MIcro managment

[lostmage2]

Hello all I would like to know what all you guy's do to micro manage your empires.

I am a monarchy player looking for the core routines that players use for diety ,sid modes of play.

Hope to make this a good artical for all players to be able to learn something from.

well that is all
Thank you for your time.

[TimBentley]

Welcome to CFC!

In the early game, you want to preserve every food and shield, so a few turns before growth or production, I check to see if food or shields can be altered to avoid waste (eg a city is at 2fpt with 5 food left to grow; make the city 1fpt for one turn, or better yet, make it 3fpt for one turn). Sometimes it is impossible to avoid wasting food or shields so I try to gain extra commerce instead. I'm starting to get into planning my opening 20ish turns as soon as I see the terrain (there are some spreadsheets for making this easier). I also plan out settler or worker factories by comparing the food and shields per turn with different citizen allocations.

Later in the game, I try to see if I can get cities to produce a unit without waste (for example, get a cavalry-producing city to 20spt). This requires looking at the city, seeing what population is necessary (in coastal cities, additional cities can work the coast), and adding mines (or less likely, irrigation) to the city's terrain.

An often overlooked micromanagement is of science. If you want to be lazy, you can do maximum research until lowering the slider the last turn. A few turns before completing research, I look at CivAssist II to see how many more beakers I need, compare the beakers and net income at various slider settings, and figure out the most profitable and wastefree approach. You should also switch your scientists to tax collectors (I have never seen a case where it was useful to have tax collectors during more than minimum research) the last turns as necessary (if you have enough, it may not save any money using my approach). When I have a mix of libraries, universities, markets, and banks in my cities, and 100% (when added to the lux slider) science would be a deficit and I have little money, I look at the total income and use slider settings that are higher (eg if 60% and 80% provide more money than two turns at 70% I'll alternate between 60% and 80%).

Well, that was a bit long-winded. I hope it wasn't too confusing.

[lostmage2]

Thank you TimBently,here is the current list of things I do.
(note this is conquest version with no managment programs Just the basic game.)

1.) First turn sci slider to 100 % Pick what we are learning.

2.)Reduction of scienc funding to 10% on last turn. (you pointed out to switch the scientists to taxmen during the last few turns of this.)

3.)I have seen Crackers artical on worker productivity. I have read it a dozen times.( starting to implament that into my games)

4.Set the govener to the production in all citys.(to milk a few extra shields out of your cities.)
Check to speed up either production or growth in cities at the end of each turn.
Also look for happiness in all cities at the end of every turn.

5.) To even out the shield to food ratios in the game to make the most out of what your city's are doing.

6.) The alternating slider for profit verses the stagnent slider approach is a good idea that I had Overlooked.

Thank you for your reply.
What else is there to do in the game what all does the assist programs do for you and can you do these things out side of that program?
cheers to anyone that helps

[sweeneygov]

I dont usually put the Governor to any particular setting as i prefer my cities to be balanced, but is there any time when it is useful to concentrate on one of the settings?

I occasionally have problems with buildings, especially as i have max research and little money coming in to support stuff. I try and go for marketplaces and courthouses first to increase the tax revenue from which you will be able to support more luxurious buildings like temples to increase happiness etc.

[lostmage2]

I use the gov to get more shields out when the city grows to get a turn of shield out of that worker before he has to go twoards growing the empire. oter wise the computer can put them into bad spots like a 1fpt with a road. instead of a mined hill .

I have problems with buildings to. I am a builder so I want every thing every were.
Need a new aproach to how I operate my cities.
Thank you for your post

[sweeneygov]

Ok well i usually do Marketplace, Library, Courthouse, Temple to begin with, that gives you the economic then some science followed by waste reduction then happiness. Sometimes a granary first depending on the lay of the land. Getting through these will usually put my city in a good position to develop whatever is required next. Apart from this initial build list i dont like to have an order after that cos the game has usually moved on so there are a lot more things to construct and depends on what city does what and where it is etc. Its not foolproof, im sure many will disagree with my approach but thats the build i go for when my scientific research is on max.

[TimBentley]

Originally Posted by lostmage2

4.Set the govener to the production in all citys.(to milk a few extra shields out of your cities.)

I had forgotten to mention this; I set emphasize production as well.

What else is there to do in the game what all does the assist programs do for you and can you do these things out side of that program?

CivAssist II doesn't give any information you can't figure out yourself, it just saves you the effort of doing many things (such as checking happiness every turn, checking trades every turn, computing the cost of your technology and keeping track of how many beakers you've used, computing the corruption in your cities, etc.). CrpMapStat also does similar things (I find both useful). Both can be found in the utilities subforum in Creation and Customization.

[cleverhandle]

Originally Posted by lostmage2

5.) To even out the shield to food ratios in the game to make the most out of what your city's are doing.

