Is Whip/Chop overflow an Exploit? I say No

[Lone Wolf]

It looks like something that shouldn't be in game - it shouldn't promote tedious micro like that. Re the exploitness of it, I think it's borderline, but ultimately not an exploit - it's more like micromanaging tiles in Civ1-3. But if it's gone, I'll be glad.

 

[mike p]

It's obviously an exploit. Overflow was added to reduce the need for micromanagement in timing whips and chops. Leveraging overflow into gold via extreme micromanaging is abusive, IMO, since it's counter to the spirit of the game and the design intent. No different to me than increasing your gold with the world builder, which is also legal under most game settings - the game allows you to do it. It's your game though, play it how ever you like and have fun.

Personally, I've never even tried this, because it just smells wrong to me.

 

[Duckweed]

Long post!

If you don't make a few whip/chops before Math your research can end up stagnate. If your research isn't stagnate then you haven't REXd hard enough. If you limit yourself to waiting for Math (EXP, CRE tech path almost always gets Math in time) the other guy who has been whipping/chopping will have more cities and thus be working many more tiles before you.

There are plenty of games where I never use overflow - usually because the leaders lack the ability ^^. However, I haven't always had this "addiction" to this strategy. I spend most of my gaming time executing build orders and expanding via peace/conquest through 1 ADish and in every game where there are trees available I always have much greater success than w/out.

Are there other strategies? Of course they are but that doesn't make them a better choice.

Screen shots of 193 turns at zero slider followed by 5 turns at 100%:

Having looked at your link. With a gold in your empire, sticking at Writing at that stage means you played it in a suboptimal way. As I mentioned, why do you want to rex to extreme instead of blocking and settling some of the cities after Alpha and Currency?

Stone is actually inferior and is no way shape or form the best application "while you are teching towards math". The reason is obvious. It takes much longer to actually discover Math and then you are left with a rather useless building.

This is fun isn't it?

Oh yes, stone/protective/wall is the best gain for this trick since each forest give you 60/90g with/without math. Even if you consider the wall to be useless (actually not, defense and event) the final gain from the walls is more than 40/60g useful buildings when there are more than 3 forests to be chopped in a city. You are an expert on this trick and you do know that you gain more with more chops at the same time.

I'm talking about CRE/EXP/AGG.

An example from one single leader Suvy(CRE/EXP) give it a best use and you call this strategy superior. Some players claim that they are deity players because they can beat the deity dual map with Inca! You may argue that you mentioned Agg. Honestly, Barrack is useless in peaceful environment in early stage. Even there's a coming invasion, I only build barrack in capital and another best production city before I lauch an offensive war. So you indeed delay useful buildings by chopping all the forests to a single building for cash.

I'm really dumbfounded why you are so against it? I'm guessing you don't like my "tone" and presentation. Don't let your dislike for my attitude take away from the true strength of a strategy. Chopping lets you get to Math and Currency a lot faster which provides better overflow followed by earlier +1 trade routes and the ability to build and sell techs for cash which then further broadens the gap from research at that point forward as well.

It's very little about your altitude, I have to shut up my mouth if your statement is really true and I'd be happy instead to actually learn something. However, this small trick is rather suboptimal than superior in many situations.

Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm? Waste a few worker turns when I will be stuck at an early happy cap or get more cities, work more tiles, and tech faster so my vertical growth starts sooner? I know which one I choose .

Expand faster, I'd rather say that your early cities are up faster at the cost of at the edge of broking and that's definitely not an optimal way to play the game. It's a pity that some players are proud that they can settle more than 10 cities ~1AD and don't know that it is often better to just block some room and settle them at a later stage. Tech faster, maybe. However with blocking and less cities early on, the teching could be faster other way.

Obviously we strongly disagree, but, I think I have made a much stronger case than you have - not to mention my personal gaming experience confirms it.

Stronger? I don't see it.
Moreover, as I mentioned, you need to at least try other strategies 1st before saying yours is superior. Fortunately, I know this trick no less than you.


There are other negative effects of this trick.

1. Forge, OR and Burea will give you more if you save those forest later.
2. You'll delay or even lose some important wonders without those saved forests such as GL and NE. You may argue that you will save some for GL. However, there are many wonders opening in immortal and below. Think about it.
3. you remove the possibility of new forests.

Finally, I have to repeat my opinion in my 1st post. I did not say this trick is garbage. However, I would not call something superior if there are equal or better alternatives exist.

