When should you Chop Resources? - Civilization 6 Tutorial 

I think we’re underestimating the time value of yield. In finance, the concept of the time value of money exists because $100 dollars is worth more than $100 dollars in 10 years because you could invest that money and make more money. The same is with yields in Civ 6. Having 35 production NOW is huge instead of over 35 turn because that production turns into Settlers and builders and makes more production NOW. It provides an exponential benefit to build something that can provide more yield to you now.

You didn't mention what I think is the single most important reason to chop: Not to get wonders, not to get settlers, but to get troops. Conquering another civ is the single biggest thing you can do to increase your power. Doubly so when you play as the Romans. Having your legions chop out more legions is one of the most gamebreakingly powerful things you can do.

One thing to add - Magnus gives a 50% bonus to everything you chop, that's huge. So it makes sense to get him early plan ahead and establish him before you chop stuff. With one upgrade, you can also make settlers without losing population, which is really helpful in early game.

New players often fall into the trap of hoping to get more long term benefit by not chopping. But in reality it's not necessarily the case. A part from what you mentioned in the video, there are other circumstances that chopping will net more long term benefit. For example, a newly settled city starts with 1 population but if you chop some food resource then you can easily get 1 or 2 instant population, which immediately translates to yeilds. Also producing new settlers consumes a population and given the importance of establishing new cities early, it's far more valuable to get that instant population than waiting for natural population growth. In general chopping for new cities with low natural yield is super valuable to get a head start. Think of chopping as an investment rather beyond face value of instant vs long-term yeild.

Quick mention. Sometimes when cities close together. And share the same space. First look which city own the resource. Else your chop may end in the wrong city. I think we all have made that mistake.

Typically I try to leave woods that are growing on flat land to be turned into lumber mills later. Woods on hills should be freely chopped and replaced with a mine if you need the production. You can even get the mine sooner than the lumber mill so you can get that tile going full force faster. Remember too there is always the possibility of planting a new forest should you need it, or if you're playing as Kupe.

An important note is that when you chop you also get rid of the production or general yield the bonus resource grants you on the base tile, so chopping a stone will starve you of a potential 2 production per turn, which over 36 turns is twice as much as the chop. I don’t necessarily recommend this, however, it’s also an important note that minds will make up the difference in stone and during later eras it’ll grant you even more production. Lumber mills are really good, however farms grant you an additional 1 food per 2 adjacent farms, making farm triangles on grasslands a trio of 4 food tiles. Make sure you’re aware of what you’re going to do with districts and improvements and how those improvements will snowball you throughout the game.

Made a whole 16 minute video and didn't mention Magnus once lol.

One thing I don't like about chopping is using the charge on the builder for it, then you gotta get a new builder sooner which take more production or money and your money or production tile is gone, then you replace that tile with a mine or a lumber mill and you used more charges on more builders.

Bro, I learned more about chopping from this video than I did from the tutorial. Part of the reason I'm glad people like you exist, to share you experiences and stuff with people like me. I do gotta say, I've made it a rule of the for myself if I chop any woods, I never chop any giving me three production or above (always lumber mill those). 2, it depends on the city and if I need them. 1, tend to chop more regularly than the others. I appreciate the video, friend, and thank you for helping me out

I started off almost never chopping. But at some point I took the opposite approach. Cycle Magnus and chop pretty much everything. Instead of learning what to chop, overtime I learned what not to chop! My goal is basically to avoid putting down a district that clears the bonus/trees without chopping it first

With the example of a quarry, chopping removes 1 production, building a quarry adds 1 production So building a quarry isn't going to catch up to a chop in 36 turns, it'll catch up in 18 because of the 2 production difference.

My comment on chopping copper because VB does so is in the Iceland video. I am pleased that my comment inspired a whole video and will definitely try chopping more (it’s one of those things I know I should do but never end up doing)…

One underrated use case of chopping I'm surprised you didn't mention is that it can be a great way to 'rush' something you know that gives you era score to get you over the hump and out of an impending dark age.

