The Chopping Imperative

[Bliss]

One thing must be noted too. At least for me, it is not rare to regret some things I produce, so when decided to chop for production you need to do this hard evaluation of the short term benefits it will give you, and be sure, because it might cost you long term benefits for a illusory successful early push. Keeping features is more of a "better safe than sorry" thing.

 

[Velvet glove]

One thing must be noted too. At least for me, it is not rare to regret some things I produce, so when decided to chop for production you need to do this hard evaluation of the short term benefits it will give you, and be sure, because it might cost you long term benefits for a illusory successful early push. Keeping features is more of a "better safe than sorry" thing.

The opportunity cost

 

[Sostratus]

Btw, when you compare production per turn vs now, shouldn't you also consider the possibility of replanting?

I generally sidestep this because replanting doesn't come until relatively late in the game, when a number of conditions around generalized chopping have degraded significantly*. But you can plant on any tile, it need not be a previously chopped one; therefore, generally speaking,t he decision to replant is largely independent of the decision to chop. Chopping is generally: lump sum yield vs feature's yield (this may include any special improvements that go on the feature.) Replanting and putting down a lumbermill is only constrained by the cost of builder charges and the number of turns remaining. Whether the tile has previously been chopped is irrelevant here, since plant+mill is either viable for all of a city's tiles or it isn't.

*It is impossible to give a general answer on chopping when it is being used for a positional benefit, like a wonder race or getting that spaceship part out sooner. The question of whether one should chop just to further along regular city/empire development is the more interesting one I tried to answer in 2018. However, in late game, many cities are "built out" and production changes dramatically in value depending on where it is, thus enabling core cities to flood another city with builders. Further, in the late game it's truly about securing victory, so most things become positional (winning first.) Thus, this becomes almost impossible. Although, since the fewer remaining turns, the more worthwhile chopping is, I can say that for the late game - the only good tree is a stump.

BTW, if you look at my core graph from the 2018 choppity chop thread, chopping isn't not a very good idea right away as a method to just generally speed things along - mostly because trees are worth so little that their 1 production/turn is actually worth a lot. The point where chopping starts to become strong enough to overcome the -1 production loss is around the middle ages. I had to make a lot of assumptions, but even in gameplay you've probably noticed this yourself- in the ancient era even newly founded cities can build districts reasonably. It's not until a couple eras in that things slow down and suddenly trees are worth a lot, and you start eyeing your ax.

 

[Victoria]

Keeping features is more of a "better safe than sorry" thing.

...so if you can get 100 production right now from a tile you would rather get 3 per turn? I am not sure you appreciate the inflation in the game well enough yet.
Sure if you only have 2 flat forests you may want to mill them, but mill them until you can see that you can chop in a campus, library and university with 2 chops, then fill with specialists and have a great little science city on the plains.

 

[bite]

To be honest, I never chop unless I am clearing it to put a wonder/district

 

[Bliss]

...so if you can get 100 production right now from a tile you would rather get 3 per turn? I am not sure you appreciate the inflation in the game well enough yet.
Sure if you only have 2 flat forests you may want to mill them, but mill them until you can see that you can chop in a campus, library and university with 2 chops, then fill with specialists and have a great little science city on the plains.

But then that scientific city won't have any production to change to military, trade routes, spies, projects until a factory is online? The game sometimes is very dynamic and you need to adapt. A good example about chopping vs not chopping is how players use gold. Are you the kind of player that uses gold asap if you have it or do you keep it for emergency purchase? I always assume the worst and always save money and production for it.

Edit: to make it clear, I do sometimes use gold when not on emergencias (as well chop) when I see a huge efficiency spike or a policy/governor/tech/boost combo, or when needing to make a new city online asap.

 

[Victoria]

To be honest, I never chop unless I am clearing it to put a wonder/district

And that is the glory of the game, you don’t have to but the choice of playstyle is there.
All I am saying in the post is it is an efficient way to play and can be a saviour on deity.
It use to be weird driving from Wellington to Auckland and see the huge amount of chopping that has been done, clearlily not your ancestors.

 

[Velvet glove]

I generally sidestep this because replanting doesn't come until relatively late in the game, when a number of conditions around generalized chopping have degraded significantly*. But you can plant on any tile, it need not be a previously chopped one; therefore, generally speaking,t he decision to replant is largely independent of the decision to chop. Chopping is generally: lump sum yield vs feature's yield (this may include any special improvements that go on the feature.) Replanting and putting down a lumbermill is only constrained by the cost of builder charges and the number of turns remaining. Whether the tile has previously been chopped is irrelevant here, since plant+mill is either viable for all of a city's tiles or it isn't.

