He's a lumberjack and he's ok...

[CygnusZ]

About the workers, I'm sure most of you have noticed that the forests can be harvested for about 20 shields a crack. Now, I was thinking about how tough it was for me to build wonders, especially since I like to build cities in grassy areas, but hills sometimes can be an issue.

**Micromanagment insanity warning**

Build an army of workers. Now, once you've gotten enginering, go plant forests right around the city you wish to push in production. Then cut'em down. Throw enough workers on the fire and it should be done really quick. There ya go, quick easy shields.

Now, hold on, I haven't actually tried to do this with wonder's yet, and it might not work. But it will work with regular structures.

[Shiva]

It doesnt. Disbanding doesnt either.

[CygnusZ]

damn damn damn. Oh well, at least you can use it to amass a military force quickly, build a courthouse or just churn extra money into your economy via "wealth".

[jones]

yes...WAY too much micromanaging

I did spend some time trying to get lumberjacking to work with wonders but no joy.

[cassembler]

You could, perhaps, build up production on another building and switch, yes?

I haven't tried it though.

[Barry Brenesal]

Originally posted by cassembler
You could, perhaps, build up production on another building and switch, yes?

I haven't tried it though.

At least you admitted it. No, that doesn't work. The only switch you can employ without penalty is moving between wonders.

[Velociryx]

Hmmm....that's interesting. I just posted on another thread where I met with success doing the lumberjack approach to build the Great Library in my last game. In fact, that was the only way I was able to beat the four other civs that had a head start on that project to it. Ten shields a pop, all straight into the production of the library. I'll have to go back and start a new game to watch more closely, but something sure was ratcheting the build time down fast....

:: perplexed as he prepares to dive into Civ3 again::


-=Vel=-

[CygnusZ]

Hmm, maybe native forests always provide the bonus and forests created by ecological engineering do it some of the time?

I'm going to play a bit now, I'll be back with whatever I find...

[jones]

I don't think it's impossible, I just didn't figure out exactly how to do it. One point, I accidently hit "automate worker to clear forests" Shift-F instead of Shift-R. As they happened to be on a forest square next to a wonder-producing city, I got shields for it.

The question is, exactly how long does the forest have to stand? 1 turn?

[Shiva]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Hmmm....that's interesting. I just posted on another thread where I met with success doing the lumberjack approach to build the Great Library in my last game. In fact, that was the only way I was able to beat the four other civs that had a head start on that project to it. Ten shields a pop, all straight into the production of the library. I'll have to go back and start a new game to watch more closely, but something sure was ratcheting the build time down fast....

:: perplexed as he prepares to dive into Civ3 again::


-=Vel=-

I'm pretty sure it doesnt. I'll have to try it again on the next wonder.

I do know for sure disbanding will not help a wonder though. It wont give you the "added X shields" message" and I double checked on the amount of shields in the build box. Thought I had a use for all those cav units after I had tanks.

[CygnusZ]

Well, some people have shown it to work. So there are two possibilties:

A. This technique will only work with "natural" forests.

B. There is a time differential between the planting of forest and the ability to harvest the shields.

I guess we're all hoping for B ... but you never know

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by CygnusZ
Well, some people have shown it to work. So there are two possibilties:

A. This technique will only work with "natural" forests.

B. There is a time differential between the planting of forest and the ability to harvest the shields.

I guess we're all hoping for B ... but you never know

It might also relate to borders. If its inside your border it will work, otherwise no. Or vise versa. It needs more testing though.

[mcaber]

Or could it be forests connected with roads?

Maybe it´s completely randomized.

[CygnusZ]

Hmm.. roads, there's an idea to try.
Anyway, I'd think figuring this out would really give us human players a bit of an edge

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Barry Brenesal


At least you admitted it. No, that doesn't work. The only switch you can employ without penalty is moving between wonders.

Try the Palace. Switch with no penalty. Can also be used to switch multiple cities building multiple wonders around.

[Wretch]

Here's my idea for rushing your wonders: shift all the citizens in the town to shield squares away from food squares - even use workers to mine your irrigated areas. Starve the bastards down and replace the population with workers you force build in other towns. It'll cost you population *and* gold, but hey.

Wretch

[ICMB]

Originally posted by CygnusZ
Hmm.. roads, there's an idea to try.
Anyway, I'd think figuring this out would really give us human players a bit of an edge

I just did some testing in a saved game.