I learned a lot from this, thank you! Specifically, you confirmed the thing about how chopping for production when your queue is empty doesn't waste the resource, it just banks it for the next thing you build. I didn't know for sure so I was always worried about doing that. That alone made the video valuable for me

Something I’ve done is calculate how much production I will get out of my chops, and how many turns they will take off (ex: all my chops will take 10 turns off the wonder) add the movement time and turn time so my builders can get all the chops in (say 2 turns). In total, this is 12 turns. So I wait until the wonder is 12 turns from completion and start chopping. This way, if I am working the tile, I get the extra production from the resource, and I get the production from chops without sacrificing what I would have gotten over time. I get the full 10 turns off the wonder instead of 10 turns off, but I pay 1 turns worth of production from lost resources. If your not working the tile or can build a mine on the tile after, you can just chop right away

And that's exactly the kind of things I needed to know. I've been playing this game for 300hrs, yet still thought long term development was far more interesting than short term chopping. Thats gonna help me massively, thanks

It's likely someone else has mentioned this in the comments already, but in case not, one of the most obvious occasions to harvest a bonus resource in my experience is when it resides on a tile outside of the workable radius of any of your cities (4 tiles away from a city center.) This most often applies to coastal tiles with fish or crabs that will never be useful otherwise. That tends to be later game though, and the yields from harvesting them aren't quite as useful as they would be early game, but better than leaving it doing nothing especially if you have any perks that give your builders more/expendable charges.

Another use of chopping is when you have a city with stagnant pop growth and you want to bump up the population to get another district in. You can chop a food resource and get a new population if you food balance is high enough

Thanks for the helpful overview. I've definitely underutilized chops in my games. Will be chopping more often in future games.

Just got Civ Vi in May and I have been educating myself with all your videos. Thanks for the vids. I personally would love to see you make leader videos and break down the best secret societies, policies, Wonders etc yo synergize with each civ/leader combo

A huge part of chopping especially early on higher difficulties is for military, whether that be chopping for production to finish it or chopping for gold to buy it. The stone or woods or whatever is going to provide you with nothing at all if you're dead. Chopping a swordsman into your capital may give it the combat strength it needs to hold off the attack. Chopping can save your life.

With Magnus in the city, you get a bonus for the chops

I have been playing Civ for years and did not realize that building on a forest no longer harvested the forest for production that you have to physically chop it first. OMG

Hall pass to chop everything on the map. Got it, boss.

I just started playing this game and this is very informative and interesting. Thanks for the tips. I always wondered how to get stuff built faster and why sometimes it takes forever.

Good video. Builders/build charges are essential to victory. My general rule is to chop-mine forest/rain forest on hills but I'm more judicious in other situations. There's a mod that allows you to chop bonus and luxury resources. I like the idea, other than the fact that the AI is terrible at using resources so it essentially gives humans an unnecessary buff.

I think a very important concept you did not mention is inflation. The same amount of resources is much more valuable earlier on. 36 production in the late game is a joke. At the very start of the game it may mean that your empire grows 2-3 turns faster to the same size - essentially equating to something like 3600 production a few hundred turns later. This concept is present in almost all build-up strategy games. So I think it is important to get your head around it and get a feel for how it scales in a particular game. (Keep in mind that the opportunity cost of removing a resource also grows over time, when unlocking new techs or collecting other multipliers. So in the example, the -1 production per round will easily become something like -2.5 production per round 200 turns later) I would think of inflation in Civ based on time. How much do I grow in the next two turns? How much of each resource would it cost now to grow the exact same empire one turn quicker? This should provide a base to compare the value of resources over the course of the game. Just thinking of an empire with a single city at turn 10 compared to an empire with 5 cities at turn 80 will immediately tell you that chopping may be the much better option when accounting for inflation. This concept also shows how crucial a good early game is. If you lose 5 turns of growth due to messing up a fight against barbarians or picking a bad build order, you will struggle so much more later on. Just think of all the things that happen in five turns towards the end of the game, especially if you fight a tough battle. Having a bunch of units 5 turns earlier could swing a hole war. And all the difference may be due to an unfortunate mess-up early on, e.g. loosing a unit and a builder to a barbarian at the very beginning.

Using 1/3 of a 245gold builder (roughly 82gold worth of builder + time spent doing that) to get 86gold from copper seems like a bit of a waste, doesn't it?

