Build Projects with Prerequisites

Lanzelot

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As we all know, there are many build projects that require certain preconditions so that they can be built. Recently the question came up (on the German civforum.de), what happens to such a project currently under construction, if the prerequisite meanwhile "got lost". This may be quite important if the project in question is a Wonder like the Statue of Zeus, and you lose your ivory resource while the thing is still under construction...

As quite a few surprising results turned up, I thought it might be worth it to translate it and post it here as a strategy article.

Units
  • There are many military units, which require certain strategic resources in order to be built: horses, iron, saltpeter, rubber, oil, aluminium, uranium. All military units can be completed, even if the resource(s) got lost in the meantime. Of course, no new units can be started, until the resource(s) in question get reconnected.
  • Nuclear Weapons can be completed, even if the city, which built the Manhattan Project, is destroyed in the meantime. And what is most strange: you can even start new Nuclear Weapons, even though the Manhattan Project - like all Great Wonders - cannot be rebuilt once it has been destroyed!

Worker Tasks
  • Workers currently building a railway segment can finish it, even if iron or coal are lost in the meantime. (Except for automated workers, which will stop building their railway segment as soon as iron or coal is lost. Thanks to tjs282 for finding this out!)

Great Wonders
  • A Great Wonder can be completed, even if it becomes obsolete in the meantime. Obsolete Wonders are still capable of triggering a GA. It is no longer possible to start a Wonder, after it has become obsolete.
  • The Statue of Zeus can be completed, even if ivory is lost in the meantime.
  • The Manhattan Project can be completed, even if uranium is lost in the meantime.

Small Wonders
  • Heroic Epic and Military Academy can be completed, even if the victorious Army is lost in the meantime. (In fact: you can even start these two Small Wonders, after the Army has died! It is only necessary to have had an Army victory once in the past.)
  • The Pentagon can not be completed, if the number of Armies sinks below 3. (*)
  • The Forbidden Palace can not be completed, if the number of towns falls below the required number of towns. (*)
  • The Secret Police Headquarter can not be completed, if you revolt into a new form of government. (*)
    If you complete it while being in Communism and then revolt into some other government, it looks like it "disappears" from the improvement list of the city that built it. However, when revolting back to Communism afterwards, it will "reappear" in that city and continue to provide the usual benefit.
  • The Battlefield Medicine can not be completed, if the number of hospitals in your empire falls below 5. (*)
  • The Wall Street can not be completed, if the number of stock exchanges in your empire falls below 5. (*)
  • The Strategic Missile Defense (SDI) can be completed, even if the number of SAM missile batteries in your empire falls below 5.
  • The Apollo Program can be completed, even if aluminium is lost in the meantime.
  • The Iron Works can be completed, if the iron or coal resource inside the BFC of the city gets "exhausted".
    (Thanks to jarred!, who built a little custom scenario to try this out.)

(*) The build project is changed interturn to some randomly selected project, and that project will not even complete that interturn, even if the shieldbox had way above the required number of shields.

Spaceship Parts
  • Spaceship Parts can be completed, even if the city with the Apollo Program is lost in the meantime. (Of course you can't start new Spaceship Parts until you built a new Apollo Program.)
  • SS Thrusters, SS Cockpit, SS Docking Bay, SS Engine, SS Life Support System, SS Stasis Chamber, SS Storage/Supply, SS Planetary Party Lounge and SS Exterior Casing can be completed, even if aluminium is lost in the meantime.
  • SS Fuel Cells and SS Stasis Chamber can be completed, even if uranium is lost in the meantime.
  • SS Exterior Casing can be completed, even if rubber is lost in the meantime.
 
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Hi,

interesting thread. Thanks!

The Statue of Zeus can be completed, even if ivory is lost in the meantime.
Maybe a stupid question: Will the Statue of Zeus still produce Ancient Horsemen without ivory?
 
Will the Statue of Zeus still produce Ancient Horsemen without ivory?

