Dropping Districts and when to chop

[BTSeven7]

Guh, I apologize if I have written about this before but I can’t figure out a good system for placing districts and when to chop.

Playing on detailed worlds Pangea there is often quite a bit of vegetation. I have been focusing on planning districts lately. I go ahead and fill up my map with pins and I am looking good but as my districts become available whether through research or population limit I have a lot of vegetation I still need to chop. I want to place the district to lock the cost but I don’t want to lose the chop either.

Any thoughts or tips on evaluating this?

 

[Sostratus]

I go ahead and fill up my map with pins

Be still my beating heart! #Pinning=Winning

Any thoughts or tips on evaluating this?

Think of it this way: a chop is always worth the same fraction of a district. Both chops and districts scale using the same variable; chops from 20 to 200 (25 to 250 for resources) and districts from 54 to 540.
When you lock in a district, you save the additional production cost you would have incurred had you placed it when you get around to building it later. But except for the very early game, that difference will be smaller than a chop is.
What you want to do is have a builder ready and then try to chop right before you place the district. If you empty the production queue (finish building whatever the city is working on so it's an empty cog prompting you to choose something new) you can chop the feature and it will be applied to whatever you build next - you can use this to speed of the district itself. But really in general you just need to be more builder heavy on heavily wooded maps. After around about 1/3 of the way through the tech or civics tree, a chop becomes more valuable than +1 yield on the tile for the rest of the game, and only gets more valuable from there. So you can think of the chopping as similar to placing a +1 improvement in the middle ages. What I'm trying to say is it's not a waste of builder charges to chop, you actually gain as much as if you'd made an improvement with the builder instead.

 

[Victoria]

@BTSeven7 have a look at this post
Game phases explanation
and also the chopping example link at the bottom of this post, a touch outdated but the concept remains.

 

[anandus]

If you empty the production queue (finish building whatever the city is working on so it's an empty cog prompting you to choose something new) you can chop the feature and it will be applied to whatever you build next - you can use this to speed of the district itself.

Does this work? Wow!

 

[Victoria]

Does this work? Wow!

If you have an empty production queue and chop the chop value is stored and then applied to what you add to the queue. It may not show up accurately until next turn because a lot of the screen value updates are processed at the end of the turn.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Does this work? Wow!

I do that a lot in the early game when I want to chop something on the same tile I want to place a district. For example I'll start my city making a scout which will take one turn, and put a worker where a forest is. Next turn the scout pops out, city is not making anything, I chop the woods, then start the district on the cleared woods.

Personally, I don't consider that an exploit. I do kind of consider it an exploit when you place a district and then purposefully don't finish it until later, in order to stop the cost from rising. But pre-chopping? That's fine IMO.

 

[Naeshar]

But pre-chopping? That's fine IMO.

Thanks to all for this piece of wisdom. I've never tried to chop with nothing being produced, afraid of losing the hammers...

 

[kaspergm]

If you have an empty production queue and chop the chop value is stored and then applied to what you add to the queue. It may not show up accurately until next turn because a lot of the screen value updates are processed at the end of the turn.

Does the queue have to be empty? If I have something down to 1 turn left and chop, with the overflow not carry over to the next item being build?

I know they fixed it so that some modifiers no longer apply and carry over, but I thought you could still carry over the base production difference?

 

[Victoria]

but I thought you could still carry over the base production difference?

yes the base will carry, bonus gets nerfed often.

I think there is an issue though (need to test really)
I have 10 cogs left on a granary and my city is producing 20 cogs.
Next turn my queue is empty and my granary is built, I think the 10 cogs left over in in a production overflow area as it has not been applied yet to something.
If you now chop 40 production this would overwrite the 10 cogs left in overflow.

Certainly this happens with science and culture, so be careful when you pillage.... or like me, be aware but cannot be bothered most of the time.

 

[kaspergm]

Certainly this happens with science and culture, so be careful when you pillage.... or like me, be aware but cannot be bothered most of the time.

