Breaking the prince wall

[midget_roxx]

For quite a while I've been trying to get into prince difficulty but have probably only won 1 game out of 10 and I need some advice on a bunch of stuff. I've read some of the guides on here but they don't seem to deal with specifics that some members talk about. For instance tech rushing, chopping and whipping. Most of my games are played on large/huge maps with tectonics, pangea or lakes.

I seem to do quite well at the start either matching and beating the AI in expanding but I find it's after the first 3 cities I get I start to go downhill. The AI will start to beat me in tech and from there got more advanced in both tech and cities and it seems to be an inevitable steamroller from there.

So I'm hoping for some tips on when to start wars, what is good to chop for, how many turns should I save per whip and what techs are best to go for.

 

[lymond]

It's actually quite common for newer players to want to play large/huge maps. This has always baffled me to no end. I guess the thinking is that bigger is better. That's not really the case with Civ. It hogs more computer resources and puts you at a disadvantage with AI as they have more land to expand into and they WILL expand into it faster than you. Land is power with this game. So anyway, that is part of your problem. Play how you wish, but I recommending normal settings - at least while you learn the game. Pangaea, Continents, Fractal, Archipelago and Inland Sea are good basics maps to learn on...the others tend to give odd starts.

As for winning on Prince, there are probably some basics that you are missing. Posting one or two of your early games may allow as to quickly surmise what some of your issues might be. Furthermore, actually posting a start and playing the game on this forum in small turnsets will allow you to get very focused and targeted feedback, which is really the best way to learn.

Otherwise, with all your questions - some of which confuse me a tad (tech rushing?/how many turns to save per whip?) would come to basically writing another guide right here.

Prince is not a big step up from Noble, so you really should win on this level if you can beat Noble normally. (again, Huge maps do up the difficulty a bit). Some questions like when to start wars and such come to getting a feel over time and experience with how diplo works. A lot about this game is situational, so it is hard to speak to it in a "vacuum". The map plays an important role in decisions you make - and I don't mean type of map (though that can be a factor) but rather the full picture of land, resources, food and proximity to the AIs.

Again, let us get a better picture of where you stand currently with the game, identify your faults, and build from there. Otherwise, most of what we tell you does not have much context.

oh...and welcome to CFC!

 

[TheWilltoAct]

When you are whipping units a vital consideration is whether you have put one turn of hammers into the item or not. In an emergency you would have to whip a unit that you had just placed into the queue, and suffer a hammer penalty (another player would know the exact numbers on this).

In general you want to whip away citizens that are working junk tiles; this mostly refers to tiles that haven't been improved yet by your workers. As you become accustomed to the tradeoff between population and production, you will probably come up with your own rules of thumb. For instance, whipping away good tiles can be acceptable if the payoff is significant. One classic example would be whipping universities so your science city can begin construction of Oxford sooner. The +100% science modifier can be game changing; you should recoup your population investment in a matter of turns.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

So I'm hoping for some tips on when to start wars, what is good to chop for, how many turns should I save per whip and what techs are best to go for.

Right - the problem is that none of these things have anything to do with why you can't win at Prince.

Expressing the same thought a different way: if the most important ideas for beating Prince were chopping, whipping, and tech rushing, none of us would be able to beat Emperor.

I seem to do quite well at the start either matching and beating the AI in expanding but I find it's after the first 3 cities I get I start to go downhill

This, on the other hand, is a curious statement -- because 3 cities isn't nearly enough to consider "expanding". If you are falling behind after three cities, then you aren't beating the AI in expanding at all -- so you should look at improving that part of your game.


Civ is a strategy game; it's critical to have a plan. Land is one of the simple plans.

1) Claim your fair share of territory
2) Claim more than your fair share of territory
3) Claim someone else's fair share of territory
4) Claim all the territory you can reach
5) Win.

You're having a breakdown in phase #1, so you should look at that: what are you doing during the first 75 turns of the game instead of expanding?


But you didn't ask about any of that....

For thoughts on Whipping, see the appropriately titled article in the War Academy. If you ask specific questions in that thread, I'm sure people will argue about the answers for you.

