f, 8s (Pop6 eats 12f)
- IBT food + prod. calc.: 0f+5f, 6s+8s (=14s/20s stored)
- Turn 3: City + 2iFlood, 2mOasis, 1iPlains, 1mHills = 17f, 8s (Pop6 eats 12f)
- Short-rush Archer for 4*(20s - 14s) = 24g; switch to Settler (= 20s/30s stored)
- IBT food calc.: 5f+5f => growth to Pop7, new civizen to Forest (1f,2s)
- IBT prod. calc.: 20s+8s+2s => Settler completes => Pop5
Especially at higher difficulty levels though, you need to ensure that your Settler-pump will stay happy as it grows throughout the cycle -- so military police (2 Warriors are cheapest -- and can be upgraded to Swords later), 1-2 Lux-resources, and/or Luxury-spending may also be needed.