Is it possible to change production in a city before the initial turn messages?

[alcibaides]

Is it possible to change production in a city before the initial turn messages?

I.e. when the computer is scrolling through the messages about new techs, governments, civil disorder, etc.

That way if another civ kills all the defensive units in my city and I am building a city improvement, I can have it change production to a unit and a unit will be completed in the empty city at the start of my turn.

 

[Theov]

you try to explain it 2 times, and I still don't understand the question.

 

[alcibaides]

Ok, say you are building a wonder in a city, and then the AI attacks the city and kills all defending units in the city, but does not have enough units to actually take the city. In the next turn they will be able to take the the city because even if you swap production from the wonder to a unit, that unit will not appear until the next turn. Do you follow me?

But if you could change production to a unit at the beginning of the turn, i.e. before or during the messages that pop up, then once the game cycles through to that city, the production would already be changed so the unit would appear. Do you follow me?

So is there any way this can be done?

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Yes, with planning.

What you do is use the "Zoom to Home city" function on a unit inside another city that you have accessed through some other "zoom to city" function. The city with the unit must be processed before the home city (be lower on the list of cities in the City Advisor screen) or this won't work.

I have not used this trick myself, but I have read about others who have.

 

[alcibaides]

Awesome Prof, you definately deserve the title "professor". That is brilliant.

Even if you can't access the city you need directly, you can often find a link somewhere by rush-buying an improvement to a city that has the unit that will link you back to the city you need.

 

[WildPony]

Greetings Gareth

Typically in an average turn, this would be highly unlikely to be available... it would have to have been carefully planned as Prof. Garfield mentioned. In games where it is allowed, i have used this tactic to emerge with a wonder the very turn you complete the tech (the very turn, not the very "next' turn). In a "gentleman's game", this tactic is generally disallowed as is, for example, the rehoming of trade caravans.

Specifically, if you are building a wonder in your cap, say u will complete Navigation this turn and u want Magellans... your cities are counting down from the last towards the first (the cap)... Somewhere in this countdown, long before you reach your wonder city, you complete Navi. Meanwhile, with careful planning, you had placed a unit from your 'wonder building" city (homed in your wonder city, but now placed into the other city), say your "2nd" city. You make that 2nd city "unhappy" so it goes into riot. When the popup arrives for that riot, you click on the wonder building city's unit within the rioting city and select "zoom to home city".

You already have navi, you already have 400 shields towards some wonder (or 300 + a readiness to add 400 gold) now you have zoomed to your capital before the "countown" actually reaches it, you switch your production to Magellans, pay 400 gold if nec... then exit... then the countdown continues and you emerge with Magellans.

Before doing this, however, you just might want to run this buy the guys you play with to verify its permissibility .

 

[timtofly]

This sounds like the exact strategy the computer uses to get a unit out on the same turn as the advance. The computer gets the advance towards the bottom of the city stack and "3" cities later it has the means to produce that unit. A human would not be able to make that decision during the city "tally". If it is a "cheat" for the computer, then it would be a cheat for the human. If it is normal every-turn business for the computer then at the least it should be an exploit, but not a cheat.