A possible way to feed REX?

[vale]

A small photoessay. Game speed is marathon. To maximize effectiveness you must have Bronze Working, Mathematics, be running Slavery and have the ability to still build warriors.

First we will build something other than a warrior to near completion:

At that point we will swap to a warrior and build it to near completion as well:

Meanwhile our workers are hard at work prechopping any forests we are willing to sacrifice for money:

Chops finish time to whip the library:

Next turn its time to whip the warrior:

Where did all my forests and population go?

That 350 gold is entirely from what was going on with this trick.

Some notes:

What is happening is excess hammers beyond what the game thinks is reasonable to overflow are being converted to gold. This works just like wealth, the gold will not be increased by markets or other such nonsense. We are just trying abuse this fact to create a quick influx of cash while our economy recovers from ReXing.

I know this probably isn't practical but its a funny trick at least. Also please excuse the lame graphics. My computer hates civ and pretty much rebels if I try to do anything but run it on the lowest graphics settings.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I found this out by accident once upon a time. Since I always play marathon / huge maps, and rexing is such a temptation, I suppose its a possible way, but I have never consciously used it...(It smells of the "x" word..no don't say it...I'm going to..."Exploit"....agggggh he said it)

 

[vale]

Well if you thought it smelled of an exploit before, thats nothing compared to whats coming up next.

Using Asoka (organized) I set this trick up by building a double production courthouse to overflow from in a Capitol under the influence of a forge, organized religion and bureaucracy. This was just to check if production multipliers were helping here. Long story short they did. One forest chop, two pop rushes and alot of micromanagement yielded 560 gold. That is alot even on marathon. I can post screenies if wanted.

Probably even better would be overflowing a whip into a double production building the turn before multiple forest chops come in. Anyway at this point I think could see someone using this in a way similar to the old perpetual anarchy trick to support an early domination win.

 

[r_rolo1]

Like I said in the other thread, this is becoming a very solid approach to the REx cash problem. Of course than those forests and those whipping could be used in other ways, but 560 is a very respectable argument in the early eras, when we don't have other cash sources. I think it deserves a game test.

P.S. Post the Asoka screenies. Every bit of information is useful.

 

[vale]

No explanation this time just the facts:

This isn't so "early" game in terms of tech any more but basically any trait cheapened building is going to feed this monster math+trait cheap building+x forests+2 pop rushes as shown=a very solid amount of gold in the early going. Other production bonuses will just be gravy.

Reminder:marathon and only one forest chop this time.

Edited to add: I did all the math just to double check and all those production bonuses are ending up helping with the gold conversion.

 

[vale]

I wanted to do a quick mathematical analysis of what is actually going on with production overflow.

What are we talking about here?

When you complete a build, the excess hammers above what were necessary potentially become available to "overflow" into the next build within limitation.

What is the limitation?

The overflow cannot exceed both the hammers per turn of the city and the modified cost of the prior build.

What do you mean by modified?

Very simply, any production bonuses you had available are factored out in reverse. So if you were building a 60 hammer item with a 100% production bonus the modified cost is 30 hammers. If you had instead a 200% production bonus, that modified cost is 20 hammers.

What a gyp!!! I want my hammers!!!

To compensate you somewhat for your loss, the game provides you with gold for your lost hammers. If your overflow is being restricted by the hammers per turn of the city, the recovered gold is just the total number of hammers that were potentially available to overflow minus the cap (hammers per turn) multiplied to the prior builds production modifiers.

On the other hand, if your overflow is being restricted by the modified cost of the prior build, the recovered gold is the total number of hammers that were potentially available to overflow minus the true cost of the prior build.

To put it another way, the true value of the overflowing hammers is subtracted from the potential overflow to determine the gold rebate.

So how can I (ab)use this most effectively?

Trait cheapened buildings give +100% production bonuses. The smaller the true cost of the building, the more efficient an attempt to use overflow to create gold in this way becomes. Granaries, barracks, temples, libraries and theaters all look like good possibilities offhand. Production bonuses such as forges, organized religion etc also boost the gold yield.

For example: Math+Aggressive+1 turn from completion whip on a barracks+2 forest chops at the same time = around 390 gold and 75 hammers overflow for the next build. I think we can safely remove that warrior junk that I was doing originally since at some point warriors just aren't that spectacular.

 

[pigswill]

How are you able to research paper in 3500bc?

 

[vale]

How are you able to research paper in 3500bc?

I used the ctrl-w exploit of course. I didn't want to waste alot of time researching to the needed techs to set this up. I was more interested in quickly discovering what the mechanics involved here were.

 

[Giaur]

@vale: leave the save so anyone could test it ...

edit: base production must be optimized down or up?

