When to use slavery?

[scotchex]

When do you pop rush with slavery? At 3 population,4, 5, 6? I know the basic idea, if I have excess happiness (usually yes in the beginning on Noble, which is what I'm playing) and surplus food to regrow the population. How much surplus food --1, 2, 3, 4?

If I'm at population 3 with 2 surplus food does it make sense to pop rush early buildings like granaries or libraries? Should pop rush be used for small buildings that only eat 1 pop, or wait for bigger buildings that eat 2 to 3 pop at a time?

I'm playing a warmongering style with Caesar on Noble. Plan to switch to a financial civ next. I'm trying to learn how to use slavery effectively. I'm not very happiness constrained since I get a fairly big empire with many luxury goods pretty quickly. And early war means it's fairly easy for me to dominate my own continent. It's getting at those buggers across the ocean in time where I'm having difficulty.

thanks.

 

[Cam_H]

From the Micromanagement is alive and well in Civ 4! thread;

The best ways to abuse the system are using 1 pop for 60 hammers when needing 31 to 38 with a 25% bonus (getting 30 hammers for free because of the bug), or using 5 pop to get 210 hammers when needing 181 to 187 with a 25% bonus (getting 60 hammers for free). However, it's good at all levels, as long as you make sure to be at a point that will provide more hammers than you spend pop for.

and

For a nice spreadsheet showing the points that provide more hammers than you paid for at each game speed, see this file graciously provided by Malekithe.

... are two of many points made in the "Whip 'til your hands bleed" section, that also discusses growth and food storage, and the value of putting overflow towards Settlers and Workers.

For us who are less methodical (and quite possibly doing something not quite to perfection ) I generally whip Granaries (only 60) very early in the scene bearing in mind the above recommendation on '31 to 38' where possible. Temples and Theatres also are prime candidates of mine that usually get whipped at some point after the Granary as their effects offset the

penalty that comes from the whip in the first instance.

Personally I'm content to use the whip for a Library in commerce cities, and anything that requires a Library as a prerequisite.

In your illustration regarding the Romans, if you have Code of Laws, you benefit from the fast production of Courthouses thanks to the Organised trait, and whipping Courthouses reduces city maintenance through both; a smaller population, and the Courthouse effect, on top of the Organised trait's intrinsic reduced civil cost.

 

[scotchex]

thanks. Do you have to have something in the queue to get the overflow? Or when the screen pops up to have me pick the next build will the overflow magically go to whatever I choose?

 

[Beamup]

It'll go to whatever you build next automagically. No need to worry about whether something's in the queue or not.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Quick tips:

Globe Theater plus food surplus = lots and lots of whip production.

Big ticket items can be hard to whip directly. Instead, whip small items (axes, catapults), and apply the overflow to the big item.

(You can combine these ideas to whip the globe theater more quickly - after all, you don't care how much unhappy you've got in the city once the globe is in place - just use the culture slider to make certain that the city can still grow quickly enough, then beat upon the city savagely until they forgive you forever. )

Whipping becomes more efficient as the number of people you whip goes up, less efficient as the total population goes up.

 

[The Lardossen]

It's better to whip as much population as possible in one go. If it takes more than ten turns to grow back to the original popsize, you'll never have to worry about unhappiness.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Something I have been thinking about concerning slavery, and I use it as much as most people when whipping to avoid unhappiness..

The point is, when you have hered rule, especially if you are financial, have a lot of good river "cottage" land, is multiple whipping in the same city really advisable?

I know someone is going to jump down my throat for this as I haven't done any precise math for this;but my premise is say you have a city size 5, and you whip it for production to size 4. Fine you are losing a cottage say 3 commerce to start with. Then you whip it again for one pop roughly when it grows back to the same spot it was, well now you're losing 2 cottages it could have been working if you hadn't invoke the whip at all(the first now a hamlet), then you repeat and for the 3rd whip you're losing 2 hamlets and a cottage.....and so and and so on..

And yes you get the city growth increment jumps to take into account, but also you have to take into account any commerce multiplier buildings in the city.

