I've been contemplating a new strategy, and while I plan on putting it to use, I'm curious to see if it holds up against the math wizards out there. Essentially, I'm considering using a caste system along with a farm economy to exchange population for great people points rather than hammers. Essentially I'm thinking of letting my cities grow into unhappiness, just like I would with Slavery, but instead of whipping away 2 pop on a building or unit, spending 2-3 turns with all of the citizens assigned as specialists. Since you never starve more than 1 population point down a turn, no matter how bad your food deficit, you can expect 2-3 turns of all specialists in exchange for 2 population points. I've played around with this strategy in the late game using Alexander. I was able to produce great artists in between 5-10 turns by moving from city to city, sacrificing 2 population in exchange for 17 or 18 artists working. Obviously, this hinders production, but has anyone ever used this for say, great scientists?
Help with math: Using Caste System to "Pop Rush" Great People
- Thread starter Todd Roy
- Start date
Pop rushing great people is completlty possible, my maximum is 24 great people, but that was on marathon, with one super city national epic/globe theater i managed to produce 24 great people.
That was moscow with 23 population (by the ending year 1780) and using representation/beuracracy/caste system/pacificsm. I was alos playing as Peter, and i sued multiple GE to rush production of important wonders.
That was moscow with 23 population (by the ending year 1780) and using representation/beuracracy/caste system/pacificsm. I was alos playing as Peter, and i sued multiple GE to rush production of important wonders.
VoiceOfUnreason
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The math is really weird.
OK, working with the textbook example here. Let's start with cottage town, where every tile has 2
. The 15 pop working the city have all brought there own lunch, so there is a +2 surplus. We'll set the food bar at 49/50, and happy cap the city at 15, so the next point of growth is unhappy. That many people in the city, let's assume there is a granary on hand.
City A has 15 citizens working the tiles. The foodbar is filled with 1 overflow. The city grows to 16 citizens, and the newcomer is unhappy about that. The foodbar refills to 26/52, and the city is now stagnant.
City B hires 13 specialists. This leaves 2 citizens working the tiles - the total food yield is 6, against a hunger of 30, so the foodbar drops to 25/50
City A has 2 citizens working the tiles - the total food yield is 6, against a hunger of 32, so the foodbar drops to 0/50. 2 working citizens and one unhappy leave 13 specialists.
City B hires 13 specialists. This leaves 2 citizens working the tiles - the total food yield is 6, against a hunger of 30, so the foodbar drops to 1/50
City A hires 15 specialists - the total food yield is 2, against a hunger of 32. The unhappy citizens abandons the city. The foodbar drops to 0/50.
City B hires 1 specialist, and sends everybody else back to work. 14 citizens in the fields yield 30 food and the city is stagnant.
City A - 28 specialist turns, 0/50 food.
City B - 27 specialist turns, 1/50 food.
This is really a lucky accident - a consequence of the overly simplistic model. Suppose that instead of every tile being +2, the city had a +4 tile and two +1 tiles (so that the total yield of the worked tiles is the same). This means that each city can hire one more specialist per turn...
Whoops, on turn 0 City A can't hire any specialists, because there's no food to spare when growing. And on turn 2 City A can't hire more specialists, because the remaining population is unhappy. So City A loses that race, and still falls 1 food short.
Somebody else can muck about with other combinations, my notes are getting really twisted up.
Trading the "free" food in the granary for something useful is a reasonable play, but I wouldn't choose to starve the city unless there were no other options (such as whipping multiple items).
OK, working with the textbook example here. Let's start with cottage town, where every tile has 2
. The 15 pop working the city have all brought there own lunch, so there is a +2 surplus. We'll set the food bar at 49/50, and happy cap the city at 15, so the next point of growth is unhappy. That many people in the city, let's assume there is a granary on hand.Turn 0
City A has 15 citizens working the tiles. The foodbar is filled with 1
overflow. The city grows to 16 citizens, and the newcomer is unhappy about that. The foodbar refills to 26/52, and the city is now stagnant.City B hires 13 specialists. This leaves 2 citizens working the tiles - the total food yield is 6, against a hunger of 30, so the foodbar drops to 25/50
Turn 1
City A has 2 citizens working the tiles - the total food yield is 6, against a hunger of 32, so the foodbar drops to 0/50. 2 working citizens and one unhappy leave 13 specialists.
City B hires 13 specialists. This leaves 2 citizens working the tiles - the total food yield is 6, against a hunger of 30, so the foodbar drops to 1/50
Turn 2
City A hires 15 specialists - the total food yield is 2, against a hunger of 32. The unhappy citizens abandons the city. The foodbar drops to 0/50.