 

[vale]

This isn't the exact save from that (its long gone), but here is an even better example of broken gold overflow tricks. Protective leader with stone (I world buildered the stone, maths, masonry, and bronze working at the start so I could show this off). Load the save. Have both workers chop their respective forest. Enter the city. Whip the wall. Exit the city. Press end turn. Enjoy.

One word of warning. I am using the civ4lerts mod. I hope that doesn't conflict with people opening the save. I tried using lock modified assets but it wouldn't let me WB the opening to speed up the setup.

I try to optimize the base production as high as possible the turn I do this just to increase the gold overflow. But in the grand scheme of things that is doing almost nothing compared with the rest of the sources.

I tried to write a strategy article that explains the overflow mechanic in a more thorough and mathematical way.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=218272

 

[Giaur]

With chopping: 405 gold
With chopping and pop-rushing: 669 gold
Calculation: 1 hammer -> 3 commerce

I do not know why chopping and pop-rushing monument brought me with only 100 gold coins ...

 

[vale]

Using terminology from that strategy article we can do the math for the monument:

True Cost = 90
Production Multiplier = 1
Base Cost = 90 = 90
Excess Hammers = [90 (forest chop) + 90 (forest chop) + 90 (whip hammers)]*1(production multiplier) + 90 (cost of monument being covered by "real" production of city) - 90 (True Cost of the monument) = 270
Base Hammers = 270/1 = 270
Hammers per turn is unknown but certainly less than 90
Modified Hammers per turn unknown but not relevant because of the above
Overflow Hammers = 90 since 270 > 90
Overflow Gold = 270 - 90 = 180

I'm not sure why you aren't getting 180 . No math will cost you 60 , and if you don't build it to one turn of completion that will cost you some also. Only one forest chop would cost you 90 Were you doing this on marathon? Care to post a save?

 

[Giaur]

It's a bug. Everything is simple except the amount of overflow for me. Imagine following example ...

50% beaurocracy
225% military units (m.academy, h.epic, police state, water units)
100% production bonuses (forge, factory, coal plant)

1 hammer -> 4.75 gold

 

[Giaur]

Monument: I did not wait for almost completion so amount was lower ...

edit:
but I somehow did 157 gold coins on normal speed, rushing University.

200/1.25=80 - overflow hammers I guess
4 choppings and 1 pop rushing = 150 hammers

(150-80)*225%=157 gold

correct my math

 

[Giaur]

Now correct math (I guess I am catching this strat) ...

100% - by philo leader
25% - forge
25% - organized religion

194/200 - almost completion of university
a) almost completion - -2.4 hammers ((200-194)/2.5)
b) 1 pop rush - 30 hammers
c) 4 choppings - 120 hammers
d) production - 20 hammers
e) overflow - 200/2.5=80 hammers

f) base gold = a+b+c+d-e=87.6
e) final gold = f*2.5 (100% + 100% by philo + 25% by civic + 25% by forge) = 219

That's the exact amount of gold I've received

what an educating evening ...

btw. I hope it's the correct save

 

[Giaur]

I do not know if I want to play with using this strat, but I have change my mind. It's not a bug. The creators would not pay attention to write such a wierd algorithm. If it was simply mistake (bug), algorith would be much less complicated. I guess it's rather a surprize to the players to let us know that certainly we do not know about everything yet.

btw. Sorry for my English ...

 

[shyuhe]

I will have to test out this strategy... it seems like a great way to get money in the early game to fuel just about... anything

 

[vale]

Heh, I discovered this yesterday morning while testing some stuff in response to a thread. It was shocking to me and you can kind of follow my discovery process through this thread and the is this an exploit part II thread. Learning something new about this game can be fun.

 

[r_rolo1]

It's not a bug. The creators would not pay attention to write such a wierd algorithm. If it was simply mistake (bug), algorith would be much less complicated.

My opinion too. In this matter it looks that the game developers wanted the things to be exactly like this.
It 's not very exploitive, though. It requires some gymnastics to use properly in game, and those forests and whipped people could be used in a entirely different way ( Army, wonders,...). I believe that this strat would be stronger in a isolated start, or atleast in a wide open area, with nothing to bother usexcept barbs and REXing.
It would be nice to test it in game ( Asoka, isolated start, temperate, maybe? )

 

[bardolph]

This doesn't seem like an exploit, any more than queue-shuffling in general is an exploit. Rather, this seems more like an attempt to prevent instant wonder-building with hammer overflow.

The question then becomes, is this a practical way to fund REX, or are other methods more effective (building courthouses/cottages/missionaries/wealth, etc)?