 

[midget_roxx]

yes I was worried that playing on large maps might be an issue. I find the biggest issue I have is balancing growth with economy and military. I find I try to keep my military low to fund my growth and economy but this means I need to play a pacifist game and reading around on the forums it seems to get anywhere early on you need to punish the AI by attacking them

Now I believe that why I struggle so much with research is city management. I read alot about GP farms, cottage farms etc. But I don't know exactly what one looks like. I tend to go for what suits my city best so if I've got 1 food resource and lots of grassland I will set up cottages and I will never irrigate grassland. Sometimes if I have a mix of copper/food then I will try to balance the shields and growth of city, in a situation like this would it be better to focus on either food or shields?

oh...and welcome to CFC!

Thanks . I've been lurking for a bit

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Right - the problem is that none of these things have anything to do with why you can't win at Prince.

Expressing the same thought a different way: if the most important ideas for beating Prince were chopping, whipping, and tech rushing, none of us would be able to beat Emperor.

The aspects in question might not be the tenets to victory but some understanding is necessary to avoid detrimental play... in other words answering questions on those topics could still be beneficial.

 

[lymond]

The aspects in question might not be the tenets to victory but some understanding is necessary to avoid detrimental play... in other words answering questions on those topics could still be beneficial.

Voice said "win on Prince". Not even sure what "tech rushing" is, but one can win on Prince without chopping or whipping. It's that easy. I think Voice is speaking to other basics surrounding early empire management. With that said, chopping and whipping are important to my game and for higher levels, but Midget's issues may lie in fundamentals that we are not even sure of with no understanding of his game.

Anyway, to Midget, again all this stuff is just words. If you want action, you gotta show us something.

 

[Um the Muse]

yes I was worried that playing on large maps might be an issue. I find the biggest issue I have is balancing growth with economy and military. I find I try to keep my military low to fund my growth and economy but this means I need to play a pacifist game and reading around on the forums it seems to get anywhere early on you need to punish the AI by attacking them

Now I believe that why I struggle so much with research is city management. I read alot about GP farms, cottage farms etc. But I don't know exactly what one looks like. I tend to go for what suits my city best so if I've got 1 food resource and lots of grassland I will set up cottages and I will never irrigate grassland. Sometimes if I have a mix of copper/food then I will try to balance the shields and growth of city, in a situation like this would it be better to focus on either food or shields?


Thanks . I've been lurking for a bit

Sometimes, what is best for the city is not what's best for your civilization as a whole. If you're in the beginning stages of the game, DO NOT BUILD BUILDINGS OR WONDERS. If you can follow that one simple rule, you will have enough military.

The next, possibly more important rule is to build workers. When you get some experience with the game, you might get a better feel for how many workers you need, but for now you should go with the generic rule of thumb of 3 workers for every 2 cities.

Improve resources, chop trees, build cities next to food.

 

[midget_roxx]

You're having a breakdown in phase #1, so you should look at that: what are you doing during the first 75 turns of the game instead of expanding?

I did a quick test run and to be honest I got quite lucky with my initial capital. The other 2 games I started on I had 0 luxuries on the entire continent and no religion for quite a while

This is me from 50-75. In the last pic you can see where my next city will be

I find when I start to go over the amount of cities I have now I start to lose money and I have to drop my research below 40%. In a situation like this was it better to expand more slowly or should I keep expanding right?
I went for Oracle but missed out by 2 turns but it only takes 5 turns in total so nothing too major. Out of curiosity when you guys first start off, do you build a warrior or worker first? Because I usually go for a warrior then switch to worker after that then a settler or at least when I have 3 pop in my capital

 

[Seraiel]

Doesn't look too bad imo

There are some things that really worry me though:

I see 2 Workers on the Screen, for 4 cities, you should have 6 (1.5 / city rule of the thumb, sometimes one even needs more) .
This explains why so much land is not improved, why so many Forrests are still not chopped. Regarding your question what is good to chop: Everything (except Tundra or tiles having camp-ressources. Everything must be chopped, and everything should go into Workers / Settlers) .
You don't whip enough. Your Capital is size 8, but only has 4 improved tiles. Whip whenever a city grows on an unimproved tile, but more important, improve the tiles.
You're building Cottages on normal land while riverside-one would be available. Especially when playing a FIN like Darius on the Screen, this is of major importance.

