Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery.

I know there are a large number of micromanagers (MMers for short) hanging around in these forums so here's what I want you to do. Firstly come forward, introduce yourself and admit you have a problem. Then outline what it is you do that makes you a MMer. If you like you can also outline the ways you personally combat the addiction. We may all learn something.:shifty:

Just to get us rolling, ...

My name is PieceOfMind and I am a micromanager.:twitch:

I

make my workers part-build improvements on their way to another tile when the worker turn would otherwise be wasted,
leave units unpromoted until they are about to potentially see battle and even then I sometimes wait til they're attacked so the promotion-heal can be used.
sometimes queue up units 1 turn from finishing and build them all at once just to save a bit on unit costs.

damn a german/french phalanx !

I am a micromanager

I
- count the hammers to optimize whipping efficiency
- switch building queue to optimize chop
- check every single city each time it grows to ensure the working tiles / specialists combination is the one i want

To save steps, I moved the coffee pot next to the computer

To save steps, I moved the coffee pot next to the computer

To save steps, I moved the toilet next to the computer. :sad:

To save steps, I moved the toilet next to the computer. :sad:

I just take the computer to the toilet. ;)

I just take the computer to the toilet. ;)

For some computers, that is the most appropriate destination.

Hello, my name is Eris, and it has been a little over 12 hours since I have done MicroManaging in Civ4.

I micromanage workers. I check worker turns needed and calculate plans based on that. I use the shift key to string up commands. "You will improve these three tiles this way before I talk to you again." I check to see if two workers will get that certain improvement done fast enough to warrant taking a worker from somewhere else and some other job. For me, workers are just plain fun to deal with. Railroad building is an example. Some workers are doing railroads on tiles that need the improvement. Another small team is building that one continuous railroad string from production cities to border with the next neighbor-that-will-become-a-victim-or-threat. During war, I also MM a few military units to provide cover for workers that are doing needed war zone efforts. (Usually building a road or railroad to get troops to the frontline faster.)

I have just lately started MMing the citizens in my cities. I guess my problem with MicroManagement is getting worse, not better. I fear I may be beyond hope. Either that, or I am proud and glad that I am beyond all hope or help. Like all things Civ, it depends upon the situation.

My name is Bushface, and I am a micromanager.
I examine every city every turn to ensure that its citizens are working the tiles I want them to, and to manipulate any specialists to get the best progress towards my current target, be that local to the city or civ-wide.
I examine every idle worker every turn and send them to do what I want to improve a city's growth or production or to improve communications.
I often reserve promotions, either for use in rapid healing or to keep combat strength ratio just below 2:1 in my favour (which means 98% winning odds and +2 XP for victory; a ratio of 2.001:1 increases the odds fractionally, but a win brings just +1 XP).
I keep track of each city's buildings, population and production using spreadsheets on my notebook.
I also keep track of espionage, also on my notebook.
I keep track of research achievements in all my games for comparison and hence optimisation of research paths.
I make a "dot" map of each world, on which I mark cities, important resources and rail lines. Coloured pins show me where I have spies, warlords, and any other things I feel are important.
If anybody can suggest anything further in the micromanagement line, I'd like to hear it.

MMA? I thought I was going to see a fight. Oh well ... :blush:


(I never set any units to infinitely build or queue up anything other than Worker turns. I have to make sure every turn I still want to build another Rifleman. :)

I do set rally points, though.)

