How to Whip (Slavery)
- Thread starter jsurpless
- Start date
jsurpless,
Thanks for the question, but please note that this probably belongs in the 'general' forum.
With that said, when checking in the city view screen, the following is displayed;
You need to be in the Slavery civic and have sufficient population in the city for the build in question in order to whip the production.
As you will note in other threads, this is a very powerful tool.
Thanks for the question, but please note that this probably belongs in the 'general' forum.
With that said, when checking in the city view screen, the following is displayed;
You need to be in the Slavery civic and have sufficient population in the city for the build in question in order to whip the production.
As you will note in other threads, this is a very powerful tool.
Boom22
I kill VIRTUAL Spanish!
It's quite if you're stuck in a long draught out war that you aren't winning or if you just want to shut em up.
Dorchester Dude
Chieftain
jsurpless,
Thanks for the question, but please note that this probably belongs in the 'general' forum.
With that said, when checking in the city view screen, the following is displayed;
You need to be in the Slavery civic and have sufficient population in the city for the build in question in order to whip the production.
As you will note in other threads, this is a very powerful tool.
The link is no longer valid.
I don't see a "Click this to whip" button either.
Can someone put into words what the procedure is to whip, say, one citizen?
Do you simply unselect a tile? Is there a right click I didn't see?
Can you whip a citizen who has stopped working?
DD
DaveMcW
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2002
- Messages
- 6,489
Double-click on a city.
Put your mouse over the mini-map in the bottom right hand corner.
Move your mouse left to the "DRAFT" button.
Move your mouse down slightly to the arrow button.
Move your mouse left slightly to the other arrow button.
Click it, or hover over it to see why you aren't allowed to whip.
Put your mouse over the mini-map in the bottom right hand corner.
Move your mouse left to the "DRAFT" button.
Move your mouse down slightly to the arrow button.
Move your mouse left slightly to the other arrow button.
Click it, or hover over it to see why you aren't allowed to whip.
madscientist
RPC Supergenius
Could you be more specific?
Seriously, is the question about how to do it in the game. Or the benefits/reasons why you should do it in the game?
Dorchester Dude
Chieftain
I was asking specifically what buttons to push not why.
There are tomes on why or why not.
I've printed it out and will try it when I get home. Thanks a million!
DD
Refar
Deity
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2005
- Messages
- 4,608
VoU's Article has pictures.
Bleys
Deity
There is actually a lot of strategy involved in whipping (once you actually learn what whipping is and the basics of how to do it, heh) For the record, its the button down on the bottom of the screen, that has an arrow pointing up (either lit or grayed out) that says "Hurry Production of XXX at the cost of Y populations, will cause ZZ turns of unhappiness".
Some key points I didnt realize when I first started playing:
1. There is a penalty for whipping items if there are no hammers in them
2. There is a penalty for whipping Wonders
3. Whipping 3 pop has the same unhappiness effect of whipping 1
Using proper technique, you can increase the effectiveness of whipping to avoid "wasting" potential hammers with penalties or having unhappiness pile up.
1. is the easiest. Try to avoid using the whip on items the first turn they are in the queue. This even applies if there is overflow hammers from the previous build, those hammers dont actually "go into" the next item until the following turn. They are sort of in limbo. Thats why an Archer takes 2 pop to whip. It costs 35 hammers to build an Archer on Epic speed, and you get 45 hammers per pop when whipping, but because of the penalty, you only get 30 (? I think) for the first one, then 45 for the second. If you put even 1 single hammer into the Archer, you can get him for 1 pop and still have some overflow.
Number 2 is probably my favorite way to build Wonders. You only get 30 hammers per pop on Epic if you whip the Wonder itself, but by putting a unit or building in front of the Wonder in the queue, you get the full 45 for whipping that item, and the overflow is applied into the Wonder at full value. You can actually pump out a respectable army using this technique. Say you are building the Mids, but want to get some Axes out to rush a neighbor. Put an Axeman in front of the Mids, let it build for a turn or 2, then whip to finish it. By carefully timing the whip, you can get a LOT of hammers into the Mids. Axemen are 52 hammers on Epic, so if your city is getting 17 hammers a turn, you can put 2 turns of 17 into the Axe, then whip it for 1 pop. You end up with 17 (first turn) + 17 (next turn) + 17 (actual finished turn) + 45 (1 pop whip) = 96 hammers for a 52 hammer build. That puts 44 hammers into the Mids, and gives you an Axeman.