Regarding your opening post:

Keep on playing Huge maps if you want, but adjust the game-speed. Huge / Normal is extremely unfavourable.
Chopping is the most important production increase in early game (just imagine you'd have chopped those forrests, you'd have 20 Immortals and 10 cities then) while whipping is always imporant and lasts longer (you can still run Slavery while being in modern times) .
Not being able to keep up in tech means you built too few Cottages.
Chop Settlers / Workers. And there is no number of turns you should save / whip, every whip has fixed value of 30 Hammers (normal gamespeed, Marathon i. e. has 90) per population point whipped. I once wrote a post about whipping, maybe you'll find it, I think it was in short: Whip when growing onto unimproved tiles, don't whip away good tiles, whip when something is needed badly (last rule overwrites the 2 previous ones) .
Important techs are: Food-techs first (look what ressources you got) , then production techs (Mining, Bronze Working) then Commerce techs (Fishing, Pottery) . After that, beeline Alpha on low lvls, on high lvls you'll be able to trade that.
Important techs after Alpha: Math (improves Hammers generated by chops) , Calendar (gives access to more ressources) , Currency (probably the most important tech of the game, gives extra Traderoutes and the ability to build gold) , Construction (Catapults) , Metalcasting (Forges) , Civil Service (Burocracy Civic makes your Capital awesome if you cottaged it) .
After that, beeline Liberalism, take Military Tradition from it and win the map with Cuirrassiers (most overpowered unit in the game) , but you have to come so far first

Regarding your 2nd post:

On lower difficulty and large maps, you don't have to rush, as you can peacfully settle the land because the AI is so slow. Military costs money, but the bigger your cities are, the less you have to pay. Improving the tiles and building Cottages has the biggest importancy, though there are other ways to get your economy going, like working hammer-tiles and building gold or building farms and working specialists (your Capital should always be cottaged though because of the power of Burocracy) .

And at last, concerning city specialization, take these rules of the thumbs and you'll do at least twice as good as you do now:

Build 1 GP Farm (Food-heaviest city, all Farms, work as many Specialists as you can while the city still grows) .
50% Hammer-cities (cities with enough Food can work mines and later Workshops, those cities build troops and should get Forges) .
50% Commerce-cities (cities with less Food, hopefully a river, those cities work Cottages, get Libraries, and later Banks) .

Most imporant: Don't build everything everywhere. A Granary is the only building needed for winning!

Cya, Sera

 

[Um the Muse]

I think that you'll find that in almost any game, you'll be glad that you went with a worker first. Sometimes a workboat first will work. In a few cases (calendar resources instead of something you can actually do stuff with), you might want to just start over.

The only time warrior first works is if you're going to attack from the very beginning. On Prince, you might get away with attacking an AI with nothing but a warrior or two, but on the next difficulty the AI start out with an archer.

The only civ that can consistently win with this early of a rush is the Inca. The UU replacement for the warrior, the Quechua, gets 100% bonus versus archers and Combat I.

On your city placement, it looks like you didn't want to overlap tiles, am I right? Don't be afraid of overlap; in most games, you'll find that you don't even grow your cities large enough to use those tiles even if you wanted to. That means that there is no penalty to overlap. On the other hand, overlap means that you can develop a tile before placing the city, which is a huge boon. Overlap has many more bonuses, such as extra defensibility, earlier domestic traderoutes, and more. Don't be afraid to overlap.

Now that you've learned that rule, I'm sure that you can see that your third city was placed horribly. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of having food available immediately, and if you had built the third city (Susa?) on that plains hill, you would have had both the fish and the horses right away. You would also have had an extra hammer per turn in the city square.

