Poprushing Mechanics

[Theseus]

I've got a situation which has me a little confused... perhaps I don't really understand how poprushing works:

This is under Feudalism, btw...

Turn 1: I capture a 10pop city, and fill it up with many units.

Turn 2: The city starves to 9pop, ends resistance, and has produced 1 shield. I rush a Temple, taking it to 6pop.

Turn 3: Temple built, still at 6 pop, 0 shields.

Turn 4: Still at 6pop, 1 shield produced. I try rushing a Library (79 shields needed)... no go. I rush a Granary (59 shields needed), costing 3pop. I am then able to rush a Library (20 shields needed), costing 1 pop, and thus leaving me with 2pop remaining.

Huh?? I couldn;t rush 79 shields directly for 5pop, but I got the same 79 shields for 4pop in two stages?



/me , still messing about with nasty Viking stuff.

[Solomwi]

That doesn't seem to make any sense. What, exactly, happened when you tried to rush the full library? Nothing? Advisor message?

[Theseus]

Advisor message... "cost the lives of too many citizens."

[Solomwi]

Huh. I can't find a thing on it.

[punkbass2000]

You can't pop-rush more than half the city's citizens at once.

[Xorbon]

Really? In that case, that would apparently put the AI at a slight disadvantage to the human since it can't figure out that it can split the cost like a human can. But it's not like this will make the difference between winning and losing the game though.

[Dominae]

The AI also does not know to rush-buy a Worker before a Temple instead of rushing the Temple outright in order to save on Gold. Not sure when and why the AI rushes with Gold, however, so this might not matter one bit.

[punkbass2000]

Originally posted by Xorbon
Really? In that case, that would apparently put the AI at a slight disadvantage to the human since it can't figure out that it can split the cost like a human can. But it's not like this will make the difference between winning and losing the game though.

Yes, "short-rushing", as it is called, is considered to be an exploit by some. It's circumventing deliberate game-mechanics.

[Modo44]

And it can very well make the difference on higher difficulty levels. Imagine every rush, throughout the game, costing you 10% less.

Theseus, you needed 8 population to rush the Library. It alwasy counts the numbers rounded down, so 7 wouldn't do it either. Have you tried pop-rushing the Settler yet?

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Modo44
And it can very well make the difference on higher difficulty levels. Imagine every rush, throughout the game, costing you 10% less.

Unless time is critical, I just wait a turn instead of using a short rush to start a rush. That way, I'm not circumventing game mechanics and I don't have to pay the higher cost on the first ten shields the way I would with a short rush.

Another trick with short rushing is to rush most of the shields for something and then build the remaining shields the normal way. That can be especially useful in cities capable of generating a meaningful number of shields because it avoids wasting the shields generated the turn of the rush. Of course that, like other uses of short-rushing, does circumvent the design of the game's mechanics.

[Dry]

Originally posted by Modo44
Have you tried pop-rushing the Settler yet?

I remember having 'try' this accidentally.
City pop was 4, rush-build settler... uh!?! setller wasn'st produced... oops, yes, city pop reduced to 2, so ....
me.I had to wait until I grew 3 again.
This was with vanilla iirc.

[punkbass2000]

Originally posted by Modo44
And it can very well make the difference on higher difficulty levels. Imagine every rush, throughout the game, costing you 10% less.

Well, yes, it can, of course, as any exploit can. What one considers legal in their own games is a matter of taste, of course.

EDIT: Oh, and you'd be saving much more than 10%, in most cases. A Worker will cost you 80 gold to rush with no shields in the box. You can then rush that Temple, for example, for only 200 more, for a total of 280. To rush the Temple immediately would cost 420. 33% savings there, and the margin grows higher as the buildings get more expensive.

[joncnunn]

Short-rushing is a valid tactic.

Because it can't always be done.

It almost always requires a city with a net shield production of 10 or higher. (The exception when only a net production of 5 or higher is needed are for those civs with a UU costing an amount ending in 5 and also currently able to build it.)

Oh, and on Monarchy level, the AI does get a 10% cost reduction on everything.

[punkbass2000]

Short-rushing can always be done, but I think you're misunderstanding the term. It is a simple manoeuveur, and though what you describe is short-rushing as well, it is not the whole thing. Say you have four citizens and want to pop-rush a Granary with only one shield in the box. You would need six, normally. But you can rush a Spearman, then a Barracks, and finally a Granary, circumventing the game-mechanic that stipulates that you may not pop-rush more than half of your citizens at once. BTW, I'm not sure what Monarch level has to do with it. The AI bonuses do not affect this exploit.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Dry
I remember having 'try' this accidentally.
City pop was 4, rush-build settler... uh!?! setller wasn'st produced... oops, yes, city pop reduced to 2, so ....
me.I had to wait until I grew 3 again.
This was with vanilla iirc.

I didn't mean disbanding the city. I was referring to a tactic I used to get culture growing in conquered cities, when playing Fascist. I would make the city size 5 (usually pop-rushing structures), and then pop-rush the Settler. This way, the city would be left with only 1 population of foreign nationality. My civ's national majority would be there very quickly, allowing culture growth under Fascism. Plus, a 1-foreigner city is easy to keep from flipping, and it's more useful to rush things, than to starve the city.

Punkbass, I was referring to the saving you get by rushing something cheaper, so the city can produce the rest on it's own. And mostly to cash-rushing. This will save around 10-20%, not more, except in cities with very high production. I almost never rush things before I have the 1-turn prebuild.