Condensed tips for beginners?

[Sun Tzu Wu]

What the point in this argument? It's obvious acronyms make it much harder for newcomers to get needed info.

Here in S&T we have threads made by experienced players for experienced players, using acronyms is fine there.

However using acronyms in strategy article, oriented on relatively inexperienced player, without giving translation of these acronyms within the body of this strategy article is ... (many terms crossing my head: from counterproductive and impolite to silly and dumb, yeah something like that).

I would go a bit further and say that articles should always define the full phrase that any Acronym represents before using the Acronym in subsequent text of the article. Articles should be held to a much higher standard than a non-article thread.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[rah]

Even knowing most of them I still get confused on a few of those that i don't see often. And the duplicate ones drive me crazy. If explaining something to a noob, it's probably best not to use them unless you've spelled it out in the same post.

 

[a0161613]

I know the four hammers into axeman/spearman 2 popwhip trick and I've read that less than 30 into a worker is the same. Are there any other commonly known ones that I should know. I'm desperately trying to improve on Monarch and feel my whip use could be better.

 

[Sisiutil]

I know the four hammers into axeman/spearman 2 popwhip trick and I've read that less than 30 into a worker is the same. Are there any other commonly known ones that I should know. I'm desperately trying to improve on Monarch and feel my whip use could be better.

Are you playing Beyond the Sword with the BUG mod? It will place "ideal whipping point" indicators on each city screen's build progress bar. Not only does this tell you exactly when to whip, it helps you maximize the overflow for the next build. Plus using BUG's reminders makes sure you don't forget to whip when it's time.

 

[a0161613]

I don't have access to the net on the computer with Civ on. I'd download it if I could find instructions on where to put it.

 

[Sisiutil]

I don't have access to the net on the computer with Civ on. I'd download it if I could find instructions on where to put it.

BUG download page with installation instructions: http://civ4bug.sourceforge.net/BUGMod.html

 

[GKey]

Are you playing Beyond the Sword with the BUG mod? It will place "ideal whipping point" indicators on each city screen's build progress bar. Not only does this tell you exactly when to whip, it helps you maximize the overflow for the next build. Plus using BUG's reminders makes sure you don't forget to whip when it's time.

I play with BUG for long time, yet did not see that. BUG just tells when item become whippable for the first time AFAIK.

 

[Sisiutil]

I play with BUG for long time, yet did not see that. BUG just tells when item become whippable for the first time AFAIK.

The green markers on the build progress bar (circled in red) are what I'm talking about. I suppose their true purpose is to indicate when the number of citizens needed to whip the current build to completion will change, but I use them as an indicator as to when the optimum whipping point will be. You can see the tool tip from the slavery button lower down, indicating that whipping this turn will yield 88 hammers overflow. IIRC that's pretty close to the maximum on marathon speed (89 or 90) before multipliers like forges and Organized Religion kick in.

As I get close to the optimum whipping point I'll adjust tile/specialist assignments to try to get the maximum hammer overflow. That's what I did here, moving citizens from the farmed riverside grassland to the plains forest a couple of turns earlier.

 

[GKey]

Wow, that escaped my attention somehow. Going to check this, Thanks!

I was referring to BUG messages on top of the screen *city* can hurry *item* for X pop with Y overflow

Tool tip on slavery button always shows wrong overflow btw. Might be something with modifiers (Organized Religion, Forge, Stone/Marble for wonders etc...), so I keep calculating it manually if I am not too lazy to micro.

 

[Sisiutil]

Wow, that escaped my attention somehow. Going to check this, Thanks!

I was referring to BUG messages on top of the screen *city* can hurry *item* for X pop with Y overflow

Tool tip on slavery button always shows wrong overflow btw. Might be something with modifiers (Organized Religion, Forge, Stone/Marble for wonders etc...), so I keep calculating it manually if I am not too lazy to micro.

I don't usually refer to it, I just rely on my BUG-given green tick marks. I've never seen math as a leisure activity.

 

[Pangaea]

Have never paid much attention to those tick marks either (but wondered what they meant). If they take Forges and other multipliers into account, this will be very useful indeed. It's harder to know when to whip once multipliers start to affect the hammers.

As for other common whips, I'd say a 2-pop whip of a settler if you are Imperialistic is very useful as well. Without other multipliers, this means a 2-pop whip nets you 90 so you can often whip a settler after only working it 1 turn. You only need 10+ into him, and typically get a little overflow from the previous build. This gets out settler quite fast, especially if you have the food to regrow fairly quickly.

Another trick is to switch around production so that you can effectively grow while building a settler or worker. You can for example chop into a settler, then go back to building a granary or whatever, then put another chop into the settler by switching around the builds in the queue for the city. Can be useful for growing from 1 to 2, while getting out a settler or worker for example.

 

[GKey]

Imperialistic is good for 2 pop whip settles with overflow. This trait can contend Industrial in early stages of game.

This mark is really hard to see and it's not always there, (too late for optimal whip?).

Nice future anyway. Calculating overflow with modifiers is a pain, can anyone confirm that tool tip shows wrong overflow? May be I do something wrong. I thought I know everything about BUG, now I am not sure.

 

[GKey]

OK, I think I got it (finally).
The mark shows when 3pop whip will become 2pop whip, 2pop whip become 1pop etc. Obviously, when you are already at the point when whip will be 1 pop - mark is not shown (or if you don't have enough pop for whip).

So for maximum overflow you need to adjust tiles so you whip 1 before that mark.

Very useful!

And tool tip on whip button can be adjusted to show hammers from whip + current production, it is off for some reason, making this a bit confusing. I am going to check if this will show the right overflow (finally).

 

[Dubioza]

Good stuff!

I never noticed those green ticks, this speeds things up and makes this easier. I'm confused why tool tip is off too, I hope someone knows this!

Example:

Spoiler :

Spoiler Before Whip :

Spoiler After Whip :

 

[Pangaea]

Think it's simply because some tiles are whipped away, resulting in less worked tiles.

You whipped away two grasshill mines, and each has a net +2, so it makes sense that you get 4 less overflow than BUG thinks based on worked tiles pre-whip.

 

[GKey]

^^ Exactly! You whipped 2 green hills, resulting in -6+2 = -4 production overall, therefore you got 4 production less in overflow.

BUG can not know which tiles are going to be whipped so you need to readjust this manually. I wonder how "Include Current" checkbox would affect this.

EDIT: UPS did not see you made the math already, Pangaea.

 

[Manco Capac]

One guru with a Gandalf avatar once said: never whip grass hills.

 

[GKey]

Well, according to Kossins math you should whip grassland hills big time.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Nothing fundamentally wrong with that. Grass hills turn 1 food into 3 hammers. Whips turn 1 food into ~2.2 hammers (depending on city size, granaries, etc). Whips let you tailor your trade-offs between growth and production, sometimes you want the latter. Whips frontload your city's production, say you whip hills into a library, now you can turn on your science and put your remaining citizens on cottages, and every single tile will get the +25% beakers.

 

[Sisiutil]

Nothing fundamentally wrong with that. Grass hills turn 1 food into 3 hammers. Whips turn 1 food into ~2.2 hammers (depending on city size, granaries, etc). Whips let you tailor your trade-offs between growth and production, sometimes you want the latter. Whips frontload your city's production, say you whip hills into a library, now you can turn on your science and put your remaining citizens on cottages, and every single tile will get the +25% beakers.

It isn't just about hammers, though; it's about timing. By whipping I can finish my build SOONER. Then I can run those specialists, or produce more beakers, or start my war, or complete a wonder, or any number of things SOONER.