Micromanagement is alive and well in Civ 4!

[Zombie69]

But what about if you would have to farm through two or three grasslands that you might put cottages on?

This is the only time when i wouldn't chain farms to give +1 food to a food resource. Losing 1 cottage isn't the end of the world. Losing 2 or more is pretty bad. Whether the tiles are grassland or plains makes no difference, since i intend to cottage all tiles anyway.

Of course, if i can chain farms from a Great People farm or a production city, then it won't be a problem at all. Those two should never have a single cottage anyway.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Zombie69, do you ever chain farms to give a food bonus an extra food (two extra after Biology)? The most favorable situations would seem to be: when none of the farms are in any city's fat circle (this seems like a no-brainer) and when the farms run through a couple plains tiles that you don't have enough food to put cottages on anyway. But what about if you would have to farm through two or three grasslands that you might put cottages on?

Often, you can chain through some of your tiles during the "growth phase", and then replace those farms with cottages (which breaks the irrigation chain, but you don't care as much) later on.

 

[Eqqman]

This is the only time when i wouldn't chain farms to give +1 food to a food resource

What exactly are you guys talking about here? I'd thought at first that a food bonus tile next to fresh water would get an extra food, so I fired up the world builder to check it out. An improved rice next to fresh water was at 5 food and so was one that was cut off from fresh water, so I'm not sure what you mean by this. A food resource can always get a farm built on it, unless you mean building a farm on something like pigs instead of using a pasture?

 

[DaviddesJ]

An improved rice next to fresh water was at 5 food and so was one that was cut off from fresh water

You're wrong. Grassland/rice/farm yields 5 food with fresh water, but only 4 food without fresh water. If you don't have access to fresh water, then the mouseover text when you hover on the tile will say "Farm (not irrigated)" to indicate that you're getting -1 food for that tile.

 

[Nares]

What exactly are you guys talking about here?

Maybe your World Builder test went awry. Irrigation (Fresh Water) does indeed give a +1 Food bonus to Farm improvements.

 

[Compromise]

@Eggman: I just wanted to address your question about the chaining of farms. Once your civ knows Civil Service, irrigation is passed from one farm to the next. So, you can get the +1 bonus even if your farm isn't directly next to fresh water. But there needs to be a farm next to fresh water that's next to your farm. (Or next to a farm that's next to.... You get the idea; that's the chain.)

It's possible your Worldbuilder test went awry because your civ already had Civil Service and was next to an irrigated farm. Or, you might not have noticed that your tile was near a lake or river, if only diagonally. (I'm remembering that irrigation can be chained diagonally. Flame me and I'll change it here if that's wrong.)

 

[DaviddesJ]

(I'm remembering that irrigation can be chained diagonally. Flame me and I'll change it here if that's wrong.)

You can trace diagonally from a lake square, and diagonally from the corner of a river, but not diagonally from the endpoint of a river.

The easiest way to be sure whether a tile has fresh water is to just mouseover the terrain and see what the popup says.

 

[Eqqman]

I had CS enabled via the worldbuilder so I could see the difference between chaining and non-chaining later. The isolated farmed rice had plains all around it, but the comparison one was next to a lake tile. My mistake was that lakes must not provide irrigation even though they are listed as fresh water on the mouse over.

 

[Zombie69]

Lakes do provide irrigation. I think your computer is playing tricks on you. Regardless, irrigation provides one extra food to all farms, always, whether on a special resource or just a basic farm.

 

[Eqqman]

Another footnote, how do you maintain a GP farm without Caste System? Do you just assign as many specialists as you can for each type and accept what you get, or do you switch to Caste System in order to specifically spend time making a GP, then back to Slavery?

 

[Zombie69]

Another footnote, how do you maintain a GP farm without Caste System? Do you just assign as many specialists as you can for each type and accept what you get, or do you switch to Caste System in order to specifically spend time making a GP, then back to Slavery?

I assign as many specialist as i can for each type and accept what i get. I just make sure not to assign any artists, because Great Artists just plain suck for anything but cultural victories, which i don't go for anyway. Everything else is good. If there's one type that i need more than others, i'll try to max that specialist type. For me, leaving slavery is not even close to being worth it to have more control over specialists. Besides, the best specialist type of all, engineer, can't be obtained through caste system, and the second best in many cases, priest, can't either.

 

[Eqqman]

So I'd imagine you might have an Engineer specialist running in every city, that you remove when that city makes a GE as it won't be likely to catch up and produce another?

 

[Zombie69]

No. In most cities, i have no specialist whatsoever. Even an engineer specialist is inferior to a cottage, so i'd rather have the cottage.

 

[Murky]

Do excess beakers spill over to the next tech you research?

