Sounds like a lot of effort for 3 to 6 hammers, but I can see where it might be usefull, I don't really think its an exploit. Playtesting shoul have brought that up seeing as it was one of the things changed in the new game. I can see how one might consider it one though.
Growing while chopping settler (small tip)
- Thread starter Willburn
- Start date
I think some of you are missing the point, being able to switch builds and maintain the amassed production is a feature of Civ4, having worker jobs complete during your turn is only appropriate. You can do this with anything, the fact that you can build a settler with tree clearing without any growth being "lost" is the value of tree clearing.
Also the thrust of the argument is centered around incorrect reasoning, growth isn't "lost" or in any way removed, its merely appended onto the production of the settler or worker. This is by design, and in my opinion good design. So you have a tree giving its correct production to the active job, this is exactly as designed and therefore not exploitive.
Additionally, it doesn't matter *when* the code decides to process worker actions the player will always be able to predict this and apply the shields to whatever job they wish.
Also the thrust of the argument is centered around incorrect reasoning, growth isn't "lost" or in any way removed, its merely appended onto the production of the settler or worker. This is by design, and in my opinion good design. So you have a tree giving its correct production to the active job, this is exactly as designed and therefore not exploitive.
Additionally, it doesn't matter *when* the code decides to process worker actions the player will always be able to predict this and apply the shields to whatever job they wish.
Smirk said:
What do you mean? The only way to gain growth and not build settlers in between turns is to switch fast to settler before chop is finished. You cannot do this later in the turn...
If the forrest chop was first priority in the game you would not be able to do this.
Ideally the game would process all worker actions, techs, buildings, etc. between turns. The problem is this takes too long and they don't want to keep the player sitting there staring at the screen while it processes. So they decide to let the player gain control of his units and stuff while the inter-turn processing is still going on. It is because of this that the player is able to manipulate the game so that the forest chop applies to something other than what it was supposed to. I'm sorry, this is clearly not an intended feature and is therefore exploiting. That said, it's such a minor advantage that I don't think it's a big deal at all...
Dog of Justice
Chieftain
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Ideally the game would process all worker actions, techs, buildings, etc. between turns. The problem is this takes too long and they don't want to keep the player sitting there staring at the screen while it processes.
Takes too long?! Please tell me you are kidding... we're talking about processing less than ten thousand effects on 1.2 Ghz machines...
It's really a question of which method provides a more friendly interface.
As for the thread parent post, brilliant idea. I'll be on the lookout for good times to apply this trick.
Takes too long?! Please tell me you are kidding... we're talking about processing less than ten thousand effects on 1.2 Ghz machines...
It's really a question of which method provides a more friendly interface.
As for the thread parent post, brilliant idea. I'll be on the lookout for good times to apply this trick.
This is not an exploit, it is how queued orders work. In fact, you can do this even better (get it to work EVERY time, read further). Consider how the game works:
The worker chops are completed during the turn, not before or after. You can complete the chop yourself by clicking on the settler during the final chop turn (before it gets its turn "naturally"), and manually clicking Chop (which should display 1 turn left). Tada, chop is instantly (and manually) completed.
There is no real-time issue here. Every unit simply gets its "turn" to move. However, if the next unit happens to have queued orders (e.g. keep working on chop until done; another example is move to remote tile X), and it gets its turn, the unit applies its movement points towards that queued order (e.g. perform one turn's worth of chop; move one turn's worth of MP along the route to tile X). If a worker was about to complete its chop, and gets its turn, the chop is done right there & then. The screen just doesn't center on the unit, because it has no more movement points left. You can even force remaining queued actions to execute for the turn at any time by pressing Ctrl-A, according to Civ4 hints.
You can prevent the time-bomb easily, by turning off the worker's queued order (e.g. canceling the chop command with Cancel order) at the end of the previous turn. The worker will have cancelled its chop commands for the next turn, but it will still have done the current turn's worth of chop-time, e.g. 2 chop-turns! This is perfectly legal!
The next turn, you first switch production to Settler, then select the worker, manually click Chop again, and it should instantly complete, remembering the 2 previous "work-turns" already done on chopping! Then switch production to whatever else you were building.
