Hammer Economy Questions

[Dem Taqat]

I was thinking about going for a hammer-heavy economy in my next game if the map permits, and came up with a few questions about that sort of thing:

1: How early to start pushing hammers? Obviously every economy gets a big boost in the Democracy/Printing-Press/Biology/Communism era, but hammers in particular seem to struggle at the very beginning. Workshops without any bonuses are terrible, and converting them to anything requires Alphabet/Currency to even be possible.

2: Should you build Libraries and other non-hammer multiplier buildings? They don’t apply to producing Wealth/Research, but their opportunity cost should be lower in a high-hammer situation, and the specialist slots could be useful given the amount of farms you’ll have lying around to power hammer tiles.

3: Caste system or Slavery when you hit Code of Laws? I’m no great whipper, but you’re going to open slavery anyway, and switching can be painful. That said, Caste doubles the hammer output of workshops, and allows you to run specialists without the multiplier buildings, which could be a big leap.

4: Are there any traits or UU/UBs that really shine for Hammers? The only thing that really strikes me is that Financial is probably not up to its usual standards in such a scenario.

If anyone has anything significant I’ve missed on the subject, do feel free to pitch in as well, there are probably some odd or unintuitive tricks out there in our collective wisdom.

DT
Seeking Advice

 

[lymond]

1: How early to start pushing hammers? Obviously every economy gets a big boost in the Democracy/Printing-Press/Biology/Communism era, but hammers in particular seem to struggle at the very beginning. Workshops without any bonuses are terrible, and converting them to anything requires Alphabet/Currency to even be possible.

First, I'm not sure of your experience level with this game, so I may say things that you in fact my be aware of, but I will go with the assumption that you are less experienced.

Hammer Economy is indeed not something that is used in the early portions of the game, and of course, can't be used until one or both of Alpha and Currency has been teched. Even then, the utility of a hammer economy is not really viable. Yet, some occasional usage of wealth or research building can indeed be of benefit early.

Hammer Economy; therefore, is something one most likely would establish in the late game timeframe. Personally, I only ever really consider using it in Space Games as they are, by nature, longer games. For most other types of victories, the establishment or utilization of a "hammer economy" never really comes into a play or becomes a factor. With that said, some folks prefer longer game regardless of victory.

So, basically, although one may transition to a Hammer Economy at some point in a game where it is indeed more viable, it by no means and never precludes doing the correct things in the early and mid-game timeframes to ensure success. That includes the use of cottages, especially for a powerful Bureacracy cap, and the use of specialists and Great people, which are always important.

Lastly, in my games, again generally Space, if I transition to a Hammer Economy, it is most often reflected most in the extended empire that I've gained over time via conquest. Most captured or new cities favoring workshops, watermills, windmills over cottages and farms. Obviously, some farms may be needed in addition to any food specials to have enough growth for the hammer tiles. State Property and/or Corps can help a lot in regards to food, and hammers. I may near the end of the game transition some of the core cities to more hammer based improvements as well for space parts.

2: Should you build Libraries and other non-hammer multiplier buildings? They don’t apply to producing Wealth/Research, but their opportunity cost should be lower in a high-hammer situation, and the specialist slots could be useful given the amount of farms you’ll have lying around to power hammer tiles.

Absolutely. One thing that I must make clear so that you understand, is that the most important part of the game is the early game. Success and doing things right in the early turns snowballs to greater things later. Waiting until a time when a Hammer based economy becomes viable is not a recipe for success. You must build at least some libraries early, like in your cap, to increase overall beaker rate and to start producing Great Scientists. And specialists are always important.

3: Caste system or Slavery when you hit Code of Laws? I’m no great whipper, but you’re going to open slavery anyway, and switching can be painful. That said, Caste doubles the hammer output of workshops, and allows you to run specialists without the multiplier buildings, which could be a big leap.

Slavery is the most powerful thing in this game. Most good players use slavery for a good portion of the game. Not understanding or utilizing the whip effectively is a real problem and not only limits success, but limits your ability to move up difficulty. I encourage you to learn more about using the whip and whip overflow, and make much more use of it the future.

Caste System is used mainly in a well timed Golden Age for producing more great people, namely Great Scientists early mid-game for bulb strategies. Therefore, it is used only temporarily during golden ages. However, one of the things that makes Spiritual trait so strong is the ability to switch in and out of Caste at times, so there is that.

