How does forest growth work?

[Fippy]

Very fascinating, and you have a great way of introducing yourself to newbies like Shakabrade.

 

[Nogbadthebad]

Some big picture time Mr Duke if you would allow me:

This is the Strategy and Tips forum. It is for players of all levels to improve their play, but most especially to help new players to appreciate an exceptional game.

In your 20(ish) years away from civ4 you may have missed a few things- on marathon speed conquest, domination, UNdiplo, APdiplo, and cultural victories have all been achieved prior to T300, in some cases much earlier. The best space victory is T359, though obviously that is a T329 launch. (Time victory remains as 2050AD obv). Some of this has been achieved by the people replying to your posts with great patience (though i am not as skilled as they).

You are trying to espouse a tactic based on gameplay when you are behind in tech and score on T820. Optimal gameplay could have won the game, deleted its entire empire, had a 50T cup of tea, won the game from scratch again and had an even longer cuppa. You may have to produce better evidence of a viable tactic than this.

The mechanics, and odds for forest growth were laid out very clearly in the fourth post on this thread. They are very small probabilities (0.1% equates to once every 1000 turns, sort of). Furthermore they are random. Basing any strategy around random behavior is somewhat akin to rolling your face on the keyboard at the start of each turn.***

I am not going to post any more on this thread as I would prefer that my belated introduction to these forums did not involve ranting. I do apologise if anything I have thus written has seemed a bit like this.

***This might be a valid game winning move in civ6. But it could well be due to the user interface being designed for nose-only play.

 

[Max Duke]

There are many things to consider regarding the score. First of all the map, this is an Oasis map. The resources: not many diversity here, so I got a few bonus, not many.
I wanted Horses, since rolling with Isabella: nearest Horses at 28 road-tiles, 15.69 distance from Palace. I placed there my 6th city, close to Alexander and Brennus borders, that caused an early war with them.
I could have destroyed them both at one time, but preferred to grow in peace.
My expansion was not low: I was bankrupt and had to stay at 10% / 20% research for ages.
In the end Im not playing to set some record, but to win with Isabel in this Oasis map, with these settings.

I commented in this thread because in my games I see many regrowth.
For sure I had more than 10 regrown forests -- that I wouldnt have if I had deforested my land.

 

[sampsa]

In the end Im not playing to set some record, but to win with Isabel in this Oasis map, with these settings.

So you have "20 years of experience" and you are trying to win on monarch/marathon? I think you are setting some kind of record there.

 

[Max Duke]

So you have "20 years of experience" and you are trying to win on monarch/marathon? I think you are setting some kind of record there.

Maybe I do the record of regrown forests ^^

If you want I can pass you the file of turn one. I'm sure you can do better. I have skipped something just for aesthetics. For example not keeping one town, because I didnt like it.

 

[sampsa]

If you want I can pass you the file of turn one.

Sure, maybe someone will play. Turn 0.

 

[pi-r8]

Does forest regrowth % chance change with speed? Seems like it should. IE, if normal speed is 0.1% chance / turn / forest, then marathon should be 1/5 of that. But maybe it doesn't, which is why Max Duke is seeing lot of regrowth for his marathon games?

 

[Windsor]

No, the regrowth mechanic is per turn and not affected by game speed. So yes, you will see more forests regrow on Marathon. And since most Marathon players tend to play on Huge maps they'll see significantly more forests growth than Normal/Standard-players.

 

[pi-r8]

No, the regrowth mechanic is per turn and not affected by game speed. So yes, you will see more forests regrow on Marathon. And since most Marathon players tend to play on Huge maps they'll see significantly more forests growth than Normal/Standard-players.

Interesting, I didn't realize that marathon would give you so many more forest regrowths.
Still, not *that* many though...
In the best case, you have an empty tile surrounded by 4 forests, 0.4% chance per turn.
0.004*90 = 0.36 per turn... not exactly an industrial powerhouse, especially with marathon costs.
More often there's only 1,2,or 3 forests bordering it, so the chance is decreased. Still only seems worth it for the national park, otherwise just make an improvement there, any improvement.

 

[shakabrade]

Interesting, I didn't realize that marathon would give you so many more forest regrowths.
Still, not *that* many though...
In the best case, you have an empty tile surrounded by 4 forests, 0.4% chance per turn.
0.004*90 = 0.36 per turn... not exactly an industrial powerhouse, especially with marathon costs.
More often there's only 1,2,or 3 forests bordering it, so the chance is decreased. Still only seems worth it for the national park, otherwise just make an improvement there, any improvement.

Don't let the math fool you. Those 0.36 per turn actually come all at once and practically give you free Longbow defender against the AI modern armor.

Regarding NP, I do not have a single game out of my last 50 games where National Park contributed to a better victory date or whatever. If i care about specialists or pop that late in the game, it is far better just to farm everything with Biology or go for a food corp. Farming does not cost hammers. Rarely I'll put a NP to FP cottage capital. Those naturally lack forests. Most of the time i simply dont build the NP.

 

[rah]

Not chopping enough has always been my biggest weakness as a player. I look back at every map at the end and get a good laugh when I realize how much faster I would have won if I had chopped more. (usually dom/con) where I think faster is almost always better. Thanks to this place I've gotten better at it but still not good enough.
Every time I see a thread like this, I have to chuckle. Yeah, that was me too.