The same way you can build a road instantly by moving two workers into a square and clicking Road on one, then the other. It is not really "instant" -- the workers invest work-turns into building the road -- but it shows that the order in which you move your units can make an impact on the game. AFAIK, all Civilizations were always this way.
----------------
UPDATE: Just tried the "cancel-chop" method, and it works perfectly, even with no hammer loss from stale production. Cancel chopping at the end of the second turn, then manually finish chopping on the 3rd turn after choosing Settler.
What I did was (Emperor difficulty):
Build city, build warrior, and as soon as it reaches size-2, build worker.
Have Bronze working the same turn the worker is trained.
Switch production to work boat (to grab clam resource).
Settler-chop two forests while work boat is building (60 shields towards settler)
Workboat finishes and we reach size-3 same turn!
Unhealth from pop-3 relieved immediately by workboat/clam
Switch fully to settler production
Third chops finishes the turn after
Settler comes out 2 turns after third forest chop, and we are healthy/happy maxed at size 3! And a fast settler/worker pump.
Year is around 2640BC.
If we didn't use settler-chop, we would still be size 2 at this point. I think this is a very helpful maneuver for harder difficulty.
Another thing to try is pre-loading forests with 2/3 chops until getting the tech for an early wonder, then doing the final chop within turns of switching production to the wonder. I'll have to check how long the game "remembers" partially chopped tiles.
The worker chops are completed during the turn, not before or after. You can complete the chop yourself by clicking on the settler during the final chop turn (before it gets its turn "naturally"), and manually clicking Chop (which should display 1 turn left). Tada, chop is instantly (and manually) completed.
There is no real-time issue here. Every unit simply gets its "turn" to move. However, if the next unit happens to have queued orders (e.g. keep working on chop until done; another example is move to remote tile X), and it gets its turn, the unit applies its movement points towards that queued order (e.g. perform one turn's worth of chop; move one turn's worth of MP along the route to tile X). If a worker was about to complete its chop, and gets its turn, the chop is done right there & then. The screen just doesn't center on the unit, because it has no more movement points left. You can even force remaining queued actions to execute for the turn at any time by pressing Ctrl-A, according to Civ4 hints.
You can prevent the time-bomb easily, by turning off the worker's queued order (e.g. canceling the chop command with Cancel order) at the end of the previous turn. The worker will have cancelled its chop commands for the next turn, but it will still have done the current turn's worth of chop-time, e.g. 2 chop-turns! This is perfectly legal!
The next turn, you first switch production to Settler, then select the worker, manually click Chop again, and it should instantly complete, remembering the 2 previous "work-turns" already done on chopping! Then switch production to whatever else you were building.
The same way you can build a road instantly by moving two workers into a square and clicking Road on one, then the other. It is not really "instant" -- the workers invest work-turns into building the road -- but it shows that the order in which you move your units can make an impact on the game. AFAIK, all Civilizations were always this way.
----------------
UPDATE: Just tried the "cancel-chop" method, and it works perfectly, even with no hammer loss from stale production. Cancel chopping at the end of the second turn, then manually finish chopping on the 3rd turn after choosing Settler.
What I did was (Emperor difficulty):
Build city, build warrior, and as soon as it reaches size-2, build worker.
Have Bronze working the same turn the worker is trained.
Switch production to work boat (to grab clam resource).
Settler-chop two forests while work boat is building (60 shields towards settler)
Workboat finishes and we reach size-3 same turn!
Unhealth from pop-3 relieved immediately by workboat/clam
Switch fully to settler production
Third chops finishes the turn after
Settler comes out 2 turns after third forest chop, and we are healthy/happy maxed at size 3! And a fast settler/worker pump.
Year is around 2640BC.
If we didn't use settler-chop, we would still be size 2 at this point. I think this is a very helpful maneuver for harder difficulty.