3. Is a bit more painful, but if you have a city that grows REALLY fast and is constantly at the happy cap, but has very few hammer-tiles, you dont want to whip something for 1 then another something for 1 a few turns later, then another 1 a few turns after that. Unhappiness piles up and takes longer and longer to go away. I look for opportunities to whip for multiple pop, get plenty of overflow, and build bigger things much faster without a lot of actual hammers from tiles. By the time the city regains the population that extra frownie face is usually gone, or will be shortly.
Honestly, learning exactly how whipping and chopping hammers work and are applied to various things (trait bonus buildings, the bonus from OR, etc) has made me a much much better player.
Some key points I didnt realize when I first started playing:
1. There is a penalty for whipping items if there are no hammers in them
2. There is a penalty for whipping Wonders
3. Whipping 3 pop has the same unhappiness effect of whipping 1
Using proper technique, you can increase the effectiveness of whipping to avoid "wasting" potential hammers with penalties or having unhappiness pile up.
1. is the easiest. Try to avoid using the whip on items the first turn they are in the queue. This even applies if there is overflow hammers from the previous build, those hammers dont actually "go into" the next item until the following turn. They are sort of in limbo. Thats why an Archer takes 2 pop to whip. It costs 35 hammers to build an Archer on Epic speed, and you get 45 hammers per pop when whipping, but because of the penalty, you only get 30 (? I think) for the first one, then 45 for the second. If you put even 1 single hammer into the Archer, you can get him for 1 pop and still have some overflow.
Number 2 is probably my favorite way to build Wonders. You only get 30 hammers per pop on Epic if you whip the Wonder itself, but by putting a unit or building in front of the Wonder in the queue, you get the full 45 for whipping that item, and the overflow is applied into the Wonder at full value. You can actually pump out a respectable army using this technique. Say you are building the Mids, but want to get some Axes out to rush a neighbor. Put an Axeman in front of the Mids, let it build for a turn or 2, then whip to finish it. By carefully timing the whip, you can get a LOT of hammers into the Mids. Axemen are 52 hammers on Epic, so if your city is getting 17 hammers a turn, you can put 2 turns of 17 into the Axe, then whip it for 1 pop. You end up with 17 (first turn) + 17 (next turn) + 17 (actual finished turn) + 45 (1 pop whip) = 96 hammers for a 52 hammer build. That puts 44 hammers into the Mids, and gives you an Axeman.
3. Is a bit more painful, but if you have a city that grows REALLY fast and is constantly at the happy cap, but has very few hammer-tiles, you dont want to whip something for 1 then another something for 1 a few turns later, then another 1 a few turns after that. Unhappiness piles up and takes longer and longer to go away. I look for opportunities to whip for multiple pop, get plenty of overflow, and build bigger things much faster without a lot of actual hammers from tiles. By the time the city regains the population that extra frownie face is usually gone, or will be shortly.
Honestly, learning exactly how whipping and chopping hammers work and are applied to various things (trait bonus buildings, the bonus from OR, etc) has made me a much much better player.
Sorry to necromance this, guys, but I'm a little unclear on what slavery 'common sense' applies after the civic cost was increased to be higher than the default civic.
Still always important to run? Still always important to build units/important buildings with? I've never made slavery work well for myself, but maybe now with the Bug Mod giving me some micro help I can.
Still always important to run? Still always important to build units/important buildings with? I've never made slavery work well for myself, but maybe now with the Bug Mod giving me some micro help I can.
vanatteveldt
Emperor
Aside: You really should have started a new thread with a descriptive title...
The cost of running slavery is threefold: upkeep, revolts, and opportunity costs.
Upkeep & revolts: you always have these costs if you run slavery. If you actually use slavery, it is a very powerful way of building infrastructure, especially if you have some decent food sources in most of your cities (which you generally should). If you have hilly terrain or way too many plains (so food really scarce), it might not be worth it, but in 95% of cases I think it would be worth it. I generally revolt as soon as I need my first whip, to avoid paying the cost while not using the features.
The opportunity cost: If you don't have a useful civic, the third is negligible. Usually, the choice pops up at some point between Caste System and Slavery. I would not advocate going to CS unless your GP farm can run at least two, preferably more, extra specialist because of it.
