Settler Chop while still growing city - Exploit or Feature?

[Sauron07]

I was certain that this topic would have been discussed hear but a quick search didnt turn up any obvious topics, so here goes.

At another popular civ site, several "fanatical" civvers have discovered that you can use chop rushing to produce workers or settlers while still growing your cities population by producing a building or unit and only switching to the setter/worker on the turn that the shields will be awarded from the chopped forest. This goes beyond just switching to a worker or settler every three turns because you continue to grow EVERY turn but the last one before the settler pops out by manipulating the production qeue based upon when the shields from chopped forests are rewarded. Here's an example of what I mean:

Turn 15 worker pops out, begin producing barracks
Turn 16 Move to nearest forest
Turn 17 worker begins chop
Turn 18 turn 2 of chop
Turn 19 at beginning of the turn switch city production to settler, wait until the message appears that the shields have been awarded from the forest (this happens mid-turn which is why this works). Then before the end of the turn switch back to the barracks so that the next turns food production goes to city grown and the shields goto the barracks.

Rinse and repeat as necessary or until your forrests are gone

The net result is that the settler receives the 30 shields from the forest and the city never lost a turn of growth from its food production because the settler was never the unit being produced at the beginning of the turn. It is true that it will take longer to chop rush a settler using this technique than if you had produced the settler directly (takes 3 forest unstead of 2 and you do have to have the settler as the unit in the que on the last turn for it to be produced so you lose 1 turn of growth for a settler or worker instead of 8). The benefit is that your city continues to grow and you gain the shields towards another unit or building at the same time.

There is a lot of debate as to whether this is an exploit or just mm at cfc (in the GOTM forum) as well as how much impact this can really have on a game. I think the impact could be significant particularly if you combine this with slavery to pop rush units for an early rush (grow while storing shields for a settler/worker then poprush once you grow to size 2.

Please discuss, and I apologize in advance if this has been covered elsewhere and I missed it in my search.

[amicus curiae]

I'll call it an exploit, simply because I don't want to have to micro this much. Therefore it would be better if they got rid of it.

[Bluefusion]

Hmm, this hybrid "locust" strategy certainly is intriguing...

This is the problem with strategy games like Civ 4, however. In a game that depends so heavily on built-in mechanisms, people will inevitably find ways to best the system.

We just have to wait for them to be full-proof.

[sabrewolf]

i still believe the best solution to prevent these "exploits" (settler chops imho are also a pretty shady technique, although i do use them myself) is by making forest harvesting only work towards items that do not convert food into production. so basically everything else but settlers and workers.

this way there is no way you will have 4 cities by turn 60 or so...

[Sauron07]

The most direct solution to this particular problem would be to allocate the shields from forest chopping either at the beginning of the turn when the chop is complete or at the beginning of the next turn. It is the fact that chopped shields are allocated after the cities food and shield production and that you can switch your production qeue prior to their allocation that allows this "exploit" or "brilliant micromanagement" to occur. As to why worker tasks are allocated in this particular fashion I do not know, and there may be a very good reason for doing so that I have not thought about or seen mentioned.

[Diadem]

Well you can't choprush your first worker like this for obvious reasons. And you need bronze working as well.

Chopping has always been a good strategy. I don't see any real advantages with this strategy above normal chopping. It costs you more forest, and your settler takes longer.

[Dubhghlas]

The advantage is relatively minimal.

After all, the only thing that is "saved" in this strategy is the food excess that would have gone to making the settler or worker that turn. After all, in Civ IV, you can insert a worker/settler for the chop turn without losing the production put into the secondary build goal. So it saves you, what, 2 or 3 food a shot? For this you are bothing to micromanage your game? Waste of time, I would think.

[Chemical Ollie]

Too much micro management for my taste

[Utwig]

Where's the exploit?

It's simply micromanagement in order for only forrest shields going into settler, while food and shields from production go into growth and building as opposed to both chopped shields, food and production going into settler.

You have limited number of forrests and it's up to your strategic decision what to do with them.

[Deity Dude]

I can't believe it was an intended feature.

[Sauron07]

Originally posted by Utwig
Where's the exploit?

It's simply micromanagement in order for only forrest shields going into settler, while food and shields from production go into growth and building as opposed to both chopped shields, food and production going into settler.

You have limited number of forrests and it's up to your strategic decision what to do with them.

I don't disagree that this should not be considered an exploit, I just had seen it called such elsewhere and wanted to start a discussion on it as I had not seen it mentioned here. As for the impact, I agree that it is relatively small compared to switching every three turns to a settler as the chop comes in and not switching back until the next turn(about 4-6 food per settler), but every little bit can help especially at the beginning of the game where the difference between a pop 1 city and a pop 2 city is significant.

One question to finish with as I don't have the game in front of me at the moment. How much food is required to increase 1 population at the beginning of the game. I know its in the 20- 30 range but if someone can post the exact amount it will help me run some calculations while I'm on "break"

[Dactyl]

My own personal opinion is that there is no such thing as an exploit. If the game permits you to do something then that's a feature and you should take advantage of it if you can. I played around with this particular feature for a while but, as someone said above, it's a relatively minor advantage and I don't think that it's worth the trouble.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Dactyl
My own personal opinion is that there is no such thing as an exploit. If the game permits you to do something then that's a feature and you should take advantage of it if you can.

Only up to a point. With Civ 3 (but right on-topic), the Infinite Forest Chop was a high-tedium exploit which nobody really wanted, so they did the sensible thing and it became one chop per tile.

In multiplayer and demo games these things can become contentious. Basically whatever anyone wants to do in uncompetitive SP is their business, but in competitive or comparison games, some things are best not done.

I think the OP chop issue is MM, not an exploit. There is a thing over at CFC though that claims there is a hammer overspill calculation bug, under certain circumstances, which affects the overspill after a food build. Manipulating that might be more exploit-ish, though fixing it (if there is an error) would be best.

[DeepO]

In most games this is pure MM. You're not gaining the settler any sooner, and you're not getting your buildings any sooner. All you do is divert food to production. You can do this by MMing, or you can do this by e.g. working a hill instead of a fp (forest instead of plains, plains instead of grass, or change improvements instead of tile-types).

I'm not so sure you'd be better off with this chopping: better to let the city grow a bit first (so more food), and once your city has grown you go to a high production tile, possibly even running a food deficit, so that you build the settler faster. The advantage is that more citizens early will bring higher gains.

There will be situations where you're a little better of with the chop MMing, especially those where your food is too limited. These will be rare, though. Finding them is MMing in itself

DeepO

[Rasputin]

anything that is not described explicitly in the manual and or in the civpedia as how t odo it is an exploit.

anything that you can use agaisnt a human oppnent in MP that he/she may not be aware of is an exploit.

i dont think ishould have to analyse every single little thing and MM to the n th degree to win a game.

but i am fine with people using these exploits while they are there, i play for fun not to win.