Your fourth city won't be able to do much of anything for a long time. Are you planning on getting either Calendar or Monarchy really soon? I'm not saying that you were wrong to build that city (that's for you to decide), but do realize that it won't ever be able to do much directly.

Your fifth city looks pretty vulnerable to me. Wheat will eventually be good for the health bonus, but right now that city would be A) Hard to hold if the Chinese decide to attack B) costly in terms of development time. What would you do with the city after it grows to size three?

 

[lymond]

Ok...this is a little something to work with. Screenies are good and help draw interest, but I'd prefer a save to see more of the details. Still some glaring errors pop out at me.

I big issue I see here is you tend to settle with food on the outer ring. This means you have to wait for a border pop to improve it and work it.

Important thing to note: FOOD IS THE MOST IMPORTANT resource. This game is all about food and growth. Food allows you to do so many things and can also be converted to hammers.

In general, unless your leader is Creative, you want to try to settle early cities with food in the first ring. Later when you have faster options for culture in a city you can be more selective, but it is very important for early empire management to get your cities grow. That was they can work more tiles for more production and commerce and allow for whipping.

For instance, take your horse city for example. Settling on the PH 1NW of the fish allows you to get fish - a great food resource - in the first ring and you still have horse in the first ring. It is still a fine early city with lots of production and now it will grow onto that production much faster.

Pigs/Ivory - You can settle 1S and get pigs - another great food resource in the first ring. Don't worry about it being 1 off the coast. a couple of coastal tiles is not an issue unless you cancel out a good coastal city with seafood, which in this case you would not.

You really nerf your overall growth and production capabilities by settling away from food. Creative trait does give you more flexibility in that regard, but I still look to get food online asap.

There will be some situation..take horse for instance, that you might settle a poor food resource in order to get that strat online asap by settling next to it or even on it, but only do so if you intend to rush.

I find when I start to go over the amount of cities I have now I start to lose money and I have to drop my research below 40%. In a situation like this was it better to expand more slowly or should I keep expanding right?

Nothing wrong with going below 40%. In fact, I run the 0% research a lot in the early game to fund expansion. Once you get Writing, you can shut off research while you get libraries in. Make sure you get to scientists running asap - usually your cap - and use the first GS for an Academy in your Cap. Raise your slider once you amass enough gold to finish Aeths or Alpha and then backfill techs with the AIs. It does take some practice with binary research to get a feel for it, but the point is that it is not where your slider sits that matter but you over beakers per turn (bpts). BPTs go up naturally with more cities and connected trade routes - and specialists. So keep that in mind. You will get more of a feel for this soon.

Granted, having things like gold or gems help keep things moving along, but on higher levels it is even more important to amass gold for a bit as you expand because maintenance costs ramp up with each level. Learning to manage that is part of the game.

Lastly, on this point, make sure you get to Currency asap. It is the most important tech in the game and once you get it, you money troubles are over.

Don't forget that Alpha and Currency allow you to build Research and Wealth respectively or, in other words, turn hammers into beakers or gold.

I went for Oracle but missed out by 2 turns but it only takes 5 turns in total so nothing too major.

I'm really surprised you missed Oracle on this level and with marble. At least you get fail gold. If going for Oracle make sure you have a plan for it. Otherwise shoot for Writing asap.

Out of curiosity when you guys first start off, do you build a warrior or worker first? Because I usually go for a warrior then switch to worker after that then a settler or at least when I have 3 pop in my capital

Practically the golden rule is to build worker first. I guess you have not read all the guides. It will change your game. There are a few exceptions on some starts, usually coastal, depending on the land and starting techs. Or sometimes as Incans on certain maps you may want to just pump Quechas and steal workers and cities.

For now though, just go worker first until you get a feel for when you might need to try something else.


edit: And keep in mind that the farther apart your cities are from your cap, the more the maintenance costs are, so there's nothing wrong in keeping the empire compact at first depending on the land and what resources allow. Overlapping cities is not a bad thing at all. If I have a high food cap, I will often overlap the second city to share food resources. There are other advantages to that approach as well.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

I find when I start to go over the amount of cities I have now I start to lose money and I have to drop my research below 40%. In a situation like this was it better to expand more slowly or should I keep expanding right?

