Chopping - how much to let the city grow?

[bippukt]

I have a specific question about whipping - is it worthwhile in certain situations to let a city grow and become unhappy before whipping? Or is it better to reassign citizens to hammers/commerce or maybe even a specialist and thus prevent the city from growing?

As of now, I almost never allow my city to grow unhappy unless I have a very high food surplus and I need to whip 3+ pop.

 

[BakingTheArt]

For reference, you're referring to whipping, not chopping.

And I usually let my city grow 1 pop less than how much the whip costs. For example, if the happy cap is 6, I want a 2 population whip, I let it grow to seven, then whip it down to five, and stagnate it.

 

[bippukt]

Yes, my mistake (<6 hours sleep is responsible, I guess). But at least I wrote the post correctly

Thanks for your opinion. Any more views by others? Whipping, combined with chopping, is a very powerful strategy early on, and I need to master it on my march towards Monarch.

 

[Supr49er]

I think Whipping > Chopping.
Forests are next to impossible to regrow, but populations are easy.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I have a specific question about chopping - is it worthwhile in certain situations to let a city grow and become unhappy before whipping? Or is it better to reassign citizens to hammers/commerce or maybe even a specialist and thus prevent the city from growing?

As of now, I almost never allow my city to grow unhappy unless I have a very high food surplus and I need to whip 3+ pop.

When I whip I prefer to whip BIG (as close as possible to the max allowed), so that regrowth rates aren't a problem to manage. If there's a sick amount of food pushing "too fast" of a regrowth rate, then let the first whips be for specialist-bearing buildings (libraries especially or temples if you need to build a shrine, etc.) Then during the regrow trim that growth rate down with some specialists, which you can now flip due to what you whipped before.

Also I prioritize whipping whatever buildings will allow a higher growth limit when the city regrows. If the city is happiness constrained: temples and colosseums come first. If it's unhealthy but plenty happy, granaries and aquaducts. Then with the larger city size upon regrowth, you can whip bigger buildings in one shot (and flip specialists to control the rate of that regrowth).

 

[CreeDakota]

I think I need to get better at using slavery.

In regard to your orginal question I think it depends on how large is your food surplus, how long would you be feeding unhappy citizens before you whip them and finally what tile would you work instead of a high food tile. For example, growing into unhappiness for ten turns by working a banana tile (5 food) and then whipping VS. stopping growth to work a scientist. The banana tile will only net you one food (-2 for the citizen on it, -2 for the unhappy) while the scientist will get you 3 beakers and 3 GPPoints. Balance that versus an extra pop to whip away. I think overall its better to not grow into unhappy unless you are gonna whip them away very soon.

I often grow to the happy cap and then use the whip as a means to keep my population down. I almost always try for 2+ population whips. I almost always try to have some hammer investment for my whips. I usually whip infrastructure. I chop and whip overflow for units. I rarely whip workers or settlers since their production stagnates a city anyway.

In my most recent game I've been heavier with the whip; getting out monument, granary, and courthouse in new cities with whips as early as possible.

I am curious about peoples opinions on situations when growing is better than whipping. How about if you have a small food surplus? How about if you have alot of room under the happy cap? What if your close to happy and plan to war?

 

[bippukt]

Well, it seems as though I am on the right track

I am absolutely loving the whipping + spiritual combo. The mysticism start lets me go for one or even two religions, often in the same city. 2 pop temple whipping makes my job quite easy - get two great prophets ASAP and build two shrines in the same city. Adopt Organized Religion and mark a city to produce as many missionaries as possible. Spread the religions far and wide and crank out as many settlers/workers as possible. The extra gold from the holy city makes sure that the science spending doesn't slide too much. I will have to see if I can make this work even on Monarch level.

IMO mastering the art of whipping is crucial to my aim of jumping levels and I am finally beginning to get the hang of it - for example whipping the right buildings at the right time in the right city. BTW, I also do not prefer to whip workers/settlers, but I never say never

EDIT - Add the fast workers for Gandhi and it's even more fun

 

[vicawoo]

If you time your growth over the cap to your whip, then you lose no production.

