A compromise between Public Works and Workers

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, I have heard much debate about which system is best-a public works budget of CtP 1 and 2, or the workers/engineer system of Civ2 and Civ3. I think that a reasonable compromise can be achieved, though.

Each city produces a number of PW 'points' based on the number of Workers it has, the # of production shields it has, and the % of its wealth that it assigns to PW. It can be further increased by certain techs and improvements. Each turn, the city contributes a % of these PW points to the national pool-the percent being era dependant. This National pool effects the minimum amount of the national budget which needs to be assigned to Public Works-with overfunding increasing the number of PW points, and underfunding reducing it.
Anyway, for terraforming within a city's radius, the no. of terraform actions that city can perform is dependant on both the # of workers the city possesses AND the number of PW points the city has. Different terraform jobs take different amounts of time and cost varying amounts of PW points. You can speed up the speed at which a job is performed in ONE of two ways

(a) assigning more workers to the job or (b) assigning more of your city's money to that Type of terraform job. For instance, you want to build a mine, in your city radius-a job which takes 6 turns. In order to shorten this time, you could either increase the number of workers assigned to the task or increase the amount of money your city assigns to its 'Mining' PW budget.

Now, the beauty of my idea is that though you build workers, and though they still cost you population points and maintainance, you don't move them around AT ALL! Staying attached to their home city. You can, however, trade a city's workers to another city, on your trade route however. In addition-if an enemy overuns an area with a terrain improvement- either under construction or already built, then there is a chance of the enemy capturing one of your workers. Also, when a city is caught, there is a chance of the enemy capturing one or more of that city's workers/engineers. These can be traded back to the former owner, used as slave labour, or reintegrated into the city's population.

Jobs outside of any city radius can only be performed using the national PW points-as determined by the national PW budget and the total contribution of individual cities! As with individual cities, though, jobs can be sped up by assigning a greater % of the national PW budget to certain Terraform jobs. Though for both city and national 'terrafroming' their will usually be a minimum time required to finish a job-dependant on the current era!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[NDCSPURS]

I think the current system of automated workers would be alot better if you could mark tiles with what you wanted the workers to build there and set it high/low priority

 

[rcoutme]

I forsee a couple of problems with this.
1. How do you build roads from one city to another?
2. How do you protect your workers from invading armies?
3. Micromanagement will become a real bear.
4. How do you get workers to build improvements leading to an enemy (i.e. build roads and/or RR in order to speed your armies on their way)?

I do not think this system would work well.

 

[NDCSPURS]

First of all I'm not talking about marking every tile, just the ones I think the auto worker is gona get wrong, like when your city is surrounded by mountains except for two pieces of grassland(with access to water) and your worker builds mines on them.

Also you could have a worker managment screen where you set wether you want irrgation or mining on the different types of tiles so if you wanted bonus grassland to be irragated, in the worker management screen you set bonus gassland to irragation. Then when you build/capture a new city have a quick look to see if you want an tiles improved differently and mark the tiles.

Auotmated workers already connect all your cities by road and RR, and they hide in the nearest city when they see enemy troops coming. Micromanagement wouldn't be a problem because at the begining of the game you set your basic strategy for tile improvement then as you build/capture new cities change it slightly for individual cities by marking the tiles.

If you want to build a road or rail to the enemy you just click on a worker or 2 and cancel the orders and control it manually.

 

[rcoutme]

Actually, I was referring to Aussie_Lurker's suggestions.

 

[Pirate]

Nice idea. Here's a slightly streamlined version that may require less micromanagement:

A national public works pool pays for all improvements. Cities can 'subsidize' a tile improvement inside their radius by assigning workers to the job. Workers are not units that are built. Instead they are drawn from the general population as specialists (like entertainers, tax collectors, etc...). That way larger cities have more productive potential but all labor is limited - either laborers are in the field producing shields and food, or they are working on special improvments projects like mines, irrigation, roads, etc...

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, to answer rcoutme's questions:

1) You utilize your National PW budget, as I stated in my original post. This is the budget which you use for anything which lies outside any city radius. Which makes this the answer for (4) as well!

2) Unlike Civ3's worker system, there is only a % chance of losing a worker when a manned improvement is overrun. The % chance will be based on the improvement type AND the presence of defending units.

3) I don't see how that would be the case-at least no more so than Civ3's system and, if you ask me, a hell of a lot less. After all, in this system, your workers are actually tied to the city which builds them (unless you 'trade' them to another city) everything else is abstract. This will eliminate the need to move workers around constantly. A major complaint in the modern game-and one which I have NEVER heard being levelled at the CtP system. My system merely seeks to integrate the best of both worlds.

4) Exactly what I said above, though there should STILL be certain military units, like combat engineers, who can travel with units and build improvements in enemy territory-completely seperate from the public works system! In fact, CE's might be able to build things which your PW budget CAN'T achieve.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.