Whipping + Granaries

[slaze]

My bad perugia, Guess i misread. However, I'm still not convinced about the food bar at 50%-1 pre whip. If you whip and fill the granary with the other half of the food bar, the granary will only be a quarter full at next pop. You need to fill the whole thing to get whole granary affect after growth. This means it's best to whip it with no food in the bar (although with optimum production tiles it may be best to just build it and whip something else)

 

[brianb1974]

That's what Perugia said...

Okay, my bad, I can't read. We are in violent agreement.

Obligitory strategy comment for micro-managers:

Hitting the whip button at half-full minus one is a bit later than optimal.

On marathon, suppose your food basket has 84 food (that's size 4). You want to whip down to size 2, at which the food basket is 72. Suppose you can get a 5 food surplus at size 2. The ideal time to hit the whip button is at 31 (less than half of 84). You will have 36 when the granary completes. 36 is half of 72. Now if you are a real, real micro-manager, you may go a bit further and note that it's better to have one more food when you whip. Even though this will result in one food "wasted" and not applied to the next population growth, it will allow the city to grow a turn sooner. Whip at 32 food, have 37 when the granary is build, and grow 7 turns later. High-speed micro-managers hate to see the food basket of a fast-growing city exactly one food short of growth.

 

[DaveMcW]

Dave, you are an established member here, and you've seen it ALL. You've probably also beaten a lot of dead cows in those 4k+ postings. Still, some of your one-sentence replies are utterly useless because they convey ZERO information to those actually interested in the subject matter.

Please at least link to "extended versions" of your comments or give some explanations in the first place, otherwise it's more confusing than anything. (Since I tend to give you the benefit of the doubt, I keep thinking to myself "Fair enough, but WHY, WHY, WHY?")

Sorry.

For example, if you whip a non-Expansive Granary with 29 hammers invested for 2 pop into a Creative Library, your whip is worth a total of 89 , which is more than even some resources can keep up with.

Multipliers are removed from overflow hammers, so the idea that 60 * 2 = 120 doesn't work.

 

[Nares]

My bad perugia, Guess i misread. However, I'm still not convinced about the food bar at 50%-1 pre whip.

The granary fills at the same rate as the basket (read: food bar).

One food towards growth also puts one food in the granary.

In other words, the size of the granary scales in relation to the size of the basket, but the rate of increase is identical.

 

[slaze]

The granary fills at the same rate as the basket (read: food bar).

One food towards growth also puts one food in the granary.

In other words, the size of the granary scales in relation to the size of the basket, but the rate of increase is identical.

It seems like if i complete the granary somewhere during growth the next pop won't give me a half filled granary to start the next pop with. It will be like, 1/4 or 1/3 - somewhere less than half, depending on how much food I had before the granary was complete. This makes me think you need to fill the whole thing to get the full affect. Am i wrong?

 

[brianb1974]

Am i wrong?

Yes, you are wrong, but read my post above to see exactly what is happening to you. On speeds faster than marathon, the effect I describe is much greater obviously. If you wait until you are half-way full to whip the granary, your food basket (at 2 fewer pop) will be much more than half-full the following turn when the granary completes and can start filling.

 

[Nares]

If you wait until you are half-way full to whip the granary, your food basket (at 2 fewer pop) will be much more than half-full the following turn when the granary completes and can start filling.

That's an effect of the two-pop whip.

The proper way of stating it, I guess, would be that the best time to complete the granary is when the basket is 1 below half-full.

 

[brianb1974]

Why one below half-full? Exactly half full (upon completion of course) is ideal for purposes of fulling the granary. Other circumstances and strategic considerations change the ideal of course.

 

[Nares]

Exactly half full is ideal for purposes of fulling the granary.

Beancounter.

And not every speed uses even basket values. Perhaps that generated the -1 comment from Perugia?

 

[brianb1974]

Wouldn't that be -1/2 for an odd-size food-basket?

--BRIAN <--even counts the half-beans--used to micoromanage to minimize roundoff losses on science. (and secretly misses the whipping bug that let you abuse whipping when you had bonuses from forges and OR)

 

[Nares]

Wouldn't that be -1/2 for an odd-size food-basket?

I think at the center of every granary is a beancounter counting out half-beans to feed the people with.

 

[brianb1974]

Those aren't beancounters inside the granary taking half the food--they're rats.

 

[Perugia]

Wow, I started something here!

Okay, my bad, I can't read. We are in violent agreement.
Obligitory strategy comment for micro-managers:
Hitting the whip button at half-full minus one is a bit later than optimal.
On marathon, suppose your food basket has 84 food (that's size 4). You want to whip down to size 2, at which the food basket is 72. Suppose you can get a 5 food surplus at size 2. The ideal time to hit the whip button is at 31 (less than half of 84). You will have 36 when the granary completes. 36 is half of 72. Now if you are a real, real micro-manager, you may go a bit further and note that it's better to have one more food when you whip. Even though this will result in one food "wasted" and not applied to the next population growth, it will allow the city to grow a turn sooner. Whip at 32 food, have 37 when the granary is build, and grow 7 turns later. High-speed micro-managers hate to see the food basket of a fast-growing city exactly one food short of growth.