 

[soundjata]

How can you have the patience for 8XX turns of civilization I can't simply imagine that

 

[shakabrade]

Not chopping enough has always been my biggest weakness as a player. I look back at every map at the end and get a good laugh when I realize how much faster I would have won if I had chopped more. (usually dom/con) where I think faster is almost always better. Thanks to this place I've gotten better at it but still not good enough.
Every time I see a thread like this, I have to chuckle. Yeah, that was me too.

I think I could still chop more even though I constantly chop. Will have to try the approach with more chopping workers. Maybe that makes some sense.

Regarding the stuff on the forum, when I discovered this forum, I was basically just reading stuff for a month before the first post to avoid being non-constructive. And now we have 2-3 people opening 90% of threads with the questions you can answer with google. Or asking advice and then just ignoring and repeating their elementary mistakes over and over again. 2020 is a challenge on all fronts.
One hit wonders (the players preaching sandboxing or totally suboptimal plays and then leaving when too many do not have open hearts to their ideas) are actually ok because they can make people question what they know and to try to support that with maths or benchmark games. It has a chance to lead to even better games in the future. E.g, now we consider even more chopping. Weird path to get there but definitely an added value.

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

I think I'll raise my hand and say I probably DO chop too much. But this has more to do with a weird quirk I have, and I'm already aware it's suboptimal:

I simply cannot bring myself to pre-cut forests. I know this sounds dumb. I have all mods, it stops my worker on the last turn and all of that. But for some reason, in my head, I always think of the wasted worker turn when he has to walk BACK to that square to finish chopping. So what happens? My chopped hammers are often used way too early on stuff I maybe shouldn't be chopping yet. If I can get over that OCD of mine, I think my game would improve quite a bit. I can see the appeal of pre-chopping like 5 forests and then dumping them all into a wonder or something like that, but I never do it.

 

[shakabrade]

Many forests there are regrown.

For instance, imagine we had a unit which had a unique ability of 0.4% to be randomly spawned anywhere near the forests in your empire. Would it not be OP by the same criterion you value uncontrollable up to 0.4% chance of forest regrowth? Would you count on those units to carry you through the war because of that ability? Would you even if it was 4% chance?

For us to have a chance for tree regrowth we need to leave the adjacent forest hammers intact. There is an incredible opportunity cost associated with that. How many turns does a new city need to produce 360 . How many additional hammers will that city produce if it doesn't chop? If you are working unimproved forests to get that 1, how many whips could you have done by working the farm instead? In Civ4 there are simply too many of better options than leaving the forests.

I admit there is one case in which I leave a forest or two and usually in 3rd ring. The chops for Oxford University if the capital is very strong cottage bureau and low on . Or even high on food, but low on happiness (making whipping into the OU painful). This is fairly often and it pays itself back quickly if OU gives extra 100 5T sooner.

 

[pi-r8]

How can you have the patience for 8XX turns of civilization I can't simply imagine that

Truth. All this talk about marathon is strictly theoretical for me, since I'll never have the patience to actually play it.

 

[shakabrade]

Truth. All this talk about marathon is strictly theoretical for me, since I'll never have the patience to actually play it.

A bit off topic but yeah, there is not much to do in 1500T. That is why you win by T400. Marathon is for huge maps. Huge on Normal is weird (although havent played this since Vanilla was released).

There is a mod, Realism Invictus I played couple of months ago which adds ton of stuff (basically completely different experience) and goes to something like 2300T. Additionally, forests are nerfed to 14 while everything is approx. 3 times more expensive. And no whipping is available while drafts can be more powerful. But chopping them still pays off as improvements on non special resources are not good until later techs. I had to calculate to get to the conclusion (although I did not know what to expect in mid future as there is too much new content) but, yeah, still good to chop, just less urgent. And, not to forget, I recommend the mod as it freshens up the game, gives off a bit of roleplaying mood and feels a bit more like what Civ 5 should have been.

A bit more on topic, if you do not want to blindly accept meta, calculate what you gain and lose. But use timelines of good games on the forums (better than what you currently can) when calculating ROI. You will also notice that higher level players actually dont blindly follow the meta but always adjust to the map. It is just that some things work almost always work well and will never put you in a bad spot even if it was not the optimum. E.g. Chopping.

 

[drewisfat]

Don't listen to these noobs Max Duke. Next game I won't chop any of my forests. Straight to forest preserves. Max regrowth. You'll see. You'll all see.

 

[lymond]

How does RI run now there, shaka? I played it years ago and it is def one of the better modpacks, but some of those bigs ones run very slow no matter the machine juice.

Chopping those lovely evergreens is strictly a noob manuever. Why'ya wanna waste all those 1F2H power tiles?

 

[Max Duke]

How does RI run now there, shaka? I played it years ago and it is def one of the better modpacks, but some of those bigs ones run very slow no matter the machine juice.

Chopping those lovely evergreens is strictly a noob manuever. Why'ya wanna waste all those 1F2H power tiles?

Im not working unimproved terrain. My Lumbermills are timed, then I go for Railroad and I reach it when I haven't completed all the Lumbermills.
City grow is timed with that, working new tiles with Lumbermills + Rail.

I have one city with zero forests, and has only +2 so there is a problem in building the Factory.
Has growth zero, so I should replace a mine with a windmill going with pollution until hospital or recycling or supermarket.
In cities with forests (with lumbermills or not) I havent that problem.
(Of course slavery is of great value in these situations, since you can slave Factory, go back to no-pollution, and start hospital with overflow production, then slave again some turns later.)