Choping also helps you choose what type of improvment you want - especially deer - which are improved by a camp and always are on a forest are a great candidate for this, since camps are worse improvement (giving mostly just gold) then lumber mills (giving production). I almost never keep deer tiles in games where I don't have Temple of Artemis or Goddess of the Hunt.

I'm brand new to the civ series and I've been struggling to get a science win but once i learned about chopping, i was able to fast track a bunch of projects and secure the W

I will say, it’s not one more production that takes thirty-six turns to balance out, because chopping it gets rid of the base one production unworked stone gives. So it’s 13 turns of having a quarry if worked. (But, still fair for racing for a wonder or clearing for a district/wonder.)

Shout out to the comment section on this video, I found it just as helpful as the video!

3:00 **MAXIMUM CHOPAGE!** 🤣

Improving a resource increases the rate at which you grow, chopping shortens the goalpost. Ironically, the best time to improve a tile AND the best time to chop both are as early as possible, however the benefit of chopping goes down as the game goes on at a faster rate than the benefit of improving so if you are good at planning, it's actually better to chop first tiles you know you need to chop than it is to improve the tiles you know you want to work.

Don't harvest copper, unless you're desperate for gold! In the example he showed, where the coper gave 85 gold, he immediately showed that buying a builder would cost 245 gold. So you're going to use 81.667 gold worth of builder charges to get 85 gold?!? You get that in 2 freakin turns if you just left the copper on the mine! And yeah, chops go up in value over time, but so does the cost of a builder, and that ratio holds fairly constant in my experience. It only gets worse when you realize that the more builders you spend on chops, the more expensive your other builders you need for improvements are going to get. Magnus changes this rule, chop wisely.

There is a concept in economics called the time value of money; essentially, it means that money today is worth more than money tomorrow. There is a corollary with production in Civ games, particularly when talking about wonders, that suggests that a boost of production early in the game may (in some circumstances) end up benefiting you more than long-term production boosts.

It is worth noting that resources now are generally better than resources later. If you know the game is going to end in 100 turns, and you can chop for 100 production or build a quarry for 1 production per turn, you should chop it. The simplest case is if you are building a production building, for example a factory that will give you 9 production per turn across three cities. If chopping the stone takes 2 turns of that factory build, you get 18 extra production by chopping. This applies to other resources as well, if you can build your science building a couple turns faster, that is a couple turns more of science output than if you waited for the one production per turn. Also it doesn't always matter what you put that production towards. Suppose you think a settler is worth chopping a forest for, but you need a military unit to defend against barbarians or a neighboring civ first, you don't need to wait to finish the military unit to chop. Taking two turns off the military unit effectively takes two turns off the settler. Chopping out a resource worth two turns of production effects the time for everything the city ever builds, at least until you get to a point where you are waiting on a civic, tech, resource, or population growth to build something. But even if you have to wait the two turns to build the next important thing because the tech isn't researched yet, that is two turns you can produce something useful. There are definitely some significant indicators not to chop though too, if you have other things to do with your worker like improving luxuries and strategic resources, if the improvement gives you adjacency bonuses (quarries next to industrial zones produce even more production long term). Another one is defensive terrain. If you have a belligerent neighbor, keeping woods, jungle, or marsh can have a huge impact on defensibility. Blocking line of sight for ranged and siege units is absolutely huge, and slowing down all enemy units is good. The -2 combat modifier on marshes is also nice (although woods and jungle give a bonus to enemy occupiers, which isn't ideal).

Sad Stone Circles noises.

best explain I've ever seen about chopping, thanks man.

Your videos and explanations are actually getting better and better.

With out this video all my future games would take soooooo long. I’m grateful & subbed

You forgot the BEST chops! Those around volcanoes.... 😉Those areas and bonus resources will be lost in future... it's just a matter of time.