You can also go over the happy cap and just build a worker/settler, as unhappy citizens have been verified to not eat food when building workers/settlers. It might cost you a little more maintenance from the greater population, but it has the benefit of not having to switch queues to something to grow 2 turns before whip anger subsides. This gives you better control over hammer decay, and if you're not whipping, it lets you instantly switch to specialists when whip anger subsides.

 

[bippukt]

If you time your growth over the cap to your whip, then you lose no production.

You can also go over the happy cap and just build a worker/settler, as unhappy citizens have been verified to not eat food when building workers/settlers. It might cost you a little more maintenance from the greater population, but it has the benefit of not having to switch queues to something to grow 2 turns before whip anger subsides. This gives you better control over hammer decay, and if you're not whipping, it lets you instantly switch to specialists when whip anger subsides.

Now that is what I call a trick of the trade. Thanks for letting me in

 

[Skallagrimson]

I am curious about peoples opinions on situations when growing is better than whipping. How about if you have a small food surplus? How about if you have alot of room under the happy cap? What if your close to happy and plan to war?

If I have lots of room under the happy cap and health also isn't an issue, it's growth time, no whippee. My consolation is that they need that growth time to get over their anger at being whipped anyway.

If the food surplus is small, the strategy should go more toward Organized Religion and leverage the hammers the map gods wanted you to have rather than the food they denied you. You probably will be fairly specialist-deprived in a food-poor map too, which is why those maps frustrate me to where I often just regen. I'm finding more and more that difficulty is more in the map than in the difficulty "level".

If you're close to happy cap, going to war will take you over the happy cap soon enough. Start eyeing a happy building that can be whipped like a temple, and pre-work it in a queue swap such that a whip will trim off without any build-time.

 

[slobberinbear]

The optimization of whipping is one of those eternal Civ IV questions, like CE vs. SE. I am an intermediate level whipper.

First of all, I am not always in slavery. Only be in slavery if you plan on whipping. The slave revolt event is painful. Sounds like you avoid most of this by being Spiritual, though.

Second, the optimal whip size is directly related to your city size relative to your happy cap, the presence of a granary, and your current food surplus.

Third, you will maximize whip overflow by whipping on the turn before the amount of population needed to whip goes down. In other words, it's better to whip on a turn when you lose 2 pop and get 20 hammers than waiting a turn where you lose one pop and get 5 hammers overflow. This is even more true if you can whip when your city is near growing, due to the way food is stored in your granary.

I generally don't whip more than two pop at a time unless it's an emergency, I need to remove lots of citizens for happiness reasons, or I have a high food surplus. Big whips are also a good idea for cities with poor hammer production.

I don't whip in cities where the loss of the whipped citizens results in less production than I gain from whipping. This is typically the case in heavy hammer cities, which arguably don't need the whip as much anyway. It's also true in well-developed large cottage cities. In those situations, stagnating growth is a better option than whipping, because the regrowth and lowered happy cap requires you to run at a lower production while regrowing and waiting for the whip unhappiness to subside. This is why whipping is an early game tactic; it's more costly than it benefits when you have bigger, better cities.

 

[bippukt]

Third, you will maximize whip overflow by whipping on the turn before the amount of population needed to whip goes down. In other words, it's better to whip on a turn when you lose 2 pop and get 20 hammers than waiting a turn where you lose one pop and get 5 hammers overflow. This is even more true if you can whip when your city is near growing, due to the way food is stored in your granary.

I discovered this only recently, thanks to the BUG mod. And I agree with you on this count. This "optimized" whipping can be quite useful, although in many situations it will be better to whip earlier. Optimal whipping combined with chopping can really power your game.

I am not sure about your comments about the late game slavery because I have used it only once or twice. Along with the Kremlin, it can be very useful, but I usually adopt Caste System or Emancipation in the late game. Hmm...this is an important issue for me to ponder. Perhaps I could try it in my current game.

