buying minerals on happiness credit?

[dmm1285]

I finally got a computer that can cIV a few days ago and been having a blast. One thing I've immediately noticed is the police effect you get from hereditary rule.

What I've been doing is going for monarchy early, then just driving up a huge happiness deficit by whipping a warrior (scout might work as well, I'm not sure) then taking the overflow 15 minerals and applying them to a secret project like the oracle or the collusus (seems to work especially well on secret projects because you seem to only get 15 minerals per population for whipping).

I'm only playing on noble, so maybe the unit costs go through the roof quickly on the higher difficulty, but so far, I can get the Globe Theater done (and wipe out the "debt") before it becomes an issue.


My questions are: Is this a common strategy to use? Is it considered an exploit? And why can't you half rush things like you could in SMAC, this strategy wouldn't be needed.

[SebP]

Something similar is as far as i know very widespread among the civfanatics folks. But they don't do it with warriors, but units that are actually useful. When the globe theatre comes around, they have an attack army.

I haven't tried it out to see how powerful it is. It's not like you get the units for free, still it feels expoit-ish to me.



btw, they are not secret projects in CIV

[couerdelion]

Minerals = Hammers???

Whipping to use the overflow for a wonder works well for a city with lots of food but few hammers. Equally, driving up happiness and using this for "whip-stacking" is also a legitimate tactic.

However, I would avoid whipoing a warrior in this case because you will lose some of the overflow. Better to get something like an archer/chariot or double-whipping an axeman/spearman/swordsman.

p.s. Do you need Monotheism for this. If not, bear in mind that, with a religion, and Org Rel, the whip will get you 25% more hammers.

p.p.s. Those garrisons are not police. They are simple armed entertainers

[dmm1285]

Minerals = Hammers???

Oops, yeah hammers

Whipping to use the overflow for a wonder works well for a city with lots of food but few hammers. Equally, driving up happiness and using this for "whip-stacking" is also a legitimate tactic.

So it's not considered an expoit? Excellent.

However, I would avoid whipoing a warrior in this case because you will lose some of the overflow. Better to get something like an archer/chariot or double-whipping an axeman/spearman/swordsman.

I'm not sure I understand how I'm losing overflow with the warrior. Let's say I whip for 1 pop:

turn 1: warrior's hammers are full
turn 2: warrior gets built (taking care of the ) Now I have 15 mineral to apply to a Wonder or anything I can't do with a reasonable amount of people.
turn 3: hammers are applied to wonder
turn 4: start it all over again.

If I'm not building a wonder, it's not nearly as useful of a strategy. Even if I want to stack my 's, it still better to use 1 pop to get two warriors, then whip normally.

But with wonders, you only get 15 hammers per person anyways and you can't half rush it, so it becomes a lot more useful.

Axemen work pretty well as we;;, they give you 12.5 overflow per pop (plus an actual unit). Archers work pretty lousy though, only giving 5 overflow per person.

p.s. Do you need Monotheism for this. If not, bear in mind that, with a religion, and Org Rel, the whip will get you 25% more hammer

Nope, monotheism isn't needed

Those garrisons are not police. They are simple armed entertainers

Not even that. I moved up to Prince and they were having problems with animals, I'd expect them to die if an axeman blew on them.

[dmm1285]

Something similar is as far as i know very widespread among the civfanatics folks. But they don't do it with warriors, but units that are actually useful. When the globe theatre comes around, they have an attack army.

Yeah, if you are just concentrating on building units (which is more efficent), you could build a nice army pretty quickly. I'm playing a game on Prince in a war vs. the US, and I've got 6-7 axemen to his 2-3 archers (though I did luck out with copper in my capital.)

I haven't tried it out to see how powerful it is. It's not like you get the units for free, still it feels expoit-ish to me.

If it wasn't for the Globe Theater, I wouldn't even be questioning it, you are locking down a huge amount of units that could end up hurting you in maintenance costs down the road (or wait 213 turns for the 's to go away )

On the other hand, you could do the exact same thing once you got the globe anyways (I might not have mentioned it before, but I wouldn't do this in more than one city).

btw, they are not secret projects in CIV

You're right, they don't deserved to be called Secret Projects (which is actually a good thing, the Wonders don't seem like gamebreakers like some of the Secret Projects are)