Expansion is good as long as you can afford it. You are mindful of the costs which is good, try to build a few more cottages.

I went for Oracle but missed out by 2 turns but it only takes 5 turns in total so nothing too major. Out of curiosity when you guys first start off, do you build a warrior or worker first? Because I usually go for a warrior then switch to worker after that then a settler or at least when I have 3 pop in my capital

When you failed the Oracle you probably received a lump sum of gold as compensation. It can be a good strategy to fail wonders on purpose, the reasoning being that it is the only way to get out of your hammers before Currency. This is a moderately advanced strategy, I would suggest you only try it if you find yourself with adequate military but an empty coin purse.

Regarding your question what is good to chop: Everything (except Tundra or tiles having camp-ressources. Everything must be chopped, and everything should go into Workers / Settlers) .

I would alter this rule slightly, but basically you want to open up as much grassland (green tiles) as possible. Grass farms will give you a +1 surplus, and cottages on grass will be food neutral (no net gain or loss), so you can work cottages without slowing your growth. Plains tiles by contrast give only 1 and a and are therefore better suited to production. If you allow forests to remain standing on these tiles the base yield improves by 1 , which can make forested plains attractive.

 

[midget_roxx]

Ah well I think that solves my initial issue: lack of workers. I would probably have 0.5-1 worker per city and do workers cost maintainence?

Now that you've learned that rule, I'm sure that you can see that your third city was placed horribly. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of having food available immediately, and if you had built the third city (Susa?) on that plains hill, you would have had both the fish and the horses right away. You would also have had an extra hammer per turn in the city square.

My thought process in taking that area was to deny the chinese any more land (the BFC you see is their capital) and I remember reading you should always expand towards your enemies.

Here's me going a bit further:

I plan to take the dyes so I can trade them off for other things. Now this is the issue I mentioned earlier with my tech. I have tech rate at 30% and I would be much further behind if I didn't have 2 scientists in my capital. Should I have slowed growth to keep my tech rate higher?

 

[lymond]

Your fifth city looks pretty vulnerable to me.

Yeah, instead settle on the Plains hill south of the Pigs where you should have settled the 4th city in the first place. Decent food and resources, while being a defensible city.

Seraiel - all of your advice is spot on, but cottages are not necessarily the rule to keep up with tech. However, as a FIN leader he should be using cottages on the right tiles if at all possible and look to set up cottage cities, if possible.

Roxx - also, if you have the worker turns - and you should with enough workers - try to get roads to your new cities asap, if not before you actually settle. If you have a road to the tile next to where you settle for the cap or to a city linked to a cap, then you have an insta-trade route. Thus, your commerce goes up immediately as well as your bpts, even though your money goes down.

 

[midget_roxx]

Here is the save

 

[lymond]

I plan to take the dyes so I can trade them off for other things. Now this is the issue I mentioned earlier with my tech. I have tech rate at 30% and I would be much further behind if I didn't have 2 scientists in my capital. Should I have slowed growth to keep my tech rate higher?

Not sure if you read my post yet, but I answer that question there. As long as you aren't losing money at 0% then you are fine, cause then you lose your units

As for workers, they cost some maintenance as any unit, but they are worth the investments.

Again, get trade routes connected to your city asap and get foreign trade routes asap via a road or with Sailing ( you need to unfog a coastal path to an AI)


On another note, I recommend install BUG/BULL mod in custom assets. Many use it around here. It really helps with the UI and information you have access to, without changing the game itself.

If you post a start save as well, some folks may play along and show you how they did things.

Also, next time you do this try play short turns sets and get advice before the turnset - including before you start.

 

[lymond]

Oh lord...don't build walls. Waste of hammers! You can always 2pop whip them in an emergency.