 

[Iranon]

Whipping with a granary in place translates food into hammers at a ratio of 30 hammers for (10+city size) food... this is the average size when regrowing, not the final size.

Whether you want to sink everything into the whip or not depends a lot on circumstances. for example, let's assume you have a city with generally poor land and you need longer than the 10 turns to regrow to your old size of 8 (so you aren't limited by the happiness concerns of the whip and are probably working all food-efficient tiles. This means your 'marginal citizens' to whip away are probably specialists).

Over your regrowth cycle, 1 food whipped is translated into approximately 1.7. Whipping later slows your regrowth cycle and makes you exchange 2 food usable for whipping (worth 3.4 in our example) for the output of a SpecialistTurn. If your marginal specialists are Representation-boosted scientists you just need to consider what is worth more to you in this city: 6 (and 3GPP) or 3.4.

If you prefer the specialist output, whip away only when you need the production immediately. If the hammers sound good but you lack hammer tiles (note: plains/grassland mines give a better conversion of food to hammers) whip every 10 rounds and move towards a more efficient equilibrium at a smaller city size.

***

If your land is actually decent but lacks good production tiles, you might want to use the resource to grow your first generation of cities to their caps, then found filler cities that work nothing but food resources and regularly-whipped specialists. Or have multiple hybrid cities whipping in turn, always changing the food resource to one that needs to regrow... if you can stand the micromanagement.

In the late game, relatively small cities with a food surplus are awesome with the Kremlin. At size 10 (average during regrowth again), a 2--farm gives the equivalent of 4.5 hammers when geared towards whipping. You won't be able to keep this up indefinitely if you stack whip anger, but there's no reason you can't divert some of it towards whipping and set up stable cycles supporting specialists in the regrowth time as normal. You'll still get a combination of hammers/whatever-the-specialists-get-you that you could not achieve with a combination of farms and those awesome State Property workshops.

 

[Skallagrimson]

All the calculations are a bit much for me when actually playing (x hammers plus y hammers divide by the square root of pi... C'MON... that's playing a GAME? Sounds more like a day job!) I just know that my high-food cities are going to whip more (and use specialists as a way to control the regrowth rate) and low-food cities will whip seldom, if at all. Which means if the empire is food-poor in genereal that makes Caste or Serfdom look more attractive in the mid-game. Early game the happy caps are so low relative to food, and no specialists yet, whipping is a no-brainer.

 

[dragomaster]

For me whipping is the early game civic. BW is one of the most importent tech to reserch early. so most of us reserch this long before alphabet is online to trade it. it alow us chooping and slavery.
at this stage of the game when you have a happy cap of 5, unless you are charismatic. you need to think how to maximaze your production. becous monarcy is a pritty far away tech. as our persian friend said earlyer: 2 = 3,4

Imagin what we need in the beginning. Workers, Settlers, defenders ie attackers so the wipp is realy importent at this point.
sometimes i wipp axmen one turn before completed result in two axmen.
I grow the city to one turn before growing to unhappines. start the settler, when the settler is at whipp 3 stage I que the settler, grow to unhappines and whip it.

What i ushally do: research BW and try to reserch pottery soon for granarys. choop granarys and start the whipping gallore.
then I chase alphabet, chase priesthood or monotheism and trades for monarcy. at this point when monarcy is online slavery starting to get old becous happy cap is a no more problem. now big city advantage starting and regrowing slaved populations takes long and have one more is better than one less. I say monarcy is the most importent tech in the game without the mids.

 

[Skallagrimson]

With unit maintenance in the picture, I think HR-based growth has a relative profitability, related to the quality of tiles you're allowing the city to work that way. If all that's left are some grass forests, 1 hammer 2 food won't be worth the unit gold. But if it's to grow into a new floodplain cottage, put that obsolete unit to riot-suppression duty!