Poprushing Mechanics

[punkbass2000]

OK... I'll take your word for it, though your post didn't mention that idea at all and it wasn't brought up until Nathan's post imediately after yours...

[Modo44]

Originally posted by punkbass2000
OK... I'll take your word for it, though your post didn't mention that idea at all and it wasn't brought up until Nathan's post imediately after yours...

Perhaps I have confused the name. Sorry.

[Dominae]

The term "short-rushing" confusingly refers to two things:

1. When you rush a production item with Gold in a city that does not have any Shields accumulated in its production box, it costs more in Gold than if there were already at least one Shield in the box. So the trick involves rushing a lower-cost item first (say, a Worker) before a desired higher-cost item (say, a Library), to save on Gold. One way of looking at it is that you are artificially pumping 10 Shields into the production box to save on Gold.

2. If a city produces more Shields than are needed to complete a production item, those Shields are wasted. For instance, if a city produces 30spt is set to build Tanks, it will waste 20 Shields on every Tank because 30*3=90 < 100 so a fourth turn is needed. So, the trick here is filling up the production box in such a way that one the final turn a city is producing exactly as many Shields as is needed to complete a production item, and the way to do this is to rush a lower-cost item of the appropriate cost. In our example, after 30 Shields are accumulated on the Tank, you could rush a Coastal Fortress (40 Shields), switch back to Tank, and not waste any Shields when in two turns (60=30*2) the Tank completes. Note that if you do this constantly, you are paying a minimal amount of Gold every 3 turns in order to produce Tanks 25% faster.

You can use both of these methods in tandem. Method 1 you only want to use with hightly-corrupt or low-pop cities because even if you Gold-rush the entire target item, you will only waste 1 Shield. However, if your city is producing 5spt or more and you want to get a Factory ASAP, I suggest: rushing a Worker with Gold (10 Shields), rushing a Coal Plant with Gold (200 Shields), producing the final 40 Shields in 8 turns "the hard way". Whether or not you can afford to wait 8 turns for that Factory to go up is something that might require a calculator to figure out!

Edit: Note that you can use Forest Chops effectively in both methods.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dominae
2. If a city produces more Shields than are needed to complete a production item, those Shields are wasted. For instance, if a city produces 30spt is set to build Tanks, it will waste 20 Shields on every Tank because 30*3=90 < 100 so a fourth turn is needed. So, the trick here is filling up the production box in such a way that one the final turn a city is producing exactly as many Shields as is needed to complete a production item, and the way to do this is to rush a lower-cost item of the appropriate cost. In our example, after 30 Shields are accumulated on the Tank, you could rush a Coastal Fortress (40 Shields), switch back to Tank, and not waste any Shields when in two turns (60=30*2) the Tank completes. Note that if you do this constantly, you are paying a minimal amount of Gold every 3 turns in order to produce Tanks 25% faster.

This works of course only, if you aren't slapped with a polluted tile on the last turn, which leaves you with 99 shields and no tank.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
This works of course only, if you aren't slapped with a polluted tile on the last turn, which leaves you with 99 shields and no tank.

Playing the latest AU (with a self-imposed restriction to go all the way to the end of the tech tree) has developed in me a new-found sympathy for your hatred of Pollution.

I learned to cope with this annoyance by setting my capital to produce a unit every turn, with a healthy Shield surplus to ensure the build would complete despite any surprise Pollution. Since the capital is always first in the city queue, if Pollution hit any of my cities down the line, I could use the F1 trick to micromanage a solution.

I still tore my hair out on numerous occasions (very painful when you're already bald), but at least I felt sort of in control of the situation. Then I got Recycling and all my worries went away!

[Theseus]

Wow, that is serious micromanagement.

So, they answer to my original question is simply what pb2000 pointed out, ie.e, that you can't poprush more than half your citizens, but that you can still get where you want to serially?

So that's what... shortpopping?

[joncnunn]

I was refering to just #2 in my short-rushing post and moreover the specallized case of finishing it that turn.

If your shield producion is < 10 SPT, then is generaly is no build you can rush to and switch back and still have what you want to finish the same turn.

[Rommel2D]

By registration dates I'm newer than many of the contributors here, but I recall the term 'whip-switch-whip' used to describe your 'shortpopping', T.

Do we have anyone keeping a glossary?

[bongo]

Theseus , a summary follows:

When pop-rushing, the first citizen you kill will provide up to 20 shields, any additional citizens within the same transaction will only give 10 shields each.

The exploit is that you can split the build into multiple transactions. Killing only one pop at a time, getting the full 20 shields from each.

40-shield item:
Standard method: 20+10+10 = 3 pop
Switching method: 20+20 = 2 pop.

100-shield item:
standard method: 20+10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10 = 9 pop
Switching method: 20+20+20+20+20 = 5 pop

So to build a library(80s) you start with rushing a spear (20s), switch build to barracks(40s), kill another pop, switch to temple(60s), kill pop #3, switch to library(80s) and kill pop #4


I'm not 100% sure how pop-rushing works when there are no shields in the build-box though. But I suspect the price goes up when the box is empty.

[punkbass2000]

Uh, that's incorrect. They always give 20 shields. The exploit here is abusing the fact that you can get around the rule that disallows pop-rushing more than half a city's population. BTW, when the box is empty it costs twice as many citizens as normal, just like cash-rushing.

Here's an example. I have 24 shields in Tenochtitlan (it's actually building a Settler). I switch it to a Temple, which requires 36 more shields. It only costs 2 pop.

[bongo]

You sure? I did this in a very recent game, c3c 1.22.

Have to give it a closer look, if I can find my old saves that is...

[gunkulator]

Yep, 20 shields per citizen always. Popping that temple in a newly conquered city always costs 3 citizens for non-religious.

There are several quirks wrt poprushing. For example in Theseus' size 10 city, you could pop a library followed by a temple 10 -> 6 -> 3 but you could not pop the temple first followed by the library 10 -> 7 X 3.

[Theseus]

Thanks for the clarifications, all...

With my better understanding, I just went on a poprushing madfest, due to an imminent non-REL revolt from Feudalism to Communism... WOW. The population decrease was worse than that of Fascism, but, daaaang, I got me a bunch of shiny new stuff.

[Last Conformist]

Poprushing Settlers in conquered cities is great fun. It's just a shame I so soldem use Commieness.