Am I full of cr*p or does this actually work?

[mad-bax]

Not only is it expensive to rush without any shields already put to the item, but it is also expensive to rush that item to completion. I have only recently been made aware of how important this is.

If you rush to completion then it completely fills the shield box, before the shields from that turn have been added. So, the entire shield production for that city on that turn is wasted.

The cheapest/quickest way to rush IMHO is to build a lower shield cost item for one turn, then rush it and change back to what you really want and allow it to complete on the next turn. With good city management you can also reduce shield waste to nearly zero.

Example: A city is making 10spt. You want a knight quickly, so you build Granary for one turn. On the next turn you rush the rest of the granary and switch to knight before the end of the turn. The turn after that the knight completes with zero shield waste.

Obviously, if you are rushing culture in 1 shield newly captured cities then you may aswell just rush to completion, since you will only be wasting 1 shield.

I believe this technique is called short rushing.

 

[Cannon]

Originally posted by Cannon

Actually to summise:

A) On a first turn rush, one must only pay full (2x) price on the first 10 shields (by setting production to worker and then rushing).

B) The production may then be changed. (to any desired build , yes, excluding wonders, ) The remaining shields on this project will cost the regular 2nd turn price. Ta Da!

Look. I'm quoting myself......

 

[Krayzeenbk]

Why? mad-bax clearly has the most efficient method of rushing in this thread.

 

[budweiser]

If you have any outdated Ironclads, you can disband them in your first city on a new continet and you get just enough shields to build a wall in one turn. If you do this, you wont need to take a valuable land unit out of your invasion force and use it for rushing.

 

[Superevie]

That's true in vanilla civ as well. I once started a temple and rushing it one first turn cost twice as much as waiting one measly turn.

 

[Cannon]

Originally posted by Krayzeenbk
Why? mad-bax clearly has the most efficient method of rushing in this thread.

It may be the most efficient, but it's NOT the quickest way, and I'm only talking about a situation where you don't want to pay double cost for every shield in your first turn rush, just double for the first ten (by first setting build to worker and rushing that. )

 

[Grille]

Originally posted by Cannon


It may be the most efficient, but it's NOT the quickest way, and I'm only talking about a situation where you don't want to pay double cost for every shield in your first turn rush, just double for the first ten (by first setting build to worker and rushing that. )

But mad-bax strat would indeed work the way you'd want it.
Disband some stuff (for the record: rush a worker), then immediately switch to something (I name it "actually_ordered_proj" below) that's around the "right" shield cost, and rush it, then switch back to the desired build project. So that you have:

desired_build_proj=actually_ordered_proj+spt

That way, you wouldn't waste the city's spt capacity and thus spare some gold while rushing.
However, a 1spt city isn't obviously suitable. Furthermore, it might be difficult to find the "right" dummy build project and come close enough to a city's spt output.

Basically, I would not recommend a general rushing method, but make it dependent on the given circumstances.
When capturing a distant beach-head city, a pre-worker rush sounds about right (in most cases...).

Indeed, the fun of this game rises with the number of different tools you are able to choose.

edit: made an ugly post even uglier...

 

[Cannon]

Thank you for summising that Grille. After reading mad bax's post I realized that in my core cities I can also put that town's spt toward the goal by approximation with an 'in-between' rush. Thanks for the replies guys (and girls?).

 

[Cannon]

Since we're on this topic now, can anybody give us some useful examples of approximation rushing (I'm on Regent).

ie. courthouse (goal)= disband (or worker rush) + granary rush (approximation) + 25 spt.

BTW I don't know if that example is accurate....

 

[Hygro]

Wow, I've just learned something new

 

[TheNiceOne]

cannon and mad-bax two strategies are both very good strategies for rushing for as low cost as possible. Sometimes the two strategies can be combined, but not always.

cannon's strategy of rushing something cheap first, or waiting one turn, or disbanding something before rushing what you really want, to avoid paying the double of normal rush cost is quite well-known, but still very useful.

mad-bax strategy of rushing something that is slighly cheaper than what you want, and the change production to what you want after the rush, to take advantage of the production capacity of the city is probably less known, but very useful as well.