Yes, auto-produced units from a wonder don't require the resource to be built, the wonder just needs the resource to be constructed initially. If I remember correctly though auto-produced units from a regular building DO require the resource other-wise auto-production stops.
 
Worker Tasks
Workers currently building a railway segment can finish it, even if iron or coal are lost in the meantime.
I knew this, and have used it -- although admittedly not very systematically -- in past games, when the terrain generator has been unkind enough to deprive me of Coal (forcing me to import it instead).

Thinking about it now, that suggests it might be a good idea in that situation to break up any worker-stacks which were assembled to lay rails in 1T, and spread them out over every tile that I want railed in the near future, just before the current import deal ends. Sure, it would take an individual Worker (or slave pair) at least another 6T to finish laying rails over a flatland tile all on its own, but at least I could be sure of getting all the most important tiles done even after the deal has expired.

e.g. with 100 slaves, I would be able to rail on average ~8 flatland tile equivalents (FTEs) per 1T (@12 slaves per stack), ~16 FTEs per 2T (@6 slaves per stack), 25 FTEs per 3T (@4 slaves per stack) or ~33 FTEs per 4T (@3 slaves per stack). Overall, around 160-170 FTEs railed per 20T deal, however you slice it.

I think my preference would be to use 25 * 4-stacks, which would rail 150 FTEs in 18T, and then split them into 50 pairs on Deal-Turn19, to get another 50 FTEs railed over the next 6T while saving the price of Coal for 5T. And then use all that extra productivity/gold to go and secure a(nother) Coal-source of my very own, so I don't have to depend on a backstabbing son-of-a-(silicon)tchib anymore...
 
Worker Tasks
Workers currently building a railway segment can finish it, even if iron or coal are lost in the meantime.
I think this should be more a matter of "...if the piece of road is not part of the trade network carrying coal or iron."
Because if the lone harbor to the island is lost (for example), the whole island loses the ability to be upgraded.

I sometimes have island A with rails, but island B not yet, because it has no connection to iron/coal.
 
Interesting list

Personally, I only get enraged when I don't have Coal

Horses, Iron, Saltpeter especially, I can live without

Usually I get at least one of Iron or Horses

But no coal makes me rage
 
Maybe a stupid question: Will the Statue of Zeus still produce Ancient Horsemen without ivory?
Not a stupid question. No, it won't -- as I just found out in my current game.... I captured the SoZ-city, but not the Ivory, and got no ACavs for the next 35T -- at which point I posted my question, and got the answer.
 
Worker Tasks
  • Workers currently building a railway segment can finish it, even if iron or coal are lost in the meantime.
Bumping this thread, because I just discovered that this is (also) not 100% true.

Spoiler What happened... :
In my current game, I had 27 manually-assigned Slaves stack-railing 3 mined Mountains in my core, but was being late-game lazy around my northern science-farms (ex-Aztec territory), where I had automated ("This city only, no altering") dozens of slaves to add Rails to the already fully roaded+irrigated Grass tiles.

One turn later — having forgotten that I still had a couple of turns to run on a Coal export-deal to England — I Settler-abandoned a poorly-placed Roman town adjacent to my second Coal-tile, to make room for two more farms. (The Roman town occupied the only Grass-tile deep in an extensive Hill- and Mountain-range at the south end of my continent, so abandoning, railing+irrigating the Grass, and re-settling 2 Hills meant I would be able to run 3 Geeks in 2 farms, instead of 1 Geek in 1 farm).

But the abandonment meant that my second Coal ended up temporarily outside my borders and thus unusable (the Roman + Carthaginian towns had only been conquered relatively recently, and had built no Culture, nor had I started prioritising Settling that section of my continent yet).

This Coal-loss had the interesting result that, although my manually-assigned Slaves carried on with what they were doing, my automated Slaves all immediately stopped their railing-jobs.
 
Interesting find... (And another point where you say to yourself "well, that's consistent, isn't it...")
I guess I never noticed, because I never automate my workers...
 
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