I'm not sure exactly what this means, but I don't like the sound of it. If anything, I would tend to emphasize food as a general rule. You can take it to an unhealthy extreme on some occasions (flood plain cities can get crazy), but I would usually take an extra 1 fpt over 1 or 2 spt, at least up to a total of +4 fpt. The faster those cities gain pop, the more shields and commerce you'll have in the long run. The major exception to this would be if you're planning on sustained unit production in a particular city - for example, it may be worth it to lose 1 fpt in order to go from 13 spt (6 turn Knight) to 14 spt (5 turn Knight).

As for micro-managing suggestions, I've found it instructive to be fanatical about the very early game. Once I've settled my first city, I plot out my food and production on pen and paper, alongside the worker moves that I plan on making. Work through the first 20 turns on paper, noting when you'll produce your early units, and look for shield surpluses. You may find that very minor tweaks (e.g. mining before roading, improving tiles closer together) can make a one or even two turn cut in the number of turns you need to finish a job. At the very least, you may recognize places where you can temporarily reassign a citizen in order to pick up a couple extra commerce or food due to a small shield surplus. This is also a good place to plan for early forest chops if applicable - those can make a huge difference and sometimes reveal valuable tiles as well. Cracker's site is an excellent resource for this sort of thing. I found the Russian example where he plays out different improvement paths particularly helpful.

[Choffy]

I use Governor only during Revolution period with a focus on Food (and ask Governor to manage citzen mood to avoid endless riots in cities).

Once revolution is over, you still need to inactivate governor and visit each city.

[lostmage2]

Cleverhandle,
The number 5 is essentually what you described in the knight Idea. That is what was meant make the most of what ever it is you are doing. (Guess i should have gave an example.)

Does anyone go all science during a revolution to help get beakers during the relative short term production losses?

Is that all there is to it?
Anyting else that I am missing?

[axehaxe]

If you have a lot of workers, you can make them plant a forest and chop it rinse and repeat and this speeds up production in cities which get the 10 sheilds per chop. Also its good to try to save worker movement. 4 example, if 1 worker is building roads, depending on the terrain, it is sometimes unnecessary to add another worker to the task. It wastes worker effort which coul have been spent on another tile during the same time.

[Heroes]

Originally Posted by axehaxe

If you have a lot of workers, you can make them plant a forest and chop it rinse and repeat and this speeds up production in cities which get the 10 sheilds per chop. Also its good to try to save worker movement. 4 example, if 1 worker is building roads, depending on the terrain, it is sometimes unnecessary to add another worker to the task. It wastes worker effort which coul have been spent on another tile during the same time.

AFAIK, forest chop for 10 shields can only be done once, or maybe one more time after 1000 years. It makes no effect to plant forest and chop in the same turn.

[Own]

CrpMapStat, a utility that can be found in CrpSuite in the Utility programs forum (subforum of Creation and Customization) , pops up and alerts you about new trades that can be made, and if cities are about to riot. It has helped me so much.

[cleverhandle]

Originally Posted by lostmage2

Does anyone go all science during a revolution to help get beakers during the relative short term production losses?

I'm pretty sure that no research is conducted during anarchy period except for that produced by scientist specialists. So playing with the sliders would have no effect.

[SJ Frank]

With micro-management, what I try to do is:

a) whenever a city grows, I try to remember to zoom into the city and assign the new citizen to the "right" tile.

b) whenever a city finishes production on something, I zoom into the city, and re-arrange the citizens to most efficiently deal with the next item of production.

For example, a city building settlers is set to 5 food per turn; a city building archers is set to 7 shields per turn (archers are 20 shields, so 7 shields per turn has the least amount of waste); a city that has no urgent building project focuses on getting as much food as possible; a city that's at the brink of un-happiness is set to max shield configuration to stop growth; and later in the game, a city that can't grow anymore and don't have anything urgent to produce is set to max gold configuration.

c) Whenever I'm zoomed into a city, I try to remember which tile within that city's radius needs to be improved. Then, when it comes time to manage the workers, I order my workers around to improve those tiles.

For example, a size 5 city that will grow in 3 turns will need a 6th tile improved. If the tile in question is a plain tile to be irrigated, then I could afford to sent 1 worker to do the job. But if the tile is a grassland to be mined, then I need to send 2 workers to do the job. If there are no workers in the immediate area, then I need to remember to migrate some workers over. When I don't have enough workers to cover all the need, then I need to decide on which job is more urgent.

Those are the kind of micro-managment that I do. Of the three, type a) is always the toughest to keep up, but forunately it's only most important in the early game, especially with the settler factory city. Type b) comes almost naturally if you turn on the "production notification" preference. Type c), the worker management, is the most mentally involving, since you have to memorize which city needs what, and also rank them in order of importance. But once you get used to it, it becomes a really fast process -- it doesn't take much more time to manually control workers than watching the automated workers running around like headless chickens