Forest Chopping - A Practical Test

[Paul Saunders]

I used way too many words to explain, hopefully it's clear .

Yes, I misunderstood you initially. I agree that it's not an exploit.

Paul

 

[mother superior]

It doesn't jumps up. However, the population keeps growing because you're building the settler, not the warrior.

This could be misleading read in isolation: Population actualy grows because you are building a warrior instead of a settler, then changing across to make use of the chop..

 

[Paul Saunders]

It strikes me as poor form to reply to your own thread like 6 times in a row.

I was replying to various comments. Wouldn't it be poorer form not to reply?

Sorry, but I couldn't make it all the way through your write-up. Honestly, if you can't beat prince handily and can't speak about game mechanics objectively, I'm not sure how qualified you are to speak on the subject. 3 workers to 6 cities is not enough for *any* strategy.

You don't have to be a good player to understand the game mechanics. Mechanics and strategy are completely different things. And what wasn't objective exactly?

Clearly you didn't read my write-up. I didn't build 6 cities. I only built 4. The 3 workers were used for the first 2 cities to establish the second 2. I stopped at that point, but had I continued more workers would have been the next priority.

Like most things in the game, chopping is a situational strategy,

It probably wasn't the best map for it then.

Expansion is a high priority in the early game, and by spending worker turns to get resources out of tiles you're not working, you accelerate most efficiently, provided you can get the worker out. Remember that short term gains *are* long term gains if they improve your expansion.

I agree, but on the other hand, I've tended to run into maintenance problems by expanding too fast in many games, and that's without chopping. Expansion can be a bad thing if you don't build up a sufficient financial infrastructure to support it.

4 forests is way too many for a capital. Even if your capital doesn't have a single hill, 2 is more than enough. Just clearcut the area and cottage-spam; your capital can be a moneymaker rather than a production center. Send out your choped settlers to find hils, or better yet, other forests to chop.

Ultimately yes, I probably would have chopped them all, I was simply keeping them for the short term. I chose to keep two plains forests with silk for the 2 shield bonus, ultimately they'd be cut for the silk anyway. I also chose to keep two others, strategically placed in the hope that they'd spawn more forests (which was something I specifically wanted to test), and it turned out that each of them did sprout another forest (although as someone else pointed out, this may have been just luck).

Chopping all 4 of your cities is at heart a gambit, and there generally is a smart time to stop agressive chopping/worker building, but that doesn't make the gambit a bad option.

Quite. For my test though, I was just trying to get a core of 4 cities up and running as quickly as possible, to see how much faster I could do it than without chopping. I didn't need to continue chopping once I'd done that. In retrospect I could probably have done it faster if I'd built 2 or 3workers to start with. Had I wanted to establish more early cities I could have continued the chopping, but I'd be wary of running into maintenance problems, then. I'd prefer to build up the core cities more first.

Paul

 

[Paul Saunders]

This could be misleading read in isolation: Population actualy grows because you are building a warrior instead of a settler, then changing across to make use of the chop..

Yes, sorry about that. I expected the post to immediately follow, but it turned up on the next page instead.

I understand what he meant now thanks.

Paul

 

[FratBoy]

The best test I can think of to compare the chopping and the tree-hugging strategy are to simply go all-out chopping during one game, and compare it to one of your standard methods. For the chopping game build more workers, and save no trees. I always chop down every single little tree as fast as I can, with the only exception being that I save 5 trees (if I have marble) to be able to chop the Great Library once I get the tech for it. Other than that they all go. All in the fat X, outside city radius, hell I even chop outside my own borders. You need to learn to embrace the chop. Chopping is good for you

 

[Paul Saunders]

You can't be an efficient chopper unless you know how much your stuff costs. A settler costs 100 hammers, not 120.

They cost 120 in this particular game

Sorry, I must have been braindead when I wrote that! I haven't been getting much sleep lately (I wonder why that might be?) and it was late in the day.

I was probably confusing it by doubling the worker cost after reading someone else writing about 1 chop being equal to a worker and 2 chops for a settler.

Paul

 

[joasoze]

On higher difficulty levels I feel that chopping out fighters for early aggression is almost mandatory for future survival.

