Discovering FLIGHT, building AIRPORT - same turn

fittstim · September 12, 2002, 06:07

It all started when...

Beginning of turn, I discovered Flight, which gives the ability to build airports. Then a whole bunch of my numerous cities start going into civil disorder. I zoomed into one of the cities and clicked on the center tile to set things straight again. But instead of exiting the window, I for some reason clicked on arrow towards the top of the screen which allows one to page through all of the cities.

Hmmm. Interesting. So I started clicking on all of the center tiles for all of my cities, creating entertainers by the dozens (I was at war with 2 countries and my gov't was a democracy). No other city that turn went into civil disorder although many of them would have if I hadn't gone through and changed everything.

I also noticed that I could change cities that had been set to Wealth to Airport and that the build time for the airport in several of the cities was 1 turn. Surely enough. When the build part of the turn came to that particular city, POOF, I had built an airport.

What is even worse (or better depending on your perspective) is that my civilization had already received it's gold for that turn (at the very beginning) but since I switched all of the cities producing Wealth to Airport, I actually received twice as much benefit (gold and shields) for each of those cities.

Additionally, this allows you to build a unit in half a turn. For example, a bunch of enemy tanks attack your city and kills everyone except a battered and bruised warrior (which you accidentally had forgotten about and never upgraded to swordsman). A second group of tanks is fast approaching (they ended their turn one tile away).

OK now it's your turn. When your first city builds something, you page through all of the cities until you come to the one under attack. You switch the build to Mech. Infantry and rush build. POOF. That same turn, you have built a MI. Normally, you would have had to wait till all the building happened then go to the city and rush build. But this would have been a waste because the enemy would have attacked and captured your city before you could have created the new unit.

There's a lot more examples I could give but I'll save it for the discussion. And, yes, I'm using the 1.29f patch.

Gramphos · September 12, 2002, 11:23

Yes, the game processed each city in a time when going over the new turns, and yoju may change things that change the outcome of a turn.

If I remember correctly this should also be possible:
If you for instance, the turn before a discovery removes any luxury rate you have for, when discovering the new advance, go to the advisors and restore the value as was before. Then there will be no disorder, and yet you got the other benefits.

Sean · September 13, 2002, 01:57

It all seems plausible too me. It is consistent with the game design.

Pity I didn't think of it myself really...

notyoueither · September 13, 2002, 03:09

Except, I don't think you get the gold if you switch from wealth. I remember testing for this a while ago and the numbers worked out that the cities switched from wealth did not kick the extra into the kitty.

fittstim · September 13, 2002, 04:55

I'm pretty sure that the +/- adjustments to the treasury are done at the very beginning of the turn - before any building. Same goes for the allocation of science.

I'm basing that assumption on the fact that the amount of gold I have changes at the beginning of the turn and changing Taxmen to Entertainers during the building stage has no effect on this number.

So therefore at the end of a turn I can set all of my cities to Wealth and Taxmen except the one that comes first in the pecking order (usually the capital city). This city, I set to something which only takes one turn to build. When that city builds the unit/improvement, I can then go through every single city, change from Wealth to actual units/improvements and change from Taxmen to Entertainers/Workers/Scientists as necessary. I reap all of the gold from having cities producing Wealth AND I reap all of the shields and/or benefits from Entertainers/Scientists. Seems absurd.

You can easily crush the AI on deity using this "technique" (although I must say that I think it's a bug).

N.B. This is a drastic change from Civ2 where each cities +/- gold was adjusted individually during the building phase thus prompting the selling-off of cathedrals and such almost every turn even though as a whole your civ would have enough gold to cover these expenses.

Gramphos · September 13, 2002, 05:25

I concider it as a bug, or exploit. and am therefore not using it (at least not in any planned ways)