Indeed, as one transitions later game to a more hammer based economy and as one starts to really grow cities, a switch to Caste permanently can be advisable. But again, for much of the game I remain in slavery with the exception of golden ages, or temporary switches when Spiritual.

4: Are there any traits or UU/UBs that really shine for Hammers? The only thing that really strikes me is that Financial is probably not up to its usual standards in such a scenario.

Again, Hammer Economy is more a niche and situational concept associated with late game activity. Traits are irrelevant. Likewise, UBs are pretty much irrelevant as well, although I guess there are some UBs that can boost late game hammers like Japan's Shale Plant.

But really, all that does not matter much. Civ IV is won in the early portion of the game by making use of mechanics and concepts that lead to early success.

As someone who I assume is less experienced with this game, Hammer Economy should be the least of your concerns.

 

[Olafeson]

Excellent advice from lymond as usual. As he said, hammer economy only gets viable lategame. In the early game you just do not have the population and food to run enough mines to produce enough hammers.

1 pop whip = 30 hammers
2 pop whip = 60 hammers
3 pop whip = 90 hammer

These hammers cn be multiplied by % hammer civs and techs. Like the forge or bureaucracy from Civil Service. Or when using police state if you got the pyramids.
So you can turn 3 pop whips like canons or cuirassiers into 2 pop whips with the help of forges or police state.

nearly all buildings in the early game are better produced by growing your city to either size 4 or 6 or sometimes even 8 (universities, forges) and then use slavery and hurry the production via slavery (whip).

I would make an exception for your capital. It is your first city and likely to be your biggest. With Bureauracy and its 50% and boost for your capital, you can often time build a lot of units/buildings by only using mines and workshops or special resources like cows or ivory.

You need to reach at least communism to make a hammer economy somehow decent. That said, it will still be more advantageous to use slavery until you finally got Assembly line and factories + coal plants.

State Property + Caste System + factories + coal plants. That is the breaking point when i personally think hammers economy is superior to slavery. Obviously those techs are very deep in the tech tree and you will need around 200 turns or even more to reach those techs.

Then it is nice to windmill hills, watermill rivers and workshop plains and grassland tiles. maybe 1 or 2 farms to have enough food for the plains workshops.

Even when you plan for a lategame war with infantry and maybe artillery, often times slavery is the way to go. Since it will take you another 5 - 10 turns to get up factories + coal plants everywhere. In this time you could have whipped a small army already and went to war.

Unfortunately hammer economy is not a viable option for bascially all early to midgame. Only city that can somehow get enough %hammer multipliers is your capital with a forge and bureaucracy civic. Also i am really sad that the lumbermill is such a useless improvement. Would have been so nice to get it earlier. Like instead of getting the tech at replaceable parts, you would get it with machinery. +1 hammer at guilds +1 commerce maybe at banking and +1 hammer at paper and you would maybe think twice before chopping away every forest.

So if you play on emperor/immortal/deity difficulty i guess there is really no scenario where you would build mines / workshops over farms and windmills in the
early/ midgame.

 

[Dem Taqat]

Thanks for the responses guys.

First, I'm not sure of your experience level with this game, so I may say things that you in fact my be aware of, but I will go with the assumption that you are less experienced.

I haven’t been seen on this part of the forum in years, so it’s a reasonable assumption. To clarify my position though; I’ve been playing this iteration of civ on-and-off for the better part of a decade, currently at Monarch difficulty (and never higher).

Lastly, in my games, again generally Space, if I transition to a Hammer Economy, it is most often reflected most in the extended empire that I've gained over time via conquest. Most captured or new cities favoring workshops, watermills, windmills over cottages and farms. Obviously, some farms may be needed in addition to any food specials to have enough growth for the hammer tiles. State Property and/or Corps can help a lot in regards to food, and hammers. I may near the end of the game transition some of the core cities to more hammer based improvements as well for space parts.

Waiting until a time when a Hammer based economy becomes viable is not a recipe for success. You must build at least some libraries early, like in your cap, to increase overall beaker rate and to start producing Great Scientists. And specialists are always important.

I suppose you’re right that Libraries are just too early-game to be skipped for pretty much any setup, but things like observatories and banks come much closer to the time where Hammers are hitting their stride. Would you say they’re still necessary for the Space win in such a situation, and would the same be true for a big Domination push at such a point?

