Hammer Overflow

[vale]

I think I figured it out. "Hammers per Turn" never includes Hammers from Whipping or Chopping. I think that's what is meant by the original definition. Can someone confirm?

This is correct. Whip and chop hammers are not part of any "per turn" values.

 

[Rhaeghar]

Is there some way to move something back to the top of the list without losing the production on what you've switched to in the mean time? To better qualify what I'm asking in the example you build something until there's one turn left on it to finish being built and then you temporarily switch to something else (ctrl+click puts it on top of the production queue) and then on the last turn of the chops you switch back to what you were building that only has one turn left. The only way I know of to get back to what you were building is to right click or get rid of (and lose the you've spent on what you were building in the mean time). Is there another way to move something back to the top of the queue without losing the you've spent on building something else?

Edit: I have messed around with the game a little bit and figured out that it does keep track of how many you've put into something even if you take it off the production queue for a couple turns; however, it seems as though I am playing a game that does not allow this exploit, I'm playing BTS and tried to get some extra gold this way and even if there was nothing in the production queue it just kept track of how many extra I had earned by chopping down 5 squares of forest until I use them to actually build something.

 

[popejubal]

Is there some way to move something back to the top of the list without losing the production on what you've switched to in the mean time? {snip} Is there another way to move something back to the top of the queue without losing the you've spent on building something else?

If you SHIFT click an item, it throws that item to the end of the queue. If you CTRL click an item, it throws the item into the front of the queue.

For military units, you can add an extra [maceman/archer/whatever] to the [front/back] of the list. The hammers already invested will be put into the first of that unit type in your queue. Just click on the unit in the queue that you don't want to get rid of it and the invested hammers move to the other unit of the same type that you stuck into the queue.

If you delete an item from the build queue, Civ IV will still keep track of how many hammers you had previously invested into that item (wonder, building or unit). That means you can delete that library from the front of the queue and then SHIFT click to add it to the back of the queue without losing hammers. You can even delete the library from your queue entirely and then put it back some turns later and it will keep the hammers that you had previously invested. I don't reccomend this since I tend to forget that I had invested hammers in something and I just let the hammers decay away to nothing because I don't think to put it back in the queue.

Over time, some of those hammers do decay, but you don't lose too much as long as you don't wait an insanely long time.

 

[vale]

Yes the game will not let you hold chop hammer in reserve unless you can build wealth, research or culture. This is why on the turn the chops are finishing (i.e. the turn the hammers are being added to the city) you must swap back to the item you are using to generate overflow gold and whip it.

Decay starts after 10 turns for units and 50 turns for buildings.

 

[Norzin]

ive been following all these hammer and gold threads very closely and have just learned how to use the style and am blown away by how powerful it is! ive more than double my expansion rate while researching alot faster too. thanks to everyone who has contributed to helping other players gain knowledge about it! very good stuff and please keep the info coming! it is some of the best stuff i have found on these forums! thank you.

 

[popejubal]

So, Vale, would you be willing to update the first post in this thread in a few days now that Hammer Overflow has been changed in the latest patch (BtS 3.19)?

 

[vale]

I haven't been able to test it but I've been able to post preliminary changes based on my understanding from the patch notes.

 

[PieceOfMind]

At the moment there are preliminary reports that gold overflow has been removed completely in BTS 3.19. I'm hoping to get some confirmation but based on the change log, such a thing would be a bug.

This is a tad worrying. I await confirmation!

I forget whether I already said it but great work, by the way, vale!

 

[sdirge]

I tried this today in 3.19 either its broken or I did it wrong (a very good possibility)
Steps:

1. Pre-chopped 3 forest tiles
2. Building a granary until it had one turn left
3. Whipped the granary and then finished the chops on the forests

All I ended up with was a granary and two 1 turn axemen. No cash
Any ideas?

Oh yeah, Lurking for 3 years and my first post!

 

[vale]

Yep, the code in 3.19 was implemented poorly and totally removed early gold overflow inadvertantly. I actually have been out of the loop with Civ recently as I am on a trip, but I suspect you will start to see unofficial patches soon that correct this error and switch it to the intended function.

3.19 with no other patches will produce no gold from most of the common situations from what I understand. I still have not actually had a chance to put everything to the test myself though.

 

[DrakenKin]

Ah, damn. I spent a while reading the 3 pages here and understanding the maths, then on the last posts I discover that it is outdated and won't work anymore in recent patches.

I suggest you add a note/warning to the topic title or body saying this technique does not work in 3.19, might save future readers some time until this issue is fixed.

 

[obsolete]

There was another Over Flow article on one of the other civ forums, unfortunately it too is out of date and needs correction.

I don't know what to say. Just another typical case of someone getting a Brainiac idea at Firaxis and totally breaking something that was just fine the way it was in the first place. If only they were so eager to change other things that really needed fixing....

 

[Kirpich]

This hammers-to-gold is nothing but cheat. 3.19 is fine.

 

[r_rolo1]

This hammers-to-gold is nothing but cheat. 3.19 is fine.

You are wrong in both sentences. And it is not just my opinion, it is the one from one of the coders of Civ IV:

Yes, those were the intentions, but we thought we were cleaning up the UP code...

The UP code he is refering to is the 3.17 unofficial patch one. In this aspect , that code made that the excess hammers ( after removing modifiers ) would be converted to gold to wealth ratio. So, "this hammers-to-gold" is not a cheat , is a game feature... that by acident was not working as the developers wanted.

It is definitely a bug, although the effect on game play is minor. Sorry about that.

I don't think I need to comment this one

 

[DrakenKin]

It would be good if someone took the time to refresh this article and adapt it to the 3.19 patch. At least we would know how to play correctly until an (hypothetic) fix is released.

Civfanatics is a great site, but its one fault is that nobody keeps the articles and information up to date or accurate.

 

[r_rolo1]

The only thing I can say to you is to pm vale. I think he is still active.