When and why to hurry the production?

[cumi]

Hi,

I started this topic, because would like to know from you, if you are ever hurring the production. I think buying improvements or units can be very important in the beginning of the game. This way you can be faster than your opponents. But is it worth to sacrifice your people? Any tipp, strategy is welcome here.

Yes, and my second question is (maybe its very stupid, but): what do you need to be able to pay for hurring and not to sacrifice people? And in the beginning, when you have to give people for hurrying, how is calculated the number of citizens you need. Sometimes it is 1 or 2, sometimes it say it can not hurry, but city is about 5 big.

[Dominae]

cumi, poprushing works as follows. First you need to count up the number of Shields remaining to complete a unit or improvement. Say you're play a non-Militaristic civ, so take a 40-Shield Barracks, for example. Every citizen contributes 20 Shields to the rushing of an improvement or unit. So rushing the Barracks from scratch costs 2 pop points. If you were to wait until the Barracks were half done (20 Shields produced from working tiles), rushing the Barracks would only cost 1 pop point.

It is thus highly recommended that you always poprush when the number of Shields you have left is a multiple of 20 (since you will not be wasting any Shields). This requires keeping a close eye on your production development.

But there's a catch: in any given turn, you can only sacrifice up to half your population to poprush. So, if your city is only size 3, you could not poprush a Barracks from scratch. Also remember that poprushing makes your remaining citizens unhappy, so it is not possible to rush Spearmen after Spearmen in one single town.

Poprushing is a great tool for the despot. My own favorite uses are Temples when playing Religious civs, and units when I'm going on a major offensive.

Hope this helps.


Dominae

[cumi]

Dominae, thank you for the explanation, it will help me a lot. Actually I would like to know, how do you know all this. I am an old civ3 player/fan/fanatic, but few things are still mysterious for me. Where can I found some references about the game? You can also find some my older thread about the luxuries. Sometimes I really need informations like this...I am playing only on max 3 level of difficulty (i want to have fun), but maybe once i will also have fun on deity?

One more question: What do I need for gold-rush and not poprush? I don't know when and why am I starting to pay gold for hurring and not pop sacrifice...

Thanks for help

[Tattila the Hun]

Depends on the government, despot and commie whips his people, demo, repu and monarch pay them. In anarchy one can not rush. Also, you cannot rush wonders, even the small ones. (Naturally)

[theNiceOne]

Dominae: Poprushing don't make the remaining citizens unhappy, it makes one citizen unhappy for each citizen you rushed. So if you have a size 3 city and rush <= 20 shields, only one of your two remaining citizens becomes unhappy. Then if you have temple/military police etc. this unhappy citizen can become content/happy as usual. It remains unhappy for 20 turns, before the rush unhappiness disappears.

cumi: gold/pop rush is decided by government type. Despotism and communism use pop-rush while monarchy, republic and democracy use gold to rush improvements. This is one of the very few reasons to stay in despotism after you discovered other government types: if you need to rush but don't have money.

You find things like this by reading the manual (I think the pop/gold vs. government is found there), by reading the civilopedia, but most of all by reading the forum here and on CFC.

[Dominae]

theNiceOne, thanks for catching that.

cumi, a great place to find answers to all your questions is right here on 'Poly. Just do searches on these forums for your specific questions, and you'll find explanations and strategy galore. Have fun.


Dominae

[DaveMcW]

Things that I like to rush:

Granary in my +5 food capitol
Temples in very corrupt cities
Horsemen in very corrupt cities

Afterr the early granary, I avoid rushing in my core cities. It's better to spend extra food on workers there.

[Arrian]

Temples in corrupt cities, when you are playing a religious civ, are the easiest. Build city, wait 10 turns, poprush. Presto, temple.

I often rush spearmen in captured cities when warring in the ancient era. It kills off foreign population (thus reducing the chance of a flip), and provides defense for the city so most of my units can move on.

Once I'm out of Despotism, I will spend gold rushing just about anything that I think will provide a long term benifit. It isn't a scientific process. A lot of rush gold goes to courthouses, both because I expect to recoup a lot of the money that way, and because I hate corruption.

Other common rush builds are aqueducts & marketplaces. Markets usually in order to get the city into "We Love the ___ Day" and aqueducts because growth is good. Later, when dealing with cities I've "liberated" on other continents, of course harbors, walls, barracks, airports.

Most of my rushbuying is done in highly corrupt cities. Productive cities can build things fast enough on their own, and you will end up spending a lot of cash to save a couple of turns. If a city is producing 20 shields/turn, and is 40 shields short, you will have to spend 160 gold to save 2 turns. If, however, a city is producing 2 shields/turn, and is 40 shields short, you will spend 160 gold to save 20 turns of production. Especially if the thing you're buying will reduce corruption in the city (either directly, via a courthouse or police station, or indirectly, via triggering WLT_D), it's far more useful in the corrupt town.

-Arrian

[joncnunn]

Under Despotism, usally the only thing I'll pop-rush is a Temple. (Usully when it has exactly 20 shields remaining.)

As far rushing with cash, I almost always rush Temples post-change out of Desptotism after 1 turn normal build.

I have a designated time period of cash rushing almost all Court Houses along with the improvements that due to my traights I'd rush first ini that game. (Either late ancient era or early middle ages depending upon military needs)

After the Court House rush period, the next imporvement that gets rushed everywhere is the Market Place.

I often rush Aquaducts after the city has a Temple and either a Market Place or Catherdrial.

I also cash rush culture improvements in boarder cities.

Neccesitys for the future FP city are also rushed.

Conquered cities in the middle ages usually see many improvements rushed to get them up to the level as the rest of the empire.

Conquered cities in the industrial & modern era usually only get happiness & growth improvements rushed.

[Dominae]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Factories yet. Upon entering the Industrial age, I try to prebuild Factories in all my core cities. When Industrialization comes around, there are typically still quite a few turns left to their completion (since they're the most expensive non-improvement Wonder thus far). A bunch of stockpiled gold is a godsend, boosting my production usually before the AI gets the chance. Thus, ensuring that I have around a 3-4k treasury at the end of the Medieval age has become standard in my games.


Dominae

[Beta]

There was a great post and thread - by absimiliard - dated 20-11-2001 - titled The economics of food velocity in a Despotism.

I have a hard copy index of the old strategy threads - but can't find the thread via a search. It was here in the civ3 strategy forum. If someone can find it -and post the thread link - great.

It quantified nicely pop-rushing in the early game, and when it made sense to do it and when it didn't. It was essentially a function of how much food a city produced relative to its population. Strong growth cities - and I believe he defined that as an excess of 3 food or higher - were the prime candidates for pop-rushing.

[Bluefrog]

Also worth noting is that you should avoid like the plague rushing anything from scratch. If you have no shields in the build box, the cost of rushing is doubled. This is true for pop- and cash-rushing.

And I've gotta change my Avatar. I picked it a long time ago, and haven't really posted until recently...people will think I'm copying ol' Dom, hehe.

[Dominae]

Bluefrog, no worries, I was just planning to put up my own custom avatar. Now I just have to find something cool...


Dominae

[Arrian]

BetaHound,

That thread is probably out of date, since the poprushing rules have changed.

Poprushing used to be a lot more powerful, in that you got 40 shields out of the 1st unit of population used up, and the unhappiness effect wasn't working properly either.

-Arrian

[joncnunn]

Cities that can't produce Factories in a resonable timeframe without rushing are exactly the cities that get the least benifit from having a Factory.