*It is impossible to give a general answer on chopping when it is being used for a positional benefit, like a wonder race or getting that spaceship part out sooner. The question of whether one should chop just to further along regular city/empire development is the more interesting one I tried to answer in 2018. However, in late game, many cities are "built out" and production changes dramatically in value depending on where it is, thus enabling core cities to flood another city with builders. Further, in the late game it's truly about securing victory, so most things become positional (winning first.) Thus, this becomes almost impossible. Although, since the fewer remaining turns, the more worthwhile chopping is, I can say that for the late game - the only good tree is a stump.

BTW, if you look at my core graph from the 2018 choppity chop thread, chopping isn't not a very good idea right away as a method to just generally speed things along - mostly because trees are worth so little that their 1 production/turn is actually worth a lot. The point where chopping starts to become strong enough to overcome the -1 production loss is around the middle ages. I had to make a lot of assumptions, but even in gameplay you've probably noticed this yourself- in the ancient era even newly founded cities can build districts reasonably. It's not until a couple eras in that things slow down and suddenly trees are worth a lot, and you start eyeing your ax.

Chopping seems to always be tactical because a forest/resource is an appreciating asset that you can choose to liquidate at any moment (perhaps with some time restrictions to align the use of Magnus and booster policies). The question comes to at which point can you accelerate production in a way that is worth more than the worth of the ongoing production from the feature, plus the further appreciation and potential tactical use. So by the late game when there isn't much appreciation or expected production left, your point is fully in force and the only good tree is a stump. And an ancillary point is that it's not what you build but what utility you get out of it - even if a forest gives you enough production for 100 GDRs that's still zero benefit if you build them on the very last turn.

So even at T10 at 21 hammers per forest chopping can be useful. If the capital location is average and the warrior has revealed an incredible second city spot (like fresh water Torres/Roraima with a couple of spices and turtles (though you'd probably need the Heart of Gold to find that)) then even a triple chop to speed up that settler is probably worthwhile. On the other hand if all second city locations are mediocre and lack fresh water then that acceleration has very little benefit and it's better to save the forests for later.

One specific case, though I'm not familiar with the SV intricacies and dynamics, can be leaving everything in spaceport cities for Smart Materials to launch the expedition immediately and Offworld mission to complete the accelerations asap. And re/planting there should always be worthwhile there since it can tip production over the edge of a turn and because at that point nothing your other cities produce or any yields matter, just how quickly you can complete how many projects. A few planted forests saving a turn in a couple of cities can save a turn to arrival. An unrelated but similar thing to save a turn there would be to leave a green district at 1 hammer from completion and use a military engineer to add overflow at that critical moment. But as I said I don't know where the bottlenecks for a SV are and how much preparation can be achieved without slowing down something else.

 

[Victoria]

The question comes to at which point can you accelerate production in a way that is worth more than the worth of the ongoing production from the feature,

@Sostratus did a great assessment and came up with roughly T80-120 but earlier and later is fine, it is just at feudalism your chops are cheaper due to increasing builder costs... BTW, ancestral hall builders do not increase the production cost of builders... but goody hut ones dynamically increase any builder being currently built.

One specific case, though I'm not familiar with the SV intricacies and dynamics, can be leaving everything in spaceport cities for Smart Materials to launch the expedition immediately and Offworld mission to complete the accelerations asap

It is the first spaceport you buy in a chopping city and then chop to get to the moon that is critical. Then there is time to hard build a second/third and use builder charges to launch the expeditions (with any chopping left in those cities helping) you need about 9-11 trees equivalents for satellite and moon launches with magnus.
This chopping city can have no districts, requires nothing else, the only issues are lots of 1 charge builders to chop in the same turn and border expansion.
On the same point.... the turn you launch the moon landing your science created that turn is x10 in culture so if a chop is worth 200 production, each campus project chop on that turn gives 300 culture... rather a lot... and of course Hong Kong helps.
An SV has quite a few intricacies if wanting to do it fast. Eierkas/inspirations and getting the first launch right seem the key things but there are plenty of others.

 

[Entroputor]

...so if you can get 100 production right now from a tile you would rather get 3 per turn? I am not sure you appreciate the inflation in the game well enough yet.
Sure if you only have 2 flat forests you may want to mill them, but mill them until you can see that you can chop in a campus, library and university with 2 chops, then fill with specialists and have a great little science city on the plains.

It depends on the situation?

If the bulk of production would be coming from those forests with maybe a single plains hill, you'd be robbing Peter to pay Paul. Sure you'd get a full Campus, but its taking all your production away, so instead of a steady 10 production per turn, you're down to 4. 60% production loss for a single district (until you can replant) doesn't bode well for emergencies.

Excessive chopping is just another way of taking advantage of the game's AI. Same way with the 'Diamond' districts of the Aqueducts, Canals, Dams, and Industrial Zones and how the AI doesn't rake players over the coals for centralizing so much production in one spot.

 

[Victoria]

It depends on the situation?

Yes... chopping is for speed of game primarily used by the efficiency or time based players.
Immersive longer game players tend not to chop nor need to.