Obviously, if you're spiritual you should be in slavery as little as possible, ie switch to slavery, whip all eligible cities within 5 turns, some maybe more than once, switch out for regrowth and happy cap.
The cost of running slavery is threefold: upkeep, revolts, and opportunity costs.
Upkeep & revolts: you always have these costs if you run slavery. If you actually use slavery, it is a very powerful way of building infrastructure, especially if you have some decent food sources in most of your cities (which you generally should). If you have hilly terrain or way too many plains (so food really scarce), it might not be worth it, but in 95% of cases I think it would be worth it. I generally revolt as soon as I need my first whip, to avoid paying the cost while not using the features.
The opportunity cost: If you don't have a useful civic, the third is negligible. Usually, the choice pops up at some point between Caste System and Slavery. I would not advocate going to CS unless your GP farm can run at least two, preferably more, extra specialist because of it.
Obviously, if you're spiritual you should be in slavery as little as possible, ie switch to slavery, whip all eligible cities within 5 turns, some maybe more than once, switch out for regrowth and happy cap.
Well, I think the title pretty much stands and the contents were relatively interesting and pertinent (and up to date, wheras most of the Slavery "big threads" sprawl all the way from 2006 and it's unclear which statements refer to previous versions where slavery had a lower civics cost.)
Slavery - how necessary, at noble? To be used only after granaries are built, in general? Much more useful when there aren't a lot of luxury resources raising happiness cap? I just can't get a feel for it. And I do truly hate the overflow stockpiling business, I wish they'd just dropped it all into gold from the getgo. I feel like I can either sit down with double entry accounting and bifocals and figure out how to build the pyramids with axemen whipping, or else I'm a putz who's just pretending to play.
Slavery - how necessary, at noble? To be used only after granaries are built, in general? Much more useful when there aren't a lot of luxury resources raising happiness cap? I just can't get a feel for it. And I do truly hate the overflow stockpiling business, I wish they'd just dropped it all into gold from the getgo. I feel like I can either sit down with double entry accounting and bifocals and figure out how to build the pyramids with axemen whipping, or else I'm a putz who's just pretending to play.
T-hawk
Transcend
Not precisely; only if random events are turned on. If the game was started with the "No Random Events" option on, no slave revolts.
slobberinbear
Ursine Skald
Certain playstyles and civs favor whipping, others don't.
If you are financial and working a lot of cottages, whipping a lot is counterproductive in cottage cities. If you are Monty and have built your sacrificial altars, get your food surplus and granaries up and whip like crazy.
The key bits of slavery that took me awhile to understand was knowing how much to whip, when to whip, what to whip, and what to put the overflow in.
HOW MUCH TO WHIP
Generally speaking, at least 2 population. A 1-pop whip will leave you with happiness problems in most cases due to city regrowth. Bigger whips (4 or more pop) are very painful to your production and should not be the norm; reserve those for finishing a key wonder or ultra-emergency.
WHEN TO WHIP
Assuming you have a Granary, a 3-pop whip is great when your food reserve is nearly full (i.e. you're about to grow). After the whip, you grow back to starting size -2, and can grow one more size category without unhappiness. This is a good choice if you are overflowing into something that will not impede your growth.
For overflow purposes, the best time to whip is the turn before the whip cost goes down. E.g., if the item costs 2 pop now, but 1 pop next turn, the best time to whip is now. This will maximize the hammer overflow. The BUG mod is very handy for managing this.
WHAT TO WHIP
Other than something you need in an emergency, the best things to whip are expensive units (catapults, workers, settlers) and infrastructure buildings like monuments, granaries, and libraries. These all (except the monument) will cost you at least 2 pop most of the time and take forever to build without whipping.
You can whip regular units too (axemen, for instance), but you will run into happiness issues if you don't manage whip anger, and sometimes whipping them directly can be counterproductive if you're not careful.
WHAT TO OVERFLOW
Generally speaking, you want to overflow into one of these things:
1. something that takes a long time to build or that halts growth while building it (settler, worker, wonder)
2. something that you have a leader trait production bonus to build -- your overflow hammers are multiplied for that item!
3. if building an army, overflow into the next unit. You usually end up building two units in the time it takes to build one.
