no whipping?

[Mowque]

as i read through other peoples games an strats, siomething dawns on me. Everyone else seems to Whip, all the time. I am realizing that i, never whipping, am almost playing a variant!?


Am i the only one who doesn't whip?

 

[kristopherb]

whiping has it down sides but as a rule of thumb whip,granerys,lighthouses workers(maybe)

 

[XxtraLarGe]

Am i the only one who doesn't whip?

Whipping serves to useful purposes:
1) Hurrying production
2) Removing unhappy citizens from overcrowding

A smaller city with more happiness than unhappiness can be just as productive as a larger city with more unhappiness than happiness.

 

[LucyDuke]

Am i the only one who doesn't whip?

Nah, there are probably a few other folk who don't.

Whipping is incredibly useful. I never liked the idea of it, but once you get over the fact that they're not real people, in any sense of anything, it's not so bad. Whipping effectively turns food into hammers, and considering that food is almost always much more plentiful than hammers, it's a huge resource just waiting to be tapped. Try it sometime. You'll never go back.

 

[Breunor]

If you play on low resoeurce maps (like Oasis) and fairly high difficulty levels, you may as well whip, you will have unhappiness coming out the wazoo. Of course, whipping can be useful even if there isn't unhappiness. But when there is, its a no-brainer.

Breunor

 

[DrewBledsoe]

There are alternatives, here's an idea I have been messing around with using an early caste system:-

Pls note that this is more workable with marathon speed as growth (and shrinkage is slower)...

Say a city has pop 7, all the useful building (at the time that it needs), but pop 8 will produce unhappiness. Ok, when it's one turn away from growing into unhappiness, assign the whole population as say merchants. When it's one turn away from shrinking, put the population working the tiles again. And repeat until you have another way of keeping the people happy etc.

I haven't analysed mathematically the merits of the idea, but early on (when you always need extra cash) it works well in practice, except it's highly fiddly in micromanagement terms.

As I said, just an idea....

 

[Neoclast]

I almost never whip. Why? I dunno. Maybe its because I play the Zulu as my main civ and I don't like to put them into slavery. The only time I do use it is if I really need to get a unit out to protect my lands, such as an early barb rush or war. Otherwise I prefer to go into the Caste System and use specialists to prevent growth. So you are not alone out there.

 

[DigitalBoy]

Whipping produces crazy amounts of hammers but I think it hurts you commercially if you don't do it in moderation.

At the very least, pop rushing for 60 shields (city size drops by two) is a great way to get rid of angry citizens (+1 for whipping, -2 for reduced city size = 1 less angry citizen overall).

 

[King Flevance]

Nah, there are probably a few other folk who don't.

Whipping is incredibly useful. I never liked the idea of it, but once you get over the fact that they're not real people, in any sense of anything, it's not so bad. Whipping effectively turns food into hammers, and considering that food is almost always much more plentiful than hammers, it's a huge resource just waiting to be tapped. Try it sometime. You'll never go back.

Well put. I was the same way at first. But now I always whip.

 

[LucyDuke]

There are alternatives, here's an idea I have been messing around with using an early caste system:...

I actually do this to a lesser degree when waiting for whip weariness to pass. The only trouble with the whole plan, using caste system, is that you can't get hammers out of it. It's great for commerce, and to slow growth, but it doesn't get any infrastructure into place.

 

[The Lance]

I've never whipped, but it does sound like a good Idea to deal with over population.
Let the whipping begin!!!!

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I actually do this to a lesser degree when waiting for whip weariness to pass. The only trouble with the whole plan, using caste system, is that you can't get hammers out of it. It's great for commerce, and to slow growth, but it doesn't get any infrastructure into place.

Agreed, accept with marathon, there are often situations, when there is nothing useful to build until more tech is discovered, hence the marathon (and especially huge maps) designation.