City B hires 1 specialist, and sends everybody else back to work. 14 citizens in the fields yield 30 food and the city is stagnant.
Final Tally
City A - 28 specialist turns, 0/50 food.
City B - 27 specialist turns, 1/50 food.
BUT....
This is really a lucky accident - a consequence of the overly simplistic model. Suppose that instead of every tile being +2
, the city had a +4 tile and two +1 tiles (so that the total yield of the worked tiles is the same). This means that each city can hire one more specialist per turn... Whoops, on turn 0 City A can't hire any specialists, because there's no food to spare when growing. And on turn 2 City A can't hire more specialists, because the remaining population is unhappy. So City A loses that race, and still falls 1 food short.
Somebody else can muck about with other combinations, my notes are getting really twisted up.
Trading the "free" food in the granary for something useful is a reasonable play, but I wouldn't choose to starve the city unless there were no other options (such as whipping multiple items).
Without doing the maths, i'd say it's better to assign specialists BEFORE growing into unhappiness. You can make some adjustments to deflate the food bar (= partial starving) for a few turns, and thus accelerate GPPs.
You can even sacrifice active pops if you think having your GP one turn earlier is worth the deal.
But it's really no use growing into unhappiness since your unhappy citizen isn't going to help in any way.
VoU tried a little maths here, but I don't think it's worth anything. If your city is working cottages, you really shouldn't face overgrowing too often
. In that situation, you'd simply leave your unhappy starving slowly since working the cottages would be worth more than the GPPs most of the time.
A few examples of starvation for specialists.
Example 1 :
City A is your GP farm.
City B has a good deal of wonders.
City B is growing to be unhappy soon.
What's the deal? you can try to outrun city A with city B by starving it (by running specialists) while growing your GP farm (= working tiles, and not assigning specialists) .
If you can get a GP in city B, you will have "unwasted" its GPPs. So it may be worth to bother. As soon as GP is born, you can put city B back to growth and put your GP farm back to work (=assigning max specialists, maybe even starving it slowly)
example 2
City A is newly captured. It's starving anyway. Just assign all citizens as artists. This way you can expect to expand the borders and be able to work good food tiles soon. If you happen to gain a great artist this way, hourray for you. But it's a side effect.
example 3 :
You're in a tough war, with growing WW. Your culture slider is already high.
You can prevent massive unhappiness by preventive starvation in your biggest cities. Those are likely to have "specialist buildings" anyway, so you don't really need to switch to caste system.
Why is this good? because you cannot whip every turn in this situation. WW keeps growing, you cannot add unlimited whip unhappiness.
just my 2 cents.
Conclusion :
I think it's a good move to starve away your unhappies by massive specialist assignment, but it's only worth it if you're running caste system anyway!
Oh, one more trick :
if you're at war, and you cannot feed all your people because of culture surrounding your captured cities, a few turns of anarchy may save a good deal of people.
There is no starvation during anarchy...
You can even sacrifice active pops if you think having your GP one turn earlier is worth the deal.
But it's really no use growing into unhappiness since your unhappy citizen isn't going to help in any way.
VoU tried a little maths here, but I don't think it's worth anything. If your city is working cottages, you really shouldn't face overgrowing too often
. In that situation, you'd simply leave your unhappy starving slowly since working the cottages would be worth more than the GPPs most of the time.A few examples of starvation for specialists.
Example 1 :
City A is your GP farm.
City B has a good deal of wonders.
City B is growing to be unhappy soon.
What's the deal? you can try to outrun city A with city B by starving it (by running specialists) while growing your GP farm (= working tiles, and not assigning specialists) .
If you can get a GP in city B, you will have "unwasted" its GPPs. So it may be worth to bother. As soon as GP is born, you can put city B back to growth and put your GP farm back to work (=assigning max specialists, maybe even starving it slowly)
example 2
City A is newly captured. It's starving anyway. Just assign all citizens as artists. This way you can expect to expand the borders and be able to work good food tiles soon. If you happen to gain a great artist this way, hourray for you. But it's a side effect.
example 3 :
You're in a tough war, with growing WW. Your culture slider is already high.
You can prevent massive unhappiness by preventive starvation in your biggest cities. Those are likely to have "specialist buildings" anyway, so you don't really need to switch to caste system.
Why is this good? because you cannot whip every turn in this situation. WW keeps growing, you cannot add unlimited whip unhappiness.
just my 2 cents.
Conclusion :
I think it's a good move to starve away your unhappies by massive specialist assignment, but it's only worth it if you're running caste system anyway!
Oh, one more trick :
if you're at war, and you cannot feed all your people because of culture surrounding your captured cities, a few turns of anarchy may save a good deal of people.
There is no starvation during anarchy...
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