 

[Dirk1302]

^I generally agree. It's not a trick that'll raise your game with a level or more and there are drawbacks to this trick. But a normal beeline to math (don't want to waste forests pre math except on workers/settlers/early axe rush), then chop to currency is an interesting strat that i'm going to try in one of my next games. I think if you have a *2 multiplier it'll be good, otherwise don't bother 1H > 1C unless you have no good things to spend the H on which is never a problem with forests.

 

[mboettcher]

I find this strategy is very useful with 2 pop whips.

When I'm expanding I like to get my buildings done quickly and get those new cities producing surplus beakers soon. In this case I'll wait not until the building is almost done but until its on the borderline between one and two pops for a whip. That way the vast majority of the second pop will go to overflow along with the forests just as in a normal chop/whip but you are in fact 'hurrying' production.

This works best (and really only) with Cre libraries, Org Courthouses and Ind Forges. Agg/Prot I view as 'wasting' forest hammers that could be used to fund infrastructure (As Dirk1302 alluded to) if I'm not directly moving towards a war.

For Exp a 2 pop whip is not usually viable for granaries but whipping with most of the production remaining and 2 chopping overflow (or even 1 if you are keen on saving forests) is still a very effective first build method especially when leading into another double speed building that can be available for a nice chop/whip sooner.

The strength of a Agg barracks chop/whip I see as producing cash for an army, maximizing hammers (especially b4 math) from forests when building an axe army and getting 2 free promotions as the barracks actually costs you next to no hammers in terms of turns spent building your army (I view turns as the most rare 'commodity' for an axe rush).

Edit: All bets are off what I may do with Shaka... as we may all say

 

[mboettcher]

Having looked at your link. With a gold in your empire, sticking at Writing at that stage means you played it in a suboptimal way. As I mentioned, why do you want to rex to extreme instead of blocking and settling some of the cities after Alpha and Currency?

I agree here totally. Blocking is usually the optimal path to take. Then filling in quickly with the high quality spots followed by a nice steady lower quality fill in.

I view the chop/whip overflow as a nice boost early to get
the buildings needed for productive cities up quickly while having a little extra gold to maintain a high research rate. I'm not going to plan my expansion around this strategy nor am I going to wait until a building is 1 turn from completion to chop and whip it.

If a site happens to be food heavy and I have a cheap econ building (or I'm Agg and I'm axe rushing a nearby foe who has a nice start) then I'll whip chop overflow for the nice gold boost and hammer overflow for the next necessary building. I'll 2 pop especially if this is available in a city with a good food supply but this is usually the second building (after I whipped only the first).

I also view saving forests to be extremely important for the National wonders as Dirk13023 pointed out. As such I use this only when the opportunity presents itself and will at most come only 2-3 times a game with the right leader and the right map.

 

[mboettcher]

Also I would never use this strategy in my (two) high production city, especially as IND. I'll whip in the granary and forge and save those forests for a OR, Forge, Beau,(prereq resource) Chop/whip exstravaganza for wonders. Now if there happens to be overflow gold then so be it.

 

[Gliese 581]

It is nice to be able to whipchop overflow for cash if you've crashed your economy but crashing your economy is not always the optimal play.

 

[Kaosprophet]

Since it has lots of potential i'd say it's a strong tactic to have in the bag but since it's not gamebreaking i don't consider it an exploit

I dislike this criteria, on the grounds that it makes using even obvious and admitted bugs "not-an-exploit" if the effects are trivial.

But then, I don't have a problem with using things I consider exploits if they're not game breaking. Perhaps if I did, I'd be more conservative in what I considered an exploit.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I dislike this criteria, on the grounds that it makes using even obvious and admitted bugs "not-an-exploit" if the effects are trivial.

But then, I don't have a problem with using things I consider exploits if they're not game breaking. Perhaps if I did, I'd be more conservative in what I considered an exploit.

It's fun to debate something like this, but in play terms it's irrelevant. If you want to do it you do it, if not you don't. Against human competition, there's no stopping anybody so you have to weigh its costs against its benefits like anyone else or else you're deliberately handicapping yourself. The AI doesn't care what you do no matter what.

 

[Monsterzuma]

It exchanges hammers to gold at a 1 to 2 rate. The same is accomplished by failing a wonder build fed with hammers that were amplified by a +100% bonus resource. I don't see why this trick would be classifiable as gamebreaking when failing wonders is not.

As for the protective walls; throw Charlie and Toku a bone here. Protective can use a little boost every once in a while.

 

[DigitalBoy]

Against human competition, there's no stopping anybody so you have to weigh its costs against its benefits like anyone else or else you're deliberately handicapping yourself.

True, but if you ask me, that's exactly what makes it relevant. In a multiplayer game, exploits are fixed so that gameplay doesn't have to depend on using them. It's not about making the game fair, since everyone can exploit; it's about making the game better.

