Everything you wanted to know about pop-rush quirks, and far more.

[smacfan]

Originally posted by Blake
Have fun.

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.

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

[Blake]

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.

[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

[dregor]

I fear I'm not smart enough to make any sense of this

[yimboli]

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

what do you mean automation? like AI?

[smacfan]

Originally posted by yimboli
what do you mean automation? like AI?

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.

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

[NFIH]

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.

[Blake]

To overcome your fear of whipping? Imagine you're the one doing the whipping instead of the one being whipped . Also work on your maniacal laughing skills.

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.

[Thrak]

(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).

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.

[Blake]

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.

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.

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.

[Blake]

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.

This is probably one of those "exceptions which proves the rule" .

[Thrak]

I might be going crazy but I think you uploaded an empty zip file there chief

[Blake]

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).

[Thrak]

It's still coming down empty for me :/

[Blake]

/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).