04-03-2004 14:27									#31
	Got spare money?

quote: Originally posted by jtsisyoda Or am I missing the point?

If you take a line and read it in the lookup table, you see that due to roundings some minerals to add will cost you 3 and some just 2 (or 4 & 3, depending on which line you are).

The cost per mineral on that buy will then go slightly up and down while you decide whether buying a few more or less.
But those would be just marginal decimal shavings, other factors would be likely driving your decision, as we all expounded above.

Let's look for instance at the 13 missing minerals line.
The actual costs for buiyng just 1 to all the 13 minerals are
3 6 8 11 14 16 19 21 24 27 29 32 34
individually, "mineral per mineral" this means
3 3 2 3 3 2 3 2 3 3 2 3 2

Imagine you planned to buy 5 minerals, which cost you 14. You realise "Hey, if I add 2 measly more ec I gain 1 whole extra mineral". Same from 10 to 11.
But instead, adding the 12th costs you 3 (from 29 to 32).

You see that what Kody stated is not a general principle, it's only a collateral effect of roundings.

Kody made clear what he meant, if you read the following sentence in his original post: when you have less minerals missing, those minerals cost you less each than rushing when you miss many.

Take a 15 missing minerals unit: 41ec to completion.
If you miss just 4 minerals, you pay them just 8ec.
With 40ec you can buy the 4 last minerals in 5 bases (or 5 times in the same base), getting 5 more minerals for 1ec less.
When you just rush the last 4 missing, you won't probably gain a turn on THAT build, as it would have been very likely been completed the same with production alone. But you'll have accumulated those 4 more for your *next* build, and THAT might be sped up gaining one turn on completion. And a compund effect might build up over time.
The rationale behind it is that *if you are not pressed*, you should prefer to make several small unit purchases, rather than a few big ones. Of course when you need a unit "here and now", you can't choose.


WHAT I wanted to stress, is that when you miss those example 13 minerals, they ALL DO cost 2.62ec each, before you take roundings into account.

In the beginning there were several players saying:
"The last 5 cost 11. Completing for 10 missing costs 25. THUS the next 5 cost 14. Then next 5 again cost 16, as completing 15 missing costs 41"
So they thought that when missing 15, buying just 5 (from the 15th to the 11th) would have costed those 16, instead of the actual 14.
This is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. They completely misfigured the units rush cost structure and mechanism.

And Kody's intial phrasing could have been misunderstood this way by the unadvised reader, and I wanted to avoid that the original misunderstandings were once more perpetuated, just because of an ill phrasing spoiling all the good work you had done.

	04-03-2004 14:41									#32
	Put an end to popups!

Shawn, you're right, that's what most do and I did too sometimes.

You can always do that when you don't have the table or don't want to use it.

IF you instead open the table and keep it in the background, when you need to rush a unit all you have to do is to Alt-Tab and just lookup, which is much more easier and quick.
At a glance you run thru you options picking the optimal one, without needing to recalculate over and over as you're making up your mind.

These are just two methods to the same result, to each of us to choose the one he prefers.

BUT.
The one thing that the table allows you to do, that you can't do by checking the total cost and calculating only when you purchase, is to PLAN AHEAD.
Thanks to the table, you can make economic and spending decisions even 2 or 3 turns IN ADVANCE on the turn you'll actually rush the needed unit(s).

	04-03-2004 19:36									#33
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Kody made clear what he meant, if you read the following sentence in his original post: when you have less minerals missing, those minerals cost you less each than rushing when you miss many.

I meant both. The less minerals you have missing and the closer you rush to completion. Let me point again to the table that I attached earlier, only this time I'll put a paste in of the mineral rush rate.

"Missing
Minerals" Total per Min 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
1 2 2.00 2.000
2 4 2.00 2.000 2.000
3 6 2.00 2.000 2.000 2.000
4 8 2.00 2.000 2.000 2.000 2.000
5 11 2.20 3.000 2.500 2.333 2.250 2.200
6 13 2.17 3.000 2.500 2.333 2.250 2.200 2.167
7 16 2.29 3.000 2.500 2.333 2.500 2.400 2.333 2.286
8 19 2.38 3.000 2.500 2.667 2.500 2.400 2.500 2.429 2.375
9 22 2.44 3.000 2.500 2.667 2.500 2.600 2.500 2.571 2.500 2.444
10 25 2.50 3.000 2.500 2.667 2.500 2.600 2.500 2.571 2.500 2.556 2.500
11 28 2.55 3.000 3.000 2.667 2.750 2.600 2.667 2.571 2.625 2.556 2.600 2.545
12 31 2.58 3.000 3.000 2.667 2.750 2.600 2.667 2.714 2.625 2.667 2.600 2.636 2.583
13 34 2.62 3.000 3.000 2.667 2.750 2.800 2.667 2.714 2.625 2.667 2.700 2.636 2.667 2.615
14 37 2.64 3.000 3.000 2.667 2.750 2.800 2.667 2.714 2.750 2.667 2.700 2.727 2.667 2.692 2.643
15 41 2.73 3.000 3.000 3.000 2.750 2.800 2.833 2.857 2.750 2.778 2.800 2.818 2.750 2.769 2.786 2.733

As you can see in general the more you rush to completion the better it is.
I originally believed what MariOne believed, however I was doing some work on testing the effectiveness of multiple turn rush buying for the same production. I found that you don't save any money by rushing a the production a few minerals at a time over multiple turns (unless you're under the 10 mineral limit). You're better of just doing all your rushing in one go.

The reason why this is so is because the last minerals get cheaper. If the rate really was flat for all the minerals then the strategy of partial rushing over multiple turns would work.