I have used this strategy for some months - typically when I have medium-production cities that takes 5-10 turns to build what I want, but where I have the income to shorten the production by a few turns.

As an example, assume a city with an effective production of 20 shields, where I want to produce something that costs 120 shields. The most effective rush-helped build is to first let the city build it for one turn, adding 20 shields to the production, then change the production to something that costs 100 shields, rush it for 80*4 = 320 gold. Then change the production back to the original target, and it will be produced the next turn when the city's 20 shield is added.

 

[anarres]

Partial rushing is an essential tool for all micromanagers. It should become second nature to use it in conjunction with city management every turn.

You can often save a turn of production by rushing a few shields. I use it often, a typical use is:

6 spt in city. 68 shields collected. I am going to build an aqueduct and so I rush a knight (2 shields=8 gold) and switch back to aqueduct. Now I complete in 5 turns instead of 6. 1 turn or 6 shields saved at a cost of 8 gold.

Of course this works best for larger numbers/savings. e.g. City is size 6, I can get 7 spt for no food loss and stable size (= no growth). After 11 turns I have 77 shields. Now I can rush a library or Cav and have 20 shields to complete. If I have a mined mountain I can move a food-only tile to the mountains for 2 turns to run a food deficit and get 10 spt (complete in 2 turns) or I can leave it at 7 spt to complete in 3 turns.

 

[Superevie]

Originally posted by anarres
Partial rushing is an essential tool for all micromanagers. It should become second nature to use it in conjunction with city management every turn.

You can often save a turn of production by rushing a few shields. I use it often, a typical use is:

6 spt in city. 68 shields collected. I am going to build an aqueduct and so I rush a knight (2 shields=8 gold) and switch back to aqueduct. Now I complete in 5 turns instead of 6. 1 turn or 6 shields saved at a cost of 8 gold.

Of course this works best for larger numbers/savings. e.g. City is size 6, I can get 7 spt for no food loss and stable size (= no growth). After 11 turns I have 77 shields. Now I can rush a library or Cav and have 20 shields to complete. If I have a mined mountain I can move a food-only tile to the mountains for 2 turns to run a food deficit and get 10 spt (complete in 2 turns) or I can leave it at 7 spt to complete in 3 turns.

Wow, you really have this all figured out! I had actually started using this method without realizing the exact reasons why it worked. I tend to only do more rushing towards the later part of the game. I don't like to rush during depotism because then you have to "get out your whip." Is there ever an ppropriate time to rush during depotisim?

(And yes, Cannon, I am a girl. I'd hope so with a title like "Queen Diva of the World" )

 

[hoplite505]

do this

units are cheaper than improvements
rush build a cheap unit and then switch to temple
it works great and it isn't really cheating

 

[Quasar1011]

You may be able to disband an old unit, get a few shields into the city's production box, and then rush buy the improvement at less than full cost. I used this extensively in Civ2, but not in Civ3. In Civ2, I would have a city with a barracks produce a mechanized infantry, then send the m.i. to a city with a rifleman. I'd disband the rifleman, and "home" the m.i. Voila! Upgraded defenses, plus I could then rush buy whatever I needed in the 2nd city for less than full cost, even if I just started on the item.

 

[Cannon]

Originally posted by TheNiceOne

As an example, assume a city with an effective production of 20 shields, where I want to produce something that costs 120 shields. The most effective rush-helped build is to first let the city build it for one turn, adding 20 shields to the production, then change the production to something that costs 100 shields, rush it for 80*4 = 320 gold. Then change the production back to the original target, and it will be produced the next turn when the city's 20 shield is added.

That's pretty slick, I'll start looking for that in my games.
It would take 2 turns.