Just to be really pedantic to keep the bean counters happy, I never said half-full minus one or 50%-1 as it varies with game speed.
As I will outline below 50%-1 only applies on normal speed (or faster), on epic it is 50%-2 and on marathon 50%-3.
Please note that I am not going to detail how the food box and granary size vary with pop size suffice to say the granary is effectively the size of half the food box at the next highest population (this is because it is capped to half the food box size after the city grows and food box is resized). We know this 'cos when a city grows the food box is always 1/2 full (ignoring fractions due to odd numbers)
Therfore what you want is that:
AFTER THE WHIP, the food box contains a maximum (50% - surplus food -s) and a minimum of (50% - 2 x surplus food - s).
That way AFTER THE GRANARY completes one turn later, the food box contains a maximum of (50% - s).
Where s is the speed factor: normal or quick = 1, epic=2, marathon = 3. [1 is used on speed faster than normal to avoid worrying about fractional food otherwise it would be 0 or 1 depending on city size.]
Note I think there is an article on effective ise of the Granary in the Academy.

 

[Gliese 581]

Heh, it took me a long time to realize that it is pointless in CIV to micro my cities to complete their granaries one turn before growth.

 

[Sabertooth]

What I've taken away from this confusing discussion so far is that there is little consensus in the community about how to best use the whip, except when it comes to whipping grainaries.

There is a good article in the War Academy about whipping, but for us who can't count beans worth a damn, some simple guidelines would be muchly appreciated.

Someone wrote above that this level of attention to detail is unnecessary prior to Emperor, but I still struggle at Prince and I micromanage like no tomorrow.

I'm beginning suspect my problem lies to a great extent in "mis-" micromanagement: I carefully plan my cities' development, but still whip poorly because I don't really understand how to do it in the most advantageous manner. This latest discussion on whipping grainaries is a good example, since I always whip granaries based on a combination of population level and happiness cap; I've never thought to factor in the amount of stored food into the equation.

I just don't fully understand how weigh city size, happiness cap, hammer vs. food production, total food storage, and so forth, against each other and figure out the best moment for a lash.

 

[futurehermit]

Does building granaries, esp for non-expansive civs, slow down rexing attempts? In putting more emphasis on granaries early, it seems like I am expanding more slowly.

What I am wondering is, sure there is a bit of a delay to get the granary built, but then does it pay for itself quickly in terms of helping you expand faster after it is built?

I hope that makes sense. It could also be that despite my better efforts, I am still whipping less than I should be.

 

[Ibian]

How many cities are we talking? Usually, with some good food resources in my first city, i grow until i work them all and then spam settlers from there. I havent run the numbers and i dont really care to, but it seems to go faster than trying to build settlers with new cities.

 

[vicawoo]

How much food/many hammers before a granary repays for itself? (20+2n) to grow -> 30 hammers compared to (10+n) -> 30 hammers. should be easy to figure out an accurate answer.

 

[slaze]

How much food/many hammers before a granary repays for itself? (20+2n) to grow -> 30 hammers compared to (10+n) -> 30 hammers. should be easy to figure out an accurate answer.

The answer varies greatly with what food tiles the city has available, as growth can accelerate with multiple high food tiles (and even grassland farms for that matter).

In the example of a food tile supporting grassland cottages, the expansive civ whipping a granary as soon as it hit pop 2 surpasses an unwhipped city a little into the third pop (very soon). With two high food tiles i'd think the best move would be to whip pop 3 down to 2 and pass the unwhipped city in the late pop 3 - early pop 4 range.

If farms are involved i could imagine the whipped granary passing the unwhipped still maybe no later than pop 4. For non-expansive civs, although the pop required to whip is doubled, the granary doubles the growth rate so at most I'd think it would push the passing point up a pop, in the 5 range where expansive would be 4.

This is definitely a subject which could use more inquiry. But it's very city dependant, and waayyyyyyyyy too much math right now. But a very good question.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

How much food/many hammers before a granary repays for itself? (20+2n) to grow -> 30 hammers compared to (10+n) -> 30 hammers. should be easy to figure out an accurate answer.

probably the easiest approach is granary -> 60 -> 2 pop -> 4 ( pop/2 )

But the first pop you regrow doesn't get the granary discount. So 5 pop or so, assuming ideal timing, though you can make a case for calling that total 4.5 pop if you have a mind.

That completely discounts whatever vigorish you might get from the health, and makes some common, though not necessarily global assumptions about the available surplus food, and your ability to convert it to something useful.