Your rule of thumb for evaluating trade yields

[liv]

you can transfer trader to new cities to boost their production for awhile
and sometimes you want to settle in bad place for gaining food, like tundra because there are strategic or luxury resource there

CAN for sure but is it optimal choice? It probably would be better to generate gold to buy something. Why would you want a tundra city to grow? If the purpose of it is to include a resource then just building it has accomplished that and you will need money to buy the builder to develop that resource (unless you built on top of it).

 

[UWHabs]

CAN for sure but is it optimal choice? It probably would be better to generate gold to buy something. Why would you want a tundra city to grow? If the purpose of it is to include a resource then just building it has accomplished that and you will need money to buy the builder to develop that resource (unless you built on top of it).

I'm starting to wisen up to the fact that not every city has to be very useful. So usually your core cities you want to do everything in your power to increase the housing and get them big, I've started to appreciate keeping the other cities small so that they don't steal amenities. Having no fresh water at all can hurt a city, but if you place it and at least get a granary in it, then you can get it to grow to size 2 or 3 before the growth is slowed, and at that point you only need a couple farms or pastured to get it to grow to size 4. And most of the time, you really don't need it to grow any further. Most of the time it seems like the best plan is to buy a builder, chop a couple forests to get the district down, and then you can basically forget about the city for the rest of the game.

 

[Victoria]

I'm starting to wisen up to the fact that not every city has to be very useful.

Every city has to be useful or you sell it.
That use is for the majority of cities 1-2 districts
A city in tundra on a resource I welcome as long as there is 2-3 trees in reach which there should be. Place a campus, wait until chops are stronger then chop it in with a lib and some of the way to a uni and it's a very useful city producing say 12 science and a sellable luxury that provides 4 happiness. Last thin I want is that city to grow in population, it becomes less useful.... as you said, it start to steal amenities...1 pop on food and the other pop on the campus or finishing the uni... but with 2 science CS it's mainly about the campus until enlightenment. Understand chop values to choose when.

 

[Kwami]

Sounds to me like chopping needs a big nerf.

 

[Frostburn]

Every city has to be useful or you sell it.
That use is for the majority of cities 1-2 districts
A city in tundra on a resource I welcome as long as there is 2-3 trees in reach which there should be. Place a campus, wait until chops are stronger then chop it in with a lib and some of the way to a uni and it's a very useful city producing say 12 science and a sellable luxury that provides 4 happiness. Last thin I want is that city to grow in population, it becomes less useful.... as you said, it start to steal amenities...1 pop on food and the other pop on the campus or finishing the uni... but with 2 science CS it's mainly about the campus until enlightenment. Understand chop values to choose when.

Hey Vic, can you explain (or link) to me when it is optimal to chop in different circumstances? I remember reading something when the game first released about how chopping scales and that in many instances it makes sense to save chops. I don't quite understand how this works.

 

[Victoria]

Well there is a million different circumstances and probably a million people who understand it better than I do but despite this being the wrong thread here goes an example based on roughly what you should be doing anyway. This makes the assumption

1. You will race to Political Philosophy pushing culture hard at the start (ideally around T50)
2. You will then race to Feudalism pushing culture because you want better builders.

Lets say you end up with 6 cities by T50.... you placed a campus in each 1 at T20, 1 at T25, 1 at T30, 1 at T35, 1 at T40 and one at T50
Lets also assume (wrongly but for example... at these turns you get an extra civic)...6 civic by T50 = Political Philosophy.
When you place your first campus the cost is calculated based on the higher number of techs or civic but as you are pushing civic at the beginning of the game they are normally higher. So the campuses are placed but not being built. The cost to complete these campuses is based on the number of civic you had at the time so the costs are (on standard speed)

City 1 - 70 prod
City 2 - 81 prod
City 3 - 91 prod
City 4 - 102 prod
City 5 - 112 prod
City 6 - 123 prod

So you can see the cost of campuses increases noticeably with increase in civics/techs

If I built a builder at T50 it would be able to chop a jungle for 21 Prod, trees for 41 prod or stone/deer for 51 prod... so I would have to chop 6 jungle to complete my City 6 campus or or 3 trees. My builder would be used up and so roughly 3 normal chops = a campus.

If I wait until Feudalism I get 5 chops out of a builder (6 with pyramids) so a builder is 66%or 100% more efficient because of the builder charges at feudalism.

Better still at Feudalism I am 9 civics in meaning my chops are now worth 51 production not 41. So I have builders that are more powerful and also have more chops if I delay.

If at this stage I chopped that's great but I spent a long time getting to feudalism and in just a few short turns I could pick up maybe 4 more civics (and a few envoys) giving me 65 production per chop...

Lets say I did not get pyramids and only had 5 chops per builder.... My builder could get 325 production while about 20 -25 turns earlier the same builder could get 123 production. That's a huge difference.

Now in this example I am building campuses so surely building them earlier would get me a lot more science than later?.... well campuses get a lot of their science from city states (so do most districts) We tend to place a district not for adjacency but for speed so often it does not get much adjacency... so the campus is only of great value once the science CS have envoys... Remember earlier I highlighted when I get envoys... I get envoys just before my builders get a good chop boost So this is a great time to chop in my campuses.

