Reply With Quotewow. that is almost as weird as some of smac's "features"
well, as you said, probably no choice, gotta learn it
Pop-rushing, also commonly known as slavery, whipping or lashing is a powerful ability. It is also quite complex and can work in strange ways! I aim to explain exactly how it works - or at least how the quirks work! Reading this may make you more confused than when you started but that's because it is a confusing subject!
This is all as of patch 1.61, pop-rush has changed each patch pretty much, but it is unlikely there will be any further changes until maybe the expansion. So get to used to this mess!
Some terms I'll use:
zero-h whipping, this refers to whipping a new build with 0 hammers invested in it. Can also mean zero-hour.
Some things you need to know...
Hammer-Bundles from whipping:
Hammers generated by whipping come in (and only in) the following quantities:
Quick: 20
Normal: 30
Epic: 44
Marathon: 90
Nothing affects the size of the hammer bundle.
Things that can improve the efficiency off slavery:
Everything that gives a bonus to production. Absolutely everything.
Naturally, organized religion only works when whipping buildings, and the heroic epic only works when whipping units.
The Bloody Guts of Whipping:
Through various patches the way that whipping works has become terribly convoluted, but it's not at all hard to understand once you realize how it actually works!
1) It calculates the minimum number of hammer-bundles required to complete the build, based very simply on hammers_remaining/bundle_size.
2) It calculates the amount of pop to sacrifice, accounting for production bonuses, it calculates this based on the adjusted hammers remaining.
3) 1 and 2 are entirely separate, it does NOT calculate the required population based on the number of bundles!
Got that? Okay, let’s try some examples:
Whipping a Barracks (non-aggressive):
A barracks costs 60 hammers.
The AMOUNT of population to sacrifice will vary.
Starting at 1/60 hammers:
2 hammer bundles are needed, which brings it to 61/60.
The population to kill is calculated like this:
59/30 = 1.97 , rounded up = 2.
Starting from zero... 0/60 hammers:
2 hammer bundles are needed, which brings it to 60/60.
Population required:
60 x 1.5 (zero-h whip) = 90.
90/30 = 3.
3 population is needed.
1/60 and Organized Religion:
As usual, 2 bundles are required, bringing it to 60/60.
Population required:
59 / (30 * 1.25) = 1.57, rounded up = 2
So you killed 2 population and get 60 hammers... org rel hasn't helped.
25/60 and Organized Religion:
To finish off 35 hammers, 2 bundles are required, bringing it to 85/60 (there will be 25 carryover)
Population required:
35 / (30*1.25) = 0.78 , rounded up = 1
Will you look at that? 60 hammers for 1 pop! Thanks Org.Rel!
So when rushing a barracks (or any other 60 hammer building) with org rel...
Between 1 and 21 and hammers, whipping costs 2 pop and adds 60 hammers.
Between 21 and 29 hammers, whipping costs 1 pop and adds 60 hammers.
Between 30 and 59 hammers, whipping costs 1 pop and adds 30 hammers.
The Organized Courthouse:
The Courthouse costs 120 hammers, and Organized gives a 100% production boost.
2/120 hammers:
118/30, rounded up = 4 bundles required, it will be 122/120.
Pop Required:
118 / (30 * 2) = 1.97, rounded up = 2.
It gets ugly at 30/120:
90/30 = 3 bundles required, bringing it to 120/120. Note that whipping only ever gives you the minimum number of bundles!
Population required:
90/(30*2) = 1.5, rounded up = 2.
Oh will you look at that? You get 90 hammers for 2 population! In fact you end up with less carryover whipping at 30/120 than 1/120!
It gets WEIRD at 59/120:
61/30 = 3 bundles required, bringing it to 159/120.
Population required:
61/(30*2), rounded up = 1.
Actually I know that math doesn't work, so the calculation is probably actually:
CEILING((TRUNCATE((61 * 100) / 200)) / 30) = 1
Anyway, at 59/120 it costs 1 pop and provides 90 hammers.
So to summarize the organized courthouse...
Between 1 and 29, whipping costs 2 pop and adds 120 hammers.
Between 30 and 58, whipping costs 2 pop and adds 90 hammers.
At 59, whipping costs 1 pop and adds 90 hammers.