 

[Jaroth]

In my own opinion:

The "whip/chop overflow trick" (or whatever you call it) IS an exploit.

For example: Protective players should build walls simply because they want more defense (and later castles)... not for a large chunk of gold to fuel your over-expansion, hasten your early tech rate, etc.

It may be clever (as most exploits are)... but you're playing in an UNINTENDED and unorthodox manner (more so than most other tactics) just to squeeze a little bit more of an advantage out of something. It's cheesy, and if you don't believe so, you're just kidding yourself.

To those that say it's a part of the game (and is intended?):

You HONESTLY think the developers intended on players timing mulitple tree chops and whipping population away at the very end of producing a 1/2 cost building in order to create a dramatic overflow of gold?

You HONESTLY think the reason the developers implemented the gold overflow was for doing things like this?

You HONESTLY believe the developers expect players using the Protective trait to use this tactic? (To those that say it's a way of leveraging the weaker traits, like Protective.)

It was implemented in case you happened to overflow a building by too much, and to lessen the penalty in case you accidentally did so. It was also probably implemented to LESSEN the micromanagement used when trying to AVOID overflow and loss of resources.

The game design for Civ 4 usually steers in the direction towards less "tedious" micro. To "whip/chop overflow gold" is micro-intensive and I don't think it's a tactic intended to be used by competitive players.

Just because it's in the game, or was put into the game at a later date, does not mean using it in any way you can think of is NOT an exploit of game mechanics.

"Hey, we're not breaking any of the rules or mechanics of the game!"
No... but you're "exploiting" them.

As for the argument saying, "Warring, Trading, and simply playing against the AI is an exploit." Why then would you go out of your way and exploit EVEN FURTHER in a very tedious, unorthodox manner?

Nobody is satisifed with the AI, and we're ever trying to improve it thru better coding and logic. In a way, we're working towards "eliminating" the exploitation we use against the AI. This particular exploit of the gold overflow mechanic is something that CAN be fixed and should be to support this goal.

I'm sure there won't be any official patches coming out again since the developers probably moved on to bigger, better things (Civ 5?!). But if there was another patch, they would surely nerf this and correct it.

 

[Jaroth]

True, but if you ask me, that's exactly what makes it relevant. In a multiplayer game, exploits are fixed so that gameplay doesn't have to depend on using them. It's not about making the game fair, since everyone can exploit; it's about making the game better.

Indeed

I couldn't care less about it within my own, private games (which is primarily the way I play).

But, if I ever was to choose to play multiplayer or to be competitive and boast about my difficulty/score, I'd hate to be forced to use this tactic because everybody else is.

 

[Kaosprophet]

It's fun to debate something like this, but in play terms it's irrelevant. If you want to do it you do it, if not you don't. Against human competition, there's no stopping anybody so you have to weigh its costs against its benefits like anyone else or else you're deliberately handicapping yourself. The AI doesn't care what you do no matter what.

I figured this stuff was obvious enough to go without saying. But saying it does bring up the question of whether this thread is maybe more suited to general discussion than strategy&tips. The decision of whether or not to use something that's arguably an 'exploit' is part of strategy; but the discussion of whether labeling something as an 'exploit' is semantically correct or not isn't really.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The "whip/chop overflow trick" (or whatever you call it) IS an exploit.

Let's examine why you feel this way.

For example: Protective players should build walls simply because they want more defense (and later castles)... not for a large chunk of gold to fuel your over-expansion, hasten your early tech rate, etc.

This is using an opinion as a means to support another opinion .

It may be clever (as most exploits are)... but you're playing in an UNINTENDED and unorthodox manner (more so than most other tactics) just to squeeze a little bit more of an advantage out of something. It's cheesy, and if you don't believe so, you're just kidding yourself.

It's not cheesy or any more exploitative than standard play, and if you don't believe so, you're just kidding yourself (see, I can do this too! Isn't it constructive ?). Whether it was intended or not is certainly debatable, given that they added the ability to do this deliberately after the release of civ. Also, we've already established that it's not necessarily an edge at all, but rather has the potential to hurt if used in the wrong situation.

You HONESTLY think the developers intended on players timing mulitple tree chops and whipping population away at the very end of producing a 1/2 cost building in order to create a dramatic overflow of gold?

They allowed it to occur, and have known about it for a long, long time without correcting it. They probably intended it at least as much as the favorite civic bribe bug (as in, since when did intent matter for game rules or definition of exploit?). There are so many things that can abuse the AI that singling overflow out seems a little arbitrary.

