Civ IV

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How about not whipping you insensitive clods!

 

It tells you when you can rush a building. The BUG mod is not a cheat mod, it only gives you access to information faster and more easily than if you had to click and scroll around.

@Morgoth: whipping is good.

 

"Slavery without whipping is like democracy without voting" -Unknown

How do you guys use the hammer overflow? I tend to create a "semi-free" unit (takes only one turn), but now when I think of this - doesn't this also waste some hammers? Is there a trick to it?

 

Right - that's what we're all wondering - do you get a predetermined number of hammers, or do you get a variable amount of hammers? If it's preset, it may be unwise to build a unit if the number of hammers you have in excess far exceeds the building cost of the unit. However, it's never enough to build another building, so it cannot be that much in excess. Still, it would be good to know.

 

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=286770

According to a thread in Civilization Fanatics Centre there is indeed some maths involved. Certainly worth reading.

 

Yeah, the thread goes into a lot more detail. However, from what I gleaned from the posts:

1.) It appears that you get 30 hammers per population point whipped. So if you were 60 hammers short on a build, you would have to have a city large enough to sacrifice two population units to be able to whip.

2.) If the build in question requires less than 30 hammers to complete when you whip, all excess hammers (theoretically as many as 29, which may be affected by a multiplier based on the leader, your civics, and other buildings present in the city) will be treated as overful for the next build.

This suggests that there IS an optimal time to whip. Specifically it would occur when you need 1 more hammer (or 31 or 61 hammers if you can afford the extra population loss) to complete your current build, as it will grant you more hammers for the following build. Practically speaking, it would take a ridiculous amount of micromanagement and tinkering with what tiles you were working so that you would get exactly one hammer short of completing a build in a given turn. Especially so if you were trying to employ this strategy consistently in all of you cities. However, a more practical application of this mechanic that requires far less micromanagement would be to whip a project when it is one turn away from completion. That seems very counterintuitive initially - it would appear to be wasteful to whip a build that would be completed the next round anyway, but it would maximize the overflow hammers you'd get for the next build.

 

Isnt the overflow hammer in place so hammers will not get wasted? Do you get any extra "free" hammers by doing this? As I understand no hammer is wasted in Civ4 compared to the older games, if a unit needs 50 hammers to finish and your city produces 11 per turn it will take five turns and you will get five hammers headstart on the next thing you build?

 

The amount of micromanagement required is vastly reduced if you're using the BUFFY mod because it shows you what the overflow is each turn, so you can time it properly. You can see each turn how many pops the whip will take and how much overflow is created.

The original point I was making though was that if you get a bonus for a certain item (like walls for a protective leader) then that bonus applies to the whip as well so you can get more value from your whip than if whipping an item you don't get a bonus from. The same applies to the chop as well.

While it may seem like a lot of micromanagement, it can make a huge difference near the beginning of the game. Early in the game, you only have a few cities anyway, so it's not that time consuming. But if it means getting those 3 axemen out 10 turns earlier than planned, that could be enough to knock over that enemy capital while it still only has 2 archers in place, which effectively could be the decisive move that puts you in a winning position for the rest of the game.

When reviewing the games that the elite guys play, you can always see that the big difference between them and us is what they do in the first 100 turns. Within 100 turns they manage to get so much further ahead than the average players. If you can manage the first 100 turns well, then the rest of the game becomes a doddle.

 

I won a Prince game with a space-race victory last night. I was originally hoping for a diplomatic victory, but it became clear by the middle ages that there were enough people who didn't like me that it would prove tricky. Fortunately, I play all my games to maximize science, so it was a fairly easy strategy shift, although I must say that it was close at the end, and I think I got a little lucky with the way the AI selected their techs.

I was playing the English, and my main competition in the space race was the Incas. They actually built their Apollo Program first and therefore had a head start on me in constructing space ship parts. It's just that the Incas made strange tech decisions after that. If you're going for a Space Race victory, obviously, you want to get the rocketry tech as early as you can so you can build the Apollo Program. After that the only concern you should have in your tech focus is getting the techs you need to build your space ship.

I would still go to the diplomacy screen with the Incas during the space race, just so I could see what techs they had. The Incas even built the Space Elevator (I didn't even attempt that - practically every city in my empire was building a space ship part). However, they did not research Composites or Genetics, and you need both those techs to build certain parts of the space ship. And yet, they did research advanced flight and ecology, which you don't need to build the space ship. My space ship launched before they even had all the techs they needed to complete the space ship. I was surprised teh AI wasn't programmed better than this. I think the Incas would have won if they simply focused on getting the techs they needed.