 

[Mathemagician13]

Perhaps contrary to the intent of the article, I found it useful. I tried choppping a few times, but was doing it much in the style of the original poster here. I too, was unimpressed. Well, that's not wholly true, I was floored at first, but it was actually compensating for my poor ability at the game (still just play noble), and so I thought I was doing better than I actually was. When I moved away from chopping, I started to have a harder time, but my game improved drastically.

Anyway, having the harsh review by more experienced choppers (players? ), allows me to see where I should improve my chopping game. Thanks!

 

[Zombie69]

I think this "article" is more of a rather long "question" or "cry for help" and should be moved to the strategy & tactics forum.

 

[Paul Saunders]

The best test I can think of to compare the chopping and the tree-hugging strategy are to simply go all-out chopping during one game, and compare it to one of your standard methods.

I suppose that means I'll have to play it again then...

Paul

 

[Paul Saunders]

Perhaps contrary to the intent of the article, I found it useful. I tried choppping a few times, but was doing it much in the style of the original poster here.

Anyway, having the harsh review by more experienced choppers (players? ), allows me to see where I should improve my chopping game. Thanks!

Not really contrary, I agree with you. I wasn't trying to say "this is the correct way to chop", I was saying "this is my first attempt at chopping, this is how I did it, and this is what happened".

I wanted to hear comments on it, and although harsh, they've shown me where I was going wrong and highlighted some of the finer points of chopping. So I've learned from this, which is a good thing.

Paul

 

[Paul Saunders]

I think this "article" is more of a rather long "question" or "cry for help" and should be moved to the strategy & tactics forum.

Probably. Maybe this wasn't the best place to post it.

Paul

 

[dgl_thrawn]

Have you tried the settler swap trick?

Build a warrior for 3 turns and switch to settler on the 4th turn when the chop comes in. This gives you growth on 75% of your turns.

You can even get growth on 100% if you swap to a settler and back on the same turn.

Being a relative newbie to this, I thought I'd try it. Is there a particular way to go about this? I tried adding the settler to the build queue and then stopping the warrior (both before and after in the build queue), and stopping the warrior followed by starting the settler. Any which way I try it, I can only get the Settler to build from scratch. I'm running v1.52. Has this been stopped by this patch?

dgl_thrawn

 

[Zombie69]

The settler builds from scratch. The first chop gets applied to the settler. He now has 30 hammers done. Switch back to the warrior. When the next chop is ready, switch back to the settler and he'll go from 30 to 60 hammers done. Switch back. Rinse and repeat. Whether those units are in the build queue or not makes no difference.

 

[dgl_thrawn]

Ah. I wasn't going about it the right way. Thanks for putting me straight.

 

[Moonsinger]

The settler builds from scratch. The first chop gets applied to the settler. He now has 30 hammers done. Switch back to the warrior. When the next chop is ready, switch back to the settler and he'll go from 30 to 60 hammers done. Switch back. Rinse and repeat. Whether those units are in the build queue or not makes no difference.

How do you switch the build order of the items in the queue? What sequence of keystrokes or mouse click do I have to do in order to switch the order? This is what I know how to do so far:

Shift+Click = add item to the end of the queue
Ctrl+Click = add item to the beginning of the queue
Click only = not sure, sometimes, it changes the item on the queue; some other time, it adds item to the queue.

How do I swap the order of those items that already been inside the queue? Thanks in advance for answering my question!

 

[DaviddesJ]

How do I swap the order of those items that already been inside the queue?

You can just click on any item in the queue to remove it from the queue. And then click (or shift-click) on the item in the build menu, to put it back at the front (or end) of the queue.

 

[Zombie69]

If you want it at the start, you don't even need to remove it first. Just click on the item in the build menu and this will put it on top.

 

[michael4000]

Thanks to the OP for sharing his experiment and kicking off a very interesting discussion.

This forum would lose most of its value for most of its users if only elite players were "qualified" to throw their ideas in the ring.

 

[ionimplant]

i agree with michael. Paul did a good job in sharing his experience and replying to all these posts. i think once shifting-to-settler/worker-one-turn-before-finishing-chop becomes an intuitive playing, there'll be less beginner's fun of playing civ4.