Against the late game micro bog

[AIAndy]

Civilization type games often have the problem in late game that you get such a large empire that there is so much to manage that turn times get longer and longer.

So I would like a discussion about what we can do to reduce the tedious part without reducing the complexity.

One option I see is to implement more higher level controls. So instead of going to each city and ordering it to build a tank, you order 20 tanks and 40 infantry with a certain target plot and the AI then builds the necessary units in all cities that are booked into the system and moves them to the plot.
Similar logistic commands could be used for moving and assembling existing units.

Another option would be to allow you to assemble build lists and store them. Well, you can already do that but only only in the context of what a city can build so you can't put buildings it already has on the build list nor can you put buildings there that you will be able to build soon.

What do you think?

 

[Koshling]

Civilization type games often have the problem in late game that you get such a large empire that there is so much to manage that turn times get longer and longer.

So I would like a discussion about what we can do to reduce the tedious part without reducing the complexity.

One option I see is to implement more higher level controls. So instead of going to each city and ordering it to build a tank, you order 20 tanks and 40 infantry with a certain target plot and the AI then builds the necessary units in all cities that are booked into the system and moves them to the plot.
Similar logistic commands could be used for moving and assembling existing units.

Another option would be to allow you to assemble build lists and store them. Well, you can already do that but only only in the context of what a city can build so you can't put buildings it already has on the build list nor can you put buildings there that you will be able to build soon.

What do you think?

The major change I want to make to the AI in the next release is better coordination of its unit building, as part of which I am planning and order-placement system whereby a city or unit stack can order units and have the most appropriate cities build them (and path to the request point), instead of having to build them locally.

Once that is done adding automations based on the AI capability should not be hard, which will go some way towards this. Not sure how we do the UI side of things for the human player however (i.e. - how to 'place orders')

 

[ls612]

Civilization type games often have the problem in late game that you get such a large empire that there is so much to manage that turn times get longer and longer.

So I would like a discussion about what we can do to reduce the tedious part without reducing the complexity.

One option I see is to implement more higher level controls. So instead of going to each city and ordering it to build a tank, you order 20 tanks and 40 infantry with a certain target plot and the AI then builds the necessary units in all cities that are booked into the system and moves them to the plot.
Similar logistic commands could be used for moving and assembling existing units.

Another option would be to allow you to assemble build lists and store them. Well, you can already do that but only only in the context of what a city can build so you can't put buildings it already has on the build list nor can you put buildings there that you will be able to build soon.

What do you think?

Could it also be made so that you could order a combined arms army, from a variety of cities, IE you save in a preferences window somewhere that your 'ideal' army is 20 infantry, 10 tanks, 5 artillery, or whatever, and then you could set that to be produced from your cities, in addition to the option to produce only one unit type?

I am generally in favor of this, as turn times on my old laptop can approach 2 mins on Giant maps in the Transhuman era, and it would be nice for me not to have to take 10 mins to just set up my production to build stuff.

 

[Koshling]

Could it also be made so that you could order a combined arms army, from a variety of cities, IE you save in a preferences window somewhere that your 'ideal' army is 20 infantry, 10 tanks, 5 artillery, or whatever, and then you could set that to be produced from your cities, in addition to the option to produce only one unit type?

I am generally in favor of this, as turn times on my old laptop can approach 2 mins on Giant maps in the Transhuman era, and it would be nice for me not to have to take 10 mins to just set up my production to build stuff.

Eventually I'm sure, but one step at a time

 

[ls612]

Eventually I'm sure, but one step at a time

Isn't that our mod team's motto?

 

[Stormwind]

Some of these are in there albeit rudimently. In the F1 City Advisor screen it is possible to select multiple cities per Shift/Control and set their build orders. In the city screen you can save build orders with control-1,2,3 etc and hit 1,2,3 etc to set the build order. I haven't tried this yet, but in the city advisor it should be possible to assign many cities the same build order.

Or select multiple cities on the worldmap with shift and set their common rallying point then.

 

[Gregori]

I dont know why but my Home screen advisor (F1) doesnt work for already 2-3 builds downloaded from SVN. Is it, or its just me? I doubt its just me, cuz I used couple of builds.

