[BTS] Where is my granary bonus?

[Tobiyogi]

I am about to enter into really efficient gameplay and I figured out that the ideal moment for building a granary is when the city will grow in 2 turns (if it's right, most of you probably won't be surprised!). So in theory, when the city will grow one turn later, the granary will already be there and the growth can restart at 50 %. But, it doesn't work out from time to time. (I don't have screenshots and I haven't observed it too much). But there are situations where the granary was built the turn BEFORE, then the city is growing and yet, the growth begins with an empty granary again. Why?

 

[krikav]

The inner workings of the granary is still abit of a mystery to me too, but there are alot of resources.

This one seem to be old, but I think all the mechanics are the same.
https://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/st...echanics-of-food-growth-granary-and-whipping/

It appears that first food is harvested/stored and only then is production evaluated.
So the food you harvest the turn granary is finished is "lost".

If you have a food bar at 18/24 at pop 2 and have a granary ready to 1-pop whip at 35/60. And your food source is a dry rice (4f).
You can then whip and be at 18/22, and with +4 ready to harvest your city will grow.
However, if you use "avoid growth" for one turn, you will start the next turn with a finished (empty) granary and 22/22 food in the bar.
If you then resume growth, you will grow to pop2, and the4 food you harvested will be stored in the granary and applied to the food bar, landing you at 8/24 the next turn.
T0: 18/24 (pop2, whipped to 18/22 pop1)
T1: 22/22 (pop1)
T2: 8/24

If you had not stopped growth:
T0: 18/24 (pop2, whipepd to 18/22 pop1)
T1: 0/24 (pop2)
T2: 4/24 (pop2) PLUS whatever yield that extra pop could have provided.


If you are looking for a general guideline, then always whip the granary when you are at half a food bar or slightly above.

 

[Izuul]

The granary starts collecting food in between turns on the turn after it's completed, not on the turn where it says granary in 1. That's not how all mechanics work in Civ 4, but that is how the granary works.

There are many factors that impact the ideal granary timing, but the general rule of thumb is that you want your granary to start collecting food when the city's food bin is 50% full. That's just a rough estimate though, and you can get really deep into the weeds trying to maximize food with granary timing and worked tiles.

Here are the two most important rules with granaries:

1) The granary can only collect half of what is needed to grow to the next size. That's 11 at S1, 12 at S2, etc.

2) Overflow food DOES count. If your city has a +6 food surplus and is sitting at 23/24, all 6F will count towards the granary surplus, not just the 1F needed for growth.

There are many situations where slowing growth in a city by 1T (either via swapping tiles to work slightly less food or actually using the "avoid growth" button for 1T like Krikav mentioned) will actually result in more food gained in a city. The downside is that you lose 1T of an extra tile by delaying growth so this works best when you do not have a good tile to grow onto because you always have the weigh the hammers or commerce lost vs the food gained.

Warning! If you do ever use the "avoid growth" button be sure to turn it back off the next turn!

 

[Fippy]

Made a pics example with a wb game, here we start with 10/24 food at size 2 and can whip our granary:

Spoiler :

2 turns later, we are at 18/22 and could grow now, but i turn on avoid growth:

Spoiler :

Next turn we arrive at 22/22 and remain size 1, and i remove AG again.
Growing with 1t delay, our city looks like this:

Spoiler :

15 food We gained 50% of size 1 (22/2=11) + 4 from the clams tile.

Now a test without AG (avoid growth), and let's ignore those other seafood tiles with assuming we only had floodplains:

Spoiler :

8 how did we get this result? We whipped at 10/22 and continued working only clams = 14/22 on the turn where our granary will start collecting food (as mentioned by Izuul and Krikav, food created directly after whipping does not count yet).
The granary now stores 22-14=8. No extra was created while growing to size 2, cos we arrived at 22/22.

To compare AG on with AG off, we add an extra turn for the AG off result (cos we "lost" that one with AG on). +5 are created here, 5+8=13.
Final result: AG on created 2 more.

 

[krikav]

gj @Fippy
Screenshots says it better than my wall of text.

 

[Fippy]

So this all looks complicated at first
15 vs 13 , how can we calculate this quickly?

