Bacon sandwiches are better than Burgers

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by couerdelion
I’ve now read the CivFanatics thread and understand the confusing results you get from population to hammers conversion on rushing.

In short, there are two calculations

1) How many population needed to rush to finish the build. Incidentally this will determine if the poprush is possible
2) How many hammers are gained from the poprush

As it turns out, after stage 1 has been worked out, it appears that the number of hammers gained per population point is only dependent on the number of hammers needed. It is the lowest multiple of 30 which will complete the build.

So when pop-rushing with one citizen, if you can do this when you need 31+ hammers for completion, then you will get 60 hammers. For two population points, you will ONLY get 45 per population if the remaining build requirement is 61-90. If it is 46-60, you’ll get 30/pop while if it is 91-120, you’ll get 60/pop.

What this seems to suggest is that the forge and granary are the two important builds to enable a profitable poprush strategy.

I'm a little confused over this. Is this on epic? If so, shouldn't the hammers per pop point be in integrals of 45?

I tried this on marathon, and it's 90 hammers per pop point. And it seemed to round up, once the first turn is ignored. For example, a monastery is 180 hammers on marathon, so if you try to rush build starting at 0 hammers, it will cost 3 pop. Wait a turn, and it will cost 2 pop (2*90 = 180). The carry over in the queue is correct, i.e. the amount that you already had plus one turn worth of production.

I didn't see a variable hammer rate, but didn't have time to fully investigate.

Now trying a temple, which is 240 hammers on marathon. From scratch, it costs 3 pop again. If I wait a turn, it still costs 3 pop, and doesn't giveme any change other than what was in the queue. If I build to within 180-1 hammers, then it will cost 2 pop, and the correct amount of carry over in the queue will be there. Like I say, I didn't have enough time to test enough cases, and it could be unique to marathon.

It's like being in a store where they don't give change and you only have money in $5 increments.

[gn0rt0n]

Originally posted by Velociryx
* Cultural buildings that are more than a thousand years old = double culture. Obviously, building these when the clock is still jumping ahead quickly (20-40 years per turn) is MUCH more effective than waiting...nod to the pop rush).
-=Vel=-

Holy Cow! I don't know about others, but I have never heard this. I read a decent amount of threads and have never stumbled upon this.

It is probably an RTFM answer, but where is this found. I need to find other juicy tidbits I wasn't aware of.

Thanks again Vel for giving me another good tip.

[Shaka II]

I'm back in my lair, so I ran a few tests, on marathon. It's a bit different than I described above. Rather it is as Couerdelion explains, the number of hammers per pop changes depending on where in the build you are. However, on marathon, it may a slightly different algorithm.

This time I just used the library, which is 270 hammers. Sraight off, with 0 progress, it costs 5 pop, which my capital didn't quite allow. After waiting 1 turn, the pop cost dropped to 3, giving me 270 hammers. The overflow was handled correctly, and was in all cases that I tried, once I understood that the number of hammers per pop was changing.

When my progress in the build progressed, I pop rushed again, costing me 3 pop, but this time only giving me 80 hammers per pop.

Further on into the build, I pop rushed again at the cost of 3 pop, giving me only 70 hammers per pop.

The last time I tried was when I had exactly 90 hammers in the queue, and it cost me 2 pop, giving me again 90 hammers per pop.

So, my conclusions:

Firstly, don't pop rush starting from zero, it can cost more than 1 extra pop.

Secondly, the hammers per pop changes, being either 90, 80, or 70, depending on how close to an integral multiple of 90 (rounding up) hammers remaining to be built.

The algorithm may be different at epic and normal, but that's what it appears to be at marathon. In any case, a different value of hammers per pop. So, if you have something that is not an integral number of 90 hammers in marathon, be prepared to pay a diffferent valuation in hammers per pop. Or if you want the full 90 hammers per pop, you can do the partial build to within the integral number of 90 , and then pop.

Happy popping.

Meanwhile, I'll be growing my villages. Except when Tokugawa comes knocking, then I might have to pop a maceman out (90 hammers).

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Shaka II
Secondly, the hammers per pop changes, being either 90, 80, or 70, depending on how close to an integral multiple of 90 (rounding up) hammers remaining to be built.

I think you'll find it can be many other multiples. If you had 20 hammers needed to finish the build you would get just 30 hammers per pop.

Your situation highlights the fact that the game is looking for the next highest multiple of 30. When you got 90/pop, you had 241-269 hammers outstanding on the build. With 80/pop, it was 211-240 and with 70/pop it was 181-210. I’ve checked this out again and found myself getting numbers like 40 or 50 per pop point.

The big value in this is knowing how you can use it to improve the price you get for your “slaves”. At marathon, it will be harder to make a lot but there ought to be times when you can steal 180/head in a bureaucratic capital with forge – I won’t discuss here the merits of slave-driving in the capital.

At epic level there are numerous ways of getting that extra production. Consider the situation where I have a forge and am running organised religion. I believe this would then allow pop-rushing at a rate of 67/pop. By this I mean that if I have 67 (or maybe 66) or less production to finish a build, I can pop-rush one unit of population to finish the build. However, if the hammers needed is 61 or more, it will round UP the number given to the next multiple of 30. I will end up with 90 hammers for one unit of population and a tidy surplus will go through to the next build.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by couerdelion The big value in this is knowing how you can use it to improve the price you get for your “slaves”.

