[BTS] Boxed-In By AI

[gavenkoa]

Granary effectively cuts the food required to grow another pop by half

Holy cow! You opened my eyes!

That is unforgivable stupidity from my side. Of cause Granary increase efficiency by 100% (doubles)!

And all whip hammers are still subject to other multipliers (like Forge +25%, etc).

Last games I haven't considered 100% Food -> Hammer boost from granary trying to keep high population intact. I always need to whip at least X+2 => X. Constantly. X+2 should be Happiness limit.

 

[AcaMetis]

Just be weary of the whip timer. Granaries speed up the (re-)growth of your cities, but they don't decrease the unhappiness from whipping, and unless you've got a clever plan it's almost never worth growing into unhappiness. As for hammers multipliers, keep in mind that it's not just what you whip that's subject to multipliers, but also any overflow.

 

[Fish Man]

That's one of the big mistakes I've been making; I didn't whip/chop at all. I didn't whip because I was paranoid about having low population cities in the early game, and I didn't chop because I was saving forests for Lumber Mills later on.


You hit the nail on the head. I wouldn't settle fast enough and the AI would take all of the slots around me until I ended up surrounded by their cultural borders.


Thanks!

With all due respect, you are ignoring two of the absolute most powerful sources of production in the game. Playing without whipping and chopping is like trying to win a swimming competition without arms. You won't get anywhere against anyone, not even the moronic AI on a low difficulty.

The thing about whips is that, besides the excellent 1f-2h conversion ratio mentioned by other posters, they make use of something that gives nothing otherwise most of the time. Early on your cities will have a happy cap of 6, at most, and that's if you're lucky enough to get 2 luxuries. So once your city grows past that, the unhappy pop is contributing absolutely nothing...except if you whip it away. In whip case something that gives nothing at all suddenly can give 30 hammers, instantly, just like that. Without this, you are severely stunting your ability to build anything in a timely manner...even the least expensive buildings take 10, 20, maybe even 30 turns of working grass mines to pump out, and early game units still almost as much. Also, compared to hammers, food is extremely common early on, so when you have a scarcity of one thing and an overabundance of another, it stands to reason that anything converting the rich resource to the lacking resource is extremely powerful.

As for chops...the premise behind those is that production NOW is far more important than production later. If you chop a forest you can speed up settler production by an average of 3-4 turns, meaning the new city can then start contributing that much sooner, AND you deny land much quicker to the AI. Same with buildings that you can use faster, units that you can deploy quicker for conquest or defense, etc. Finally there's the issue that lumber mills are kind of crap. At most with a RR through them a grass lumber mill gives 2f3h1c. A state property - caste workshop gives 2f4h and you get the use out of the forest, thousands of years earlier, when production is scarce...it's no contest.

 

[AcaMetis]

I should add that one benefit of keeping forests around is that they provide +0.5 per forest in a city's BFC, but health generally isn't an issue early on unless you settle your cities poorly and have absolutely rotten luck in terms of what resources you've got available both internally and through trade. Later on when you industrialize your cities will be choking in unhealth, but keeping forests around until that point is just not worth it. Using the hammers and the tiles those forests are on early is a better investment both short- and long-term.

Think of this this way: Any one of Corn/Wheat/Rice, with a Granary that you're all but guaranteed to build anyway, is worth 2, or four forests worth, in every city. Four BFC forests are worth 80 pre-Math, which is either 4/3rd of a Worker or 4/5th of a Settler. Keeping four forests around for thousands of years to get the same health bonus in two, maybe three cities that your entire empire would get from getting one more resource plain isn't worth it. Especially if those four forests will turn into the settler that settles the Corn/Wheat/Rice and claims it for your entire empire, needless to say.

 

[Gumbolt]

Even without whipping or chopping with a worker start you should still have 2nd city 2800 or so pending on 2-3 food resources.

So his issues go a lot deeper than just whipping/ chopping. I would suggest he posts some early saves. 2000bc. 3000bc. We can then give better advice.

 

[gavenkoa]

keep in mind that it's not just what you whip that's subject to multipliers, but also any overflow

Is bonus from settler if you are Imperialistic (+50%) and from worker if you Expansive (+25% extra) preserved in overflow when you whip?

I'm greedy to use new knowledge. Where's my weekend?

 

[AcaMetis]

You can't cheese it to get double bonus, I know that, but I'm not sure how to explain...you know what, one second, I'll do a quick test and give an example:

If you 3-pop whip an IMP Settler that has 8/100 invested you'll end up with 143/100 visibly invested in the build. The city I'm using produces 12/turn towards the settler, so next turn I would expect 143+12-100=55 overflow as well as a Settler unit. What I get, however, is only 36 overflow, because (as far as I know) bonuses do not apply to generated overflow, only to what you're building. I'm not sure how the game calculates things, but that's how it works. Mind you, the overflow that I do generate is subject to a bonus, so if I invest that overflow into another Settler I'll get 36×1.5=54 invested in the next settler. Or 36×1.25=45 invested into a worker, if I were playing as Joao (EXP/IMP), or tons of hammers invested into a wonder if I'm playing Augustus (IND/IMP), etc.

Pardon if my previous comment wasn't clear, by the way.

 

[gavenkoa]

bonuses do not apply to generated overflow, only to what you're building

Great!

So many examples spread over the forum without possibility to find them ((

I wish it was collected in Sevopedia, included into BUG mod ))