Between 60 and 89, whipping costs 1 pop and adds 60 hammers.
Between 90 and 119, whipping costs 1 pop and adds 30 hammers.
Zero-hour whipping weirdness
I haven’t talked about whipping from zero hammers yet.
What this does is acts like a reverse production bonus. It has no effect on the number of bundles or the size of the bundles, it just (possibly) increases the population killed to generate the needed number of bundles.
Between 0 and 20 hammers: Normal = 1 pop, zero-h = 1 pop. No penalty!
Between 21 and 30 hammers: Normal = 1 pop, zero-h = 2 pop. 1 extra pop.
Between 31 and 40 hammers: Normal = 2 pop, zero-h = 2 pop. No penalty!
Between 40 and 59 hammers: Normal = 2 pop, zero-h = 3 pop. 1 extra pop
Between 61 and 80 hammers: Normal = 3 pop, zero-h = 4 pop. 1 extra pop
Between 81 and 90 hammers: Normal = 3 pop, zero-h = 5 pop. 2 extra pop!
Between 91 and 100 hammers: Normal = 4 pop, zero-h = 5 pop. 1 extra pop
At 100+ hammers it will always kill off 2 or more extra pop.
As you can see there are actually two windows of opportunity to whip from zero hammers and lose nothing! Units which fit in this category at quick/normal are:
Warrior, Scout, Axemen, Spearmen, Jaguar, Swordsmen, Explorer, Missionary.
Notable exception is the Praetorian. Also it's different at epic/marathon, I give a more complete list.
And naturally if you have production bonuses that effect units, such as Police State, the above chart will be invalidated!
Summary, Please?
Units that are good to whip from zero-hammers because nothing is lost:
At Quick/Normal: Warrior, Scout, Axemen, Spearmen, Swordsmen, Jaguar, Catapult, Missionary, Explorer.
At Epic: Warrior, Scout, Axemen, Spearmen, Jaguar, Workboat
At Marathon: Warrior, Archer, Chariot, Horse Archer, Longbowman, Pikeman, Workboat, Galley, Caravel,
When dealing with +100% production bonuses, it is BAD to whip if more than 30 hammers would carryover.
ie: It says 2 pop required and you have a +100% production so you'd EXPECT to get 60 hammers per pop, however if more than 30 would carryover, you lose 30!
Hammers remaining...
1..30 : BAD to whip (ie the last half of an aggressive barracks)
31...60: GOOD to whip
61...90: BAD to whip
91...120: GOOD to whip (ie 1-turn into an organized courthouse)
When dealing with a +25% production bonus, you'll sometimes get a 2-for-1 type deal.
Hammers remaining...
0...30: BAD to whip, kill 1 pop for 30 hammers.
31...38: GOOD to whip, kill 1 pop for 60 hammers.
39...60: BAD to whip, kill 2 pop for 60 hammers.
61...76: GOOD to whip, kill 2 pop for 90 hammers.
77...90: BAD to whip, kill 3 pop for 90 hammers.
91...113: GOOD to whip, kill 3 pop for 120 hammers.
114...120: BAD to whip, kill 4 pop for 120 hammers.
121...150: GOOD to whip, kill 4 pop for 150 hammers.
151 hammers: BAD to whip, kill 5 pop for 150 hammers.
Past this point it's pretty much always good to whip.
Now as I mentioned at the start it’s unlikely that there will be another patch for vanilla CIV (at least Firaxis hasn’t promised one and there is considerable incentive not to as that would mess with SDK mods in a bad way). So even tho this whipping stuff is nasty and hard to understand, your kind of stuck having to understand it if you want to make the most of whipping (or avoid the gotchas anyway).
Hope you weren't happier not knowing.
Last edited by Blake; May 22, 2006 at 08:44.
wow. that is almost as weird as some of smac's "features"
well, as you said, probably no choice, gotta learn it
Not happier now, but very interested.
Can (and want) you, please, give a summary for some buildings,too?
(My ten calculators with a trouble in that math...).
My thanks.
Best regards,
Head... spinning...
-Arrian
grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.
Wow, excellent research. When I try to move up in difficulty level I'll probably write this down and use it.
Good stuff.
I've played a bit with these numbers and there are some cases I'm having problems with.
Consider the organized courthouse at 119/120.