I got 7 workers, which was enough to reforest grassland (3) and to then clear it (4) in a single turn. When I reforested and cleared, I did not get production in my nearest city when I had a Wonder in production. I changed to a non-Wonder, and was able to get 10 shields even if I cleared the land in the same turn.

In other words, if you can reforest (and I don't seem to be able to do it anywhere...does it depend on an advance?), and have 7 workers, you can get a +10 production bonus per turn (at the cost of 7 gold per turn). Even though it does require some micromanagement, it seems a better use of extra workers than just adding to big cities when you run out of useful things for them to do.

It does not work on the Palace, so while it won't help you quickly move your capital around to help corruption problems, it might help build courthouses and such faster.

(edit, fixing worker cost)
Workers cost 10 shields to make. This means that a set of workers costs 70 shields and 7 gold per turn. After making 7 cycles of this, they "pay" for their own production, and will have cost 49 gold for 70 shields (and the original 7 population points, of which there are usually plenty before aquaducts and before hospitals).

In short, you end up getting about 1.4 shields per gold, and can distribute the initial production around your Civ in order to help a single city grow faster.

That is all..

- ICMB

[CygnusZ]

Worker's cost.. I believe 5 shields a crack

Maybe it's ten... but I think 5...

[Capt Dizle]

We all know there are built in AI cheats and surely you have seen the AI build a wonder just before you are set to finish it.

One person posted about that workers set on auto-harvest did produce shields toward the production of a wonder. If we can reproduce it we will have discovered an AI cheat we can use. Does anyone remember how we learned to duplicate the infinite missle bug in SMAC? We just automated the missles I think therefore using the AI code and getting around the player movement limit. This could be the same thing.

So, we just need to move the worker into a forest in the radius of the wonder producing city and automate it. Maybe.

Otherwise clearing forests is dumb. It takes one worker 5 turns to plant them and 10 to clear. Thats less than one mineral per turn and it costs 15 gold to support the unit in Republic or Demo. Better to use pop points to make little hamlets in cruddy city sites. This prevents the AI from camping in your backyard and heck, even a size one city will produce a couple of shields and gold per turn. Thats a lot more than you can get from harvesting.

[ICMB]

Originally posted by CygnusZ
Worker's cost.. I believe 5 shields a crack

Maybe it's ten... but I think 5...

Thanks. I checked the manual and corrected.

Also, I'd say you should consider if you want more production or food. If you end a turn with forest in the tile you get 1 food/2 shields, whereas if you end with unirrigated or unmined grassland you get 2 food/0 shields.

Personally, with the overall surplus of food I usually have, I'd recomment ending the turn on forest, use the first 4 workers to clear the forest, and the last three to replant the forest.

Oh, and finally, if the worker rates do vary between government types/civs then the numbers will need a little tuning. Either way, it seems much cheaper than just hurrying, and is repeatable. (I probably won't, as the micromanagement would get old. I might use it periodically to help a specific city get what it needs.

- ICMB

[ICMB]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
One person posted about that workers set on auto-harvest did produce shields toward the production of a wonder. If we can reproduce it we will have discovered an AI cheat we can use. Does anyone remember how we learned to duplicate the infinite missle bug in SMAC? We just automated the missles I think therefore using the AI code and getting around the player movement limit. This could be the same thing.

Well, I'd guess the game differentiates between natural and planted forests, and doesn't count planted forests for Wonders.

Firaxis has obviously put a lot of effort into preventing people from hurrying wonders, which makes the leader that much more valuable.

- ICMB

[Capt Dizle]

It would nice to be able to get a leader. Militaristic civs have a much better shot at them, IMHO.

With the Romans I got too very quickly in the ancient age. Playing as France two long wars with the English has produced nada (except the razing of about a dozen English cities )

[ICMB]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
It would nice to be able to get a leader. Militaristic civs have a much better shot at them, IMHO.

With the Romans I got too very quickly in the ancient age. Playing as France two long wars with the English has produced nada (except the razing of about a dozen English cities )

After three full games as Romans, Indians, and Chinese, I've got one leader, and that was very late in the game as I took the final Russian city after I burned an inordinate number of tanks to take over Russia. I never did get a chance to use him in a fight. Seems like wonder building is a better use than an army.

I did see an AI leader once, but he was killed by me the same turn he had become a leader, so he didn't have a chance to army it up.

- ICMB