After launching the space ship, I faced an all-out assault by the Mongols (lead by Kublai, instead of Genghis, but still no walk in the park). Suffice to say that Mongols with Carriers, Battleships and Bombers are a royal pain in the ass. My navy was not ill-prepared by any means. I had several Missile Cruisers and Attack Subs. I just wasn't prepared for the numbers the Mongols sent. They build naval units like they build land units in most games. Even though I was technologically more advanced, a Battleship is just as tough as a Missile Cruiser in a battle, and the Mongols had a couple dozen of them (4 of 5 for each carrier group!) They quickly devestated my navy. However, they couldn't take my cities once they started landing troops - I had modern armor and mechanized infantry (one of the secondary perks of the space race victory is that you also have access to the top units in the game), so I wasn't terribly impressed when they dropped off a couple stacks of units consisting of regular tanks and regular infantry.

The thing that saved me was that as soon as there were no more space ship parts to begin construction, every one of my cities started churning out modern armor and mechanized infantry, while the remaining parts were being built, and that ended up saving my bacon in the end. The Mongols may have ended up controlling the seas, but I had a LOT of land units that were better than their land units. Up against superior technology and numbers, they stood no chance.

 

Well done Aldeth!

In the late game I like building airports as it makes defending a huge territory much easier by allowing you to keep building units in the city that can train the most experienced units (thanks to the Heroic Epic, West Point and settled GG).

 

Airports are very necessary. They are good for income as well.

 

Well done, Aldeth. When we started this thread, you thought Prince was too hard!

 

That is true - in fact, prior to the past couple of weeks, I had never earned a victory on any type on Prince difficulty.

 

Do you guys ever build monuments? I find that I rarely play a charismatic leader, and if I'm not playing a civ where the monument is their UB, that I have very little use for them. Most games, I don't construct a single monument, and I never build stonehenge.

 

If I'd get some stone hooked up early I'd consider getting Stonehenge. IMO it's not a bad wonder but there are many factors that may get in the way. Planning an early rush for instance doesn't leave many opportunities to build early wonders. Stonehenge is also one of the first wonders to be built in most of my games so without stone, the industrious trait or the right starting tech it's an uphill battle.

 

I guess a better question would be, if you're not playing a charismatic leader, what would be the point of constructing monuments? The +1 to culture is so small that you wouldn't need it even if you were going for a cultural victory. Granted, temples don't do much either, but at least they make people happy and allow for future construction of cathedrals which give a lot of culture.

I suppose Stonehenge could be useful if you were going for a cultural victory for the big culture boost. Add in the fact that you may get a couple of Great Prophets because of it (which are always useful to found a holy shrine for the cash, and even more useful if the city that founded the religion is one of your three cities you plan on maximizing culture), and it wouldn't be all bad I suppose. I guess my point is that unlike things like granaries which are useful regardless of what victory condition you are aiming for, I can see a use for monuments in only very specific (and therefore limited) circumstances.

As an ancillary question, does Stonehenge give you a free monument only in the cities that exist at the time of Stonehenge's construction, or in all future cities that are founded prior to monuments becoming obsolete? Or, to be more specific, if I found a new city the turn after I construct Stonehenge, do I get a free monument in it?

 

I don't think the culture bonus is that bad actually. Culture helps with defence as well and every bit of culture helps when it comes to extending borders or fending off creative neighbours. IMO they're good until you get access to better culture buildings.

Yes it does until it becomes obsolete with Astronomy.

 

I see your point. I just don't value the cost/reward ratio of monuments I guess. There's almost always something I'd rather have more - a military unit, a settler, a temple, just about anything. There are, under specific circumstances, some exceptions:

1. With a charismatic leader, a monument is nearly as good as a temple.

2. In the early game, if you have a close neighbor, and it's a border city, the bonus defense and culture help for the reasons you mention.

3. For some civs where it's their UB. The Totem Pole is excellent for Native Americans. Not only do new archery units get Drill 1 and City Garrison 1 for free, but a Totem Pole and a Barracks would let you build Archery units with two other free promotions. The Ethiopian Stele is also very good with its nice +25% culture bonus, especially if you're going for a cultural victory, whcih is not at all an unreasonable strategy with that civ. However, the Egyptian Obelisk is just dire. It would be one thing if it just gave you a free priest, but the ability to turn two citizens into a priest is nearly useless. I hardly ever turn citizens into priests, I don't think I've ever done two, and I can get one by building a temple, which is typically a much more useful building anyway.

 

Bronze Working is the key tech (with Mysticism of course) in getting Stonehenge. Chop and whip, and you'll have Stonehenge in 5-6 turns. I try to build Stonehenge almost every time when I'm playing other than cultural leader, with Charismatic leader it's almost top priority.

I've built vanilla monument in this early game situation: no religion, before writing and horses or copper appear two tiles from a city that produces no culture. Close borders is also a good reason, but as soon as any other culture building is available, monuments are not needed. I agree with Aldeth that the cost/reward ratio is questionable.