Hello man! I'm a Brazilian fan! i watch all your's tutos about civ 6, and its very explanatory! Nice work man

So, it's useful to chop or harvest resources when you want to boost production for a specific project or goal. This is typically done in the following situations: To speed up the construction of a wonder To quickly complete an important district or building To rush the production of a crucial unit The idea is to sacrifice long-term yields for an immediate boost in production. This can be a strategic decision when you need to achieve something quickly, like beating other civilizations to a wonder or preparing for an imminent conflict. However, it's important to note that chopping or harvesting resources is a one-time benefit. Once done, you lose the ongoing yields that the resource would have provided. Therefore, it's generally advised to use this strategy judiciously and when the immediate gain outweighs the long-term loss. Would you like me to elaborate on any specific aspects of resource management in Civilization 6?

Honestly I never chopped before stumbling across some Civ6 videos. At this point I'm playing my best ever Civ 6 game as Sparta. I have so much science that my units are often obsolete before they're produced and I'm presently fighting the Inca and Byzantine civs with tank armies whilst they have pike and shot units *at best*.

Consider adding a section to talk about Magnus boosting chopping benefits by 50% :)

Great tips man, Im on like 90ish hrs in this game and there is still alot to learn, cheers :)

I am very new to civ 6 and REALLY appreciate these tips dude! TYVM!

Since you come back to the mathematical aspect of chopping, just computing the total yields over the game is not the common ansatz. One would want to define a reward for getting yields (think +1 for every production acquired) and then sum them over the entire game. The catch is, normally one adds a discount factor, emphasizing yields now over yields later. Then, given a discount factor, chopping might give the highest cumulative reward and, as such, be the most optimal action.

I never chopped a forest and woods for any city production unless it was to hasten my city wonder construction that was taken by other civ.

Chopping is kind of dumb, unless you plan on putting a building there. It's not 1 production per turn you lose, it's 2. It takes a building charge to chop, and then it removes a production. instead you drop a quarry or lumbermill or mine, you gain a production instead of losing one. So in 13 turns, you make up the 36 production from chopping, and any turn after is just bonus. Not to mention those lumbermills, mines, etc, gain more production as you advance through the science tree.

Late to the party, but some cities you make are to be made chop cities. Nothing gets build in them beside chopping every tile. Very useful when in warfare games when just need to get those tedious siege units or unique/strong units that you do not have the natural production to build fast enough to get the combat strength advantage from.

Hi, can you please make some video for city defence? I cant find anything and I dont know how it works at all. Thank you very much!

I think you should always chop woods or rainforest that’s on hills. The rest is up to you. I’m personally against chopping woods because lumbermills are incredible. But if I need to rush a wonder I’ll consider it. I always chop rainforest though.

“Once it’s gone it’s gone, I don’t get a redo” Me, an intellectual, reloading the entire game so I can optimise my push for the oracle (they stole the fucking oracle again ffs)

I usually chop the rss when I want to build stuff like districts on them

I took a shot every time he said "production" ☠

Love your vids. Very informative.

2 quarries next to industrial zone can give you a lot of extra production. I don't know if I would go for chop there. On the other hand it is nice place for campus...

I’m currently suffering from “cant build a district on this wonderful tile”-itis, any tips? Got stuff like 5+ food/prod tiles that are only spot to build some things on :’)

The secret to winning civ 6 in my opinion is effective resource management. I rarely clear forests as they provide free production. And if you build Preserves in them they are even more poweful. I play on Emperor and by endgame I'm usually the only player with most of their old growth still intact, thus my production, science, and ammentities are really high.

Hey anyone else still waiting on the sober character tier list. Pleaseeeeee

what button is to "chop" ? people say chop and i dont know what to do , i have mining men with mining skill but they dont cut trees. i have 2 hours in the game .

"before i give you the answer" *next video*

Nice explanation of the basics for people who had never thought about it. When I clicked the viedo, I was hoping for a piece of analysis or, alternatively, a rough experience-based heuristic of what Discount Factors to apply across various phases of the game, because nearly all the use cases boil down to that, don't they? You want your production now rather than spread over time, so taking a simple Discounted Cashflow approach from basic economics / investment theory, and applying it here, should tell us whether or not to chop a tile (one that is actually worked). ...kind of similar to how the AI will offer you 100 gold now for 180 gold spread out over 30 turns. Do you have a gut feeling for that? What's the adequate interest rate for all of the ressources, based on how they grow along the turns of a game?

sometimes i chop to get down my first science district quicker esp if i have a +4 location so i can start unlocking techs fast af but im a noob maybe thats not a good idea