I used to be a bit of a micromanager but lately i ignore these marginal effect.
I even started to wonder if it really makes that big of a difference if you spare 10 worker turns per game, build an extra unit every 20 units etc.
You only have to make 1 little mistake, [leave a unit where it shouldn't be left, etc] and it equals all your efforts. Not to mention a big mistake where you get yourself in a war with the wrong AI at the wrong time, research the wrong thing first, etc.
So, i don't want to be disrespectfull or anything, but in my opinion it's absolutely unnecessary for playing a good game, i manage quite well at every level except maybe deity and i "MM' very little. Only in the beginning it's crucial not to waste too much time, also i try to avoid a hammer-overflow of more than the next builditem's cost, but thats not really MM, more plain sense.
The biggest lesson i learned in trying to master the higher levels is something you have a dutch saying for and is translated as "buying eggs for your money".
It means that if you can't have the best, do and settle for the second best [eggs are always decent food or somethin] instead of pursuing the goal that has no longer become reachable.
Because im a perfectionist, like you MM'ers all probably are, and then it's difficult if something imperfect comes up. Now, if i'm halfway researching the wrong tech i realise it's the wrong tech, i just switch to the right one, even if it means you admitted you made a mistake and lose some techpoints. Same with building etc.
I send a worker to alaska but immediately realise it should be building a plantation somewhere else, i just lose the turn and send him to his job. If you can't live with mistakes like that you either have to be 100% focussed while playing a game or reload every other turn. Am i right?
Maybe this is helpfull to some of you, it applies to real life as well. ;)

MMA? I thought I was going to see a fight. Oh well ... :blush:


(I never set any units to infinitely build or queue up anything other than Worker turns. I have to make sure every turn I still want to build another Rifleman. :)

I do set rally points, though.)

What do you mean by rally point? Like for all units built in a city, they get sent straight to a specific location? That would be a real time saver, where is the button to do this?

...
leave units unpromoted until they are about to potentially see battle and even then I sometimes wait til they're attacked so the promotion-heal can be used.
...

I thought this is common sense, not really a MM.. then again, I MM, so I may be bias.

Lets see.. my habit:
- I check every city every turn to make sure :hammers: are not wasted and :commerce: tiles are worked whenever possible. I also make sure I got the best combo of specialist each turn in each city.
<Side note: The left and right arrow buttons save tons of time. I used to do this via F1... now that was a pain. >

- Move the science slider up and down to get the best slider/specialist combo. Mostly set the slider to "Completion Turns" -1, add scientists and see if this can bring the turn back to "Completion Turns". On the flip side, if I am in the red, I try to move as many merchants as possible to offset the missing gpt

Mixed Martial Arts

Mixed Martial Arts

I work at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo - home of MMA fighter (and Entourage star) Chuck Liddell. :bowdown:

If you can't live with mistakes like that you either have to be 100% focussed while playing a game

That's what MicroManagement is. ;)

What do you mean by rally point? Like for all units built in a city, they get sent straight to a specific location? That would be a real time saver, where is the button to do this?

Yep: In the 'map view', click on a city's name plate ... it'll light up and show you the city's 'guts' without zooming into the city when you do it right. Then Shift+Click on the tile you want to 'rally' at. A little yellow circle will appear on the tile if you've done it correctly.

From that point on, any unit not set to immediately automate (that's a bad setting to have on, btw) will move to that tile before asking you again what to do.

If the rally point is set to a water tile, then land units will move as close to that tile as possible before asking you what to do. If there's already a transport ship with vacancy waiting on that water tile, the land unit will board it and 'wake' the transport.

If the rally point is set to a land tile, then water units will immediately ask you what to do when built, unless that land tile is a coastal Fort-Canal within your borders.

I work at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo - home of MMA fighter (and Entourage star) Chuck Liddell. :bowdown:Good for you, The Iceman is a top-notch fighter. I had no idea he starred in Entourage though? Never checked that TV series out, perhaps I should?

Good for you, The Iceman is a top-notch fighter. I had no idea he starred in Entourage though? Never checked that TV series out, perhaps I should?

Well, he was in one episode where he punked one of the stars. Chuck pretended to be mad at him (Johnny Drama) over a parking space incident. When Drama attended a charity fight, Liddell called him out to fight, then punked him for some TV show.

