Whipping questions

[Shadzy19]

What tiles do you normally whip away assuming happyness isnt a issue ?
Do you keep whipping everything as much as possible to keep you'r city's at a low level for the reduced food to regrow with like 6-8 food surplus or do you use tiles like 1f 3h , or 3f , or 2f 1 h 1c and wait untill all these tiles are being worked before whipping the other tiles (like 1f 2h , 2f 1h , 2f 1c etc .)

 

[Defiant47]

You normally whip away the low-food tiles so you get your population back up and running in no time (sometimes too fast due to the unhappiness of the whipping not going away yet).

 

[svv]

Well, I'm not sure what you mean that "happiness is not an issue." If you keep whipping, happiness is going to be an issue, unless you've got globe theatre in the city.

Assuming you don't, you need to whip in order to try to control future unhappiness. That means (1) do a whip as soon as you can after the "cruel oppression" penalty from the last whip wears off, and (2) try to whip things that cost at least two or three population, like libraries or temples, rather than small things like warriors.

If you do have globe theatre, or for some reason happiness really isn't a problem, it depends on what you want to accomplish with your city. If your city is just a production center, whip as soon as you can, because the food cost of building a new pop is smaller for a small city. But, if you're counting on this city to supply most of your science/commerce, you might wish to let it grow.

Also it depends on how many food specials you have. If you have a huge number of wheat/corn/rice/fish/etc., you might want to let your population stay high enough to work all of them, but go ahead and "whip away" tiles that are earning three or less food.

 

[Atlas]

What tiles do you normally whip away assuming happyness isnt a issue ?
Do you keep whipping everything as much as possible to keep you'r city's at a low level for the reduced food to regrow with like 6-8 food surplus or do you use tiles like 1f 3h , or 3f , or 2f 1 h 1c and wait untill all these tiles are being worked before whipping the other tiles (like 1f 2h , 2f 1h , 2f 1c etc .)

Here are a couple of "rules of thumb" for whipping.

1)Never whip just one population point, always whip 2 or more. Otherwise you only lower you happiness, but don't provide the time to grow to wear out the whip penalty

2)Whip when you are not working improved tiles. If you find your self working a foresetd grassland, river grassland, or just plain hill AND you can't assign a specialist-whip that city. Oh and if the case is that you were working unimproved tiles, then be smart and whip a worker so you don't have to do that again.

If you want to know more read VoiceofUnreason's article http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193659 it will tell you everything you want to know.

 

[cabert]

Whipping can have 2 main reasons :
1) - emergency
2) - pop regulation

1)In emergency situations (like I could go to war now, but I lack a spearman), you don't whip at regular intervals+you want no delay. So it's best to whip asap and grow back as fast as possible.
2) for pop regulation, you want to whip 2+ population, and you want no unhappies in your city. So you select the tiles worked so that you don't grow over your lowered (cruel oppression) happiness limit before the penalty wears off. In food poor cities, it may be to work the highest food tiles. In food rich cities, you may work a 1F3H instead of a 5F tile for a few turns.
Another solution there is to whip 2 pop for a happy building, then the happiness cap doesn't go down

 

[Shadzy19]

Il give some more information since I indeed was a little vague , for commerce city's /gpp farms I usually whip everything asap so it can grow big once all the happy/health buildings I need are whipped .

My question was more for production / hybrid city's , in my current game for example I have multiple city's with a happy cap around 13-14 and all my city's are only about size 6-7 in size so plenty of room for whipping , I pretty much always try to whip asap and only use tiles that give 4/5 resources , this gives me quite fast production even with small city's and makes it easier to get the army I need to attack / defend asap .
So the question is , is it really profitable to play like this and whip as much as possible at a low level city and keep it around 4-7 to save out on the food you need to grow to the next levels in your city , or am I better off waiting for my city to use more decent tiles untill I only have the bad tiles left to whip .

 

[cabert]

if you can grow, and don't need anything NOW, just grow!
Build/capture enough workers, so you don't have to work unimproved tiles.

