Using the Whip

[syndicatedragon]

Since I've started playing Civ3, I've avoided rushing units/improvements when it will cost population points (and also generate unhappiness). However, I've read several SG games and it seems that it is commonly used. It seems to me that on higher difficulty levels though, the extra unhappiness would be unacceptable, since so many citizens are born unhappy already. So, I'm curious, under what situations it is acceptable to lose a pop point and also generate an unhappy face to rush a job?

 

[Michael York]

If you get a temple, marketplace (with lux. resources), military police, etc.. These improvements cancel the pop penalty.

Or to augment your shield production in a high growth/low shield city.

Or if you're trying to expand your borders in a hurry.

Pay attention as to what tile you'll lose the production from. A grassland with cattle, roads, and mines is of far more value than an unimproved desert square.

Remember to pop rush on the first turn that you can, otherwise you'll be wasting shields.

 

[Rellin]

When is the first turn you can, as I often miss it, and I am sure I have wasted shields, what is the forumla? I know its 20 shields per population point sacrificed, but how does it determine if you can sacrifice two or three citizens instead of just one, or when you are eligible to sacrifice even one?

 

[Michael York]

When you have 20 shields left in the que and a popable (pop is the slang verb for pop rushing) citizen. You can pop more than one citizen, but you must retain one for every citizen you pop.

For getting it on the first turn, just try to pop every turn until you no longer recieve the "We don't..." message. (Or multiply the number of turns left by the shields produced to find the # of shields)

 

[Wakboth]

Honestly, I don't worry that much about the unhappiness factor of using the whip. IIRC, the way the unhappy face is applied, it shouldn't matter that much anyway, even at the higher difficulty levels. In fact, difficulty level shouldn't matter at all (actually, should be less of a factor at higher levels). You're losing a pop anyway. And odds are it's an unhappy pop. You're just replacing one unhappy face for another.

Say you've got a size 4 city at deity level. By default, you've got 1 content and 3 unhappy ones. You've got one military garrison and two happy faces via luxuries/entertainment. This results in 2 happy citizens and 2 unhappy citizens. You're at your limit really unless you add more happy effects from somewhere.

You rush a build at the cost of one pop. You gain an additional unhappy face (how long do those last anyway? Not long IIRC). So now, you've got three citizens and all three are unhappy by default (cause of the extra unhappy face). You then apply your garrison and luxuries and you end up with one happy, one content, and one unhappy citizen. The city is just as productive as it was before. Hopefully, the extra unhappy face will go away before your city grows back to size 4. If that's the case, it didn't actually cost you a darn thing to rush the builld.


At higher levels, early in the game, you just can't manage larger cities. You don't have the luxuries or units to garrison. Killing off the pop (ok, for the PC crowd, they're "leaving"... Yeah... Right ) is something you want to do. Remember that if you have to build an entertainer to keep your city from going into disorder, you may as well have used that pop to rush a build instead. While there's more strategy to micromanaging your specialists then I care to get into right now, as a general rule, a worked square is better then a specialist. In most cases, a built unit/improvement is of more value then a specialist as well.

My general rule when in despotism early in the game is to rush build everything as fast as possible. The first turn that you can rush with a cost of only one citizen is the turn you want to rush it (sometimes I'll even do it at a cost of two if the city's growing fast ). You have very few advantages against the AI early in a high level game. Effective use of rush building is one of them. Learn to use it correctly (as well as worker and settler farms), and you'll be able to hold your own against the AI's ludicrously high production rate.

 

[ProPain]

Originally posted by Wakboth

At higher levels, early in the game, you just can't manage larger cities. You don't have the luxuries or units to garrison. Killing off the pop (ok, for the PC crowd, they're "leaving"... Yeah... Right ) is something you want to do. Remember that if you have to build an entertainer to keep your city from going into disorder, you may as well have used that pop to rush a build instead. While there's more strategy to micromanaging your specialists then I care to get into right now, as a general rule, a worked square is better then a specialist. In most cases, a built unit/improvement is of more value then a specialist as well.

