Hammer overflow questions

[DrakenKin]

I was not able to find a topic that covers this, at least not a topic newer than 2010-2012 so the data must be outdated. (People described it as a bug at a time, so i suspect its working has changed.)

I am one of those people who micro manage hammers when playing on immortal. However i am puzzled by it all the time as what happens in the game doesn't match the math in my head. A few questions :

1) Say you have a 100 hammer city making 50 hammers units. You get 50 overflow each turn, can someone confirm that those 50 hammers are only valid for your next build and will disappear after one turn?

To be clear : Unit 1 gets made, 50 overflow into the next one, unit 2 gets made, the overflow is now 50 or 100?

2) Is there any way or trick to see what is the overflow amount? I can't tell from the interface.

3) Any details on the math behind? Sometimes my city would have 50 production, with 30 overflow (math in my head) yet it will still produce a 100 hammer units in one turn. (Yes I took into account production bonuses.)

I'd really like to understand what is going on with overflow as I am going crazy trying to piece it together.

Thanks

 

[phillipwyllie]

It got fixed in a patch some time ago. You can still benefit form the hammer overflow, but for only 1 turn(as probably designed). Basically any extra hammers are carried over to next item in the queue.
Here's the exploit: it's possible to create hammers out of thin air(for 1 turn as they don't stack). If your base hammers are more than the item you are building and that item has modifiers(a wonder for example or a settler in the capital) it possible to overflow more hammers than you would normally have gotten by building the next item in the queue(say a building). Building a settler before a wonder is one way as you can't starve when building settlers so you can maximize production(when normally you'd be starving your city) for the turn you are building the settler, any overflow will get dumped into the wonder.

 

[Tabarnak]

First of all...are you awared of this?

Hammer Overflow explained by DaveMcW

 

[DrakenKin]

Yes I have read that topic, and it sounds very outdated. At least there is a contradiction between what he says about carrying as much overflow as the building/unit for unlimited turns (cascade effect, minus the decay) you are constructing, and what wyllie is saying about one turn limit.

 

[Acken]

Best way to do this is to try in game.

I've done it and here are my results:
1. First I spend one turn doing research to deplete all overflow. I of course lock tiles and starve to not grow.

Production of city for normal stuff is 152.3
So I make a missile costing 150 and next turn the overflow is 2.3.
I make a 2nd missile, next turn overflow is 4.6
After a 3rd and 4th, overflow is 9.2

Now I make the East India. For wonders, city production is 168.5
So since the East India cost 245 and we have a 9.2 overflow we expect an overflow in 2 turns of:
|245-9.2-168.5*2|=101.2
This is what I get after 2 turns

Now what happens if I take a building being below the Overflow:
I make a Shrine costing 40
So without any shenanigans I should expect an overflow:
|40-101.2-152.3|=213.5
After a turn however the overflow is actually 152.3

Doing the same experiment with the barracks costing 75 gives an overflow of 152.3 again.

Conclusion:
-Overflow cannot go over your production.
-Overflow stacks up from one unit to the next if you can do everything in one turn. With the maximum being your production.
-If you make a unit only with overflow, the result will be an overflow equal to the production of that turn.

You can use bonus production (in that case wonder bonus) and the overflow created with the bonus will be given to the next construction whatever it is.

 

[Tabarnak]

In other words nothing has changed.

 

[DrakenKin]

Thanks for testing!

So in conclusion that old post from dave is still accurate?

I ask because as far as i can see, you tested the production limit but not the building limit. (as in even if your prod is 150, if you are making a 300 hammer building overflow can go up to that 300 value for the next thing you build.)

 

[Acken]

Thanks for testing!

So in conclusion that old post from dave is still accurate?

I ask because as far as i can see, you tested the production limit but not the building limit. (as in even if your prod is 150, if you are making a 300 hammer building overflow can go up to that 300 value for the next thing you build.)

Not sure I understand what you're asking but:

No, overflow just cannot get over the production of your previous turn. It's impossible to get an overflow of 300 if you production is 150.

If at turn 1 your production is X then the maximum overflow you can get starting at turn 2 is X.