Thanx, I'm not really a min/maxer, but like you say, it's nice to be aware.

 

[Pure24]

Thank you everybody... lovely tips. I just have two questions:

(1). If you place a district and immediately switch to producing something else before you end the turn, does the cost get locked in or do you need to pass at least one turn for the cost to get locked in?

(2). Suppose you chop when the city has nothing going for it (empty cogs). Now suppose you then place the district, is the production from the chop immediately added to the district or do you need to pass at least one turn for the production bonus to apply?

 

[Victoria]

(1) locked, no production required.

(2) applied. So your city has 10 prod left and you chop in 40 prod. You now have 30 prod of overflow. If you then put down a campus the 30 prod is applied but the only way you can immediately see it is the number of turns to finish is less than it should be. Next turn you will soo the cities turn production plus your left over chop showing as applied production. If you had changed from a campus to something else before ending the turn, the campus would show 0 production next turn and indicate more turns to finish than last turn.

 

[Pure24]

(1) locked, no production required.

(2) applied. So your city has 10 prod left and you chop in 40 prod. You now have 30 prod of overflow. If you then put down a campus the 30 prod is applied but the only way you can immediately see it is the number of turns to finish is less than it should be. Next turn you will soo the cities turn production plus your left over chop showing as applied production. If you had changed from a campus to something else before ending the turn, the campus would show 0 production next turn and indicate more turns to finish than last turn.

Wait. So... for the second point, I'm a bit confused on the last part. If you switch after placing the campus, but before you end the turn is the chop applied to something else?

 

[Sostratus]

If you switch after placing the campus, but before you end the turn is the chop applied to something else?

Yes. It's just like any case of overflow after finishing something - it's applied at the end of the turn to whatever you pick next.

 

[legalizefreedom]

yes the base will carry, bonus gets nerfed often.

I think there is an issue though (need to test really)
I have 10 cogs left on a granary and my city is producing 20 cogs.
Next turn my queue is empty and my granary is built, I think the 10 cogs left over in in a production overflow area as it has not been applied yet to something.
If you now chop 40 production this would overwrite the 10 cogs left in overflow.

Certainly this happens with science and culture, so be careful when you pillage.... or like me, be aware but cannot be bothered most of the time.

So is the safer way to start something to take the residual overflow and then chop to be sure to get all of your earned production?
Or would it be the same in the end since all the math is done at the end of the turn, thus the order you do things (within a turn) doesn't really matter?

 

[steveg700]

Sostratus, Victoria, thanks for providing stellar advice.

 

[Victoria]

So is the safer way to start something to take the residual overflow and then chop to be sure to get all of your earned production?
Or would it be the same in the end since all the math is done at the end of the turn, thus the order you do things (within a turn) doesn't really matter?

For the same turn it does not matter and it is nice changing your mind does not screw up the costs.
It is mentioned earlier that some overflow can get lost chopping in the second turn.
Some good chopping rules are chop in the same turn and if using a bonus card with chops, chop when the target is young, if your chop completed an item you may have lost more chop that you expect.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Follow my ruleset and you'll never worry about chopping/harvesting.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/lily-lancers-rule-set-for-gathering-storm.647328

 

[Victoria]

Everyone has a choice, clearly the OP is asking for a different choice that your offer.

 

[legalizefreedom]

For the same turn it does not matter and it is nice changing your mind does not screw up the costs.
It is mentioned earlier that some overflow can get lost chopping in the second turn.
Some good chopping rules are chop in the same turn and if using a bonus card with chops, chop when the target is young, if your chop completed an item you may have lost more chop that you expect.

Best practice then is to chop when you have no overflow. That is, when something is in progress from the previous turn. Changing to something else to chop in, like with a card bonus, then changing back to the thing you had in progress.

Because chopping replaces any overflow you have from the previous turn and chopping overflow can somehow be lost at the end of the turn.

Am I understanding? Because then why is it suggested to chop when you have an empty production cue to start the turn?