While I'm not allergic to the whip, I'm a bit averse at whipping when I actually have hammer tiles to work (and to stagnate on). Even if I have excess high food tiles that thus aren't worked. My reasoning relies mainly on the idea that whip gives 3hpt / pop and if you use whipping cycle where you whip as soon as previous unhappiness has been forgotten then you effectively work the city at -1 happy cap.
I usually whip in the very early game (I improve food resources first for any city to start growing, only then other tiles) and in cities that don't have high hammer tiles at all. But I really don't think whipping pop out from working the mines is a good idea.
I read VoU's "Vocum Sineratio: The Whip" (is that latin and does it mean something?) again, but didn't go searching for the old discussions regarding whip efficiency. I didn't see any such calculations that would clearly highlight whipping.
So, I was thinking of coming up with some examples to clarify when working hammers is better and when whipping is better. This does not consider the strategic issue of whip-hammers being available immediately in one clump - that is generally needed in emergencies only.
The examples should consider hammers only as commerce isn't the goal where whip is used. That means that discarding differences in eg. working coastal fish (2 coins) vs. riverside mine (1 coin) is done - the tiles are considered for their FP value only, not C value.
I use epic speed, so when calculating anything I end up using 15 turn whip cycle and 45 hammers per pop. These should be 10 turns and 30 hammers on normal speed. Also, city growth on epic speed is 30 + 3/pop food - 33/36/39/42 to grow to sizes 2/3/4/5. On normal speed this should be 20+2/pop for 22/24/26/28. All values should scale so that if whipping is more efficient in some case on epic speed, it's the same on in same situation on normal speed (and the other way around too).
Consideration for multipliers can be given where appropriate. It may be that working hammer tiles yields suboptimal values in some cases - eg. assuming forge OR organized religion it's best to get hammers in fours.
Example #1:
Early game, no happiness sources available, thus happy cap 4 (and enough health). City has both high food tiles and high hammer tiles - best of both kinds so fish/pig/corn (6F0P) and mined plains hill (0F4P). City tile is normal 2F1P tile.
As the food tiles are higher FP total and whipping ends up using them more, it does tip the scales a bit for whipping. But that's how things are - having higher than four hammers per tile from more than one tile early game is rare (quarried stone on plains hill, plains copper mine, Tin event in BTS are examples of >4P tiles) where food resources are known immediately.
Working hammers at size 4 means working one 6F tile and 3 4P tiles for 13hpt for total of 15 * 13 = 195 per cycle.
Whipping 2pop every 15 turns without granary, growing ASAP, working hammers while waiting for whip unhappiness to be forgotten yields:
- 90 hammers from whip
- working 2x 6F tile for 4 turns grows us to size 3 with 4 food in granary so 35 more needed. As our "stagnation" means working 2x 4P tile and 1x 6H tile, it yields food surplus of 2. 11 turns of this gives 22, or 13 below required. 13 means working two more 6F tiles for one turn, one 6F tile for one turn (this means surplus of 5 in the end). We get to work one 4P tile for 10 turns, another for 9 turns. City tile obviously gives a hammer each turn. Thus, 15 hammers from city tile, 40 from one mine, 36 from another
Total comes to 90 + 15 + 40 + 36 = 181 hammers per cycle.
Conclusion: working hammer tiles yields 14 hammers more per 15 turn cycle. Whipping is not efficient enough, but difference is small. Whipping for 2 pop is around the same value as working the mines.
Similar examples would be welcome, highlighting different happy caps (for larger whips), different food tiles, different hammer tiles. The goal of the exercise is to understand what conditions make whipping clearly superior, clearly inferior, or very similar to working hammer tiles.
I usually whip in the very early game (I improve food resources first for any city to start growing, only then other tiles) and in cities that don't have high hammer tiles at all. But I really don't think whipping pop out from working the mines is a good idea.
I read VoU's "Vocum Sineratio: The Whip" (is that latin and does it mean something?) again, but didn't go searching for the old discussions regarding whip efficiency. I didn't see any such calculations that would clearly highlight whipping.
So, I was thinking of coming up with some examples to clarify when working hammers is better and when whipping is better. This does not consider the strategic issue of whip-hammers being available immediately in one clump - that is generally needed in emergencies only.
The examples should consider hammers only as commerce isn't the goal where whip is used. That means that discarding differences in eg. working coastal fish (2 coins) vs. riverside mine (1 coin) is done - the tiles are considered for their FP value only, not C value.
I use epic speed, so when calculating anything I end up using 15 turn whip cycle and 45 hammers per pop. These should be 10 turns and 30 hammers on normal speed. Also, city growth on epic speed is 30 + 3/pop food - 33/36/39/42 to grow to sizes 2/3/4/5. On normal speed this should be 20+2/pop for 22/24/26/28. All values should scale so that if whipping is more efficient in some case on epic speed, it's the same on in same situation on normal speed (and the other way around too).
Consideration for multipliers can be given where appropriate. It may be that working hammer tiles yields suboptimal values in some cases - eg. assuming forge OR organized religion it's best to get hammers in fours.
Example #1:
Early game, no happiness sources available, thus happy cap 4 (and enough health). City has both high food tiles and high hammer tiles - best of both kinds so fish/pig/corn (6F0P) and mined plains hill (0F4P). City tile is normal 2F1P tile.
As the food tiles are higher FP total and whipping ends up using them more, it does tip the scales a bit for whipping. But that's how things are - having higher than four hammers per tile from more than one tile early game is rare (quarried stone on plains hill, plains copper mine, Tin event in BTS are examples of >4P tiles) where food resources are known immediately.
Working hammers at size 4 means working one 6F tile and 3 4P tiles for 13hpt for total of 15 * 13 = 195 per cycle.
Whipping 2pop every 15 turns without granary, growing ASAP, working hammers while waiting for whip unhappiness to be forgotten yields:
- 90 hammers from whip
- working 2x 6F tile for 4 turns grows us to size 3 with 4 food in granary so 35 more needed. As our "stagnation" means working 2x 4P tile and 1x 6H tile, it yields food surplus of 2. 11 turns of this gives 22, or 13 below required. 13 means working two more 6F tiles for one turn, one 6F tile for one turn (this means surplus of 5 in the end). We get to work one 4P tile for 10 turns, another for 9 turns. City tile obviously gives a hammer each turn. Thus, 15 hammers from city tile, 40 from one mine, 36 from another
Total comes to 90 + 15 + 40 + 36 = 181 hammers per cycle.
Conclusion: working hammer tiles yields 14 hammers more per 15 turn cycle. Whipping is not efficient enough, but difference is small. Whipping for 2 pop is around the same value as working the mines.
Similar examples would be welcome, highlighting different happy caps (for larger whips), different food tiles, different hammer tiles. The goal of the exercise is to understand what conditions make whipping clearly superior, clearly inferior, or very similar to working hammer tiles.
Not sure if it's proper latin or not, though, as i haven't touched latin for something like 8 years ^^
Admittedly my ex#1 (and ex#2) are constructed and not necessarily the most common ones. However, they require only 2x 6F and 3x 4P tiles, which is possible with eg. corn + pig + 3x mined plains hill - not too far from reality?
roduction:, whipping down from 4 to 2, was quite worthwhile. In cities with more really-useful tiles I didn't whip so much.