This is for a simple reason:
When you have an overflow of say F1 at the start of your turn and then chose to produce something costing C so that C < F1, then the next turn your overflow is P the production of previous turn F2 = P.

In other words:
F1 is overflow at turn 1
F2 is overflow at turn 2
P is production (at the start of turn 2)
C is cost
Formula is: F2 = |max(0,C-F1) - P|

Edit: Oh I see what you mean from Dave post sorry. brb

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Ugh, Civ5 overflow is a total mess that somehow also allows you to stack up multipliers from previous builds. At least Civ4 was kind enough to display the overflow from the previous build in the mouse-over.

 

[DrakenKin]

I did some testing this morning. It seems the "one turn overflow" rule is wrong, there is no 1 turn limit.

If you make 81 hammer bombers on a 50 hammer city, you take 2 turns per bomber. If you keep making them, you will eventually make a bomber in 1 turn. Meaning those extra 9 hammer have been overflowing and piling up for multiple turns until they surpassed 31, and enabled you to make a bomber in one turn.

So it seems the only rule is that you can keep overflowing up to your per turn production, for unlimited time.

The only question that remains is if what you are building next has more hammer need than your production per turn, would it store more overflow. If this is not clear read dave's post again especially the bit about overflow domino effect when buildings things that are increasingly more expensive in hammers, pas the production per turn.

 

[Acken]

That's what I've already demonstrated

For the domino effect when you pile on prebuilt buildings here is my testing:
1.Deplete overflow
2.Start missile, at 146.9 production (missile cost 150) End turn
3.Start hotel, at 146.9 porduction x2 (cost 300) end turn x2
4.Put missile back first followed by hotel and Eiffel Tower spend 2 turns.

Result:
Eiffel Tower starts at 284 from overflow.

 

[DrakenKin]

Ahhh, so everything dave said still holds true. Good to know!

Thanks for testing.

 

[phillipwyllie]

I did some testing this morning. It seems the "one turn overflow" rule is wrong, there is no 1 turn limit....

Hammer overflow doesn't stack. You can test this by building settlers in your capital after unlocking 'Collective rule'. They fixed it by making limits on how much overflow you are allowed, which in the post suggested is your hammer output or the cost of the next item(whatever is lower).
I'll try a game where I unlock 'Collective rule' and when my base hammers are more than the cost of a settler I'll post the results.

 

[Erneiz Hyde]

While you're at it, please re-check about the Piety opener trick someone posted sometime ago. I'd like to know if it actually works or why it doesn't work.

 

[Acken]

Hammer overflow doesn't stack. You can test this by building settlers in your capital after unlocking 'Collective rule'. They fixed it by making limits on how much overflow you are allowed, which in the post suggested is your hammer output or the cost of the next item(whatever is lower).
I'll try a game where I unlock 'Collective rule' and when my base hammers are more than the cost of a settler I'll post the results.

It does stack, up to a limit.

While you're at it, please re-check about the Piety opener trick someone posted sometime ago. I'd like to know if it actually works or why it doesn't work.

Could you explain or link to it ?

 

[Erneiz Hyde]

The gist was: Piety opener doesn't cut cost by half, it doubles your production when building shrines/temples. So you keep building and reselling and direct the overflow to a wonder or anything you want, as long as it has a high enough hammer cost so the overflow doesn't go to waste.

The theory goes like this, suppose you have 100 hammers:
Turn 1 > Sell shrine (if exists), build shrine, hammers become 200
Turn 2 > Build wonder. 160 overflow + your normal production that turn (assume we didn't take tradition)

Thus you should end up with 60 extra hammers than if you just end turn twice (260 vs 200). Do the cycle again and you should have 520 vs 400, a whole turn's worth of extra hammers. Or so the theory goes.

 

[Acken]

Should work from my understanding of overflow. Not sure when you'd really benefit from it though

 

[Uzael36]

This may sound noobish, but I've wondered if there is any overflow on growth after a city increases in size.

 

[Acken]

Yes you start with extra overflow Apples after growth.