Although I totally agree an entertainer is a waste of productivity in the early game, I don't agree whipping it dead for production is generally the best solution. What you do when you whip is trading food for shields. This only usefull when you lack shield and have a food abundance.

Upping the luxury slider can make that unhappy face content and productive. IMO that's the best way to go in most cases. I play deity a lot and rarely whip, I'd rather have a productive citizen with lux slider than no citizen. When eventually there's no escaping an entertainer I rather built a worker or settler.

As said whipping can be usefull however in low shield, high food production cities. Also whipping a granary in an average food, low shield city can do your development speed much good.

 

[Wakboth]

Hmmm... YMMV then. It depends on what strat you're using. I tend to look at is this way:

- When selecting city sites, you can either select ones with good food production, or good shield production. Same with selecting which squares within the city radius to develop.

- Getting access to those extra shields means working more squares. This requires extra pop.

- Using the whip means that you can turn extra food into shields. You can't do it the other way around.

- Every sane strat you'll ever read about city development will tell you to work your highest food producting locations first, since that will allow you to increase the squares (and get to the shield production) that much faster.


Therefore, virtually every small city will have an excess of food. It's only as your city grows in size that its expansion decreases (and relative shield production increases). You can either wait until the city grows to a certain size to start getting high shield production, or you can deliberately keep it at a low size (2-4) by rushing builds. The extra 20 shields from each rush is almost always going to result in higher overall shield production over time then allowing the city to keep growing.

Obviously, you don't do this in every city. However, the cities that are growing the fastest are ultimately going to be your best producers in the early game regardless of which strat you use. Those same "fast growers" will also yield the most benefit from using the whip. A "slow grower" may have a higher ratio of shield production per square. Certainly, letting those cities grow to a larger size to get more "real" production is a good idea (maybe you can attempt to build wonders there). But I've just found that I can build more overall in my civ if I concentrate on using population growth and the whip to build stuff early on. By the time I've got some of my slower-growing, higher-shield cities up to a good size, I've usually already wiped out one civ and finished my initial expansion phase. But that's just how I do it...

 

[ProPain]

YMMV????What does that mean?

I generally agree with you, however I dont agree on the fact that small cities generally have a excess food. But this might be a matter of definition as I consider a +2 food not to be excess but minimal. But in the end we agree it both comes down to producing as much as you can in as short possible time.

When a city grows the shield production will usually grow in the beginning as your core has little corruption. Food production surplusses however tend not grow because every new citizen eats 2 food and you (alomst) always start working your most food productive tile first. So shield production will almost always benefit from larger city pop.

So popping a citizen when you still can avoid a poprush with lux slider needs to be evaluated very carefully imo. When you lack a granary it will often take you more turns to grow a pop than to produce 20 shields. That means you're better off growing than whipping. Because the shields you lose when regrowing your pop will exceed 20. Whipping a granary however counters this effect (results in faster growth) and may be a wise choice.

Things change when you no longer can avoid a specialist. A specialist is waste in the early game and should be converted to worker/settler/shields.

So when you wanna whip take into account the lost shields for regrowing your pop and you'll know if it's worth your while. I do agree that the happiness effect of whipping is not so much an issue.My 2 eurocents

 

[Bamspeedy]

I have whipped in the past, but now I almost never do. It really comes down to what that extra citizen would be doing. If your last citizen is going to be working an unimproved grassland tile (0 shields, 0 commerce) then he isn't doing you any good. I like to build a worker instead of popping a citizen. The worker can bring you more long-term return on your investment and improve the tiles so new citizens aren't working unimproved tiles.

You should try to time it so that the citizen gives you the full 20 shields, not 15 or 16 shields. If you need 21 shields, then it would cost 2 citizens, which is not good. Rushing 2 citizens on the same turn gives you 2 unhappy for 20 turns AND one of those will be unhappy for 40 turns. If I start pop-rushing, I tend to start over-using it and getting these harmful penalties which hurt me for a long time.