Another thing to try is pre-loading forests with 2/3 chops until getting the tech for an early wonder, then doing the final chop within turns of switching production to the wonder. I'll have to check how long the game "remembers" partially chopped tiles.
autocon
Deus da Guerra
Pvblivs said:
how do you switch back to previous build please? thanks
Roland Johansen
Deity
autocon said:
You can always end the present build by clicking on it in the build queue. By ctrl-selecting a building or unit, it is added at the beginning of the queue. By shift-selecting a building or unit, it is added at the end of the queue. With these three options it should be easy to change any building queue.
Any buildings and units removed from a queue keep the amount of hammers already invested in them for a certain amount of time. After that period, the amount of hammers that are invested will slowly decrease. So don't leave a building unfinished for too long.
KrikkitTwo
Immortal
- Joined
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- 12,418
Roland Johansen said:
Side Note: does anyone know how long or how fast this is supposed to be.
Seems a good idea on mix and chopping to a degree if your looking to keep growth.
I figure from starting to moving the workers on both ways round will take 8 turns. If you had 6 or more in term of food and production you gain a turn on those putting shields towards a warrior and growth. 1 turn might cost you a prize location
I allowed a turn for the movemnt of workers after each chop. I started from the finish of the worker being produced. Assumed 3+ forest and 2 workers. I assumed no one had the foresight to road a forest connected to capital in advance to save time.
Net gain of about 5 turns of food or production.
Net loss of 1 forest and a turn if production for settler was 6 or higher
I figure from starting to moving the workers on both ways round will take 8 turns. If you had 6 or more in term of food and production you gain a turn on those putting shields towards a warrior and growth. 1 turn might cost you a prize location
I allowed a turn for the movemnt of workers after each chop. I started from the finish of the worker being produced. Assumed 3+ forest and 2 workers. I assumed no one had the foresight to road a forest connected to capital in advance to save time.
Net gain of about 5 turns of food or production.
Net loss of 1 forest and a turn if production for settler was 6 or higher
Roland Johansen
Deity
Krikkitone said:
From GlobalDefines.xml :
The modifier BUILDING_PRODUCTION_DECAY_TIME has a value of 50, probably meaning that building production starts decaying after 50 turns.
The modifier BUILDING_PRODUCTION_DECAY_PERCENT has a value of 99, probably meaning that building production decays at 1% per turn.
The modifier UNIT_PRODUCTION_DECAY_TIME has a value of 10, probably meaning that unit production starts decaying after 10 turns.
The modifier UNIT_PRODUCTION_DECAY_PERCENT has a value of 98, probably meaning that unit production decays at 2% per turn.
I don't know if the decay rate is taken from total production cost of the building/unit or from already invested hammers. But that could be tested easily if someone wants to know.
I also don't know if these modifiers are adjusted at the different speed settings (epic, normal, etc.).
As was mentioned earlier, you can use Ctrl+A to force all queued actions to move. This *only* happens when you have any units without queued orders. So, if you set your worker to chop, and know exactly when it will be "1 turn left," as long as you have another unit that isn't doing anything you can go swap the queue, hit Ctrl+A, then swap it back. That way not even a single turn of city production is used towards the settler. However, if all units are queued up with orders, as soon as the turn starts they will all execute their orders, which will prevent you from queue swapping before the chop. This is why it is suggested to manually stop the worker and chop each turn yourself (by hitting Alt+C for chop, then cancel orders. Repeat next turn.) But, again, this is really only necessary if every other unit has orders already.
I think this post might be a bit redundant, but I thought it would be a clear explanation to go along with the other ones. And, of course, most definitely not an exploit-- just a clever acknowledgement of how Civ4 handles actions and queued orders.
I think this post might be a bit redundant, but I thought it would be a clear explanation to go along with the other ones. And, of course, most definitely not an exploit-- just a clever acknowledgement of how Civ4 handles actions and queued orders.
