Avoid Growth Option, is it useless?

[malekithe]

well, count the granary, since it's the first thing you will whip for

so accepting the increase will give you a half full box, and plenty time to search for the whip

The granary makes the situation more tolerable, but it's still not as efficient as just enabling avoid growth when you're at the previous population level. Those turns spent at -1 food are turns that could, instead, be spent at (effectively) +/-0 food. Each turn spent at -1 is one extra turn that will have to be spent growing your population after the whip.

 

[cabert]

The granary makes the situation more tolerable, but it's still not as efficient as just enabling avoid growth when you're at the previous population level. Those turns spent at -1 food are turns that could, instead, be spent at (effectively) +/-0 food. Each turn spent at -1 is one extra turn that will have to be spent growing your population after the whip.

true enough
but it's very situationnal

remember my example about a library
being pop 5 does you no good then, on the other hand, being pop 6 just in the right time is perfect (see Zombies' MM) : no lost food.

I don't like MM, so i favour leaving the unhappies. If i really have too much of them that i can't effectively whip, i move the culture slider (not saying anything about looking for ressources).

I even use the whip when they claim for emancipation, very late in the game (captured cities are sooo crowded, and so very unproductive, and sipritual is sooo much inviting).

 

[Zombie69]

Actually, if you really want to whip the library in the most efficient way, assuming you have a 25% production bonus (organized religion for instance, or a forge), then you want to be between 15 and 29 hammers done before you whip, and you want to be at the end of 5 pop rather than at the beginning of 6. Then you can whip, costing you only two pop but still giving you 90 hammers. Of course, without any production bonus, ignore what i just said. You'll need to go up to pop 6 and whip the inefficient way.

Because pop rushing is so grossely overpowered, and because the exploit is so easy to abuse, the first thing i build (pop rushed of course) in a city is always the granary, followed by a forge (of course, pop rushed as well). After this, every other building and unit comes so easily, it's almost like cheating.

 

[Zombie69]

WOW, well I certainly will start to use the avoid growth that is awsome the whip just gets better and better.

Thx for the tip would of never thought of that.

You can check out the thread Micromanagement is alive and well in Civ 4 in the Strategy Articles forum for the complete description of how to do this and some more micromanagement tricks.

 

[cabert]

Because pop rushing is so grossely overpowered, and because the exploit is so easy to abuse, the first thing i build (pop rushed of course) in a city is always the granary, followed by a factory (of course, pop rushed as well).

you mean a forge i suppose?

 

[Zombie69]

Yes, sorry. I'll edit the post. Thanks for pointing it out. Must be remnants of my Civ 1 days!

 

[Paeanblack]

Not quite true... When a city starves, the food box stays empty; it does not go back up to the top. So, if I'm at 5 population, 29/30, and +1 food, after 1 turn I grow to 6 population. If he's unhappy, I'm at -1 food and nothing in the box (no granary). The next turn my population shrinks. I'm at 5 population and +1 food again, but my food box is sitting at 0/30. If I'd just turned on avoid growth the first turn, I'd be sitting at 30/30 perpetually and could grow to 6 population as soon as I wanted.

Folks, this little tidbit is worth studying.

I was going to post the same explanation, but malekithe already did. Using the avoid growth button is rarely useful, but when it is, it can make an entire citizen's worth of difference in a slow-growth city. Keep a sharp lookout for those cities ekeing out a +1 food surplus and struggling to grow, because that's where you really would hate to lose an entire granary bar's worth of food from one turn of oversight.

I wouldn't call it micromanagement, since it doesn't come up too often, but it can really matter at certain points in the game.

 

[Zombie69]

I wouldn't call it micromanagement, since it doesn't come up too often, but it can really matter at certain points in the game.

I wouldn't either. If you micromanage properly, there are much better ways to handle such situations.

 

[cabert]

I wouldn't either. If you micromanage properly, there are much better ways to handle such situations.

from your point of view, it's certainly no MM.
From my point of view it is, since i don't go through all my cities on every turn.
Don't get me wrong : i'm not saying it's wrong to circle through all your cities. I just point out the fact that it is tedious and can be considered by some (lazy players like me) as too much MM.

If you don't open every city's screen, you won't be able to use the "avoid growth" option in a useful way.
And i think it's supposed to be a governor's option = something you would use to give the governor instructions, so you don't have to watch closely!

In my opinion, it's quite the opposite : it's only useful (in some weird way) if you watch the city closely enough to let it grow again when the happiness allows it.

Conclusion : as i don't want to watch very closely, the "avoid growth button" is more a risk to lose possible growth than a possible gain.

