Lumberjacking problems

[Sloan]

I tried to use the lumberjacking strategy in my last game but I ran into a few snags.

1. I had a city far away from my capitol with a huge corruption problem. I used lumberjacking to build an aqueduct. It would take 100 turns without lumberjacking. Lumberjacking brought it down by 10 turns like we would expect it to so I built my aqueduct very quickly.

2. I had a city much closer to my captiol with much less corruption where I tried lumberjacking my way to a library and cathedral. I think the library started out at 30 turns and went down to 20 as was expected. The next turn I cut down a forest and it said 10 sheilds were returned by to the city, but the turns remaining only went down 8. I replanted and cut down. This time it went down 6. Replant, cutdown, goes down by 3. When I started my cathedral the first time it only went down by 8, then 6, then 3 every time.

3. I tried to lumberjack a temple in a city on the other sie of the world. The numbers went down by 10 every time until I got down under 20. Then it went down by 3.

I don't think these shields are being lost to corruption since It seemed to work very well on one of my cities that was only producing 1 shield with the rest going to corruption. Is it possible that the reforesting loses its effectiveness after a certain numbr of times? I tired reforesting different tiles with the same city, but I still wasn't able to get 10 shields with a different tile?

Anyone else experience this?

Playing as Americans, Democracy, Warlord

[solo]

In 2., you say the first harvest brought the count down to 20. Then you say the following one brought it down to only 8. Is this a typo on your part, because if they started at 20, subtracting 10 for the logs and another 2 shields for the city's contribution, the count would be 20 minus 12 = 8, which is just what you stated, and what I would expect.

When there are fewer than 10 or fewer turns left to build an item, odd things may happen, as all 10 shields will not be required.

In my experience with a city with less corruption, I've always been getting 10 shields, and this is after countless cuts on the same tile.

[Sloan]

It is an error on my part. I don't remember what the exact numbers were, but I know for a fact that I wasn't getting 10 shields every time. I know sometimes it said it had 8 turns left and I would cut down a forest, but the unit would not be finished the next turn.

[Jack_www]

The number of turns it takes to make something in a city is based on how many sheilds it makes a turn and how many sheilds are in the production box. The things you are saying are not a result of corruption. The 10 sheilds are added directly to what every the city is making. So the changed in the decrease of the number of turns it takes to finish something each time you cut trees down is not because of corruption and I would not worry at all about it.

[solo]

Okay, then I'm stumped by this, too, but when there are 10 shields or less left to complete an improvement, I believe the wood only brings this down to 1 turn left, i.e. you have to wait at least 1 more turn after adding logs to get the improvement.

With 10 or less shields left, could it be the wood is shared among other nearby cities? Just an idea to test.

[Sevorak]

If the city was making more than one shield per turn, and it was using the forest you lumberjacked, the turn-count will reflect that the forest is no longer there.

-Sev

[solo]

I think I know what's happening. The number next to the city refers to turns left to complete the improvement. If the city is producing only one shield, turns left and shields left is always the same, and lumberjacking will reduce the count by 10, but suppose, for example, the city is generating 2 shields, very likely for a city with less corruption. Then the number next to the city will be half of the shields needed to complete the improvement and lumberjacking will only reduce the number by 5 each turn instead of the 10 you usually see for a fully corrupt city. As the city gains more shields in production, the turns to completion will be reduced even less every time logs are delivered. For example, a city generating 5 shields will only see a 2 turn reduction for each lumberjacking contribution.

[Sloan]

Yes! This is exactly what is happening. Thanks.