Now my science skyrockets and the number of techs starts overtaking my number of civics quickly and by T100 I could easily have 30 techs which equals 100 production per chop. Mt first chopping soon after feudalism allowed my science to skyrocket so my second chopping wave can be more powerful as well as having a great tech level.

Now also lets go back to my campus chopping a bit and give you a simple overflow example...
I place my 100% production bonus for building walls (limes) card in place and start building a wall in city 6 where my campus needs 126 production to be built. My builder gets 65 per chop so needs 2 chops to complete my campus. The turn before I finish my wall I have 5 production left to complete it and on this turn my builder chops 1 set of trees..... Because I have a +100% card for walls and am building walls my chop also gets 100% so I suddenly get 130 production... -5 production to finish my wall leaving me 125 production.... I then place my campus in to build (which need 126 production) and next turn (including my paltry city production my campus finishes. My campus took 1 turn and 1 chop to make timing it with a 100% bonus card. If I had Monarchy I would have got an extra 50% for that as well.

Chopping in a settler with a 50% settler build card is a great example of where you would use it early or building 2 galleys quickly off 1 chop with the 100% navy card.

Hopefully these tables are fairly accurate and help you understand the values. If you use builders too quickly they start getting expensive.
If you have a lot of woods late game you can chop a wonder in 1 turn
When you build pyramids all existing builders get an extra charge so people try to leave early builders with 1 charge.

Crabs and copper are double production bonus for chop so once you have all techs or civics every crab you chop is worth 500 gold but only produces a few gold per turn... better to chop crabs and bronze once your game is nearing its end if you have spare builders.

Jungle produces as much food as production when you chop it and wheat/cows/rice as much food as if there were stone for production.

Builder costs escalate slower than chopping costs so it is not really worth chopping a builder in early but it certainly is late.

1 simple rule of thumb.... if I chop a district the same turn I place it... it will be 3 chops. But if i wait and or use bonus cards it can be 2 or 1 chop... so 1 builder can chop in 3 campuses not 1.

 

[Frostburn]

Thank you for your thorough response Victoria! Now it all makes sense to me. Definitely going to put this info to use

Not to get too off topic but:

"When you place your first campus the cost is calculated based on the higher number of techs or civic but as you are pushing civic at the beginning of the game they are normally higher. So the campuses are placed but not being built. The cost to complete these campuses is based on the number of civic you had at the time so the costs are (on standard speed)"

Does this tactic feel dirty to you? I knew about it but it seemed unintended so I rarely place a district unless I plan on finishing it right after it's placed

 

[Victoria]

Does this tactic feel dirty to you?

Well it is a very standard one many people use so its not like say the farm - neighborhood gold one which few use (I have used a few times) but is certainly a strong 'exploit'.
Chopping is designed as part of the game so that's fine.....hard placing districts has been known about for ever and not been fixed
The only person I am cheating is me, I do not use it on prince or when playing immersion but I also love mechanics and want to understand and use everything to appreciate and be able to pass on the values.
Whether you use it is up to you but you should not care what other people think.

I certainly feel dirty pressing the restart button... or choosing Pangea or reloading a save... more dirty than this so I tend not to do them.... do you press restart when you get a bad start? Its probably more crippling than this sometimes.

Do you feel right in essence questioning how I play?

 

[Frostburn]

"Do you feel right in essence questioning how I play?"

yea because it seems you know more about the game than I so your opinion on the matter would probably help inform my decision on whether it's a tactic I decide to use in the future. I rarely use it now, but depending on your (and other's) opinions on it it might effect my decision. I don't want to kill my efficiency but I also don't want to make the game too much easier on a given difficulty than the devs intended. I was more curious rather than passing any judgement

 

[Victoria]

I was more curious rather than passing any judgement

in which case I would use it because its commonly used but it does make things easier.
I would judge it that if deity is too easy stop using it

I tend to use it more if I have a bad start than a good one... I often forget to do it because I play soooo fast I forget to do much i should... But I truly must say that if you want good games play with what you are dealt is more of a challenge than this.

EDIT: just for reference there is a district discounts link below that shows a different approach which you could not consider an exploit but gives similar benefits.

 

[KnightModern]

CAN for sure but is it optimal choice? It probably would be better to generate gold to buy something. Why would you want a tundra city to grow? If the purpose of it is to include a resource then just building it has accomplished that and you will need money to buy the builder to develop that resource (unless you built on top of it).

early move, yes
I need to hit certain point where it has better production, more pops will help until certain point (kinda wish firaxis bring back stop growing feature)
and that's just one example, how about city with good amount of desert hills? it'll be powerhouse once petra has been built, but in the meanwhile you need trade routes
not growing strategy is useful for mid-to-late game, but early-to-mid, nah don't want to waste that

 

[Archon_Wing]

Sounds to me like chopping needs a big nerf.