WHIP ANGER MANAGEMENT
1. Whip enough population in one "crack" so that the unhappiness goes away by the time you regrow.
2. Whip/overflow a temple. Happiness problem solved!
3. Build a worker or settler after the whip to ****** growth, or rearrange the tiles your citizens are working/hit the "avoid growth" button.
4. If you're running Hereditary Rule, build a unit for happiness.
If you are financial and working a lot of cottages, whipping a lot is counterproductive in cottage cities. If you are Monty and have built your sacrificial altars, get your food surplus and granaries up and whip like crazy.
The key bits of slavery that took me awhile to understand was knowing how much to whip, when to whip, what to whip, and what to put the overflow in.
HOW MUCH TO WHIP
Generally speaking, at least 2 population. A 1-pop whip will leave you with happiness problems in most cases due to city regrowth. Bigger whips (4 or more pop) are very painful to your production and should not be the norm; reserve those for finishing a key wonder or ultra-emergency.
WHEN TO WHIP
Assuming you have a Granary, a 3-pop whip is great when your food reserve is nearly full (i.e. you're about to grow). After the whip, you grow back to starting size -2, and can grow one more size category without unhappiness. This is a good choice if you are overflowing into something that will not impede your growth.
For overflow purposes, the best time to whip is the turn before the whip cost goes down. E.g., if the item costs 2 pop now, but 1 pop next turn, the best time to whip is now. This will maximize the hammer overflow. The BUG mod is very handy for managing this.
WHAT TO WHIP
Other than something you need in an emergency, the best things to whip are expensive units (catapults, workers, settlers) and infrastructure buildings like monuments, granaries, and libraries. These all (except the monument) will cost you at least 2 pop most of the time and take forever to build without whipping.
You can whip regular units too (axemen, for instance), but you will run into happiness issues if you don't manage whip anger, and sometimes whipping them directly can be counterproductive if you're not careful.
WHAT TO OVERFLOW
Generally speaking, you want to overflow into one of these things:
1. something that takes a long time to build or that halts growth while building it (settler, worker, wonder)
2. something that you have a leader trait production bonus to build -- your overflow hammers are multiplied for that item!
3. if building an army, overflow into the next unit. You usually end up building two units in the time it takes to build one.
WHIP ANGER MANAGEMENT
1. Whip enough population in one "crack" so that the unhappiness goes away by the time you regrow.
2. Whip/overflow a temple. Happiness problem solved!
3. Build a worker or settler after the whip to ****** growth, or rearrange the tiles your citizens are working/hit the "avoid growth" button.
4. If you're running Hereditary Rule, build a unit for happiness.
FlyinJohnnyL
You need more workers....
This is something I'm struggling with. I, almost like a robot, pretty much always whip away 2 pop. I do often find I'm growing back to the cap too fast though. Should I be doing more 3 pop whips? Early on there really isn't much available for this, but I often notice I could be 3 popping the library, for instance.
Also, the other day I went on a mad whipping spree and just whipped away until I only had 1 pop left in both of my cities (screw the red faces), and just had a swarm of axemen. I was able to take out 3 cities in 1 rush doing this; I can usually only build enough axes to take 2. Unfortunately I was just playin' around testing stuff and didn't finish the game ( I do this a lot ). Does anyone know if this is a good strat, or does the overwhelming whipping anger, well, overwhelm you?
slobberinbear
Ursine Skald
I rarely stack whip anger. That's why I love playing Monty -- whip anger is so fleeting with the Aztecs ... 
Depending on how hard core you whip-stack, you can easily end up with dozens of turns of whip anger depending on game speed. Then again, getting 12 axemen from 3 cities in 4 turns may be worth it to you.
Depending on how hard core you whip-stack, you can easily end up with dozens of turns of whip anger depending on game speed. Then again, getting 12 axemen from 3 cities in 4 turns may be worth it to you.
My problems are more
1. Not knowing in advance if I'll need it, but sensing that a good player would find a way to use it
2. Switching to Slavery, then only using it when I'm really sure, like, great building, great food supply, dubious tiles for new pop to work and as a result
3. Not using it enough to feel it's justified, and not quite knowing how much of an advantage I get.
The BUG mod is a great help in that if I see 20-30 hammers overflow and no crucial citizens gone, well, great. I'm guessing the only solution is practice, but it's just one more reason to keep endlessly replaying the first 100 turns of dozens of games, something I feel like is a trap and bad for confidence.