As someone who plays a very fast early expansion, and catch up on science later policy, I can rarely afford to shrink my cities (I need every possible commerce point around the time of monarchy)..

Just a thought, as I said, I'm too lazy to do precise math on it, but whats anyone else think?

 

[scotchex]

I played my first game using a fair amount of whipping. Seemed to help although my end result wasn't dramatically improved. I won a domination victory about the same time as before (1890s), but this time I had a more powerful economy when I won, with faster research. Wasn't able to translate that into a quicker victory, but I probably should have been able to.

 

[Andrei_V]

In the wery beginning when you build your first Settler in the capital with Granary, let it grow until it hits happiness cap by working cottages and farms only, then switch to Settler, wait until you can whip at max pop available (2 or 3), and whip.

Then rinse and repeat as many times as many Settlers / Workers / Units you want.

This way you can ignore mines completely, and work cottages to let them grow most of the time. Any extra food spent on growth is converted to hammers at the ratio of about 2.2:1, so farms are actually a lot better production tiles than mines.

 

[Araqiel]

In the wery beginning when you build your first Settler in the capital with Granary, let it grow until it hits happiness cap by working cottages and farms only, then switch to Settler, wait until you can whip at max pop available (2 or 3), and whip.

Then rinse and repeat as many times as many Settlers / Workers / Units you want.

This way you can ignore mines completely, and work cottages to let them grow most of the time. Any extra food spent on growth is converted to hammers at the ratio of about 2.2:1, so farms are actually a lot better production tiles than mines.

Why would you want to whip workers or settlers as a routine tactic? Slavery allows you to convert food (population = food) into hammers for a happiness penalty. Because of the way settler/worker building works you can already do that at a 1 to 1 ratio at no penalty. Meanwhile while you might achieve a better ratio by whipping, you also absorb a happiness penalty and lose population which could otherwise still be working tiles producing your next settler/worker/unit/building.

Not to mention you'll lose any commerce that your former population was producing.

At times its expedient to do so (when you spot an AI settler incoming and you want to grap a juicy spot. But to do so in the early game is foolish as your high food city can pump them out quickly anyways.

 

[Cam_H]

@ Drew,

City specialisation - I would say that whipping should probably be more limited in commerce cities with a cottage focus than say production cities with lots of food and production.

@ Araqiel,

Due to the loophole where you get a disproportionate level of hammers for the cost of food/citizens as outlined in my post at #2 pointing to Zombie69's advice. I think it's also a timing thing in terms of how quickly do you want the next Settler or Worker out vs. the development of the city in question.

 

[Andrei_V]

Because of the way settler/worker building works you can already do that at a 1 to 1 ratio at no penalty. Meanwhile while you might achieve a better ratio by whipping, you also absorb a happiness penalty and loose population which could otherwise still be working tiles producing your next settler/worker/unit/building.

The unhappiness penalty does not last long, and you can usually time it with the period of regrowth. On average, I'd say, you build everything about 1.5 times faster.

Not to mention you'll lose any commerce that your former population was producing.

Not too much. If you work mines for units, you frequently lose even more.

At times its expedient to do so (when you spot an AI settler incoming and you want to grap a juicy spot. But to do so in the early game is foolish as your high food city can pump them out quickly anyways.

Well, I am talking primarily about your very first Settlers and Workers, when you don't have such a city for whipping. Of course, when you build such a city, you stop whipping in the capital.

Then again, if you whip your first stuff in the capital, you'll get such a city a lot earlier. Try it. Reload the same game from the beginning, with whipping and without whipping. Feel the difference.

 

[carl corey]

Here's an earlier thread discussing slavery: Do people use slavery

 

[Araqiel]

@ Drew,
@ Araqiel,

Due to the loophole where you get a disproportionate level of hammers for the cost of food/citizens as outlined in my post at #2 pointing to Zombie69's advice. I think it's also a timing thing in terms of how quickly do you want the next Settler or Worker out vs. the development of the city in question.

My post was directed more towards Andrei_V's assertion that early whipping with your first city is advantagous. Which means of course you will not have access to 60 hammers per 1 pop since you lack the 125% modifier to create the error.