Well that's the thing. Chopping was always meant as an early game boost, and thus never scaled that much although it got better at tiome Unfortunately with Civ 6's production costs scaling up so fast so that conventionally building stuff takes too long and also the fact we have no % production boosts except for a pretty mediocre option means the only real way to get it, well this.... making a spaceship out of a forest.

 

[Victoria]

making a spaceship out of a forest

works for me

 

[Kyro]

"Do you feel right in essence questioning how I play?"

yea because it seems you know more about the game than I so your opinion on the matter would probably help inform my decision on whether it's a tactic I decide to use in the future. I rarely use it now, but depending on your (and other's) opinions on it it might effect my decision. I don't want to kill my efficiency but I also don't want to make the game too much easier on a given difficulty than the devs intended. I was more curious rather than passing any judgement

The principal thing to consider when using certain strategies is this: Do you think the developers intended for this to happen? Did they design for this on purpose? If it is not designed with intention and you are benefiting from it significantly then it's not fair and if it is not fair it is a form of cheating. In more competitive games exploits like this are swiftly hammered down and nobody bothers defending them because they know the implications of exploits and their detrimental effect on diversity and depth of strategy.

Then begs the question, how do you know if the developers planned for this? Often quoted as an excuse by players to justify whatever exploit they are using and honestly distasteful. Please do use your sanctified reasoning on certain things because many of them are quite obvious.

Examples: Policy Cards that give you bonus production for a specific type of building or unit. Why do you think it's limited that way? Was that policy card meant for anything else other than what it specified? Does it say, "Gives 100% production towards defensive structures and anything else you choose?" No.

Was neighborhood appeal gold meant to obsolete commercial hubs? Obviously not right?

If at any one point of time one element in the game overpowers and supplants designed features then it clearly is an exploit.

 

[liv]

I think if you play singleplay and the AI is not using that kind of strategy then it is an exploit.
Different for multi player - then you use what you can
The taking your worker to war and using it to heal your units was an exploit in civ 5

 

[Victoria]

it's not fair

Oh cmon, for MP it's not banned and everyone uses it so it's fair there
For SP the only person I am cheating in a game it's not banned in is myself.
To me restarting is not fair then, as is using Pangea or Gilgamesh

If the developers had not intended it they would not have allowed it or stopped it.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I have a very narrow definition of exploit and that is an unnatural contortion of the spirit of the game of which cost/benefit is egregiously broken to the point it becomes an overwhelming choice.

For example, buying a great work for 1g as was possible as in summer is a big exploit. You are basically getting them for free.



I would also consider preplacing district to fix costs as one as bypassing game mechanics at zero cost besides a tile that doesn't matter in most cases. As well as the public transport exploit where you can get gold by placing but not building a neighborhood. It is just a violation of common sense from either a point of realism and gameplay.

Basically if it is just an inane lever that makes no intuitive sense and provides copius rewards, then I would call it an exploit.

Stuff like stealing ai settlers and martyr cheese is pretty lame but that is more of a consequence of bad design than anything else. In this case a sane player has to deliberately handicap themselves if they ignore settlers and that is an unreasonable expectation. The choice of course, is for the individual player to make.

 

[antimony]

Well, some clearly intended features of the game are arguably more imbalanced than chopping overflow and pre-placing districts. For example, capturing AI settlers, the 50% off unit upgrades, and city state bonuses generally (with two science city states, a bare campus starts with 8 science, better than library+univ... and compare Geneva's suzerain bonus to building Oxford; 15% to all cities vs 20% in one city).

It would be more logical for overflow hammers to take multiplier of current build rather than previous build, but if it's a bug, why did they not fix it?

Pre-placing districts is not completely free, you lose the tile yield and possibly adjacency bonuses, or you buy a tile. And after the first district you need to grow the pop to get another one. It's fine to say some min/maxing is detrimental to the simulation/immersion aspect of the game, but both perspectives have always been part of the Civ player base, so it would be hard to argue that one of them is unientended.

 

[antimony]

I didn't see Archon_Wing's post before posting. I don't disagree with the analysis but I also don't see why intended OP strategies are less problematic than presumably unintended ones. Both will reduce the diversity of strategies between games.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I didn't see Archon_Wing's post before posting. I don't disagree with the analysis but I also don't see why intended OP strategies are less problematic than presumably unintended ones. Both will reduce the diversity of strategies between games.

Well, we are talking about cheats and exploits. Intended behavior, no matter how lame it is, can never be cheating.

When they made settlers more expensive, I stopped having any qualms with capturing settlers and warring more. As far as I am concerned, I am just playing the game as intended

I have a bigger disdain for unintended exploits because it forces the developers to patch it up and that can have unintended side effects. Oftentimes it results in heavy handed nerfs which results in the destruction of that option period. Basically it ruins the flow of game delopment where it becomes completely reactionary instead of proactive.

I also have a disdain for encoraging players to use these exploits because it stunts the learning and growth otherwise possibke, and also these things will get patched, resulting in people unable to play due to these crutches.

Of course what one personally decides is up to them. You don't hurt anyone in single player after all and not everyone wishes to compare either.