1/30 = 1 bundle
Pop cost:
1*100/200 = 0.5
TRUNC(0.5) = 0
CEILING(0*30) = 0
I can't check in the game right now but this seems unlikely.
The same happens with the barracks with organized religion at 59/60. It doesn't occur when there is no production bonus.
Good work. Naturally that showed up in the spreadsheet I made to calculate all the stuff. Altough I havn't checked the SDK code, I'm almost certain it'll use max(calculated_value,1) function to prevent that.
* well I have sort of skimmed through the SDK code, but it is pretty convoluted so I derived the formula empirically rather than trying to read it from the code...
There is an unhappiness penalty to consider. I can't believe a city could even function after "Past this point it's pretty much always good to whip. [point being 5 pop]"
No matter where you go, there you are. - Buckaroo Banzai
"I played it [Civilization] for three months and then realised I hadn't done any work. In the end, I had to delete all the saved files and smash the CD." Iain Banks, author
Well that is kind of irrelevant since this is about "what happens when you hit the whip button" rather than "when should you hit the whip button".
I'll say though, that the "whipping quirks" are most significant when killing small amounts of population. When killing off like 3 pop, thei difference between a "good" and "bad" whip is pretty small.
And also, whipping is indeed usually much more limited by the anger than the available population, so in a city that grows fast, getting the most out of your population isn't so important. Altough it's still useful to get the higher hammer counts, like avoiding the "dud" whips on +100% boosted buildings.
And also xploiting the +25% bonuses can make 1-pop whips very powerful, making it quite useful even for slower growing cities. That is a very dodgy exploit tho, I don't do it myself. Too lazy mostly.
Blake please:
I could not understand the "rushing a barracks with OR between 30 and 59 H". Why lose 2 pop, and not 1, ( 30/30.1,25). Is it a typing mistake?
My thanks in advance.
(To let you know: for me your work arrived just on time).
Best regards,
Good catch, it was a simple typo.
Wow! Many thanks, Blake. This clears up a lot of my confusion about when/why pop costs are what they are.
Any chance you could share that spreadsheet? Even if it is not perfect, I'm pretty darn good at spreadsheet manipulation and tidy-up (had to become that for business reasons), and I'd LOVE to have a nice color-coded chart to tell me the ideal time to spend that pop point.
And of *course* I will share all improvements I may make!
Thanks again, great work.
smacfan
Oops. Backwards/forward in browser sent message twice. Apologies for the goof.
smacfan
Have fun.
edited: Go to my next post to get the updated spreadsheet.
Last edited by Blake; May 22, 2006 at 10:00.
Excellent information. For a bronze age rush, this info can save a bunch of turns.
-------------------------------------------
There is no teacher but the enemy.
OK, I see how you were arriving at the numbers in your original post. It's a very rough start, but I'll see what I can make of it.Originally posted by Blake
Have fun.
The main thing that needs to be done is to externalize the various costs and bonuses and penalties, so that the base chart just reacts to changes in the values. Then a "leading" page with appropriate input fields can be used to populate the variables.
Tougher is to list and categorize each building, wonder, and unit to automate the values to be filled in, say with drop-down lists. Eminently possible, but tedious to do. Overall, it might wind up to be more like a program than a spreadsheet, but with VBScripting, it's doable.
I'll take a whack at it and report back when I have something worth looking at.
Thanks again for the initial analysis. It'll certainly help my novice play.
smacfan
Got a big correction to make, Forges, Factory, Power and Ironworks do indeed boost whipping. Dunno how I failed to figure that one out the first time through.
Anyway, here is an updated spreadsheet... it's the one I use. You can enter a hammer cost, total multipliers bonus, whether it's a nat wonder/world wonder (enter true/false or 1/0, don't set both) and the bundle size (depends on game speed), there are included reference for bundle size by game speed and the various multipliers.
Then simply scan down the efficiency column and find the high points; that's when you rush.
This spreadsheet is still a bit simple (like my SS skills) but it's a lot more usable than the previous one I posted.
edit: Updated the Spreadsheet again, now smaller file size. Included in both .xls (M$) and .ods (Open Office) formats. Scroll down to see what (might have) changed. I uploaded a bad zip I think. It should work now.
