CS and chopping

[ben04]

Did you know that CS added 50% hammers to woods chopped around the capital? Also any other bonuses such as forges play. I just noticed this and thought that others might find this info interesting.

[trev]

It is generally known that anything that expands hammer productiion also expands the chopping yield, whether CS bonus, organised bonus, forges, factories etc, marble bonus etc.

[DrSpike]

Yeah, timing those chops is an important skill.

[rah]

Yeah, I'll prechop and wait for max hammers.

[ben04]

Originally posted by rah
Yeah, I'll prechop and wait for max hammers.

Considering that factories and power plants will give a significant boost to the chop, you'd only chop in the modern age?

[khumak]

Your best bet to maximize "chopping yield" is to chop in a pattern that leaves alternating forested and "empty" tiles to maximize the chance of your forests growing back on any given turn. Then you can selectively chop as your forests grow back.

[DrSpike]

Hmm I'm not sure the growback is reliable enough to build a strategy around.

The key is that later (with power plants etc) you can get higher yield but the shields are worth less.

Sometimes it is worth taking the crap yield early to get a settler faster. Most of the time I tend to use my forests for Oxfords etc midgame (post Maths). If you have forges great, org religion and a resource that speeds the wonder are bonuses.

[rah]

Agreed, praying for a grow back probably isn't a consistently good strat, But I will leave groups just in case.
And really agreed that the shields are worth less later in the game so by then I'll save some for lumbermills.

Most of my chopping is for early workers/settlers or wonders. Waiting for math is mostly when I'm prechopping. If not industrious, I'm usually chopping forges.

[couerdelion]

If you are building structures A, B and C sequentially then, I don’t think wonder bonuses or forge bonuses matter that much for the total effect of timing the chop. Where it can matter is civic dependent bonuses like Bureaucracy and Organised Religion where the change to that civic will allow the one-off boost to apply to the higher rate of production.

That’s not to say you might not pre-chop for a wonder but the reason for this is to get that wonder ASAP and not purely for the +100%.

There is one trick for a sort of arbitrage between buildings but this uses slavery. Since wonders do not get 100% of the return from whipped populations you can find something else – let’s say an axeman – which can be built for one turn and then double-whipped, and a large surplus will then be switched back to the wonder without the penalty.

Forests make great “one-off” boosts to production and should be used for high return buildings. If a wonder costs 300h but is worth about 1000g to you then you’re making over 100% on that hammer investment - the precise workings of the calculation above are outside the scope of this post . By comparison a missionary might cost 40h but be worth 100g (gold and civic bonuses). A library in the capital costs 90h but could easily be worth 200g+ and if you’ve got room for growth in cities, an early granary will also be a very valuable investment which may not want to wait for mathematics. Then there is the early pop ‘n’ chop rush where the precise return can be difficult to value but undoubtedly high.

And we should not forget the humble worker, who gives the best return on investment of any unit – if he has things to do.

Of course, if you argue that the pre-Maths chop is at a 33% discount then you don’t want to chop anything that is not making at least 50% return on the hammer investment.. Also there is the simple option of whipping, which, at that point in the game, is likely to be the cheapest way of buying production. If it were not for slavery, I think I would have cleared all my forests before I have my first Caravel.

By all means keep a few forest back for chopping some late wonders – although perhaps it might be an idea simply to chop your neighbours’ forests after capturing their cities.

[Jaybe]

HAMMERS, not Shields!