It probably isn't an exploit, you sacrifice the extra production from the chops that go into the settler,which could be used for something else instead, as well as a delay in the production of that settler, 1 turn to move, 3 turns to chop for each forest so 12 turns to make the settler (total 90p so you need to spend just a turn or two in there actually building the settler), unless you have multiple workers. In return you recieve a few extra turns of growth
in my head, it is an exploit. if it takes 8 turns to chop a forest on marathon speed (i'm guessing 8 turns here), this exploit means for seven of those eight you can be growing your city and not incurring the stalled growth penalty upon your cities from growing workers/settlers. instead you can build an army, and though seven of the worker's turns were spent chopping while a barracks was in queue, the production flips entirely to the settler on the 8th turn. It doesnt matter what the worker was chopping "towards" in his previous turns.
just seems that a worker chopping would contribute his production not all at once but over a sustained period of time. Then again, maybe he delivers his lumber in one finished load to be used on whatever.
just seems that a worker chopping would contribute his production not all at once but over a sustained period of time. Then again, maybe he delivers his lumber in one finished load to be used on whatever.
BlueRenner
Warlord
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- Nov 9, 2001
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- 121
I was writing a big post on why this isn't an exploit, but then I realized its pretty obvious that it is.
Look, guys, put away your pencils and calculations and just siddown for a minute.
Its clear that the makers of the game intended for city growth to stop while building workers and settlers. You can tell this because, well, that's what happens. This clever little trick that builds settlers on the sly is clearly against this philosophy. I mean, hell, its possible they built the no-growth system and then left this little hole that renders it 98% useless on purpose... but I'm really not seeing it.
Bring on the patch, I say. I really have no clue how they're going to fix this, by the way... make it so chopping doesn't build worker/settlers? Wouldn't that rain on our collective parades, eh? This isn't a huge matter, in anycase. If another patch goes by and there's no change on this issue, I'm prepared to give it my blessing. Not a huge deal.
- Bill
Look, guys, put away your pencils and calculations and just siddown for a minute.
Its clear that the makers of the game intended for city growth to stop while building workers and settlers. You can tell this because, well, that's what happens. This clever little trick that builds settlers on the sly is clearly against this philosophy. I mean, hell, its possible they built the no-growth system and then left this little hole that renders it 98% useless on purpose... but I'm really not seeing it.
Bring on the patch, I say. I really have no clue how they're going to fix this, by the way... make it so chopping doesn't build worker/settlers? Wouldn't that rain on our collective parades, eh? This isn't a huge matter, in anycase. If another patch goes by and there's no change on this issue, I'm prepared to give it my blessing. Not a huge deal.
- Bill
King Jason
Fleece-bearer
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Well if you want to get into dev-philosophies. I honestly don't think that anyone at firaxis even intended or expect chopping to become such a rampant and powerful strategy.
Heck, I don't even think they expect complete cottage spammed cities, If they were, then the A.I. would be programmed to specialize cities the way we do. i.e. build nothing but cottages in one city, nothing but mines/workshops a few farms in production cities, etc. Instead the A.I. (including automated workers) just builds the "best" improvement for each tile, which is more often than not, a farm. Which hey, farms = more food, and more food = more specialists, and specialists = GPs. Which is no wonder why A.I.s get tons of em (they spam golden ages like crazy, so they obviously get a hefty amount of GPs per game).
Maybe that's how we were supposed to play. However, we've come up with something different. Whether it was intended or not, the game mechanics allow it - so I say embrace it. If people can do anything in the game that gives em an edge, and the "no cheating" option is turned on while doing it - then it's fine by me. If you don't want to do it - don't, it all depends on who's playing the game and what they're looking to get out of it.
Heck, I don't even think they expect complete cottage spammed cities, If they were, then the A.I. would be programmed to specialize cities the way we do. i.e. build nothing but cottages in one city, nothing but mines/workshops a few farms in production cities, etc. Instead the A.I. (including automated workers) just builds the "best" improvement for each tile, which is more often than not, a farm. Which hey, farms = more food, and more food = more specialists, and specialists = GPs. Which is no wonder why A.I.s get tons of em (they spam golden ages like crazy, so they obviously get a hefty amount of GPs per game).
Maybe that's how we were supposed to play. However, we've come up with something different. Whether it was intended or not, the game mechanics allow it - so I say embrace it. If people can do anything in the game that gives em an edge, and the "no cheating" option is turned on while doing it - then it's fine by me. If you don't want to do it - don't, it all depends on who's playing the game and what they're looking to get out of it.
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