I used to never use slavery, always rush for 'mids and run Rep/Bureau. I was starting to think I could push for Prince. But it was a one-trick gamestyle and I didn't want to rely on the mids. (And at any rate I ran CE and felt like I was using an SE strategy.) But since I've tried other things it's just endless starts with the occasional win or semi-win.
Anyway maybe if I get a handle on slavery that'll be it. It is one of the tricker things to master I guess.
1. Not knowing in advance if I'll need it, but sensing that a good player would find a way to use it
2. Switching to Slavery, then only using it when I'm really sure, like, great building, great food supply, dubious tiles for new pop to work and as a result
3. Not using it enough to feel it's justified, and not quite knowing how much of an advantage I get.
The BUG mod is a great help in that if I see 20-30 hammers overflow and no crucial citizens gone, well, great. I'm guessing the only solution is practice, but it's just one more reason to keep endlessly replaying the first 100 turns of dozens of games, something I feel like is a trap and bad for confidence.
I used to never use slavery, always rush for 'mids and run Rep/Bureau. I was starting to think I could push for Prince. But it was a one-trick gamestyle and I didn't want to rely on the mids. (And at any rate I ran CE and felt like I was using an SE strategy.) But since I've tried other things it's just endless starts with the occasional win or semi-win.
Anyway maybe if I get a handle on slavery that'll be it. It is one of the tricker things to master I guess.
slobberinbear
Ursine Skald
I hear you. To get the absolute most out of the whip means a lot of micromanagement of your city's tiles (e.g., to work no hammer tiles on the first turn of the axe build so that you can whip it for two pop the next turn instead of one, and get more overflow and happiness benefits). I rarely go to that much trouble. But sometimes, you almost have to in order to get use out of it, as you say -- otherwise, you'll always be waiting for that perfect situation, which rarely happens "naturally."
The MM "requirement" really is an issue when building units in the early game -- whipping the key infrastructure buildings is easier because they're almost always at least 2 pop.
As far as when to use it ...
* when expanding, to get out a settler quickly (perhaps to beat the AI to a location)
* when building, to get infrastructure buildings out of the way so they can start making units, specialists, or otherwise contributing
* when warring, to get two units in the time of one every whip anger cycle.
I really suggest playing as the Aztecs to get a handle on whipping. I don't use it heavily in every game, but a run with Monty always reminds me how powerful it is.
The MM "requirement" really is an issue when building units in the early game -- whipping the key infrastructure buildings is easier because they're almost always at least 2 pop.
As far as when to use it ...
* when expanding, to get out a settler quickly (perhaps to beat the AI to a location)
* when building, to get infrastructure buildings out of the way so they can start making units, specialists, or otherwise contributing
* when warring, to get two units in the time of one every whip anger cycle.
I really suggest playing as the Aztecs to get a handle on whipping. I don't use it heavily in every game, but a run with Monty always reminds me how powerful it is.
Incidentally, I forgot to mention above while hunting around for my login/pass - that was a terrific initial post and followup, very much what I was looking for.
I remember when I was looking at VoU's whip thread I thought to myself that effective whip planning might be a bit like 'looking a few moves ahead' in chess - that is to say you can read in a book that you're supposed to do it, but you either learn to or you don't from experience.
Playing the Aztecs would be smart, but at the same time I'm really wanting to get a handle on the countries I think I want to play long term. I guess I'll go from where I am now and just start looking for ways to generate whipping scenarios. It seems 'opportunistic whipping with BUG giving you enough info to get good overflow' is about enough to make slavery a breakeven proposition without further micro. So further micro should be gravy.
I remember when I was looking at VoU's whip thread I thought to myself that effective whip planning might be a bit like 'looking a few moves ahead' in chess - that is to say you can read in a book that you're supposed to do it, but you either learn to or you don't from experience.
Playing the Aztecs would be smart, but at the same time I'm really wanting to get a handle on the countries I think I want to play long term. I guess I'll go from where I am now and just start looking for ways to generate whipping scenarios. It seems 'opportunistic whipping with BUG giving you enough info to get good overflow' is about enough to make slavery a breakeven proposition without further micro. So further micro should be gravy.