Well, he was in one episode where he punked one of the stars. Chuck pretended to be mad at him (Johnny Drama) over a parking space incident. When Drama attended a charity fight, Liddell called him out to fight, then punked him for some TV show.Sounds interesting. Found S03E16 in 720p. Gonna check it out. Thanks for the tip! :)

That's what MicroManagement is. ;)



Yep: In the 'map view', click on a city's name plate ... it'll light up and show you the city's 'guts' without zooming into the city when you do it right. Then Shift+Click on the tile you want to 'rally' at. A little yellow circle will appear on the tile if you've done it correctly.

From that point on, any unit not set to immediately automate (that's a bad setting to have on, btw) will move to that tile before asking you again what to do.

If the rally point is set to a water tile, then land units will move as close to that tile as possible before asking you what to do. If there's already a transport ship with vacancy waiting on that water tile, the land unit will board it and 'wake' the transport.

If the rally point is set to a land tile, then water units will immediately ask you what to do when built, unless that land tile is a coastal Fort-Canal within your borders.

OMG so useful! Why isn't this a tip you see when loading a map...

Hey, can you also "autopromote" those rally pointed units? Only thing I micro is my stacks on units while they plow through the enemy :)

Ok, I'm a serious case of MM addcit and going increasigly worse :p I even MM Sims 2 :faint: ......

Now I sincerely hope there is not a preach about the bad things that MM does ( none AFAIK ) or a 10 steps program .... ;)

Well, he was in one episode where he punked one of the stars. Chuck pretended to be mad at him (Johnny Drama) over a parking space incident. When Drama attended a charity fight, Liddell called him out to fight, then punked him for some TV show.Seen it now, funny stuff. Chuck seems to be a really nice guy though, at least I get that impression from talk shows, etc. :)

edit:
I often reserve promotions /.../ to keep combat strength ratio just below 2:1 in my favour (which means 98% winning odds and +2 XP for victory; a ratio of 2.001:1 increases the odds fractionally, but a win brings just +1 XP).I didn't know about this. Useful tip, thanks!

I send a worker to alaska but immediately realise it should be building a plantation somewhere else, i just lose the turn and send him to his job. If you can't live with mistakes like that you either have to be 100% focussed while playing a game or reload every other turn. Am i right?
Maybe this is helpfull to some of you, it applies to real life as well. ;)

You do realise don't you that being a MMer doesn't necessarily imply you make bad judgements like that. If a worker is needed urgently somewhere that will take ten turns to travel, you won't find MMers making him do various things along the way. We are talking more about when the jobs are not urgent and are nearby. Generally speaking there is absolutely no reduction in time of getting there, or if there is the worker will still be on time to finish the improvement at the destination when it's needed. Generally MMers understand what little things have a positive effect and what little things have a negative effect.


I thought this is common sense, not really a MM.. then again, I MM, so I may be bias.

Well most MM is common sense. The thing that makes MM different from general tactics and strategy is that MMing often has little impact (relatively speaking) for the time put in.

Anyway, c'mon guys there's gotta be some more MMing techniques out there!

I'll do some more...

I


never let my gold reserves drop below 1000 after I have discovered Corporation and am under Free Market - I don't want to miss out on the Federal Reserve random event!
frequently renogiate resource exports just so I can get a few more gpt,
adjust the slider to make the most of changes in research or gold bonuses eg. doing a few turns of 0% science while I have my main science cities building libraries for a few turns,
pre-chop forests! (yeah it's obvious but no one's mentioned it yet and it is MMing)
check the glance screen every time before I make a few trades just to make sure worst enemy relations haven't changed considerably while I wasn't looking

Ok, one more to the list ( P.S Killing research while building libs... never though on that one ;) ):
- Starve cities to squeze some extra hammers ( the weaker :whipped: )
- Play with military build queues to shave some turns on build ( rifles + frigates or airships work well with that ). You sometimes can cut 10% of the time for the same queue with that
-The now classic hammer overflow techiques.... good to pay that extra city long enough to getting it to pay it self

I check the foreign advisor screen every turn to check for new resourse trades (for other resources I need, GPT, or renegotiate for more GPT) and tech trading opportunities, especially selling cheap techs for decent dough to backwards/isolated opponents (Meditation for 120 gold in 500BC ftw!).