Last edited by Blake; June 16, 2006 at 08:40.
Many thanks for the improvements! Pretty useful, even if not automated.
If I get any kind of automation working, I'll post it back here.
smacfan
I fear I'm not smart enough to make any sense of this
- Dregor
what do you mean automation? like AI?Originally posted by smacfan
Many thanks for the improvements! Pretty useful, even if not automated.
If I get any kind of automation working, I'll post it back here.
smacfan
No, I was referring to things like VBScript-based drop-down lists for specific buildings and units, more lists for wonders and civilizations (to pick up civ-specific bonuses), and so on.Originally posted by yimboli
what do you mean automation? like AI?
There is an amazing amount of "presentation" facilities and "under the covers" automated population of cells you can do in Excel to make things "easy to use" for novices as well as spreadsheet experts.
I don't know if I can get all (or any) of that set up, but I thought it would be an interesting and useful exercise.
Now if only I had a few more of those pesky round tuits around...
smacfan
Well, after a brief read through I'm not even going to pretend to say I understand it.
My use of whipping is extremely rare and limited to truly emergecy situations. Everyone else seems to use it much more casually.
My issue with it is that I don't feel it's THAT effective except in those dire emergency situations. And that's because of the drawbacks to losing population.
For example, say I whip something and it costs 1 or 2 pop. That means that the next unit/building after that will take even longer than normal because I have less population to work (hammer) tiles anyway. And then it still takes ages for the pop to regenerate even with a granary. So am I really ahead? For an emergency situation, yes. Otherwise, I don't see it. In fact, often it costs so much pop to rush something that I don't bother. And by the time the cost does get down to 1 or 2 pop, it seems to make more sense to me to use gold to buy it (if you've got the tech). Does anyone here ever whip and lose four or more pop in one go? That seems extreme given how long it took to get that four pop or whatever.
But someone feel free to get me to overcome my fear of whipping. I'm new to the game so maybe I just don't understand it.
To overcome your fear of whipping? Imagine you're the one doing the whipping instead of the one being whipped
Okay I've updated the spreadsheet again. I've noticed that there are actually "extra bugged" points, where whipping costs 1 less pop than it "should" and this is due to a bug (rounding error) in the flawed algorithm.
To be clear, the whipping algorithm is deeply flawed, but in addition it is bugged.
You are not evil for exploiting the flawed algorithm to maximize gain, since any whip is going to be either underpowered or overpowered and you deserve to always hit the overpowered ones.
It is however evil (and amoral) to exploit the points where it is bugged, and as such the new "Bug" column will read "666" should that hammer count be bugged. It is nearly impossible to hit these bugged points by accident (for example the bugged point at 61 hammers remaining on the organized courthouse is impossible to hit because hammers come 2 by 2 due to the +100% bonus).
If you are wondering what prompted this addition, it was due to this thread at Realms Beyond Civ.. And no, this change to the spreadsheet is *not* a resolution to the problem raised in the thread, it's just something I've decided to do.
You are always welcome to remain ignorant, but if you do use my spreadsheet for competitive gaming it would be wise to download the new SS and abstain from exploiting the bugged points.
Note: The bugged points are not the most powerful points. They’re just "locally more powerful" and take a lot more effort to hit.
Last edited by Blake; June 16, 2006 at 03:35.
Isn't it possible to put a turn of prod on it, then leave it for 10+ turns (on normal) until the production degrades to an odd number - then take advantage of it.(for example the bugged point at 61 hammers remaining on the organized courthouse is impossible to hit because hammers come 2 by 2 due to the +100% bonus).
The first thing you need to get used to is making sure your cities have high food surpluses. Whipping is by far the most effective way to turn food into hammers (generally better than working a mine), so a focus on food will yield more hammers than a focus on production.For example, say I whip something and it costs 1 or 2 pop. That means that the next unit/building after that will take even longer than normal because I have less population to work (hammer) tiles anyway. And then it still takes ages for the pop to regenerate even with a granary. So am I really ahead? For an emergency situation, yes. Otherwise, I don't see it. In fact, often it costs so much pop to rush something that I don't bother. And by the time the cost does get down to 1 or 2 pop, it seems to make more sense to me to use gold to buy it (if you've got the tech). Does anyone here ever whip and lose four or more pop in one go? That seems extreme given how long it took to get that four pop or whatever.