 

[Dubai Vol]

You're not the only one: I never go to slavery as a civic, because I never whip. Game-wise, I may be losing out, but that's not the important thing: we play this game for fun, and for me slavery and killing people, even virtual people, is no fun.

It's not a moral thing: I paid good food for those people; I can do better than turning them into soylent green. Keep them around and keep them happy and they will repay me with production and commerce beyond my wildest dreams!

Maybe I'm just an old softie, but my empires are, for the most part places I would like to live in. Unless you're a discontented, recently-conquered city, and then I'll let you starve, you ungrateful little bastages!

 

[cabert]

You're not the only one: I never go to slavery as a civic, because I never whip. Game-wise, I may be losing out, but that's not the important thing: we play this game for fun, and for me slavery and killing people, even virtual people, is no fun.

It's not a moral thing: I paid good food for those people; I can do better than turning them into soylent green. Keep them around and keep them happy and they will repay me with production and commerce beyond my wildest dreams!

Maybe I'm just an old softie, but my empires are, for the most part places I would like to live in. Unless you're a discontented, recently-conquered city, and then I'll let you starve, you ungrateful little bastages!

you play the game the way you like it o course.
But why let your new citizens starve for no reason when you could either :
- assign them as specialists to get your cultural expansion fast
or
- whip them away to have the theater you need for cultural expansion

 

[magicalsushi]

Assuming I've understood the mechanic properly, having a granary makes whipping a hugely efficient method of production; far better than using actual hammers. You get hammers for all the food it would take to build the lost population from scratch, but when you actually rebuild the population, the granary gives you half the necessary food for free! You even get the usual bonuses applied for having forges, organised religion, etc.

I'm fairly new to Civ and had played every game without whipping, until recently, when I had a go at a One City Challenge game. I had a starting site with lots of food but very few hammers, so I've just been whipping like crazy. The results have been amazing. The only thing that bothers me is that I'm rarely working my cottages. My tech is way below par, but I'm not sure whether this is because I'm not using the cottages much, or simply because I only have one city (albeit one with plenty of cool buildings). It could also be because I emphasised religious techs early on, trying to grab as many religions as possible, rather than focussing on more helpful stuff. I hadn't realised I'd be able to build more than two national wonders, and had forgotten about the Globe Theatre, so I was anticipating needing lots of happiness. Oh well; it was basically a test run anyway.

 

[LucyDuke]

Assuming I've understood the mechanic properly, having a granary makes whipping a hugely efficient method of production; far better than using actual hammers. You get hammers for all the food it would take to build the lost population from scratch, but when you actually rebuild the population, the granary gives you half the necessary food for free! You even get the usual bonuses applied for having forges, organised religion, etc.

Whipping is hugely efficient to begin with, provided you've got excess food. Add a granary and a forge and it's just uneconomical not to whip. (Which is fine, if that's what you want to do. I try to avoid fat cross overlap even if it results in unworked tiles and excessive distance maintenance, so who am I to say you can't be uneconomical. [Basically my intention is to deny land to my rivals, even if I'm not using the land.])

 

[Mercenary82]

I generally try to run slavery for as long as possible, even in modern age, I try not to switch to emancipation, doing everything I can to put it off. This usually means lots of wars with civs to force them out of emancipation though.

 

[Elras]

Another reason to consider 'the whip' is when your first city
is located on a large flood plain area with scant forests
or hills in it's X. Such a city will go unhappy & unhealthy really
quickly....and unless you whip and kill population...that
city is effectively dead in terms of production from then on.

It aint pretty...but hey, that's human civilisation for ya.

Cheers
Elras

 

[DigitalBoy]

Oo, I hate having no hills within my capital's fat cross. I don't mind whipping, but I hate when it's the only way my cities can get hammers.

 

[JIM G]

I too dont like whipping on moral grounds.
But my current game is archipeligo & I have few happiness resources, so whipping is very tempting - hopefully I can 'break the chains' with some new trading partners once I've got my caravels exploring.