Excellent advice from lymond as usual. As he said, hammer economy only gets viable lategame. In the early game you just do not have the population and food to run enough mines to produce enough hammers.

1 pop whip = 30 hammers

2 pop whip = 60 hammers

3 pop whip = 90 hammer

These hammers cn be multiplied by % hammer civs and techs. Like the forge or bureaucracy from Civil Service. Or when using police state if you got the pyramids.

So you can turn 3 pop whips like canons or cuirassiers into 2 pop whips with the help of forges or police state.

nearly all buildings in the early game are better produced by growing your city to either size 4 or 6 or sometimes even 8 (universities, forges) and then use slavery and hurry the production via slavery (whip).

I guess the lower the city size the less food you’re spending per whipped pop. I usually stay in Slavery until Emancipation comes along just because I’m a cottage kinda guy, but I also tend to get a lot lighter on the whipping once I’m hitting the Medieval era so I can grow my cities out and work as many cottages as possible per turn.

You need to reach at least communism to make a hammer economy somehow decent. That said, it will still be more advantageous to use slavery until you finally got Assembly line and factories + coal plants.

State Property + Caste System + factories + coal plants. That is the breaking point when i personally think hammers economy is superior to slavery. Obviously those techs are very deep in the tech tree and you will need around 200 turns or even more to reach those techs.

Is there any argument that Chemistry or Guilds would be decent points to start working workshops, or do would you say the additional hammer multipliers are just too significant? With Chemistry and Caste they outperform an equivalent mine by one hammer after all, but maybe sacrificing Slavery isn’t worth it for that.

Then it is nice to windmill hills, watermill rivers and workshop plains and grassland tiles. maybe 1 or 2 farms to have enough food for the plains workshops.

Do you use Windmills that often? I usually prefer Mines with the +1 from railways, but that could just be because I don’t want to bulldoze all those beautiful cottages I spent the midgame growing when I could have been whipping.

Also i am really sad that the lumbermill is such a useless improvement. Would have been so nice to get it earlier. Like instead of getting the tech at replaceable parts, you would get it with machinery. +1 hammer at guilds +1 commerce maybe at banking and +1 hammer at paper and you would maybe think twice before chopping away every forest.

And don’t even mention forest preserves. That +1 happiness all so you can work what might as well be an unimproved tile.

DT

Edited for silly typo.

 

[Pangaea]

Excellent advice above. Hammer economy is not something that is truly viable in the early game. Especially if thinking about workshops. Workshops must be 1 3 or better to be worth building, and even then, the whip is oftentimes better.

The only slight comment I have is that I usually don't build (m)any watermills. Seems better to me to build farms + workshops. Watermills are expensive in workerturns, and only really start to shine at Electricity, which is really late. And at that point I can't be bothered to replace workshops and farms. Either the game is won, or I'm at the last stretch towards space, where I need the extra hammers from workshops more than the extra commerce from watermills. At that point in the game, you typically get a lot of research from Representation specialists (from either Pyramids or Constitution).

You can of course try out a hammer economy earlier if you want, especially on low-ish difficulty settings, although slavery would be better. Provided you have enough food and hills, it can still be decent. However, typically you won't start to specialise cities for a hammer economy until you have factories + power up, which is really late in the tech tree, and at this point it also makes sense to swap out slavery for caste system.

With State Property you don't even need all that food (or Biology farms), because grassland workshops are food neutral.

If you really want to try this out, you could fire up a Terra map. Play more or less as normal on the starting continent. Head over to the new world, set up a sprawling empire under State Property (so maintenance doesn't kill your economy), and workshop every tile in sight, more or less

 

[Pangaea]

And don’t even mention forest preserves. That +1 happiness all so you can work what might as well be an unimproved tile.

This is true. But there is a mighty important exception to "Forest preserves suck donkey nuts" : The National Park city. If you can put this up in a city with loads of forests of jungles around it, put forest preserves on all of them, and suddenly you have a great great person farm. Not shabby at all

Edit: This is one example. Not an ideal spot, but it does have 23 specialists

Spoiler :

 

[Olafeson]

The National Park city.

Ah i see, the national park.

Of course another wonder that just comes too late in the game. Even though it is very nice to get so many free specialists, together with Representation it is really a viable wonder. Would be nice if the wonder was unlocked with a tech in medieval or renaissance era though.