First we look at the potentially lost , which will always be the amount > 50% of the current city size's food bar when the granary finished.
In this case, granary was completed at 14/22 = potential loss of 3

Avoid growth removes those, by adding +4 when arriving at size 2 (our best food tile will be the maximum gain, +4 here cos it's clam).
With AG off, we lose those 3 but gain +1 from adding floodplains 1t sooner.
-3 +1 = the final 15vs13 result. Whew..

 

[lymond]

Yep, as krikav, My and Iz have explained, going by # of turns to growth is not the best indicator. One must consider the food bin, and to a certain extent, food surplus. In some of your tests that determined 2 turns was ideal, you may have had a rather large food surplus - +6 or higher - that is stored as well by the granary as well as overflow - leading to expected results. But one does not always have a strong food surplus. As others mentioned, you want the granary to complete the turn the food bin is at or below 50%. Sometimes this can be managed fairly easily with tile management - like My showed above. But sometimes it is about simple opportunity - whipping the granary now (or a chop is ready) and using avoid growth button for a turn to maximize effect. Basically, one can supercharge growth in early/smaller cities this way. (I sometimes use avoid growth even later after whips and such to recharge/supercharge the growth again...ideally effective when cities are smaller - size 6 or lower)

 

[Fippy]

Final verdict without that much micro involved:
Best time to finish building / whipping / chopping etc. granaries = slightly below 50% of the food bar.
9/22, 11/26, 13/30..something like that, those result in maximum stored more often than not.
There's still some balance between gained on the turn before completing = potential loss and gained while growing, but will be minor in most cases.

 

[lymond]

^^^this...and if you can't do so in a particular city based on granary timing (whip/chop), consider using avoid growth. In other words, it is sometimes better just to complete the granary now asap at smaller size - whip/chop - and reap the benefits.

 

[Tobiyogi]

In my current game, it works out well to finish granaries when the food bar is approx. half-full. On the next growing cycle, the food storage restarted at 50%. My first reasoning was to complete the granary 1-2 turns before growth, but that usually doesn't work. Do not yet understand the full logic behind, but I will have an eye on the food-bar during completion. Thanks for the hints and explanations.

 

[Tobiyogi]

In Civ4, it is really kind of an art WHEN to finish things. Another exemple is that I get instant TR with a new city when I complete the road first and then plant the city. When I settle first and then finish the road, the TR is installed only at the next turn. IIRC! (hope so..)

 

[Tobiyogi]

To be honest, after 3 years of playing, I have never ever used the automatic buttons like "avoid growth" or "emphasizing XY". Always managing the tiles manually and if I want to avoid growth, i work tiles with less food.

 

[krikav]

If you finish a road to a city, you can also open borders with a AI (even if you don't have traderoutes with them) you will get traderoutes between your own cities. Opening borders makes the algorithm run at the same turn.

If you just move around tiles manually you can never get to 22/22 AND avoid growth.

 

[Fippy]

To be honest, after 3 years of playing, I have never ever used the automatic buttons like "avoid growth" or "emphasizing XY". Always managing the tiles manually and if I want to avoid growth, i work tiles with less food.

Dropping great food tiles (5+) should be done very very rarely
Even if you grow into unhappy, those citizens are still production via Slavery.
It's also one of the main reasons why city overlap can be very good, one city has no need of food resis? Give them to another, smaller one.

 

[krikav]

Yes, absolutely! A food that is "stuck" in one city with no potential for sharing can be problematic.
Every time one city starts a worker/settler (even just for the two turns, putting hammers in, and the whip->completion turn) the food should ideally be lended to another city.

 

[Izuul]

3rd example BIC gives is a situation where you would definitely consider using avoid growth for 1T.

 

[elmurcis]

So.... when using avoid growth button for that one turn, is it best to use max food available from tiles (from pure Granary point of view)?

 

[Izuul]

You want to work at least enough food to fill the granary bin (or come as close as possible). I believe anything beyond that is wasted.

 

[krikav]

Hmm... that was a relevant question @elmurcis.
I don't really know the answer.

Say you have just completed the granary and you are at 21/22 food.
Working the grassland hill for one turn to reach 22/22, then work the pigs to get 6 food overflow and 6 food in the granary?

Or does working the pigs (one turn with avoid growth) result in a full granary?

 

[Izuul]

I'm 99% sure avoid growth caps your food at the amount needed to grow. In that situation you are better off just growing and keeping the 5 OF food.