Question about the rest Shields or Food...

[cumi]

Hi,

My question about the rest shield/food is the following:

Let's say:

- a unit needs 100 shields to be completed
- a city has aready 90 shield in the "box"
- a shield production of 30 shield/turn

What happens next turn?

The unit is completed and there are 20 shields lost (the box is empty) or the box is filled with 20 shield, so shields are never lost.

After a finished unit (or anything) the box is ALWAYS = 0?

The same question is for the food box. What happens, when the city grows?

- food box has 99
- food surplus is 5
- city needs 100 to growth

Do you have 4 food after the growth or the 4 food is lost?

Thanx for help/comments/replies,

cumi

[statusperfect]

rest shields are lost..

cheers

[lmtoops]

Absolutely correct, the shields are lost. That's why in the early game, you can gain an advantage by shifting production. In your example with 20 shields lost, shift your production away from shields and work more food tiles.

[Arrian]

There is also a technique called "short rushing" for those who don't mind serious micromanagement.

Say you want to build a marketplace (100shields) and your city is producing 30 shields/turn. After the first turn of production, you can switch your city to a medieval infantry (40 shields) and rush it, then switch back to a marketplace. You've just shaved off a turn. If you use a knight (70 shields) you save 2 turns, but spend more money.

Nathan can probably explain it better.

-Arrian

[cumi]

Originally posted by Arrian
Say you want to build a marketplace (100shields) and your city is producing 30 shields/turn. After the first turn of production, you can switch your city to a medieval infantry (40 shields) and rush it, then switch back to a marketplace. You've just shaved off a turn. If you use a knight (70 shields) you save 2 turns, but spend more money.

Amazing !!!

And what about the food, whan the city grows?

[Arrian]

Food go bye-bye when city grows.

Generally, the best setup is one that gives you +5 food per turn. This will result in the city growing every 4 turns w/o a granary and every 2 turns with a granary, with no food wasted. +4 food/turn is efficient w/o a granary (growth in 5 turns), but inefficient with one (growth in 3, 2 food wasted).

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Another factor in all of this is the way new citizens are dealt with. Say your city grows from size 3 to size 4. The 4th citizen is autoallocated by the computer to work one of your terrain tiles (unfortunately, it doesn't often do it right).

You get the production from that new citizen immediately - that turn! So, if we take that size 3 city and say it's building a granary (60 shields) and has 52 shields accumulated, and is producing 7 shields/turn at size 3 (1 for the city tile + 3x 2shield tiles... let's say it's a nice city). Your new citizen is allocated to a tile that produces 1 shield. It counts that turn, and thus the granary is completed.

I don't think food works that way, though. The food box is emptied (or half-emptied, with a granary) when the city grows, and begins growing again the next turn... I THINK.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
I don't think food works that way, though. The food box is emptied (or half-emptied, with a granary) when the city grows, and begins growing again the next turn... I THINK.

You only get the Shields from a newly allocated Laborer. Both Commerce and Food are "lost". It would be sort of weird if you got the Food, because your Food box would never be empty.


Dominae

[Arrian]

That's what I thought, thanks.

-Arrian

[cumi]

Originally posted by Arrian
You get the production from that new citizen immediately - that turn! So, if we take that size 3 city and say it's building a granary (60 shields) and has 52 shields accumulated, and is producing 7 shields/turn at size 3 (1 for the city tile + 3x 2shield tiles... let's say it's a nice city). Your new citizen is allocated to a tile that produces 1 shield. It counts that turn, and thus the granary is completed.

Sound like a bug for me.

The game probably calculates first the food/citysize situation and modifies it when needed.

Then is calculates the production situation, but it uses the workers' production of the newly calculated ones.

Doesn't sounds logical to me. I would use the old city-configuration for the shiel-box calculaton for the new turn.


cumi

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Arrian
Food go bye-bye when city grows.

Generally, the best setup is one that gives you +5 food per turn. This will result in the city growing every 4 turns w/o a granary and every 2 turns with a granary, with no food wasted. +4 food/turn is efficient w/o a granary (growth in 5 turns), but inefficient with one (growth in 3, 2 food wasted).

Of course if your food bonus tile is also accessible to another city and you're willing to do some very serious micromanagement, you can switch back and forth between cities to reduce the waste. That can be especially worthwhile with a +2 food bonus by the capital in a PBEM game, since high levels of micromanagement are a lot more tolerable in PBEM.

[bongo]

It was that kind of micromanagement that finally stopped me from playing civ2

Of course, if you want to win on the higher levels that kind of micromanagement is a must, especially in the beginning.

[MrWhereItsAt]

I only figured both of these points out for myself recently.

We really need one thread or list to keep these undocumented features in. Down with non-documentation! Long live complete documentation!

[Arrian]

@ MWIA. Down with non-documentation! I agree.

Nathan is, as usual, correct. I just didn't think of that because I don't do that level of micromanagement.

-Arrian