Whipping a granary is dependant on what kind of terrain the city has. If it is a high shield city, then by the time you have only 20 shields remaining on the granary, the city is producing 6-8 shields/turn and would get the granary complete in 3-4 turns by manual build. Is 3-4 turns worth having 20 turns of increased unhappiness and spending that much more on luxury tax?

Whipping is better in your high-corrupt cities (cities that only produce 1 shield/turn and will likely be that way for a very long time) than your low corrupt cities like your capital and cities close to it (where new citizens would more likely bring in something positive).

 

[nerbuth]

I'm surprised nobody pointed this out yet, but there are other negatives to too much pop rushing. The biggest is that less population means less commerce. Granted that this is modified by corruption, but in most cases, you want to keep your population high to drive your science. Also if you continually reduce your pop to size 2-3 while in despotism, if you aren't in a really high food area, you'll have to regrow pop that would be more productive in monarchy or republic.

I pop rush in 2 situations: 1. When I'm at my max pop without aquaduct or hospital and I don't desire to build those, or 2. In emergencies where I need that particular improvement or unit right away.

 

[Wakboth]

ProPain: YMMV is an acronym for "Your miliage may vary". Sorry about that. I thought it was a pretty common term. Same as IIRC (if I remember correctly), and AFAIK (as far as I know). Yeah. I'm an old BBS hound...

I agree. It totally depends on the squares you've settled. However, is there anyone here who *doesn't* start the game by settling areas with flood plains, or wheat, or other food producting tiles if they are at all available? That's what I meant. I'm talking about very early game strategies here. The first 50 turns or so. Obviously, as your civ grows past about 8 or 10 cities, you're going to start looking more long term. I've just found that by focusing on high growth cities early on, and using the whip to produce units (if I'm not building settlers or workers) and keeping all my cities down to a relatively low population level, I can expand much faster then using any other method early on. I can build more units, build more improvements, and untilmately build more cities in that first 50 turns then I could otherwise.

I really approach the early game with a "large cities are bad" concept. I'd much rather have 10 size 3 cities then 5 size 6 cities. Um... And since smaller cities produce population faster, it'll be more like having 12 size 3 cities versus 4 or 5 size 6s.

Of course, I also tend to have a pretty agressive staring strategy. My usually plan on wiping out the first civ I come across immediately. As soon as my exploration units (typically my first handful of warriors) find another civ, I go full bore into building spearmen and archers. I then make contact with this civ and trade for any techs he's got that I don't. Then I simply steamroll over him. I can typically completely wipe a civ before it gets past about 2 or 3 cities using this method. End result is a nice fast start, and a lot more breathing room before you have to worry about anyone else. I've never been successful with this tactic without using the whip to increase my production. I've also never seen any serious downside to doing this. I usually don't *want* to build large cities before I get monarchy or republic anyway. By the time I get that far along the tech track, any cities I've reduced from the whip are typically sitting at about the pop range I want them at to make moving to those government styles worthwhile anyway.


I just look at it this way: Your cities are going to reach maximum population size relatively quickly anyway. As backwards as this seems, it takes less time to recover a pop point when your city is small then when it's large. Thus, the right time to use the whip is early on. If you're going to "waste growth" anyway, you may as well get something for it. Whipping smaller cities allows you to get more for it then whipping (or building settlers/workers) does in a larger city. Not more in terms of shields per whip use, but more in the fact that you can do it a greater number of times between when you begin the game and when you start to *want* to have larger cities. So you can either have a larger city that's been producting X amount of shields a turn, or you can have the same size city that you whipped a half dozen times during its early growth and generated more total shields over time. At that point, looking back, the unhappy effects are long gone. But whatever you built with the extra shields is presumably still present in your civilization. To me, that's more valuable...

 

[kb2tvl]

I will pop rush temples or temple/library in my capitol for culture but that is about it. I will also pop rush before I switch governements. You can disperse the unhappiness over the anarchy and get the building to boot.

I will also pop rush buildings in captured cities to reduce the forgien population which gives culture and if the city flips, they can deal with the unhappy people.