 

[malekithe]

Whipping can have 2 main reasons :
1) - emergency
2) - pop regulation

Your second reason is a bit backwards. I don't whip solely because it can provide a temporary respite from happiness problems. Moreover, whipping provides a sustainable source of hammers for hammer-poor, food-rich cities. There are numerous ways to consume surplus food. Whipping just happens to be the most efficient under most circumstances. I don't rake in large surpluses of food just to create the happiness issues which are cured through the whip. I rake in large food surpluses so I can turn those surpluses into hammers.

While I whole-heatedly endorse whipping as an effective usage of surplus food. Employing it because you just need to get rid of population is like giving to charity simply for the tax write-off. It's just not the right reason.

To sum up. The thinking should not be, "I produced a large amount of food; now what do I do with all these people?" It should instead be, "I produced a large amount of food; where can I spend it so as to benefit me the most?" Importantly, there is rarely such thing as "too much" food. "Happiness problems", inasmuch as they are actually problems, are merely a temporal misallocation of resources.

 

[cabert]

Your second reason is a bit backwards. I don't whip solely because it can provide a temporary respite from happiness problems. Moreover, whipping provides a sustainable source of hammers for hammer-poor, food-rich cities. There are numerous ways to consume surplus food. Whipping just happens to be the most efficient under most circumstances. I don't rake in large surpluses of food just to create the happiness issues which are cured through the whip. I rake in large food surpluses so I can turn those surpluses into hammers.

While I whole-heatedly endorse whipping as an effective usage of surplus food. Employing it because you just need to get rid of population is like giving to charity simply for the tax write-off. It's just not the right reason.

To sum up. The thinking should not be, "I produced a large amount of food; now what do I do with all these people?" It should instead be, "I produced a large amount of food; where can I spend it so as to benefit me the most?" Importantly, there is rarely such thing as "too much" food. "Happiness problems", inasmuch as they are actually problems, are merely a temporal misallocation of resources.

you cut off my final sentence, which was going in the same direction as you...

I advocate growing as high as possible given
- good tiles to work (=improved tiles, mostly) or specialists to run
- no happiness problem.

I don't think whipping is the best universal way to get hammers.
IMHO it's better to grow to the happy limit as often as possible.
I do whip a forge, a granary or a university even if I'm not at the happy cap.
I also whip a monument asap. =But those enter "emergency" category for me

 

[Ruler]

Library is something what I always whip first. You want to get your first academy up soon as possible 50% boost to science can help you big time not to mention if you have two good commerce cities at the beginning everything counts what comes to science.

 

[malekithe]

I advocate growing as high as possible given
- good tiles to work (=improved tiles, mostly) or specialists to run
- no happiness problem.

I agree. Working a couple extra improved tiles is almost always worth while. Counter-arguing that it reduces whipping efficiency, as some will do, ignores the fact that the extra person is actually doing something very productive with their time. For instance, even if every extra new person simply worked another farm, your capacity to whip would still continue to rise. If you don't currently have plans for filling out your happiness cap in a timely manner, you're doing something wrong (or you've already won the game). Most of the early game is spent acquiring the means to increase your productive population. Purposely delaying that growth for marginal short-term benefits is simply folly. You don't stagnate a city well below the limit for the sake of efficiency. You milk the land for all its worth and whip out bigger items at a higher population. To modify a popular phrase in CIV, "Land, when you have the population to work it, is power."

I don't think whipping is the best universal way to get hammers.

Agreed. It's not effective, in the absence of the Globe Theater, for engaging large numbers of low-cost projects (ie. producing units). It's simply not agile enough. It is, though, the best way of producing big-ticket items in cities that would rather be devoting their populace to the generation of commerce and not hammers.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Agreed. It's not effective, in the absence of the Globe Theater, for engaging large numbers of low-cost projects (ie. producing units). It's simply not agile enough. It is, though, the best way of producing big-ticket items in cities that would rather be devoting their populace to the generation of commerce and not hammers.

Heh. Globe T is the one place you don't whip units. You draft them.