I am wondering. What size is the city in your example? You have 13 forests preserves, so 13 free specialists. So you have another 10 specialists +2 who work the food. that would be a size 12 city? How can you support so many citiziens with only +10 food from banana and biology FP farm.

Edit: ah i see, you have cereal mills inc. Okay nevermind then.

Yes, i guess you are right, national park is a nice wonder.

 

[Pangaea]

Yes, I have Cereal Mills there too. It's from an old game so I don't recall how much food it brought in, but probably a fair amount. The National Park is a sweet city in space games, but otherwise it simply comes too late to be worth building. It's one of the reasons I like space games. You can build a lot of stuff you otherwise don't. Satisfies the builder in me

Suppose a hammer economy could be worth it in a slog in the modern era too, but that probably only applies in deity games.

 

[Olafeson]

@Dem Taqat

I guess the lower the city size the less food you’re spending per whipped pop

You are right, if you whip from size 4 to 2, you will faster than if you whipe from size 6 to 4 or from size 6 to 3. Thats obviously since every population size needs 2 more food to grow to the next size. Especially if you work 2 food resources like dry corn you can regrow fast.

Is there any argument that Chemistry or Guilds would be decent points to start working workshops

I don t think so. i only play on Immortal/ deity difficulty though. So i think in lower difficulties like prince / monarch / emperor you still might be able to win comfortably with producing units/buildings only by working hammer tiles.

It is mostly because of the granary that whipping is so much more efficient. Cities will grow twice as fast once you build it, and you can convert food into
hammers via slavery (whipping). This will be more efficient than accumulating the hammers by working hammer tiles (mines, camps, workshops etc.).

Often times you have cities that have a food surplus (+) of +4 to +8 food. Since the granary stores half the foodbar when growing, you basically can grow a city back in only a few turns.

So you whip from size 4 to 2 and you gain 60 hammers. Then you regrow in maybe 3 to 5 turns to size 4 again with the help of the granary.
Meanwhile a comparable city at size 4 would need to work 3 mines for 10 turns to get 60 hammers.

So with the help of whipping you are roughly said at least twice as fast at accumulating hammers, compared to when working mines or workshops. This is obviously not the correct math. I never calculated it, but a lot of people on this forum did the math somewhere and posted it.

The main problem with workshops is that you lose 1 food on the tile when you build them until you get State Property. So you need even more population and food surplus from farms or resources like corn or pigs to work those tiles. More population also requires more happyness for your city via resources (fur, gold) or buildings or other stuff like monarchy. Hard to get, especially in the early game.

You would need cities with a high population (above 10 pop i think) to work enough hammer tiles to build units/buildings in a reasonable timeframe. Another issue is of course, if you work hammer tiles, you dont work your cottages or run specialists at the same time. It only gets possible to also tech with hammer economy when you get lategame techs.

Via building forge + factory + coal plant + using State Property you get +110% multiplier. Working a grassland workshop with 4 hammers will generate 8.4 research turn when you build research in your city. Even better since a grassland cottage with printing press only yields 5 commerce ( then you would need library, university and a observatory, maybe even some monasteries) to produce same research, when your slider is at 100% convertion rate from commerce to research.

Of course cottages will still be superior for teching when you use free speech and you got libraries, universities, observatories and maybe even labroratories up everywhere. But thats quite a big investment.

Do you use Windmills that often?

Yes i almost always use windmills over mines. Main benefit of course is that they are food neutral. So you can grow your city faster while working windmills. Another benefit is that workshops are also food neutral while offering the same amount of hammers as a mine. If you work a lot of cottages, you obviously can t work mines since you just dont have enough food. but you can always work a windmill since it is food neutral.

Often times, you just need some hammers to be able to whip a building (Maybe 10 or 20). So you have a size 8 city and you want to 4 pop whip a university. A windmill offers some hammers that can help to get over the threshold of hammers put into a bulding/unit so you can whip it.

If you prefer to work mines, you just need some more farms of course. Also railroads is often times a tech that is not very convenient to get. Often times you just want communism or biology or rather rifling or Assembly Line than going for railroads.

Another benefit of working State Property workshops and windmills/watermills is of course that you often time still have a bit of extra food surplus, even after your city works every tile available to it (whis is not worked by one of your other cities). So i can hire specialists. My ideal setup is working all tiles, and have exactly +6 food. for 3 specialists (often times to hire 3 engineers via forge + factory) while running rep so i also get some research out of my specialists.