It does bring the question of just how little production a city can have and provide ‘value’ in a game which once again comes back to my original reply that chopping is all about time. A low production city becomes more valuable if playing longer. If that production will provide little value over your expected game length then assessing the right time to chop is the art of chopping. Chop late and you wasted some science/culture etc you could have had chopping earlier. Chop too early and then end up 50 production short in a city only making 2 production.

Then of course there is chopping in food and gold. It really is quite an involved little mechanic when you have to consider builder charges and the cost of builders, let alone the chopping overflow rules and how modifiers affect chopping.

 

[Velvet glove]

It is the first spaceport you buy in a chopping city and then chop to get to the moon that is critical.

Hadn't thought of it but makes perfect sense. I noticed in the Gotm how much it propelled the culture and got me to Globalization + Optimization Imperative in no time even though the culture was notably behind the science.

each campus project chop on that turn gives 300 culture...

This is genius. And shouldn't be restricted to chops - you can get the productive cities to 1 turn from completion naturally and finish their projects that turn too. But to make use of a campus project chop I imagine you have to complete the moon landing with a chop too so it happens on the same turn since chopping brings an instant completion?

 

[Victoria]

And shouldn't be restricted to chops

Indeed, great scientist science from wonders and mountans adjacency can also be fired off on this turn for example. When getting your time a lot faster (typically through eurekas) your science will not be so string at moon landing time so these extra bits become more useful for globalization. Naturally once you get to global, extra culure is of limited value in most cases so just enough... is enough.

chopping brings an instant completion?

Not sure what you mean by this... A project has 2 parts. At completion it creates 5+(prodx5) Great scientist points but each turn through the project it creates 15% of production as science.

Tip: The moon culture overflow is destroyed by any inspiration gained so be careful not to get one while the moon landing overflow is being used.

 

[Velvet glove]

Not sure what you mean by this... A project has 2 parts. At completion it creates 5+(prodx5) Great scientist points but each turn through the project it creates 15% of production as science.

My bad, I was thinking the science comes at the end like the GP points. But still - if you complete the moon landing via a chop that is instant completion within the turn rather than normal build completion that happens between turns. So for them to count do you need to chop towards the science projects on the turn before in that case, or you chop on the same turn and you just need to do all the science projects first and the moon landing last?

 

[Victoria]

you just need to do all the science projects first and the moon landing last?

 

[Vincent_lacruz]

There is a mechnism that should have been used to punish heavy chopping, but it is too soft to be of importance. It is the drought.

It is too easy to prevent it (a dam or aqueduc is enough to prevent it for the whole city...), the presence of jungle/forest reduce the odd and effect, and even if you don't defend it is a rare event.

I feel that deforestation should increase the likelyhood of drought in nearby tiles, and dam/aqueduct should have a radius effect of 1 tile, 2 tile with and improvement. I really don't think having whole expanse of farms should be encouraged, and that deforestation should be a crucial decision (and encourage the planting of forests later in the game).

 

[Victoria]

the presence of jungle/forest reduce the odd and effect,

the requirement for drought is quite small so even with starting forests I have had a drought.
Mass deforestation should cause infertility due to run-off, that is the historical precedent but it’s a game and mechanics should be gentle... but then I start a game and my second settler gets destroyed by floods.

 

[AsH2]

the requirement for drought is quite small so even with starting forests I have had a drought.
Mass deforestation should cause infertility due to run-off, that is the historical precedent but it’s a game and mechanics should be gentle... but then I start a game and my second settler gets destroyed by floods.

That's Murphy's law and has nothing to do with climate.

 

[Bliss]

@Victoria I did some testing related to inflaction and no chopping. Had a game where I invested heavy on early religion (only with 2 cities) and postponed expansion by a lot (had a huge mini continent for myself). I built Ancestral Hall by Medieval Era and started churning out settlers. It didn't feel good at all. The Religious Victory went nice (Desert Folklore op) but the new 7 cities I settled much later felt like fodder colonies that had their existence justified only because of the luxury and straegic resources they had in range. I was really let down by the slowness of my game. It seems that chopping is indeed an imperative at least for good (early) expansion.

 

[UWHabs]

@Victoria I did some testing related to inflaction and no chopping. Had a game where I invested heavy on early religion (only with 2 cities) and postponed expansion by a lot (had a huge mini continent for myself). I built Ancestral Hall by Medieval Era and started churning out settlers. It didn't feel good at all. The Religious Victory went nice (Desert Folklore op) but the new 7 cities I settled much later felt like fodder colonies that had their existence justified only because of the luxury and straegic resources they had in range. I was really let down by the slowness of my game. It seems that chopping is indeed an imperative at least for good (early) expansion.

If you want "later" cities to be productive, you need something special to them. I have had medieval+ cities that actually become core parts of my empire, but they basically need some sort of excessive yields. So if you can settle a city and chop in a desert hills/Petra, or even if you can rush in like a +8 seaport and work some high mine tiles, they can become valuable members of the empire. But you need to put some serious effort there for them to be anything but a resource colony.