Whip vs hammer is a simple mathematic correlation I won't bother to explain now. Suffice to say whipping is far more efficient in small cities, hammering somewhat more efficient in big cities. Whipping incures rising happiness penalties though. That's why most players fail to use it.

Ultimately, the only way to deal with whip induced unhappiness consistently is to have flexible culture slider. CE economies don't have flexible culture sliders, FE economies do. How much better is FE in quelling unrest? I suggest you look at the Final Frontier thread of acidsatyr&team in the Succession games subforum. At one point of the game war weariness alone was 20+, notwithstanding whipping and drafting penalties, and the empire was still running.

 

[cabert]

Heh. Globe T is the one place you don't whip units. You draft them.

although you're right, you don't spend an entire game under nationhood , do you?

Whip vs hammer is a simple mathematic correlation I won't bother to explain now. Suffice to say whipping is far more efficient in small cities, hammering somewhat more efficient in big cities. Whipping incures rising happiness penalties though. That's why most players fail to use it.

Ultimately, the only way to deal with whip induced unhappiness consistently is to have flexible culture slider. CE economies don't have flexible culture sliders, FE economies do. How much better is FE in quelling unrest? I suggest you look at the Final Frontier thread of acidsatyr&team in the Succession games subforum. At one point of the game war weariness alone was 20+, notwithstanding whipping and drafting penalties, and the empire was still running.

war is an emergency situation, that's a sure thing

 

[Shadzy19]

I probebly whip a little to much but IMO its often better then growing to the happy limit .
Lets say you have a level 5/6 city with 10 happy cap you dont have CS yet so no chain irri , now the only tiles left for you to work are either plains farms , or normal grassland cottages or grassland/plains forests , is it really better to get your city to level 9/10 just to get a mere 4/5 extra hammers and perhaps 2 extra com while I can whip and stay around level 5/6 using all my good tiles and get a lot of extra hammers that way , since every whip is worth 30/45(normal/epic speed) hammers and not even calculating bonuses in .

For the same reason I even tend to do the same thing once chain irri has come in , 2 grasslands farms can support a specialist , but are those 3 beakers from that scientist better then continoues whipping for better production?
I rather get 1 city with all the scientist and make it a super science city while using most of my other city's to work like the way I described then build farms / cottages all over for a few mere beakers .

The advantage is you get great production , the disadvantage offcourse is a slower techincome since I hardly build cottages besides on rivers and my main source of techs is lightbulbing .
I offcourse get a lot of grassland farms up to support my mines but after those its all to the whip for me in my hybrid/prod city's .

Am I missing something obvious here that doesnt let me see the light?

 

[cabert]

I probebly whip a little to much but IMO its often better then growing to the happy limit .
Lets say you have a level 5/6 city with 10 happy cap you dont have CS yet so no chain irri , now the only tiles left for you to work are either plains farms , or normal grassland cottages or grassland/plains forests , is it really better to get your city to level 9/10 just to get a mere 4/5 extra hammers and perhaps 2 extra com while I can whip and stay around level 5/6 using all my good tiles and get a lot of extra hammers that way , since every whip is worth 30/45(normal/epic speed) hammers and not even calculating bonuses in .

For the same reason I even tend to do the same thing once chain irri has come in , 2 grasslands farms can support a specialist , but are those 3 beakers from that scientist better then continoues whipping for better production?
I rather get 1 city with all the scientist and make it a super science city while using most of my other city's to work like the way I described then build farms / cottages all over for a few mere beakers .

The advantage is you get great production , the disadvantage offcourse is a slower techincome since I hardly build cottages besides on rivers and my main source of techs is lightbulbing .
I offcourse get a lot of grassland farms up to support my mines but after those its all to the whip for me in my hybrid/prod city's .

Am I missing something obvious here that doesnt let me see the light?

If you grow to size 10, you can whip a market for 4 pop...
You can whip a university for 5 pop
You can draft a unit and whip another for 2/3 pop in the same turn.
Which is better? It depends on what you need!
And working a cottage is IMHO superior to any unnecessary whipping.