Since we whip so much, windmills help regrow the city faster than mines do.

One exception here would be your ironworks city. A city with ironworks should work as many hammers as possible. Therefore making mines (+railroads) superior to windmills. Of course this city will produce so many hammers that you can even produce tanks or modern armor in 1 or 2 turns. But if you plan for a really long game, this city will be able to build the majority of spaceship parts for you + maybe some lategame wonders like Hollywood, Rock n Roll, Cristo Redentor or The Internet.

And don’t even mention forest preserves.

Yeah, what a silly improvement . Unless of course for your National park city as Pangaea already mentioned.

 

[Olafeson]

before i start i want to already apologize for another wall of text i throw at you . But Civ 4 is really a complex game with a lot of mechanics. I hope that i can offer some advice that may help you. Although you can never go wrong with lymonds advice. He is here since the early days of the forum and a very expierenced player.

Also as lymond already mentioned, the main purpose of caste system is not to give you an extra hammer for your workshops but the ability to run unlimited merchant/scientist/artist specialists in a city in order to generate GPP (great person points) so you get Great Persons to bulb techs or to create golden ages.

While you are in a golden age, your tiles get a massive boost (+1commerce and +1hammer) is really a huge deal, especially when you have a some cities. Then you should work as many tiles as possible, at least for the duration of the golden age. Of course you often time also want to hire as many specialists in some cities as possible to get out some Great persons too (+100% GPP generation during a Golden Age). You have to find the balance.

Usually it is not a good idea to whip during a Golden Age unless you are in dire need of a unit/building at the given time, and you can not wait until the GA has ended.

Especially windmills and mines located on a river should be worked during a Golden Age. Basically any tile that offers hammers and commerce

My main conclusion would be that there is no scenario (unless you are in a golden Age) where you would want to run mines / workshops to produce early game units/buildings.

As already mentioned, you just need factories and/or State property until a hammer economy gets viable. Guilds/Chemistry and Caste System are just not enough to make a hammer economy viable. Or get a corporation like mining inc. or sids sushi/cereal mills.

If you are in dire need of a building or unit, whip it, and then work your cottages/farms again to regrow your city.

an exception are of course are cities who don t have any food resource at all ( or not enough food). Since they will take a lot of turns to grow back. Usually we would not settle those cities anyway, until we get at least civil Service to spread farms to that city, or maybe even biology.

I call those cities helper cities. A city that works a plains cow and a copper mine for example. It will stay on size 2 for a long time and produce only workers/settlers and units like warriors/axeman or missionaries. Or a city that stays at size 1 and only works a strategic resource (gold, iron, silver).

 

[Pangaea]

Showing an example city from a recent game I played, on a Terra map.

Spoiler :

Not ideal ofc due to mountains, but it turned out a pretty decent city for having been settled around 1000AD. Could have been working more workshops as well, but I couldn't be arsed to change stuff around just for show.

PS: This is during a golden age so yields are higher than normal -- then again, golden ages in that part of space games is the normal situation

 

[Dem Taqat]

So with the help of whipping you are roughly said at least twice as fast at accumulating hammers, compared to when working mines or workshops. This is obviously not the correct math. I never calculated it, but a lot of people on this forum did the math somewhere and posted it.

before i start i want to already apologize for another wall of text i throw at you .

No apologies needed for the wall of text, and I’ll take your word for the general maths of it all. To stray slightly from the original topic, do you know much about how the overflow hammers from whipping work? I seem to recall they (or possibly chopping, I read it ages ago) can be used to help wonders along via production modifiers or something, but never knew the exact process.

If you really want to try this out, you could fire up a Terra map. Play more or less as normal on the starting continent. Head over to the new world, set up a sprawling empire under State Property (so maintenance doesn't kill your economy), and workshop every tile in sight, more or less

That’s actually a pretty darn great idea! I’ll give it a try next game.

DT

 

[lymond]

To stray slightly from the original topic, do you know much about how the overflow hammers from whipping work? I seem to recall they (or possibly chopping, I read it ages ago) can be used to help wonders along via production modifiers or something, but never knew the exact process.

