A possible way to feed REX?

[vale]

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

It is certainly more effective than building wealth if you have type specific production bonuses (organize religion, military academy, heroic epic, trait cheapened buildings, etc.) Plus you can't whip wealth or chop wealth.

As for the others, I can't see this supplanting other more permanent methods of building your economy. I could see a protective leader with stone using this as a stopgap (chopped forests are 270 gold each on marathon) to fund the research to code of laws while his cottages mature.

 

[scooter]

Personally I'd categorize this as an exploit, does anyone know how to submit something like this to be considered for the GOTM exploit list? Nothing personal, I just don't think it's a fair thing.

 

[Giaur]

Personally I'd categorize this as an exploit, does anyone know how to submit something like this to be considered for the GOTM exploit list? Nothing personal, I just don't think it's a fair thing.

Try this strat before submiting. The amount of gold is not terrific. In real circumstances the quotient is not greater than 2:1 (1 hammer -> 2 commerce). And you have to consider also fact that not all hammers are to be converted. There is no no-brain choice in using this strat. It's to be calculated when to use it or if to use it at all. And my example with h.epic, m.academy concerns modern era when almost all forest are chopped.

edit: also when concerning buildings you must know it's only one time bonus since buildings cannot be destroyed ...

 

[Giaur]

One more thing about rexing ...

You did it unwillingly sometimes (when you chop to many forests in one turn). And no offense but it's not very clever pretending rexing does not exist. If you submit this to GOTM exploit list do not be surprized when your game will be excluded from competition

 

[vale]

Here is an unfavorable comparison of a protective wall with stone to speed chopping/overflow whipping the Oracle (450 ) without marble.

True Cost = 150
Production Multiplier = 1 + 1 + 1 = 3
Base Cost = 150/3 = 50
Excess Hammers = [450 (fast hammers that otherwise go to oracle)]*3(production multiplier) + 150 (cost of walls being covered by "real" production of city) - 150 (True Cost of the walls) = 1350
Base Hammers = 1350/3 = 450
Hammers per turn is unknown but certainly less than 50
Modified Hammers per turn unknown but not relevant because of the above
Overflow Hammers = 50 since 450 > 50
Overflow Gold = 1350 - 150 = 1200

The overflow hammers are just rebating what you put in from the city to increase the overflow gold so we can ignore that as a benefit. Recall that two typical Oracled technologies, Code of Laws and Metal Casting cost 1050 and 1350 respectively.

So, doing the protective walls with stone trick nets you 1200 and a city walls, while speed chopping the Oracle without marble nets you +2, +8, and at least 1050 plus instant access to a powerful tech. I guess one nice thing about the 1200 is that you can use it to deficit research several smaller techs rather than one big one. Still, IMHO, this isn't even close. I would want at least another 1200 from the walls trick before I even begin to think thats a fair trade.

Obviously if you don't have stone, or do have marble, or have marble and not stone, there is even more disparity.

This seems like a way to demonstrate that this isn't really an exploit since in the most optimal conditions it is significantly worse than the oracle in the most suboptimal conditions.

 

[vale]

You did it unwillingly sometimes (when you chop to many forests in one turn).

Yes, there would be many times when I would be playing when my treasury would receive an (usually small) unexpected bump. I would always just shrug and move on, but at least now I know where the bump was coming from.

 

[ainwood]

Personally I'd categorize this as an exploit, does anyone know how to submit something like this to be considered for the GOTM exploit list? Nothing personal, I just don't think it's a fair thing.

We'll have to think carefully about this one. My gut feel is that its probably OK - to chop or not to chop is already a strategic decision. People trying this 'exploit' to expand rapidly may still have to be very careful. Are those hammers better used as gold or as units? What are you sacrificing to set this up? (Multiple workers to convert pre-chops?)

WOrst comes to worst, I can simply delete trees around the starting area...

 

[Willburn]

I think its slightly exploitable. Nice catch and civ4 never ceases to amaze me.

 

[cabert]

as ainwood said, it's not really a exploit. Once the trees are down, you still have to pay for your expansion...
I get more gold by just asking for it .

Of course, this being precurrency, there still is a loophole, but it's no big deal IMHO. If you chop for gold, you don't chop for settlers/workers/units...
ANd whipping until you're totally unhappy is bad enough for your economy

 

[Scaphism]

It would be pretty difficult to set up in advance, but the Protective Walls + Stone netting you a large amount of cash would also give you a means to upgrade a few older units. It would be a very effective way to considerably beef up defenses in a few weak spots. Again, hard to anticipate when you would need it, but it would be useful for power ratings and holding onto a contested area.

 

[cabert]

It would be pretty difficult to set up in advance, but the Protective Walls + Stone netting you a large amount of cash would also give you a means to upgrade a few older units. It would be a very effective way to considerably beef up defenses in a few weak spots. Again, hard to anticipate when you would need it, but it would be useful for power ratings and holding onto a contested area.

Just use the hammers to build those things!

 

[vale]

Just use the hammers to build those things!

Yeah, unless the upgradees are highly promoted, the 3/ you get from the trick only gets you to the point that you are sinking just about the same amount (paying slightly less because of the original cost of the upgraded unit giving you a discount but slightly more because of the constant gold cost for upgrading beyond the / ratio) of into upgrading that you would be just building a new one.

 

[Scaphism]

You're both right, the hammers could definitely be used to build more units, but I was thinking of upgrading older units who already had many promotions. It would be a waste in most cases to upgrade units with very few promotions.

Regardless, it adds flexibility. You can chop/whip the walls for overflow money, then sink that money into research or into promoting troops. Either way getting that extra cash lets you choose what to do with it - research if you're not threatened, upgrade if you are.