Oh, UGH. As if there wasn't enough micromanagement already!!!

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by couerdelion

I think you'll find it can be many other multiples. If you had 20 hammers needed to finish the build you would get just 30 hammers per pop.

Your situation highlights the fact that the game is looking for the next highest multiple of 30. When you got 90/pop, you had 241-269 hammers outstanding on the build. With 80/pop, it was 211-240 and with 70/pop it was 181-210. I’ve checked this out again and found myself getting numbers like 40 or 50 per pop point.

You're right. To continue my example of building the library, here is the pattern of pop costs and hammers per pop awarded. The worst deal of course is to pop rush something cheap like a warrior, getting only 30 hammers. So, you have be careful about the quantization effects. If you want full value of your pop, 90 in the case of marathon, then make sure there is an integral number of 90 hammers, or close to it, remaining.

For something expensive, like a library, it doesn't make too big a difference, if the cost is 3, being 70, 80, or 90 hammers, but when the pop cost is 2, you can have 60, 75 or 90 hammers, and when the cost is only one, you can have 30, 60 or 90 hammers. So, don't pop out warriors or archers, but a maceman (90 hammers) would be OK.

I did use this last night with my Perisan game. I hit the pop cap early, because I had only 4 cities and not enough happy resources. So I pop rushed a granary, which usually costs 180 hammers, but expansive civs get it for 90 hammers, costing me 1 pop, after waiting a turn. So, this was a good buy, but I did lose one tile for 30 turns due to the +1 angry worker.

A settler costs 200 hammers, which would cost 3 pop (if you wait one turn, or 4 if you instantly pop rush). So, wait a few turns until there are 20 hammers in the queue and pop rush, costing you 2 pop at 90 hammers each.

Hammers remaining | pop cost | hammers per pop
241-270 3 90
211-240 3 80
181-210 3 70
151-180 2 90
121-150 2 75
91-120 2 60
61-90 1 90
31-60 1 60
0-30 1 30

That's how it works, which doesn't explain why it was made that way, instead of just using a fixed 90 hammers per pop value, preserving the overflow in the queue. Chopping a forest works that way. You get 90 hammers per forest, keeping the overflow. So why not with pop? You may still get some overflow, but it's always less than 30 hammers.

I suppose one way of looking at it is a human life can't be stored like a pile of wood.

[couerdelion]

One thing I would add is that production multipliers affect the number of population points used for the pop-rush based on the hammers outstanding.

On your marathon example, if you are running Org Religion and not building a unit, it will give you 112.5 per population point. If your build then needs 211 hammers and you can pop-rush two units of population, you should be allowed to do so and will get 240 (or 120 per pop-point).

I haven't fully tested this but forges, bureaucracy, heroic epic, leader traits effect should have the same impact on the first stage of the calculation so you can end up with more than 90/population.

[Shaka II]

Yes, the production multipliers appear to work as they do with rush buying with gold.

[couerdelion]

But not all multipliers work

Yesterday, I noticed that I was getting a measly 123 production from chopping a forest (at epic the standard benefit is 45).

123h = 45h + 175%

On my city management screen the production multiplier was + 200%

+50% (Industrious building wonder)
+ 25% (Forge)
+ 25% (Organised)
+ 100% (Resource bonus to woinder)

This would mean that one of the 25% factors is not taken into account in the chop. I believe this factor is the forge because on another chop, while building a unit, the chop offered me 45h.

Identifying these same factors when pop-rushing is not so straightforward since you are never given the “expected hammer benefit per pop” – the factor it uses to determine the number required. You can only surmise a range of numbers from the information provided so would have to spend a little longer collecting data to determine which multipliers are taken into consideration.

[Shaka II]

Pop rushing has that quantization level phenomenon, while chopping doesn't, so it's more straight forward.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Shaka II
Pop rushing has that quantization level phenomenon

What does this mean in English?

[Shaka II]

I meant that 1 forest always equals 90 hammers (on marathon), neglecting production multipliers, while 1 pop equals a variable amount, depending on how many hammers remain. E.g., on marathon, the number of hammers you get per pop, ranges from 30 to 90 hammers, while forest always yield 90 hammers. I think.

Do you agree?

The "quantization effect" refers to the formula that depends on the multiple of 30 hammers left in the queue. So, why didn't they use a fixed 90 hammers per pop?

[couerdelion]

Well I can't speak for Marathon but I know that the forest chop does not always give the same.

Bonuses included

1) Leader trait bonuses
2) Resource related build bonuses ??

I once got 123hammers from a chop on Epic (+175%)

[fed1943]

Organised giving bonus to hammers?I don't think so.
Best regards,

[couerdelion]

I'm fairly certain it does

Originally posted by fed1943
Organised giving bonus to hammers?I don't think so.
Best regards,

I remember now another test I made which was to click on the worker chopping and see how many hammers allocated from the chop to a city.

For buildings, the number was 25% higher implying that the chop gave a bonus to the hammers because of Org Rel (not to be confused with the Organised trait).

I also believe that Org Rel gives an adjustment which it uses in the pop-rushing calculation,