Well, first of all overflow (OF) hammers are a natural result from any completed build, if a surplus of hammers exists going into production of that build on the last turn. In the case of settlers and workers, food also applies as part of the overall production. That is why you often hear the phrase "Food is Production". Forest chops are worth - on normal speed - 20H pre-Maths and 30H post-Maths. Forest chops are pure hammers that apply immediately to whatever you are building...or they can be held in queue by building wealth or research.

Anything that receives a production modifier via traits or resource bonus, that modifier also applies to OF hammers and chop hammers. For example, a Lighthouse is 60H. If your leader is Organized, then production is doubled for the LH. So, say you start a LH at the same time as a Maths chop (30H), that LH will complete in 1t, as those 30H from the chop became 60H when applied to a LH.

Now, whipping gets a bit more complex. On normal speed, a single whipped citizen is worth 30H. If you whip 2 citizens that is 60H. 3 citizens that is 90H. That is a lot of hammers at once. It costs citizens from the whip, ofc, but is otherwise are large amount of free hammers - far more than early cities' base hammer output. Settlers and workers are generally the first things you are going to whip early. Settlers and workers are built with food and hammers, and early on often most of their production is from food, from your food specials.

Keep in mind that you don't always whip with the intent of maximizing OF. Often the idea is just to get those settlers out as fast as possible. Still you are generally going to get some OF from 2 or 3 popping settlers. But let's go with the idea of maximizing hammers. (Note: Always remember that turn 0 of production of any item receives a serious production penalty so don't ever whip on Turn 0 of a build unless absolute emergency) Some Math is involved here:

A settler is worth 100H to produce. As mentioned a citizen is worth 30H. Based on that 30H there are certain points at which a settler can be 3popped or 2popped. <40H (>=10H) into a settler you can 3pop. =>40H and <70H into a settler you can 2pop. (see the math there..100-30=70 and 100-60=40. So to max OF on a 3pop settler whip you would put 39H of production into the settler then 3pop whip (city must be at size 6 or greater - 4 or greater for a 2pop, as you can never whip more than half a city's pop).

(note: this reflects settler production of non-IMP leaders)

100H (cost of Settler)
-39H (production into settler)
-------
=61H (remaining cost of settler)

90H (amount gained from 3 whipped citizen)
-61H (remaining cost of settler)
------
=29H (overflow)

That 29H is just a base outcome. It does not reflect the base production applied to the settler the turn of completion based on tiles worked after whipping the citizens, so the OF can very and actually be more than 29H.

So the key thing to take away from this is that whipping citizens like this for settler production, or even worker production is an incredible way to produce a lot of hammers early game. Think about it, most cities early likely don't have much more than 4 or 5 base hammers of production per turn, if even that. Furthermore, time those whips with chops and you can pump out new items like new workers very quickly. Even more so if you have bonuses like IMP, EXP, Creative.

Generally, I'm likely to 2pop settlers early into new workers, hopefully timed with a chop as well.

As for wonders, if your leader is IND, or you have marble or stone hooked up, you can apply that OF against those bonuses for huge gains on wonder production. (Also, I often use passive OF to put into wonders for fail gold)

Lastly, I'm providing a link to an old post of mine that I keep around handy for newer players. The post itself has some discussions, but also contain 3 links to other posts where I went into various detail on whipping and overflow, including military units:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/going-from-noble-tooo.468987/#post-11671673

I hope you find it useful. I go into the maths a bit.

One thing I should point out, if you are not already aware, all this is why the granary is the most important building in the game and really the only building cities need outside specializations.

I encourage to practice the concepts, which you can simply do in test games.


======
answering your question:

I suppose you’re right that Libraries are just too early-game to be skipped for pretty much any setup, but things like observatories and banks come much closer to the time where Hammers are hitting their stride. Would you say they’re still necessary for the Space win in such a situation, and would the same be true for a big Domination push at such a point?

I rarely build banks in any cities in any game. If a Space game, you need Observatories to build Labs in any Space part producing city, so I do build those where feasible.

Keep in mind that the idea behind the late game Hammer Economy, is turning those hammers into wealth and research for the most part. Although key cities may need certain building like Factories/Plants, Obs/Labs for parts.

In other words, having all those hammers is not about building more useless buildings.

 

[Olafeson]

One last thing that was not mentioned yet. You can also have TOO MUCH hammer overflow ia whipping. If you play standard BTS without any mods, these hammers will just vanish and will be lost. If you play with Bug&Bull or buffy mod, these extra hammers are turned into gold.