Actually your economy is not that bad considering you have no foreign trade routes at 75BC. 1 Library and no Currency. Not sure why you are going Metal Casting, but you should have Maths and Currency long before now...long long before now. See the difference when you do. Besides some early tech trading you will start blowing the AIs away on this level in tech. (By the way, BUilding Research is nice, but Building Wealth > Building Research)

Yep, you need more workers. Think how much faster Susa would have GLH if you had a mine on that plains hill. (by the way, that spear will not defend well against that axe...whip an axe or chariot)...actually I can show you a good whip trick here, as follows:

First you don't whip something first turn of build (unless emergency) as there's is a penalty to hammer overflow. Each citizens on normal speed is 30H whipped, so chariots can't be 2 popped, except on the first turn, but you don't want to do that. Axes though can be 2 popped on turn 2. So what you do, say in Susa, is adjust your tiles such that no more than 1 to 3 hammers go into the build that turn and make sure you have residual overflow from competing a prior build. 2pop whip the Axe next turn and then adjust tiles to max hammers that turn. You should have upwards of 28 to 29 hammers overflow that will go into the GLH the next turn. great way to finish wonders and also a great way to get up a fast army. This is why you don't always need a large standing army in times of peace. When you are ready to prep for war you can whip one out pretty fast if you cities are improved and let them grow.

Also, why are some of your cities stagnating with happy cap room to grow? and 2 pop whip out some more workers. you don't have to slow build them if your cities are large.

 

[jokulmorder]

i see some issues, i think fixing these first is the best way to improve. you don't need to worry about chop efficiency, whipping, or tech rushing yet!


City Placement

1. Capitol was, i assumed, settled in place. that's a fine spot, will make for a good bureaucracy capitol when you get there.

2. This is where things start to get iffy. Pasargadae should be 1S from where it currently is to get the pigs worked as quickly as possible. Like lymond said, food is the best resource in the game because it can be converted into anything else fairly easily:

-Hammers: Slavery, Draft, engineers (not that relevant though), being able to work more tiles!
-Beakers: Run scientists, work more cottages with a high science rate
-Gold: Run merchants, work more cottages with low science/espionage/culture rate
-Culture: Run artists, work more cottages with high culture rate

it's easy to see just how good food is! it is unquestionably the best resource. cities without food resources are probably marginal, small cities that are used to obtain and work minimal numbers of resource tiles.


3. Susa needed to be 1SW. It's sad for me to see these early cities (the ones you really want to have a food resource in the starting culture square) have something as awesome as coastal fish and not be able to work it until much later! Not only that, but you get an extra hammer by settling on a plains hill and it can help build up cottages for pasargadae or mooch food from its FPs.

4. Ecbatana should also be 1S for those pigs. tbh, it probably could have been placed 3S: you work the pigs, get the free hammer from the plains-hill, and you get a hill city next to Qin Shi Huang for defense. those spices are pretty marginal return and do not need to be worked right now anyways.



City Specialization

you have bronze working but you're building cottages in places like susa! you should hack down the riverside grassland forests (and use the hammers for something useful) next to persepolis and put cottages there instead. not only are you getting the extra commerce from the river, but persepolis has the population to work those tiles and get them established as towns much sooner than susa (which should be used for hammers, not commerce).


one thing i noticed is that when you see a resource cluster, you settle a city so that it can work all of those resources. are you planning your cities out by role? you should consider in advance what the purpose of the city is:

-Does it have a lot of food? Probably a good place to use a bunch of specialists and get plenty of great people.

-Does it have access to a lot of green (grassland) riverside tiles? strong commerce resources (preferably green)? one good food source? great cottage site.

-Lots of hills? hammer resources? plenty of green tiles (workshops)? rivers (watermills and eventually levees)? hammer city!

work on identifying ways to maximize each city's utility for a certain specialization (that's all you need for prince). once you do that, you'll notice which resources you need to work with that city and which can be used for future cities. i noticed this happened with pasargadae: you placed it so that it could work the marble, but sacrificed the early pigs. pasargadae doesn't need to work the marble, another city could work it in the future (probably using the cow from persepolis).


