IFE - Infinite Forest Exploitation

[Sava]

Everyone has been complaining about corruption, and the problem it causes when trying to develop newly conquered or built cities far from your palace. Well, I have cracked the production problem.

My strategy, which I have dubbed IFE (Infinite Forest Exploitation) is simple.

When conquering other civs, whether you take their cities or raze them, you have an abundance of foreign workers. If you play like me, your core empire is already developed, and does not need these workers. But I have found a use for them.

In these distant cities that suffer from extreme corruption, do this.

1. Clear all forest square adjacent to the city. You should be able to rush a temple for a low cost after the bonus.

2. Put two workers each in three of the cleared squares.

3. Tell them to plant forest. (usually 5 turns with two workers)

4. Have them chop down the forest (usually 3-4 turns with two workers)

This method adds lots of production and allows you to defeat the corruption system. Here is the bonus you receive:

One cycle of the process takes 8 turns. If you have three sets of workers doing this, you get 30 shields every 8 turns, about 3.8 shields per turn. After you get a temple and your culture expands you can do this in 8 squares with a city of 12 without sacrificing any workable squares. In 8 squares, that's 80 shields every 8 turns, or 10 shields per turn. This makes building things a lot easier in these cities.

This method does not even include the cities' base production. Which once you have a courthouse, is about 2-5. So at maximum, the city would be getting 15 shields per turn.

You can also use this strategy in cities that do not suffer from corruption, thus increasing their productivity. If you have an abundance of captured workers you can just have them join the others and speed the process up. I currently have a game running where I have 6 workers in 8 total squares doing this. The process takes 6 turns total with that many workers. That's 80 shields every 6 turns, 15 shields per turn bonus for that city!

You complained about corruption disrupting production, I give you:

INFINTE

FOREST

EXPLOITATION

!!!!!!!

[Transcend]

Your workers would spend valuable time in planting trees and chopping it down later. What's so exploitable about that? There are plenty other things a worker can during the same time period. I think building roads/railroads should have a higher priority.

[Drago Sinio]

Also note that different nationalities workers can do this at different speeds, and that later in the game , after some particular tech I dont remember now, they get 50% faster. Its in the manual somewhere.

Anyway , in my current game I have four workers set aside on each continent "lumberjacking". Two workers can plant a forest or cut it down in a single turn. Thats 2.5 shields per turn, per worker. So, if you need a particular improvement , just figure out the number of shields, and how soon you want it built, and send the appropriate number of workers to start "lumberjacking".

For example if you want to build an 100 shield improvement in five turns, you would need to assign eight workers.

Eight workers x 2.5 shields each = 20, x 5 turns = 100 shields.

I have also seen that you if you generate more shields than you need, the extra shields go to waste.

With all this in mind, it might make sense to go capture some workers from an industrious civ, since they work a bit faster. Unless of course you are playing as an industrious civ, in which case it would make sense to build any captured "lazy" workers into one of your cities, and have it produce another , quicker worker.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

I've only skimmed over this strategy before, and it seems to me that having only one worker doing that is not good enough because of the cost. having more, like what SoulAssassin said, is more likely to produce these greater results. Industrious Civs workers work twice as fast, so thats another way to speed up this deforesting/reforesting

his method does not even include the cities' base production. Which once you have a courthouse, is about 2-5.

In a city with total corruption, the shield production will increase by max of 2 with a courthouse.

Im gonna go try it out to see if it is a viable strat. I'll be back tomorrow to post what I figured out.

[RalphTrickey]

I play a 'builder' strategy. In my last game (American) just before I quit (Second easiest level, Space victory), I tried something. In ONE TURN I was able to plant forest, clear forest, generating 10 shields, and irrigate the square. Since it was late in the game, and I was industrious, I believe that this only took 5 workers. Does anyone know if these shields are subject to corruption?

This sure sounds like a powerful exploit, especially late in the game when you have a lot of workers standing around doing nothing. I would think that there should be a rule that you can not plant and clear in one turn, or is this somehow less powerful that I think it is?

[Sava]

Originally posted by Transcend
Your workers would spend valuable time in planting trees and chopping it down later. What's so exploitable about that? There are plenty other things a worker can during the same time period. I think building roads/railroads should have a higher priority.

1. I don't think Firaxis intended the player to have an army of workers giving a 15 shield bonus per turn to a city. To exploit, is to take advantage of something.

2. My entire empire is already irrigated/mined/roads/railroads. And that is the whole point. The workers have nothing left to do. You would know this if you read the post in its entirety.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
I've only skimmed over this strategy before, and it seems to me that having only one worker doing that is not good enough because of the cost. having more, like what SoulAssassin said, is more likely to produce these greater results. Industrious Civs workers work twice as fast, so thats another way to speed up this deforesting/reforesting

I forgot to mention, I was playing France (Industrious and Commercial). That's why I was able to work so fast.

In a city with total corruption, the shield production will increase by max of 2 with a courthouse.

Again, France got a better bonus for corruption, that's why I said 2-5, depending on palace distance.

Im gonna go try it out to see if it is a viable strat. I'll be back tomorrow to post what I figured out.