ABC: always be choppin

Even mathematically waiting 36 turns doenst make it that good, as you didnt factor in the opportunity cost of spending the 36 production. So if you use that prod to get more resources or a wonder that provides resources it might be 60 turns until the 1 extra prod is actually paying for itself. Learning the game i was so hesitant to chop resources, probably one of the top reasons why i sucked ass :3

I think I get the FOMO if I was to chop something but it's something that I need to apply to my game to get better. I 100% need to learn to chop before I place on woods though, I just assumed it would remove the woods/jungle and it was a free chop that put production into the thing I built on top of it. I'm assuming this is now wrong and probably should've noticed from the production timer.

Theater placement was weak, you couldve placed in other places and got the same adjacency bonus, the campus on the other hand gets an additional bonus from being next to a mountain. i know this is just a tutorial but im still in game mode as i write this

Rule of 3 3 farms or pastures or wheat/rice 3 mines or lumber mills After that districts and wonders

Can you please do videos on what mechanics synergize with the Civs and their leader abilities? For example the Russia work eithic and voidsingers synergy. You could incorporate all mechanics, wonders, great people, governors, ect.

Watched you from 500 subs now your about to hit 10k

I know I should chop more, especially stone, but any time I see some stone lying around my brain immediately puts an industrial zone next to it, so I can't chop that...

This video taught me that Copper is not I fact a luxury resource

I feel like I used to know this, but at some point it slipped out of my brain.

You should always chop no matter what. I love to see a forest in my map.

There's something in defense of not chopping that wasn't mentioned. Bonuses from bonus resources grow over time with tech you obtain. Wheat will get you +3 food instead of +1 in late game for example

Good video..... all facts, straight to the point.... thank you

There are few situations in which I would not chop. Usually playing as Teddy and I need the woods for appeal/culture yield.

i would guess it's called chopping coz in civ5 chopping woods was the only interaction of this kind

If you chop something and it got rid of the two turns but it had enough for 3, does it save the other production for the next build?

Great video. Random question: do you have any clue how to disable/delay the city production tooltip? It drives me nuts. I'll subscribe if you know!

MAXIMUM CHOPABILITY ACHIEVED TIME FOR CHOPPAGE TO BEGIN

Chorvesting - that’s what we call it in my house.

Me who panic at 10:22: Noooo stop it! that's a bad spot to place a Theatre Square... you are wasting the 2 mountain adjacency bonuses.

Thanks for the videos!

What about wonders and districts that gain adjacency bonuses or boost the yield of things like quarries, mines, and rain forests? I guess that goes back into whether it fits your strategy but I personally like taking all the wonders I can get.

NEW PLAYER HERE, THANK YOU FOR THIS AND ALL THE HOMIES WHO CONTRIBUTED. I WAS SO CONFUSED ABOUT WHY I WAS SO BEHIND ALL THE TIME

Is it worth building a quarry just for the masonry eureka? Copper gives a eureka for iron working as well doesn’t it ? Haven’t played much this year , trying to get back into Civ 6 !

I still feel like its not worth it. Investing 5 rounds of production in a builder, sacrificing an additional 1 production per Turn of a forest just to reduce a Wonder by 3 turns.

love these kinds of videos

My new favorite nuance of the Canadian accent is pronouncing the "s" in resources like a Z.

Great advice!

VB, you should do a video about how you plan your games.

Your math is bad. The stone provides a +1 production itself and the quarry also provides a +1 production to that tile. So if you chop instead of quarrying that tile, you lose 2 production per turn. Note that I am not saying it isn't a good idea to chop it, but be honest about what you are trading away. Also, something people *never* seem to consider is the cost to get that builder charge as well. Add that to the cost to chop if you want to have a truly balanced equation when making the decision to chop or not to chop.

Thank you for this video. I've played for a while and I never was sure when to chop.

08:50 your argument is kinda bad. You chop down copper for less than 90 gold and then argue "maybe I grab a builder for 245 gold". The charge on the builder alone nearly has the cost of the copper. Copper is a tile you should never chop. You lose a builder charge and barely get back the cost of the builder. It is not worth it at all.

How did you even get that absurdally high amount of resources?