Pop rushing

[delsolsi]

I've been playing Civ3 and reading these forums for a few days now and one term that keeps comming up that I have no idea what it means is pop rushing to build city improvements or military. Could some one please explain this to me. Thanks.

[Catt]

You can "hurry" city improvements (buildings & units) and build them in 1 turn. Under Democracy, Republic and Monarchy, you do so by paying gold from your treasury (paying citizen overtime). Under Communism and Despotism, you do it at a cost to your city's population (citizens worked to death and/or emigration from such a heartless ruler!).

"Pop rushing" (or population-based rushing) usually refers to rushing improvements / units early in the game while in despotism (resulting in losing population), often to quickly build a sizeable military force in order to quickly subjugate your neighboring civilizations.

Catt

[delsolsi]

Thanks, I've done that in democracy with money, seems like a good way to spend extra cash. I may try it in depotism in my next game if I get a city who's population growes quickly.

[grapedog]

Can the PC pop rush as well, or will it? I'm just curious as I don't think I've seen that discussed ever before? I wonder if that could be programmed into it? That would make a nice addition to it's strategy...of course that would probably nullify a lot of players strategies for staying alive in the early game at later difficulties.

[Ethelred]

Don't overdue the pop rushing. It causes unhappiness for 20 turns. The AI does use it and even sometimes abuse it if they are going to lose a city. That and drafting can lead to cities that are worthless from unhappiness for a long time.

[Playa del Carmen]

Originally posted by Ethelred
Don't overdue the pop rushing. It causes unhappiness for 20 turns.

The main reason I stayed away from pop rushing was this.

[Capt Dizle]

As of 1.17f, not only could the AI pop rush, it did so to the extreme in communism. I wonder was it fixed in 1.21?

[Harovan]

The unhappiness was toned down from 40 turns to 20 turns in 1.21f. Wether the AI has been tweaked not to rush/draft so much or not, I don't know. At least neither me nor (as far as I read) anyone else has seen the typical AI selfdestruction under Communism since 1.21f.