In my last game, I did a modified version of your micro-management strategy for science. Instead of doing 100% and 0%, I kept the rate at a highest level possible until 1-2 turns just before getting the tech. At that point, I adjusted the rate up or down so that there was as little waste as possible. This was based on how many beakers I was generating and how many were needed to finish. Sometimes, 100% or 10% will finish the last turn on the same research goal. One time, I forgot to adjust it down so there were excess beakers going to research. It seemed like there were more beakers in the next cycle at the start of the turn that I was seeing before.

 

[Beamup]

Yes, excess beakers carry over. The trick you describe was important in Civ3, but is pointless in Civ4.

 

[Murky]

Yes, excess beakers carry over. The trick you describe was important in Civ3, but is pointless in Civ4.

I suspected that was the case. The extra money from lowering the rate did help me in future turns for upgrading some units. I wonder how you could determine the benefit of having extra cash on hand vs. more research into future techs.

 

[Zombie69]

More than pointless, it's hurtful to your civ, because it keeps you from using binary science.

 

[jesusin]

This thread made me laugh. Not because is fun or bad (on the contrary, it is very good technically) but because I saw myself reflected on it: I have been using almost every trick described here since I started playing Civ4.

I had never thought of unit prebuilding, it is a very good idea if you are not planning to move the units away immediately. I will start using it.

I had always whipped the turn after growth, when the first angry face appeared. I see now that it is near optimal, but not optimal. It is usually best to whip the turn before.


There are a couple of minor points I would like to contribute to the discussion.

1.- Whip: I have never used the “avoid growth” city option, I can’t see the benefit of doing so. Is it not always better to just whip the turn before you grow, instead of wasting one turn and some food to get to the limit of the box and then whip?

2.- Binary science: I agree with the idea that 100% is not always optimal. My point is that sometimes 0% is not the optimal point either. When you use 0% your total science output is 1 beaker. The factors &#8220;prerequisites&#8221; and &#8220;known by others&#8221; are then applied to this single beaker, giving a total value <2, so all these factors are wasted. When using 10% instead of 0% would give you 4 beakers (for example), and the factors amount to 20% (1 prerequisite), you will get 6 beakers a turn ( (4+1)*1.2 ) wasting nothing. An example like this one is fairly common in the ancient age, before libraries are built. So my conclusion is that 0%-100% is not always the best way to go binary; from time to time I find myself playing the 10%-80% &#8220;binary&#8221; game.


Now, I wish there was another thread on &#8220;saving time when micromanaging&#8221;. I don&#8217;t mind spending 5 minutes of thought to win 1 hammer, in fact I enjoy it, but it is really painful when you are not able to finish your GOTM in 30 days!

 

[Zombie69]

1.- Whip: I have never used the “avoid growth” city option, I can’t see the benefit of doing so. Is it not always better to just whip the turn before you grow, instead of wasting one turn and some food to get to the limit of the box and then whip?

In the ideal case, you have just barely enough food to grow and not one more. Turning on avoid growth then doesn't waste any food at all, and fills your granary to the max.

2.- Binary science: I agree with the idea that 100% is not always optimal. My point is that sometimes 0% is not the optimal point either. When you use 0% your total science output is 1 beaker. The factors “prerequisites” and “known by others” are then applied to this single beaker, giving a total value <2, so all these factors are wasted.

This effect is only applied after all your cities are added up, so at most you'll lose a fraction of 1 beaker. The rounding losses avoided by using binary science are applied for every city, so at most you're saving a fraction of 1 beaker in every city. In almost all cases, this effect is greater, and so binary science is almost always the best way to go.

Early on with only a few cities and no libraries, markets or monasteries, binary science is useless as far as lost fractions go (but still useful for its other advantages), so you may consider the prerequisite factor you mentioned.

As soon as you start meeting other civs, you'll start getting "known by others" bonuses. Those bonuses are not multiples of 20%, so by then aiming for a multiple of 4 in total beakers becomes useless.

 

[angeleyes]

About whipping:

Spending 11 food to get 30 hammers is already mighty good

Zombie69, i took this quote from your first post, because i don't agree. Whipping cost in fact no food, it cost one citizen. Say, you have a town of 10 citizens with a granary, Then you have to invest 20 food only to gain that citizen back.
Say, you take 10 turns for this, then whipping one citizen means:

1. 10 turns you don't get the profits of the whipped citizen ( in hammers or in gold or both),

2. you have to rearrange a citizen from a food-poor but hammer/gold-rich tile to a food-rich but hammers/gold-poor tile, losing this way more hammers and/or gold,

[EDIT: point 3. is nonsense, confused with civ3]3. you don't get 30 hammers extra , but what you already got as hammers is filled up to 30. What you really get is always less then 30.