Basic strategy q: When to harvest resources?

[Stringer1313]

I had a basic question. How do you decide when to harvest resources? I like NEVER do it, I find it to be sacreligious b/c i want to milk all the benefits I can out of it in the long term. Also I think my OCD / fear of commitment makes me reluctant to pop it . But I'd like to expand my thinking on this! How do you decide when to harvest?

 

[Victoria]

How do you decide when to harvest?

If you do not want to chop then don;t, full respect, your game. The AI does not really chop and chopping speeds you up so for faster games thats when you use it. Pure and simple.
Chopping in population is also key, delaying your chop of pop can get you to a 10 size city (for rationalism)... but chopping to get another district in by getting to 7 is also a consideration. Chopping with a low pop is a bit of a waste.
here is some general rules I use that should help you manage the decision should you choose to embark.

Rule 1. Chopping is a limited resource so if you have few you have to chop less and if you have more you can chop more. Just be aware of builder costs. Good chopping ground mean wonder territory.
Rule 2. harvesting early gives much less reward however it will push your civ forward so the key is to harvest what needs to be done early for your gameplan. For example pyramids is built by the AI always and fairly early so if you want to get it you better be quick and chop. It also helps get to theaters faster.
Rule 3. Chop at the end not the beginning of a wonder. That way you do not lose the chop and the wonder.
Rule 4. Later chops are stronger so if you have one chop to do in a city and have to build both a library and a uni then chopping the uni later is a better option... but not always... if you have 3 science CS and 3 envoys in each that is a lotta science to your library.
Rule 5. Avoid too many chops until your builders have more charges, builders increase in cost and they can get mighty expensive at the end if you go crazy.... so ideally chop after feudalism but maybe not immediately as there will be a few cheap civics that can quickly up the chop value... you judge.
Rule 6. Chop all your crabs and copper near the end of the game, the money you get is crazy and you will get little off it for the last few turns.
Rule 7. Chopping when you have the harvest goddess is awesome in combination with the golden age monumentality, you really have to try it some time to be disgusted by the results. Just one chop can provide enough faith to buy another builder... and you can buy settlers with the faith too. It's just crazy.
Rule 8. R&F overflow chopping is gone so do not bother learning it. But chopping with a +50% or +100% production will increase the chop for that type of unit/building/district. The +15% wonder card when chopping wonders does help, as does having autocracy.

WARNING: If you are OCD then chopping may completely change your view and you want to clean up the entire countryside of all that dirty stuff. Try a little chopping, put Magnis in a city for 5 turns then chop in a wonder. It is wonderful, you hover over the chop button to see how much you will chop for and also you can see how mch a wonder is so you can assess how many chops and when.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

@Victoria
I usually one turn my harvesting for population chopping food.
Does this matter or create overflow just like when you chop for production?

 

[Victoria]

I usually one turn my harvesting for population chopping food.

As I understand it from the Chinese part of this excellent forum the following occurs. My understanding of it.

When a turn finishes any 'overflow' is put in an overflow 'bucket' for next turn. To use an example I need 35 food to get to the next pop.
I have 10 food left at the end of the turn and my additional food from the turn (lets say +2) is added to this (or another bucket) just fine.

On the next turn the food is showing as +12. My understanding is if you now chop in extra food it replaces the old overflow bucket with the new one... so lets say you had +12 and now chop in an extra 14 I understand that the overflow bucket now holds 14 not 26.

I am not 100% whether the +2 is kept in this case but the 10 overflow is lost/overwritten.

However... If in a single turn I chop in +10, +10 +10 all in one turn and naturally get +2 additional at the end of the turn then I will overflow +32. This is not enough for me to get to +35 but if you chop in another 10 +32 becomes suddenly +12... I have certainly seen this with science and culture and am just assuming it is the same for food.

So I wait another turn without chopping at it becomes +34, then another turn I get an extra pop and left with +1 in the overflow bucket. At this stage I could chop in some more food as I will only loose +1

There are separate buckets for science, culture, food etc so they do not zero each other out but what this means is for example you get a scientist that gives +250 for each mountain tile and you have 4 mountain tiles each +250 counts as separate overflow additions so finish a tech using 100 science overflows 150 but then next turn another 250 is applied which wipes out the 100 so you are better off applying all 250's to a big piece of science in one turn.

@FearSunn would this be correct?
If I do not get a reply I'll try and test tonight and post pics of what happens.
I really should have tested this all myself and done a proper write up.