CivMath: Whipping in a REX war

[The Lardossen]

If there is a suitable close AI to attack, I will attack around bronze / iron age. To gain overwhelming numbers over the AI, I use the whip. However, I'm a bit confused about what's better:

Whip axe/spear/sword immediately when at 4 pop and after finishing building something else, costing 2 pop, allowing you to finish second axe/spear/sword while growing back to 4 and unhappiness to wear off a bit before whipping againg.

Or:

Put axe/spear/sword into production, wait one turn, whip, wait one turn for next unit, whip, wait one turn, whip, and then grow back to four or whatever pop number you came from

I am under the assumption that whipping while there is still unhappiness from the previous whip gives an extra unhappiness penalty. However, whipping directly makes you suffer a 'you didn't wait one turn before whipping' penalty.

So what is the holy grail? 2 pop whips in fast growing cities, 1 pop whips and a long wait for slow growing cities? Or just 2 pop whips?

 

[slowcar]

if you whip a second time the unhappiness is the same but stays double the time. the second whipping penalty is just added after the first one.

building a unit one round is the better way in any case as you get a penalty when you rush things without a single shield invested. if you want to whip consecutively you should pre-build some units for a single round.

 

[Zophos]

if you whip a second time the unhappiness is the same but stays double the time. the second whipping penalty is just added after the first one.

Unfortunately, that is incorrect. Each time you whip (regardless of how many pop points are sacrificed), there is a -1 penalty. If the whip anger hasn't faded to 0, then the new one lasts until ten turns after the whip anger would have faded, if you hadn't whipped again. The whip penalties stack, so you can have -2, -3 or more unhappiness from the whip.

For example, if you whip a unit on turn 1, you will have -1 for 10 turns. If you turn around and whip again on turn 2, you will have another -1 that lasts for 19 turns - so -2 total for the next 9 turns (end of the first whip), then -1 for 10 more (end of the second whip). If you whip again on turn 3, you will have a THIRD -1 that lasts for 28 turns. And so on.

In fact, with queue-switching, I think you can whip more than once in a single turn (e.g. whip something, put a new thing at the front of the queue, and whip it, too). Same principles as above apply. And only one thing can complete per turn...

 

[The Lardossen]

For example, if you whip a unit on turn 1, you will have -1 for 10 turns. If you turn around and whip again on turn 2, you will have another -1 that lasts for 19 turns - so -2 total for the next 9 turns (end of the first whip), then -1 for 10 more (end of the second whip). If you whip again on turn 3, you will have a THIRD -1 that lasts for 28 turns. And so on.

This is the reason I do a double pop whip, which seems inefficient, but doesn't give you that buildup of unhappiness.

 

[aelf]

Before whipping, I'll grow the city to just one turn before growing into an unhappy size. When I'm about to whip, I'll insert, say, an axe and switch the tiles worked to higher food tiles that don't give many hammers and allow the city to grow generously into unhappiness on the next turn. This is so that the city will put in less than 5 hammers to the axe (on Normal speed) and will have more food after whipping to facilitate earlier population recovery. On the next turn, my city can then whip the axe for 2 pop, put the overflow into something else subsequently (could be another axe) and does not need to grow back by 1 pop to hit the post-whip happiness cap.

I've found this to be the most efficient way of whipping up (pun intended ) an army in the early game. You'll see a little demonstration of it soon in Emperor Challenge 3 (although it wasn't exactly early game there).

 

[cabert]

Vanilla and warlords don't work the same way!

For Vanilla, pop numbers and production/overflow are calculated separately, so you don't need to wait = just whip a 0 hammer axe (or spear, or catapult) for 2 pop, and you'll have enough overflow to finish a second one in the next turn.
So best way is to grow big (as big as possible allowed by food, don't look at happiness cap : it's not a problem) then whip for 2 pop, finish an axeman, work for 1 or 2 turns, finish a second axeman. Do this in every city every 10 turns.
If you managed to grow far beyond your happiness cap (with big food, you can feed a whole lot of rebels = just as many as specialists you could have later!). So you can whip, build, whip, build until you're size 1 or 2. Be aware that this way you completely ruin the next 40/50 turns (happiness cap at 1 for a while, no citizen working), but sometimes it can be worth it (capturing pyramids could give you the opportunity to switch to HR and use those troops to stop unhappiness, for example).

For warlords, Aelf is right, you don't want to whip anything with 0 hammers invested, and you don't want to whip 1 pop when you could whip 2.