I'll rush in things like a University.
Lets say, killing 5 population in a size 12 city.
With a forge bonus that will give up to 188 hammers.
To regrow that population will require a total of 95 food.
Thus we get 2 hammers/food.
Now it's worth noting that a Plains Hill Mine, eats 2 food and produces 4 hammers (2 hammers/food), so soaking up that food on Plains Mines will produce exactly the same hammers, but you'll get the university MUCH later than with whipping.
Convinced yet?
Okay then, some of the lost population will also regrow, lets pretend the city has a base surplus of +6 food (ie grassland pigs) and the workers will all go on Grassland Cottages, so the food surplus is constant. It will take only 16 turns for ALL of the lost population to regrow. During that time, all of the never-killed population will benefit from the +25% from the university, as will the regrowth.
The important thing is that regrowing is always faster than growing. Just because a city is going to take 25 turns to grow doesn't mean it's going to take 100 turns to regrow after you kill 4 population. This is because the "final" workers are on low-food tiles and also because of unhealthyness. A city grows much faster when it's healthy.
Here's another very useful example. The sickly lumberjack.
The sickly lumberjack is the final population point in a big city. This city is unhealthy.
He is working a grassland forest, which brings in 2 food and 1 hammers.
He consumes 3 food/turn, because he is unhealthy.
The net yield from the forest is now -1 food, +1 hammer. In short, he "converts" 1 food to 1 hammer. A lousy engineer specialist will do exactly this, while also producing GPP. Whipping will convert food to hammers at least twice as effeciently.
This isn't the end of the example.
Mr Sickly Lumberjack is a population point and thus increases city and civic upkeep, he will raise costs by somewhere between 0.2 and 2 gold/turn, depending on many factors such as distance to capital, whether there is a courthouse, civics used, organized trait and difficulty level. 0.25-0.5 will be typical.
So Sickly Lumberjacks real yield is now -1 food, +1 hammer, -0.5 commerce.
So not only are you converting food to hammers at an unappealing ratio, you are ALSO paying gold from your royal coffers for this service!
Surely we could do something better with Mr Sickly Lumberjack?
The next day Mr Sickly Lumberjack is deported to the slave camps and worked to death. This yields 30 hammers! (* or as many as 60!) He would've taken 30 (60) turns to produce that much!
Yet only 10 turns later Mrs Sickly Lumberjack has finished mourning and Sickly Lumberjack Junior is all grown up and ready to be put to death for another 30 hammers!
And what's best is the slave camps are run by volunteers (presumably from the charming "practical eugenics" society)! You don't pay a thing to make use of their services!
Welfare cheats (Unhappy population) are obviously even worse than Sickly Lumberjacks, because you pay upkeep them to sit around whining!
To get maximum use of whipping does require an adjustment in playstyle, however this playstyle is the strongest playstyle, and the reason for this is the power of whipping.
1) Emphasize food, if a city doesn't have a good food surplus from resources/flood plains, don't found it.
2) All laborers should go on resources and grassland cottages because cottages are the best improvement (for best results always play financial).
3) Whip for your production, whip like clockwork every 10 turns. Let a city grow until it has reached it's happy cap, health cap or has run out of high-yield tiles (until it reaches a cap, let it grow, unless the whipped in improvement will increase growth).
4) Be ruthless with the sick and laborers on low-yield tiles. Kill them off mercilessly.
Last edited by Blake; June 16, 2006 at 05:13.
This is probably one of those "exceptions which proves the rule"Originally posted by Thrak
Isn't it possible to put a turn of prod on it, then leave it for 10+ turns (on normal) until the production degrades to an odd number - then take advantage of it.
I might be going crazy but I think you uploaded an empty zip file there chief
No way! It's totally not an empty zip!
(I did indeed upload an empty zip, I discovered this error and uploaded the correct zip after 1 download, that must've been you).
It's still coming down empty for me :/
/me looks at Thrak funny.
I've saved it using a different Zip program (an older one) and renamed it (must defeat the cache!) there's no way it wont work this time.
Also I sneaked something new into the spreadsheet, Sheet2 now shows the total food required to regrow to a given population level after a whip (up to 7 pop killed).
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