Lets assume following scenario occurs in one of your games. You have a forge in a city and a you are in organized religion.
So that means your hammers are multiplied by 1.5 ( +50% ). So you get

1 pop whip = 30 * 1.5 = 45 hammers
2 pop whip = 60 * 1,5 = 90 hammers

If you now whip a theatre at for example with 4/50 hammers put into the building, you do are still 2 pop whipping. (with 5%50 hammers it would already be a 1 pop whip)
So you need 46 hammers to finish the building, so you have 44 hammers left from your whip which are put into overflow.

these 46 hammers are base hammers . So next turn they are also multiplied by 1.5.
That would be a total hammer overflow of 69 hammers.

If you now build a warrior you would only need 15 hammers. The game can not store the remaining 69 - 15 hammers = 54 hammers into the next round again as overflow, so they vanish completely. Or a a part of it gets turned into gold and the rest vanish (IF you use bug %bull or buffy mod)

This gets even worse when you add hammers from a forest chop. So you have to be careful sometimes, when you generate a lot of hammer overflow to not let any of those hammers disappear.

I dont fully understand this mechanic myself, so hopefully some other folk like maybe @lymond or @Fippy who have more expierence in the game than me can correct me where i was wrong and maybe add some more insight to the topic.

I would also be interested how the hammers are stored when you whip a unit, and then deselect it, whip another one, deselect it again, and so on.
When you build up an army , but you don twant to get the units out just yet, because you want to reduce unit cost or wait until you get theology in atrade.
Then get out a unit each turn. Where do all those hammers go? Since every unit is already completed, the hammer overflow from each whip would disappear i assume.

Would you have to get out 1 unit, then put the overflow into a buuilding like a university, then next turn get out the next completed unit, and again queue smth else for 1 turn before you get out next unit? Would be awesome if you guys could explain that to us.

 

[lymond]

Olaf - I'm not erudite in the ways of overflow limits. Something I could be enlightened on as well.

As for whip/deselect, I may not be fully understanding your confusion there, but when you whip a unit and deselect it the hammers are stored on the unit itself until it is completed. They do not disappear nor is the unit complete until the turn it pops out. You should get the same expected OF once that unit does complete, unless for some reason you delay the unit such that hammers start to decay. But yeah, on the last point, if you finish the unit, I guess whether or not you put the OF into the next whip unit very much depends on how much OF you expect to get - from both. Otherwise, it is best to use the OF for something else - building, wonder, or another type of unit. Otherwise, some hammers may be lost in the process of completing those whipped units consecutively if max OF limit is reached.

But again, I'm not a master of this by any means. When doing as you describe, whip and hold units, I tend to put the OF into something else unless the OF is minuscule. Ofc, you can only queue one whipped unit of a type, so I might...say...complete unit type A and put the OF into a new A, then finish B and put OF into A again, using the OF from completed units to finish a new unit primarily from hammer OF itself.

I think there is some rule on OF and I think My does indeed know what it is...like 50% or 100% of something or nuther.

 

[Dem Taqat]

Thanks for all the advice guys, its been super helpful. With your encouragement, I have been able to accomplish the dubious achievement of having +9 from whipping in a single city, which was, uh, good? Seriously though, appreciate all the walls of text you guys have put out.

DT

 

[floydmcw]

Any overflow hammer in excess is converted to gold.

That was true in base Civ 4 but was changed in one of the expansions. In BTS you don't get gold from hammer excess.

I think a common mod (Buffy or BULL) put that back in.

 

[lymond]

Ah..so max OF is relative to the item being rushed. It appears the limit it is 50% of base production cost. I did not know that. Good stuff, BiC. Keep it coming!

 

[Olafeson]

When the build is done, the 44 overflow hammers are then normalized to base hammers. So they're divided by 1,5 --> Overflow is 29 base hammers.
Next build : potential multipliers apply.

ah thank you a lot for getting this right. Pretty big mistake from my part.

 

[krikav]

In some scenarios, you can consider a switch to Emancipation and spam late cottages but that is quite the rare occasion.

I have been considering some cottage heavy play from time to time, but it seems the map always tell me that I should do something else.
But I do have the feeling that there is alot of things to be said and had by free US, free speach and enmancipation and that I'm missing a few pieces.

When would this be a sensible thing to do? What conditions do you keep an eye out for?