Just remember that you need a ton of workers for this strategy to really be advantageous. I would recommend timing the process in such a way that you get a 10 shield bonus per turn. Then, if you have an extra group of workers doing this, maybe every 8 turns you get a 20 bonus. Ordering around all the workers gets tedious, but I would definitely utilize this strategy if MP every comes out.

If my opponent has the same amount of cities as me, and we are at war, I will eventually win because I can pump out more units than he can. It is important to protect the workers though, if you are at war.

[Sava]

Originally posted by RalphTrickey
I play a 'builder' strategy. In my last game (American) just before I quit (Second easiest level, Space victory), I tried something. In ONE TURN I was able to plant forest, clear forest, generating 10 shields, and irrigate the square. Since it was late in the game, and I was industrious, I believe that this only took 5 workers. Does anyone know if these shields are subject to corruption?

This sure sounds like a powerful exploit, especially late in the game when you have a lot of workers standing around doing nothing. I would think that there should be a rule that you can not plant and clear in one turn, or is this somehow less powerful that I think it is?

These shields do not get affected by corruption. Again, if it is late in the game and you have tons of workers standing around, put them to good use and IFE.

[Enigma]

This is a good strategy for using the workers in the long run, but in the short run I just build a city up to size 6 and rush modern armor in 1 turn (using communism). If you are not in communism or despotism this is a great use for workers though!

[Lawrence of Arabia]

OK heres what I found with an industrious civ

In a city with no corruption, one forest will yield 2 shields a turn. It takes 8 turns to chop down a forest. While that is going on, you harvest 2*8 or16 shields. When you chop it, you get 10. It takes 10 turns to reforest, you you lose 10*2 or 20 shields. So in the end, you gain 6 shields.

In a city with total corruption, one forest will yield 0 shields (wastage) Clearing it takes 8 turns. You get 10 shields. Rebuilding it cost 0 shields (total corrpution) and 10 turns. So you infact get 10 shields every 18 turns. Which is not very good. So you need to put multiple workers to make this strat useful.

This could work, but you will need more than one worker doing this. (exaclty what SoulAssassin said)

[Kaak]

doesn't help at all for wonders or forbidden palace =(

[mrbilll]

This is all interesting, but entirely beside the point. The fact that we are all devising these elaborate workarounds tells you that the corruption system is f**ked! Until someone, Firaxis or third party, comes up with something more reasonable and realistic, we will continue to have to plan our entire game strategy around corruption.

All you masochists who insist that this ridiculous, poorly thought out design decision is a "challenge", knock yourselves out. I'm putting C3 on the back burner until I can enjoy it properly- instead of just following the obvious, narrowly defined corridor that Firaxis has herded us into.

[Sava]

I just tried another technique in a new game. I started the IFE progress in the beginning of the game with my own workers. I quickly found the Japanese and surrounded their nation with cities. I left some space for them to expand, and every time they go in the direction with settlers, I capture them. It's 1760 BC, I have 7 cities and 18 Japanese workers IFEing my capital. I have every building I can build and every wonder in that city. I am currently pumping out Horsemen to conquer the continent. If you IFE early and surround other CIv's, you can "harvest" workers when they try and expand. I'm playing on Regent BTW. I've found two other Civ's and they don't like me because I keep cancelling my treaty with the Japanese. It doesn't matter because I have 14 Horsemen going after them.

I CAN'T WAIT TO TRY THIS ON HUMANS.... WHERE'S MY DAMN MP FIRAXIS!!!

[player3]

This concept has been around for awhile: it's called 'Lumberjacking' for obvious reasons (though 'IFE' is just as adequate a term). This works really well if combined with forced labor: just keep chopping down forests until you can complete the project with a 'reasonable' sacrifice in population. It's ideal for both building infrastructure and building a massive army in a very small period of time.

Of course, it does nothing to solve the problem of lost commerce from corruption.

Happy lumberjacking!

[Johnny_Vegas]

this wasn't what firaxis intended

This truly is an exploitation that Firaxis didn't think all the way through. When I first saw it, I was worried about its exploitative purposes.

Hey Firaxis, here's a simple fix.. Don't allow forest "planting" to be sped up by adding multiple workers. Depending on how you wrote your code that should be easy or hard to implement.

The problem with this being a viable strategy is that it takes a lot of tedious micromanagement. Obviously trees can't grow faster, with the more labor you add to planting them!

Who wants to sit around lumberjacking all the time? If this is a designed strategy, then Firaxis should add a feature that sets your worker to "Lumberjack mode" so we don't have to maintain it ourselves. Personally I think lumberjacking imbalances the game. However its not as bad as you think because you still have to pay support costs for all those workers. And if your Despot or Communist, those workers are still taking up a chunk of your "free army support" that you could be using for other units. So in that light, maybe this isn't imbalanced. But for the sake of gameplay, Firaxis should NOT reward players that are willing to spend 5 minutes per turn micromanaging their army of 50 workers to lumberjack.... uggg

I think that the game would be better off actually, to just remove the 10 shield bonus for clearing trees altogether. Think about it. If you have some of your citizens on a forest, and it produces shields, that basically means those citizens ARE lumberjacking.

The corruption should be toned down. Maybe if it is, then people won't waste their time with lumberjacking. As it is a very cheesy loophole that the game designers and playtesters missed.

-Johnny_Vegas