 

[AIAndy]

I dont know why but my Home screen advisor (F1) doesnt work for already 2-3 builds downloaded from SVN. Is it, or its just me? I doubt its just me, cuz I used couple of builds.

There were some builds in which it was not working due to a bug in one of the XML files. But it should work again in the most recent ones.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Civilization type games often have the problem in late game that you get such a large empire that there is so much to manage that turn times get longer and longer.

So I would like a discussion about what we can do to reduce the tedious part without reducing the complexity.

One option I see is to implement more higher level controls. So instead of going to each city and ordering it to build a tank, you order 20 tanks and 40 infantry with a certain target plot and the AI then builds the necessary units in all cities that are booked into the system and moves them to the plot.
Similar logistic commands could be used for moving and assembling existing units.

Another option would be to allow you to assemble build lists and store them. Well, you can already do that but only only in the context of what a city can build so you can't put buildings it already has on the build list nor can you put buildings there that you will be able to build soon.

What do you think?

There is already a "rally point" mechanism in game that works well. Since I play a builder game almost all of my units are built in either my military or naval cities. It would be nice to be able to add 25 Swordsmen into the queue for the military city rather than adding one 25 times.

@Koshling there is one pathing problem I have noticed. If your units would gt there in exactly a number of turns then they will go off path ending up on a tile next to the target and then move to the target in the next turn. I think I have a save I can post showing this.

 

[Koshling]

There is already a "rally point" mechanism in game that works well. Since I play a builder game almost all of my units are built in either my military or naval cities. It would be nice to be able to add 25 Swordsmen into the queue for the military city rather than adding one 25 times.

@Koshling there is one pathing problem I have noticed. If your units would gt there in exactly a number of turns then they will go off path ending up on a tile next to the target and then move to the target in the next turn. I think I have a save I can post showing this.

Yes, please post (with instructions on what I need to move where) and I'll take a look.

 

[AIAndy]

There is already a "rally point" mechanism in game that works well. Since I play a builder game almost all of my units are built in either my military or naval cities. It would be nice to be able to add 25 Swordsmen into the queue for the military city rather than adding one 25 times.

The disadvantage of a rally point is that it is based on the city, not on the specific order.

An example:
You have three threatened cities and want to reinforce all of them. The way you might do it now is to find some military cities, check how close they are to each of the cities that you want the units in, set their respective rally point and then split the number you want on those cities.
The way I suggest you would have booked your military cities in the system earlier, now all you do is give one logistic order for each of the threatened cities with same priority and all the rest is done automatically.
If you have only one military city that will produce the units, way one will even require you to reset the rally point all the time or move your units manually.

The more cities and units you have, the more of an advantage the higher level command become.

 

[Gregori]

There were some builds in which it was not working due to a bug in one of the XML files. But it should work again in the most recent ones.

Indeed, updated from revision 2097 to revison 2139, and home screen works perfectly.
Thank you guys! Now automating cities is much easier again. Dont have to click all over through them.

 

[Shogu]

How about saving building queue so you can load it on other games ???

Something that was used in call to power.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

How about saving building queue so you can load it on other games ???

Something that was used in call to power.

Cntrl with a number already does that. I have Ctrl-1 and 2 for early game first build and second build then 0 for mid-late game first build and Ctrl-9 when I want to build a new city, requires a bunch of caravans, story tellers, missionaries, defense forces and a settler unit. The animal units get added in on the way to the new city location.

 

[AIAndy]

This thread does not really belong in Bugs and Crashes.

 

[strategyonly]

Just PM me with what you want changed, i had a moderator just move stuff, and he didnt want to bother with all the excess stuff all over the place, so he just moved what looked close, so what you dont want here, let me know, or in the other sub-forms. Thx for putting up with all this guys.

 

[Hydromancerx]

This thread does not really belong in Bugs and Crashes.

Sorry it was hard to go through the whole forum and tell which post is a bug/error and which one is not.

 

[AIAndy]

Sorry it was hard to go through the whole forum and tell which post is a bug/error and which one is not.

Bug and Bog is quite similar