Teching

with regards to teching, just look for techs that satisfy your current needs and the needs you foresee yourself having in the future. need happiness? calendar and monarchy are very good sources of happiness for starts where you aren't graced with gold/silver/gems/ivory/fur. having marble gives you extra incentive to get literature earlier and even more incentive to get nationalism. access to horses and iron means you can go for military tradition and get cuirassiers or knights. lacking hammers? metal casting + caste system gives you 1F2H tiles (plains-forest tiles) which can help out: they get even better with guilds and chemistry.

for now, i would just look to see what techs get you the stuff that can best improve your strategy for this game: play the map! i notice you're teching priesthood. you're not gilgamesh, oracle is definitely doable at this difficulty but it's bad practice to start it this late, i can see you either want monarchy or code of laws. i doubt you're getting either very quickly given your start; so at the moment, priesthood does not offer you much. even if you could get monarchy or COL in decent time here, you're charismatic which means happiness isn't as big of a deal (so monarchy loses some value), and none of your cities are really bustling with food so i'm not sure you could get much from running caste system (if you can't utilize more than 2 scientists, no real reason to run it unless you want the workshop hammers).


You're almost there!
in total: you need to work on city placement, specialization, and focusing on techs that will benefit you the most now and in the next few turns. AI at this level is not a very good trade buddy so you don't need to worry about beelining odd techs yet; just focus on the basics and your game should improve significantly! i'll be looking at the save to see what i think you can improve.

 

[lymond]

Ok...here is a little visual exercise using Susa, since it needs an Axe anyway to defend that barb and the hammer OF is nice for the GLH. Note that the concept of whipping is even more complex than this, but 2pop whipping early units like Axes/Spears/Swords are fairly easy to understand:

ha...I had to start this over as you had workers chopping a forest next to Susa which throws off the whip when you are setting it up that turn. I had to stop them.

So here are some before screen shots of Susa as I set up the whip. Note that I'm using BUG which shows more info on the Whip button:

Okay, here I simply show the city screen and hover over the production bar. You see that an Axe is costs 35 hammers and no hammers have gone into the Axe (0/35). I will put a turn into the Axe, but 35-30 = 5. If I exceed or equal 5 base hammers in the first turn then I can't 2 pop whip the Axe next turn. It would be a 1 pop which you don't want.

Spoiler :

Ok, now the screen showing the base hammers of the city based on the current configuration of the citizens, i.e., what tiles they are working now after I adjust the tiles to get down to 2base hammers. 1base hammer is fine too:

Spoiler :

Here I'm showing the whip button by hovering over it. Note that it says I can use 2 citizens to whip the axe this turn, but only 5H in OF. Yep, the math does not add up.

2whipped citizens = 60H
Axe = 35H

why not 25H overflow, you ask? That first turn penalty I mentioned previously

Spoiler :

Okay, now for the after. I've hit end turn.

Here's the first screen showing the production bar - you can see that barb axe sitting on your plains cottage:

You can see that the city put 2h into the Axe after I complete the last turn...

Spoiler :

Here's a screen the same turn showing the BUG info from the whip button:

Spoiler :

So the Axe will take a 2pop whip

2citizens = 60H
minus
Axe (35-2) = 33H to complete
______
equals 27Hammers of overflow

Here's another screen showing the hammers transferred to the production bar, which is another way to see hammer overflow, especially without BUG mod:

Spoiler :

You see 62/35, which means the city has put 62 hammers into a 35H costs unit, so 27H OF.

Here is another screen the same turn as I adjust tiles to max hammers, as your cities base hammers do still go into the build and add up into total OF for the next turn, although at a penalty usually...there is an OF cap.

If you had more mines this would be better, but I just made sure o work the horse and that forest - that I had yet to chop for you - now your base production is 10H from 2H:

Spoiler :

Now, finally, on the last turn we reap the rewards. This screen I am again hovering over the left side of the production bar. See the 35H of OF...nice!

Spoiler :

And here, I added your chopped forest for 64 total production in 1 turn for a city with no more that 8 base hammers of improved tiles. It would have been 75 hammers if you had Maths, and you should have Maths by now:

Spoiler :

So think about that and practice it. That whipped axe and chopped just saved about 5 turns off the GLH.