 

[davelisowski]

I use it if a city is about to grow, which will make it unhappy and/or unhealthy, and I don't have a civic to remedy that (i.e. cannot whip or buy a building). For me, there is a long time between slavery and universal sufferage when I cannot rush units or buildings. Unless I'm a spiritual civ, switching civics just to whip a temple so a city can grow in 1 pop. then switching the civic back to what I had before is completely pointless and wasteful. An increase in city upkeep for a citizen that's doing nothing but complaining is not worth it.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

Unhealthy is nothing to worry about, all it is is that you have a new, productive citizen who eats 3 food/turn instead of 2.

I think there is a way to manage the governors in your city without having to go into the city-window. You can give build-orders from the map-view, so I think you should be able to do this too.

The real debate here, is not so much about the convenience of the button, but about whether is actually provides you with an advantage when you use it. I think it only really gives you an advantage if there is no benefit from having an extra citizen. If you have plans or uses for an extra population, then it's not going to help you at all. If you were building a settler, then you wouldn't really want -2 food hanging around, but then again there are some ruthless players out there who would say to whip-rush it.

But, I'll raise this question: Since whipping is basicly the conversion of food-surplusses into production, wouldn't it be more efficient in the long-run to just "avoid growth" by working a mine instead of a farm? Unless your city-plot is devoid of any additional production, you can by this manner convert 1Food directly into 1Hammer. I'm not sure whipping gives you quite as good a ratio as that. If you have the production-facilities to switch to, then whipping is basicly akin to chopping, only it's the limbs of the disobedient instead of trees, and citizens grow back. If you are on a super-fishing village, or on a vast swathe of grass, then whipping is going to give you benefits that re-arranging citizens never could have.

 

[cabert]

But, I'll raise this question: Since whipping is basicly the conversion of food-surplusses into production, wouldn't it be more efficient in the long-run to just "avoid growth" by working a mine instead of a farm? Unless your city-plot is devoid of any additional production, you can by this manner convert 1Food directly into 1Hammer. I'm not sure whipping gives you quite as good a ratio as that. If you have the production-facilities to switch to, then whipping is basicly akin to chopping, only it's the limbs of the disobedient instead of trees, and citizens grow back. If you are on a super-fishing village, or on a vast swathe of grass, then whipping is going to give you benefits that re-arranging citizens never could have.

you gave the answer to you own question , and i agree with the answer

I use it if a city is about to grow, which will make it unhappy and/or unhealthy, and I don't have a civic to remedy that (i.e. cannot whip or buy a building). For me, there is a long time between slavery and universal sufferage when I cannot rush units or buildings. Unless I'm a spiritual civ, switching civics just to whip a temple so a city can grow in 1 pop. then switching the civic back to what I had before is completely pointless and wasteful. An increase in city upkeep for a citizen that's doing nothing but complaining is not worth it.

for me there isn't a long time between slavery and universal suffrage
if i'm not spiritual, i stay under slavery for most of the game!

 

[Zombie69]

Since whipping is basicly the conversion of food-surplusses into production, wouldn't it be more efficient in the long-run to just "avoid growth" by working a mine instead of a farm? Unless your city-plot is devoid of any additional production, you can by this manner convert 1Food directly into 1Hammer.

Converting 1 food into 1 hammer is extremely inefficient. With whipping, you can get 3 hammers per food or even more. That's why it's almost always better to whip.

In the very best case scenario (starting at pop 2, whipping one pop, at 25% bonus production, with 31 to 37 hammers left to production, granary present), whipping can give you 60 hammers for a mere expenditure of 11 food. Once you get the hang of it, you'll practically never produce anything the normal way ever again!

For more info on how this works, check out the article in my sig.

 

[cabert]

Converting 1 food into 1 hammer is extremely inefficient. With whipping, you can get 3 hammers per food or even more. That's why it's almost always better to whip.

In the very best case scenario (starting at pop 2, whipping one pop, at 25% bonus production, with 31 to 37 hammers left to production, granary present), whipping can give you 60 hammers for a mere expenditure of 11 food. Once you get the hang of it, you'll practically never produce anything the normal way ever again!

For more info on how this works, check out the article in my sig.

true, you get much more for low pop whips, but it's limited to low cost buildings!

 

[Hans Lemurson]

Converting 1 food into 1 hammer is extremely inefficient. With whipping, you can get 3 hammers per food or even more. That's why it's almost always better to whip.

In the very best case scenario (starting at pop 2, whipping one pop, at 25% bonus production, with 31 to 37 hammers left to production, granary present), whipping can give you 60 hammers for a mere expenditure of 11 food. Once you get the hang of it, you'll practically never produce anything the normal way ever again!