It was implemented in case you happened to overflow a building by too much, and to lessen the penalty in case you accidentally did so. It was also probably implemented to LESSEN the micromanagement used when trying to AVOID overflow and loss of resources.

You state this as if it's fact. It isn't, or if it is you've done a sorely poor job in proving it. It is quite difficult to overflow a building too much by accident in this game. If it weren't, this discussion would be moot, because we'd be seeing overflow out of the AI, too.

The game design for Civ 4 usually steers in the direction towards less "tedious" micro. To "whip/chop overflow gold" is micro-intensive and I don't think it's a tactic intended to be used by competitive players.

Micro makes or breaks at the margins. This isn't any more micro intensive than switching a food tile between cities (in fact, it's less since you don't have to enter city screens multiple times). Are you saying tactics like sharing food resources weren't intended also? I don't understand this particular argument.

"Hey, we're not breaking any of the rules or mechanics of the game!"
No... but you're "exploiting" them.

The definition of exploit encompasses virtually every good decision made in civ. Where are you going to draw the line? You can put a pretend line anywhere you want.

As for the argument saying, "Warring, Trading, and simply playing against the AI is an exploit." Why then would you go out of your way and exploit EVEN FURTHER in a very tedious, unorthodox manner?

How tedious is something that takes 10 seconds to execute, TOPS? Are we playing the same game? Warring and trading take more time than this! Do you "HONESTLY" p) think hitting alt-c a couple times qualifies as tedious micro?!

I'm sure there won't be any official patches coming out again since the developers probably moved on to bigger, better things (Civ 5?!). But if there was another patch, they would surely nerf this and correct it.

Surely, after ignoring it for over a year and multiple patches, they'd suddenly do a 180 and nerf it. Or maybe it's more plausible to assert they wouldn't, based on past experience!

True, but if you ask me, that's exactly what makes it relevant. In a multiplayer game, exploits are fixed so that gameplay doesn't have to depend on using them. It's not about making the game fair, since everyone can exploit; it's about making the game better.

You're missing the point. MP is a realm where you might be getting choked by dog soldiers or even guerrilla archers while trying to whipchop your precious gold. Or maybe they settled that hill city while your chops went into a barracks or granary instead of another settler and some archers. Or maybe they'll convert all your precious gold into their gold as they rape you with chariots. The point is that it's one possibility among many in MP, and improperly USING it can result in a pretty humiliating outcome. In other words, it's pretty balanced.

So again, the question becomes:

How is something that does not materially affect game balance, that has less of an impact than variations in standard play, and that falls within game rules qualifying as an exploit? Or, if you take the broader definition of exploit, how is this different from any number of other effective tactics in civ to which the AI can't appropriately react? Drawing pretend lines in the sand? If you HONESTLY p) think there's a difference, you're just kidding yourself! Haha!

 

[Kaosprophet]

How is something that does not materially affect game balance, that has less of an impact than variations in standard play, and that falls within game rules qualifying as an exploit?

Under those criteria, nothing is an exploit.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Under those criteria, nothing is an exploit.

That's a very keen observation, there.

"Exploit" in a gaming sense is a ridiculous term. By definition, every sound tactic used in a game is exploitative, so we're already using some bum terminology.

Therefore whether something is an exploit is functionally irrelevant. Now if it affects gameplay by causing it to become imbalanced or unstable, it's a different kind of problem - not technically more "exploitative" than other things but damaging to the game's depth. A good example of such an imbalancing move is the glitch in madden 2009 that lets the quarterback snap the ball 30 yard downfield for an instant touchdown. THAT'S imbalancing, and completely different from wallchop which actually adds relevant choices to the game rather than removes them.

 

[Gliese 581]

I don't think overflow cash was unintended. I base this on the fact that the mechanic is in the game. Kind of hard to argue no?
The question is if the possible uses of it were unforseen by the dev-members. I have to go with TMIT on this; the fact that noone has cared to do anything about it despite many patches (and the latest not so long ago as some posters seem to suggest), indicates that the devs where at least not concerned enough to do anything about it.

In any case for a single player experience that is not part of a challenge with specific criteria I don't really care what people think about it. Everyone will have to determine what they do or don't do in a game. Comparing something that can be done within the standard game interface and rules to using the WB is silly though.

Personally I might consider limiting myself in various ways the day I find deity to be too easy otherwise, that's far from the case right now however. I don't consider overflow tricks to be amongst the most powerful tools at the player's disposal so I would probably not start here.

 

[MkLh]

When it's based on protective walls or aggressive barracks and other such bonuses it's probably an exploit because it's just due to a bad game coding. Without bonuses it's not an exploit, just boring micromanagement...