*Note if you look carefully there are a few incidences where the rate does go up, but mainly it goes down the more you rush.

	06-03-2004 00:20									#34
	Suffering from ads?

Sometimes you can take advantage of those little anomalies to save a little pocket change by rushing a little bit on the turn before the final build turn, but it is hardly worth the mental effort, except possibly in the very beginning of the game, where saving 1 ec might be a big deal.

-------------------------------

I think that sometimes it is better to NOT be in a hurry to finish a build, especially if you are only going to just barely finish it, with no carry-forward. This would be true especially for certain facilities, like Bioenhancement Centers, which have a stiff maintenace fee and don't give you anything immediately. For example, if you were producing 10 mins and would end up 2 short of completion - if you were unwilling to pay more than the 4 needed to complete, you would be better off waiting til the next turn to pay the 4 - in either case on the following turn you would have the facility and 10 mins in the buildbank (toward a military unit presumably), but by rushing the 2 mins later, you save the maint fee at no cost whatsoever. (If your production is greater than 10 mins, there could be some benefit to rushing sooner.) Other situations, such as finishing the building a Creche (especially while pop-booming) or a Colony a turn earlier could lead to unpleasant side effects that might work better for you the following turn. I guess there can be such a thing as turn disadvantage.

	06-03-2004 07:03									#35
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Thanks for the heads-up, I didn't realize the tables were that comprehensive (I should have read more carefully, I have coffee in me now). I'll have to download them and do just that, because I do plan ahead. Of course sometimes the best efforts... I'm in a PBEM, was ready to build two rush build two Rec Commons and go off 20% psych (early game - Free Market, no SP's by anyone yet - will increase my research by 30%) and then I accidently with my probe team found the Hive's colony pod moving up to our border. I grabbed it as it would put them right up close to my main base, but it totally derailed EVERYTHING. *&^%

	08-03-2004 14:11									#36
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quote: Originally posted by Kody I originally believed what MariOne believed, however I was doing some work on testing the effectiveness of multiple turn rush buying for the same production. I found that you don't save any money by rushing a the production a few minerals at a time over multiple turns

OF COURSE NOT!

It looks like we have totally misunderstood each other, then.

I NEVER meant in any moment that you'd do multiple rushes for the SAME production!!!
Except if you can allow 2 turns and need a first pre-rush to reach the 10-min limit on subsequent turn, multiple rushes for the same production would be the most stupid way to use your rush money.
I didn't even understood that you were examining that option, because it was so clearly stupid in my mind that I didn't even take it in consideration.

When I wrote

quote: With 40ec you can buy the 4 last minerals in 5 bases (or 5 times in the same base), getting 5 more minerals for 1ec less.

, I thought I had made clear that I intended 5 *different* units, either at the same time in 5 different bases, OR 5 times THE LAST 4 MINERALS in the same base, but NOT 5 times the same production of a SINGLE unit! In the same base, I was making a comparison with rushing the last 4 minerals of 5 different units of the same design in 5 subsequent productions!


____

That made clear, of course I totally agree with what jdm wrote.

Seeking cost-efficiency can give you an advantage.
But remember that you should seek the most efficient *way to achieve your tactical\strategic goal*, not the *best efficiency* per se regardless of your goal...

	08-03-2004 14:26									#37
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Originally posted by Kody The reason why this is so is because the last minerals get cheaper. If the rate really was flat for all the minerals then the strategy of partial rushing over multiple turns would work. *Note if you look carefully there are a few incidences where the rate does go up, but mainly it goes down the more you rush.

This is rather straightforward.

The rate IS really flat.... "BEFORE" the rounding....
The fluctuations are only due to the fractional rounding spread in average over the minerals you buy, thus the more you buy the less effect the rounding has on the actual average cost (apart when the cost decimals "cross over an integer"), and in the end the average cost for total completion IS equal to the cost per mineral.

When the cost per mineral is just above the integer, this is more evident. Take the case of 5 missing minerals.

This does not mean that, if you happen to miss 5 minerals and your base produces 14, you don't pay 3 credits for a single mineral in order to have 10 already on next turn production.

	01-04-2004 06:50									#38
	Re: Re: Rush Buying - Maximise your ECs today! Support Apolyton

quote: Originally posted by MariOne It would just be NICER if at least credits to previous work were acknowledged. It's not matter of copyright, but "NetHog's" Excel table is actually MY table. He had built one table, but then I showed him the one I had done years before, and he adopted mine completely. The layout, conceptual organization and actual formulas are all those of my original table. He added the examples tab, where I only offered the chart and made any observation and explanation in the threads. And also there indeed, his #3 and #4 examples were added after I explained him in a thread the related rushing tactics (which were also common knowledge amongst the veteran players community). .... I was just a bit because I *thought* to remember that NetHog had added references to my original work in his file, and I realised that wasn't the case.... Other from that, I didn't want to take any credit,and I concur that names such those of Mongoose, Ogie, Buster should be revered here.

I just noticed this post and saw these comments from MariOne.

Actually on both the Excel and the PDF, the following words appear: "Acknowledgment: MariOne of Apolyton - for technical detail and rush building chart format"

I had no intention of appearing to steal MariOne's work and simply wanted to provide the most accurate information and examples in summary format to the general user community. For historical purposes please see the original thread MariOne refers to: Updated Rush Building Chart

	01-04-2004 12:12									#39
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Brilliant and hilarious!

	01-04-2004 12:28									#40
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

This one's a keeper. I hope noone objects to some editing and reformatting of their posts?

-Jam