For more info on how this works, check out the article in my sig.

Right, I forgot about the effect of granaries, they double the efficiency of whipping. At small sizes, you can convert food into production at a 1:3 ratio; 11 food yielding 30 production.

Adding a production bonus does not raise the efficiency of whipping, since conventionally acquired hammers would also recieve the same multiplication. But on the whole, Slavery looks amazing. This does somewhat change my outlook on avoid growth now.

 

[Zombie69]

Adding a production bonus does not raise the efficiency of whipping, since conventionally acquired hammers would also recieve the same multiplication.

Wrong. Played well, a 25% bonus can double your output from slavery, yeilding 60 hammers for 11 food instead of only 30. Doubling is better than only adding 25%!

Also, once you've doubled your output, and used half of your 60 hammers to produce overflow, that overflow gets another 25% bonus on top of the doubling!

So with 25% bonus, 11 hammers on average = 13.75 hammers.
In the best case scenario, with the same 25% bonus, 11 food give you :
- 60 hammers towards production
- of those 60, 29 max can go towards overflow
- this overflow gets an additional 25% production bonus
- therefore, you get a total of 31 + 29 * 1.25 = 67.25 hammers

Compare that to the 13.75 hammers you would get from 11 hammers instead of 11 food, and tell me that slavery isn't overpowered!

67.25 hammers is the equivalent of 53.8 base hammers, so you've basically just turned 11 food into 54 hammers! That's 5 for 1!

 

[Pbhead]

ACK!! math!!

Such mircomanageing is just plain amazing in my point of view.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

Wrong. Played well, a 25% bonus can double your output from slavery, yeilding 60 hammers for 11 food instead of only 30. Doubling is better than only adding 25%!

Also, once you've doubled your output, and used half of your 60 hammers to produce overflow, that overflow gets another 25% bonus on top of the doubling!

So with 25% bonus, 11 hammers on average = 13.75 hammers.
In the best case scenario, with the same 25% bonus, 11 food give you :
- 60 hammers towards production
- of those 60, 29 max can go towards overflow
- this overflow gets an additional 25% production bonus
- therefore, you get a total of 31 + 29 * 1.25 = 67.25 hammers

Compare that to the 13.75 hammers you would get from 11 hammers instead of 11 food, and tell me that slavery isn't overpowered!

67.25 hammers is the equivalent of 53.8 base hammers, so you've basically just turned 11 food into 54 hammers! That's 5 for 1!

How pray tell did 11 food get you 60 hammers in the first place? If it were due to something like building a Temple as a spiritual Civ then, as I said earlier, that bonus would be applied to conventional production as well. Thus, though you may have improved the food/shield ratio for whipping, it changed by the same amount for conventional production. The only real difference here is in the amounts of overflow whipping can produce. As far as I recall, overflow production does not retain any of the bonuses of its creation, so you can't even really exploit it there either.

I have already agreed with you that whipping yields a far better converion ratio of food-> hammers than conventional production does, but I will not agree that the production gained from there gets any extra bonuses that could not be equally applied to conventional production.

 

[Paeanblack]

I will not agree that the production gained from there gets any extra bonuses that could not be equally applied to conventional production.

Then you don't understand how whipping works.

Example:
A city with a +25% production bonus whips when 35 hammers are needed to complete something. The required population is calculated by determining the base hammers (35*(1/1.25)=28), dividing by 30, and rounding up, for a total of 1 population whipped. The total production generated is the modified hammers (35) rounded up to the next multiple of 30, for 60 hammers.

Now you have 35 hammers + 25 overflow from whipping one population. Now those 25 hammers, when applied to the production on the next turn, are considered *raw hammers* and still eligible for the 25% bonus, gaining you another 6 hammers.

A forge used optimally under normal production will turn 30 hammers into 37. A forge used optimally under slavery will turn 30 hammers into 67.

The situation gets even better when you have the Globe Theater and whip every turn, because that overflow keeps racking up the extra 25% as you carry it over every turn. The overflows sit and gain compounded interest until you hit the overflow cap or dump it into something very expensive.

 

[Paeanblack]

true, you get much more for low pop whips, but it's limited to low cost buildings!

For expensive buildings, you whip a low-cost military unit and dump the overflow into the more expensive building. This lets you whip the building piece-meal at basically the same population cost as whipping it all at once, but also gives you a bunch of free units.

Since catapults are useful for the entire game without being upgraded, I'm usually whipping them in every city as fast as the population will remain happy and dumping the overflow into buildings. A huge military will pay for itself as you can then frequently demand tribute from rich opponents to cover the upkeep.

Besides, it's not like you'll ever go to war with too many catapults on hand...