 

[Araqiel]

Then again, if you whip your first stuff in the capital, you'll get such a city a lot earlier. Try it. Reload the same game from the beginning, with whipping and without whipping. Feel the difference.

I did try it (building a granary/worker first) and whipping the last 60 hammers is actually 6 turns slower. This was on prince so my happiness cap was 5. If you're on higher levels and stop at 4 you'd do it a bit faster I believe but its still not going to produce your first settler faster.

I'd also like to mention that your assertion of 2.2:1 hammers to food ratio is wrong. Given that you cannot utilize the 125% round off glitch to get 60 hammers to one population you're stuck at 30 hammers per population. Which works out to more like 1.1 : 1 food to hammers.

This makes whipping workers/settlers very inefficient. They naturally give you a 1:1 ratio without losing two population points and taking on an unhappiness penalty.

 

[Beamup]

Until you build a granary, anyway. Then it does come out around 2.2:1 even without bug exploits. But yeah, whipping settlers or workers prior to a granary isn't a terribly good deal.

 

[uberfish]

I prefer to whip something else and then set the city on a settler/worker to keep it at the temporary happiness cap.

 

[Araqiel]

Until you build a granary, anyway. Then it does come out around 2.2:1 even without bug exploits. But yeah, whipping settlers or workers prior to a granary isn't a terribly good deal.

Oops I figured I was probably missing something, the figures are too far off. Regardless the main contention that you'll produce settlers faster is incorrect. Additionally you lose a lot of population turns when you could work tiles and just produce settlers normally.

Another factor to consider is that after you've whipped your settler/worker you have to produce something else until you grow back to sufficient size to whip again.

Also worth mentioning is that a granary is 60 hammers if you're not expansive. Thats almost 2/3s of a settler right off the bat investing those into your initial settler is a much better way to enhance your civilizations early growth curve.

If anything you should produce your first settler normally, then build a granary and proceed to start using the whip.

 

[InFlux5]

This makes whipping workers/settlers very inefficient. They naturally give you a 1:1 ratio without losing two population points and taking on an unhappiness penalty.

The fact that 1 food = 1 production when building workers or settlers strikes me as utterly irrelevant to the question of whether to whip your first settler. In this case the point of using slavery is not to convert food to hammers, but simply to get your second city online as quickly as possible.

In the early game, when a city is small, it takes little food to grow to the next level. Moreover, none of your tiles is likely to be giving you so much in the way of commerce as to make the loss significant. So losing a population to get your settler (and thus your second city) 5 turns earlier is a small loss. Not whipping delays your second city by 5 turns, and for what? The extra pop that you save by not whipping isn't giving you much, and your growth is limited anyway.

If you whip before your city hits the happiness cap (size 2 or 3 on Monarch,) the happy penalty will be gone before it becomes a factor. If I'm not spiritual I will rarely do this, but with some civs I do it as a routine matter - e.g. a spiritual civ that doesn't start with Mining, like Spain.

No Mining means I build a warrior and grow to size 2 while researching it. After that I switch to a worker, then settler to chop rush. But instead of using 3 valuable forests, I use 2, then whip the remaining 5 turns. The happiness penalty is a non-factor, and my capitol is quickly back to size 2 having not lost much in the way of commerce, since I haven't had time to build any improvements yet anyway.

This gets my second city online very quickly, and leaves forests for chopping other things. Besides, chopping a 3rd forest takes several turns more than using the whip. But if I'm not spiritual the lost turn of Anarchy makes this strategy much less appealing.

 

[Araqiel]

The fact that surplus food is converted into hammers is not irrelevant because you are comparing the relative value of two strategies.

The speed of your first settler is not the only criteria. The state of your capital also matters. Your method costs two forests and leaves your capital at 1 population. This gets you a settler (in my tests it varies according to terrain of course) six turns earlier than a more conservative approach (which typically does involve one chop) which will leave you with a size 3 capital.

This is important because when you can get your second settler out is also important. Or when you finish your barracks if you're just founding near copper and plan to take cities.