Religion is under constant watch. Using religions politically is the best way to stay out of war with aggressive (opportunistic) AI, which I always use. I have the chart for how much each leader will like you for sharing their religion or hate you for not having it. It's tedious but very worth it if you can avoid holy wars, or make your neighbor not :mad: at you so you can build up for an invasion while being assured they aren't doing the same (aimed at you anyway...)

If multiple civs have a tech I want and I'm willing to give good stuff to each, I bargain with each to find the lowest bidder. This takes up a good deal of time right after alphabet, but it's worth it to keep a monopoly on good techs for awhile or make some extra money to keep the slider at 100%.

make my workers part-build improvements on their way to another tile when the worker turn would otherwise be wasted,


I would consider this very mild micromanagment. I do this fairly often, but I don't really consider myself a micromanager.




leave units unpromoted until they are about to potentially see battle and even then I sometimes wait til they're attacked so the promotion-heal can be used.


This is not at all micromanagement. Just common sense.



sometimes queue up units 1 turn from finishing and build them all at once just to save a bit on unit costs.




This I'd consider micromanagement. I never do it (too lazy I think :))

Someone else mentioned queuing up multiple worker actions. Again, I don't consider that MM at all, just common sense. You're telling the worker what to do the same as if you waited for each action to finish, the only difference being you're telling it up front, so you don't have to interact with that worker for a number of turns. I do this all game long, every game.

I would consider this very mild micromanagment. I do this fairly often, but I don't really consider myself a micromanager.


Oh that is definitely MM.
For the gain of only probably a few more worker turns for many workers, you are having to give a number of orders every turn rather than just have workers move to point A, complete project, move to point B etc. Most players don't bother half-building improvements, firstly because it takes some effort to remember or check what improvement was being built when you come back to the tile later. Secondly, it is not at all obvious that it is more efficient to part build things to use up worker turns. The key issue as far as I can tell is that a worker with 2 movement points, ordered to work on an improvement will only contribute as much on that turn as a worker who had 1 movement point remaining. If number of moves remaining was also a factor in how much a worker could contribute then this form of MM would vanish. :)


As another closely related example, if you have two workers building a road from point A to point B, and there are a couple of hills or forrests on the way, having only one worker turn wasted for moving onto a hill is sometimes more efficient than having both workers move onto the hill unroaded. This takes a considerable amount of input from the player for fairly little gain (one could just use the build route command).



This is not at all micromanagement. Just common sense.

I think what makes someone a MM'er is frequently doing a good proportion of these forms of MM'ing. If you do one or two it may not make you a MM'er but it means you have more appreciation for the certain positive effect of the micromanagement. Choosing promotions before battle is almost certainly far more likely for most people to choose. Sending in an unpromoted soldier to fight a battle gambling on the hope it will survive and be able to use the promotion-heal is a tricky decision and I would say most non-MM'ers would just promote before battle always. In most cases the difference in results from the two methods would be small and it takes a fair bit of thought so I think it falls under the category of MM.

One does need to be careful calling it MM though because the most likely forms of MM for people to do are those involving battle, since I think the tactics of battle are what many people enjoy in the game and would like to give thought to.





This I'd consider micromanagement. I never do it (too lazy I think :))

Someone else mentioned queuing up multiple worker actions. Again, I don't consider that MM at all, just common sense. You're telling the worker what to do the same as if you waited for each action to finish, the only difference being you're telling it up front, so you don't have to interact with that worker for a number of turns. I do this all game long, every game.

Agreed... If anything queueing up unit actions would be anti-MM, since you are forfeiting the opportunity to change your mind of what is best to build after the worker completes one improvement. It also makes it impossible to part-build improvements, as described above. I rarely queue up worker actions unless the worker is alone in his area. I think someone else mentioned that not queueing up worker actions is one of their uses of MM. You can't have two opposites both being MM!