Avoiding shield waste in production

[Rasputin]

this is why i hate civ at times, too much maths involved, i love maths dont get me wrong, just not when i playing, i play civ 2 to unwind and not have to think of serious stuff like this... but at least i know now why some people win so much, they obviously work out all these little formulas and do incremental rush buying (still a cheat in my books)

[Hydey]

Originally posted by Rasputin
incremental rush buying (still a cheat in my books)

In an MP game, if others are doing it you will fall behind Razzie.

So just do it

[Rasputin]

dont know how it is done hydey and it probably expalins why some people take so long on their turns ... i think i might be voting for a timer in everry game...

[Ming]

Originally posted by Rasputin
dont know how it is done hydey and it probably expalins why some people take so long on their turns ... i think i might be voting for a timer in everry game...

Most people do their rush buying between turns

[Smash]

It only takes a few seconds between turns.No major science here.Just point and click.

..and its not cheating.Its playing

[Rasputin]

well as the manual doesnt tell you how to do this it must be cheating,, Rush buying is explained in manual , not incremental buying... and it doesnt take seconds, it takes minutes.. you have to do this for all your citys i would guess.

I know everyone does it but i jsut dont have the time, i find that between turns i busy doing simple micromanagment with out finding the time to work out which units to rush but then change to another to save shields and gold,, more power to you for convincing all you play with that this is ok, but juast because it is excepted by most players doesnt make it right, i hope that civ 3 elimiated the ability to change your production

[Hasdrubal]

Originally posted by Rasputin
this is why i hate civ at times, too much maths involved

Come on, Raz, it's not that difficult at all! Just do it a lot, you'll discover that it soon becomes a second nature. If your city is producing 9 shields a turn, and you need 30 shields to finish production, a single replacement of one worker to get that extra shield a turn isn't really that much work. There's no need to have a calculator next to your computer. It is just rationalizing your production, not cheating.

So just do it

[Rasputin]

this is not the actions i was refering to,, not the micromanagemnt side of thiongs, i dont have a problem with that, i have a problem with the incremental rush buying !!!!!

[Edward]

Rasputin,

Such micromanagement (checking worked squares in every city) is too much for me in the later game years. I too find such micromanagement distracting. (Also I only play single player so I'm not at too much of a disadvantage for not micromanaging to that detail).

Like you, I avoided incremental buying for a long time because it looked complicated. As Smash notes, it's surprisingly easy once you try it. You don't have to go to every city. Just whenever you would normally rush-buy a unit, instead rush-buy the cheapest unit. Now rush-buy the next cheapest unit. Now rush buy the next cheapest unit, etc. until you buy what you wanted. No math at all! Barely any thinking. After half a game it becomes instinctive. Very easy, very powerful.

(Yes, you needn't start with the cheapest unit - just the cheapest unit which costs more than you have shields for. I'm just trying to show how easy it is. Also you needn't incrementally buy city improvements or wonders since their cost per shield is constant so there's nothing to be gained. You might use the same principle to "half buy" improvements and the like, but I wouldn't call that incremental buying.)

This being said, I'll agree with you that incremental buying is a cheat. Not because it's not in the manual, but because it was clearly not intended by the creators. Civ2 makes it more expensive per shield to rush-buy many rows of military unit shields. The more unit shields you buy all at once, the more they cost per shield. By rush-buying cheaper units you trick the computer into thinking you're only buying a few shields, so the cost per shield is small. This way you always (unless some units aren't available) pay the cheapest rate per shield. Why would the creators impose a higher cost per unit shield to rush-buy many of them, and then offer a convoluted tiresome process wherein you don't have to pay the increased cost? Did they say "Players love meaningless dull micromanagement. Let's introduce some by creating a rule that you need to circumvent by hitting the change and buy button a bunch of times. Boy, I hope it's obvious that you're supposed to pretend to buy a bunch of things you don't really want by manually changing your city build orders many times in a given turn. It be a shame if someone thought you were supposed to just hit the buy button to buy something!" Like you, I hope they close this loophole in Civ3. ('Though please still let us change our production! I often legitimately change my mind halfway through my turn. Perhaps unit shield price should be based on the number of shields that were in the box at the beginning of the turn, not the number of shields that happen to be in the box right now. Better yet, just make it always cost 5 coins per unit shield!)

I guess if I played multiplayer, I'd be forced to use incremental buying (and rehoming, and temporarily pumping up arrow production before delivering caravans, etc.); but as a single player I can dismiss my laziness as "being honest". Now I think my real reason for avoiding incremental buying is to increase the difficulty while playing the AI.

[Scouse Gits]

Edward - You make a good case for playing an "honest" game. However, your statement that -

"This being said, I'll agree with you that incremental buying is a cheat. Not because it's not in the manual, but because it was clearly not intended by the creators."

If you are being honest ... how do you know that? Or have I missed a vital point ....?

------------------

SG(2)

[Deity Dude]

I think its pretty clear that the makers didnt intend for incremental rush buying, although since i cant read minds i cant state it as a fact. I believe if they wanted that they would have set the price equal to the rush buy price when u hit the buy button. Having said that, nothing is a cheat that the players of the game agree upon before the game. Its only a rule.

[Smash]

Well I'm not so sure.I think it was meant as a finer point or undocumented feature to be used mainly against deity level.As noted it doesn't work for improvements.You can save turns but not gold.Why?
Not being able to change would be disastrous.How do you respond to surprise invasions?By finishing a bunch of caravans?No.You switch to something with punch.Playing with a "potential army" is common.

[Scouse Gits]

I think there is a fine line between cheating and using the game's aspects to your advantage.

Incremental buying is only manipulating the order of the required purchase in a given set of circumstances. If that is a cheat - is forcing a city to celebrate in Monarchy dubious by manipulating the workers around the city tiles? (First you put all the workers out to sea and gain arrows at the expese of food/production to celebrate. After gaining the double arrows you place some of the workers back on food/production squares but manage to sustain the double trade benefits)

Is that cheating or good play? I don't know because Sid has never appeared in a vision to tell me what he intended.

-------------

SG(2)

[Eyes_Of_Night]

YOu guys are trying to come up with complicated ideas as usual when really it's very simple. It's nothing more than a flaw in the equation they use for buying something. I don't remember the exact equation, but if you go back and look at it you'll understand why it is that buying 1 row four times is cheaper than buying 4 rows one time. This game is 6 years old, it was never intended to be taken to this level of playing. They took what was a very laid back AI based game and threw it to the hardships of multiplaying. Lets face it, the game was never truly play tested fully and it shows. So stop whinning and play with what is there. Civ3 is going to have the exact same problem because they're not using players to play test the game, they're using programmers. I guarantee there are going to be all kinds of nice little bugs that will probably never be fixed. Deal with it.

[markusf]

Re: ya thanks

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Actually these little things count. I just got beaten by Markusf, mainly because he got a big lead in science - but when I looked back at the saves I could have easily improved my science rate from 8 turns to 3! Just by using my workers better.

Lazy Horse

You got beat because you tried to build up all your cities at once. I built up 4 or 5 cities and the other 20 are just size 2-4. My 5 cities produced 9 times the combined science and taxes of your whole civ. My turns always take less then 20 seconds for the majority of the game, because all you really need is a few cities and the rest are cannon fodder or bases to launch wars. I usually buy a whole army in 2 or 3 turns. In our game i bought 15 iron clads in one turn... it was over then because my gold production was 10 times yours.