Automated workers still don't work.

[Westwall]

It's nice to see that automated workers won't spam terrascapes or domes anymore.

The problem now is that they only seem to build farms and improve some resources while bizarrely leaving others untouched.

Now they will never EVER build roads or generators or nodes or domes or terrascapes or biowells for me, and it's been this way in over half a dozen games already.

How is this supposed to be a solution? It's as if the developers couldn't figure out how to fix them so they just stopped them from being able to build certain things altogether and called it a day.

Oh, and to people who keep saying "well you shouldn't be automating your workers anyway," if the feature is there, it should work.

 

[Gorbles]

Define "work". You'd need a priority of features you want them to auto-improve in what order, as well as maintenance limitations and other such things.

The developers aren't going to be able to implement the fixes you want by just saying "make it work".

 

[Ryika]

They're only building farms? Well, sounds like they work perfectly fine - because that's what "everyone else" also does. Manually tell them to build a "Road to" when you see fit and there you go, worker AI that does your job at almost 30% efficiency.

And

you shouldn't be automating your workers

if you want to use a more specialized strategy. How shall the AI know if you want Domes or not?

I've seen quite a diverse number of Improvements in AI-Terrain though, so there's probably some trick to getting the workers to build them. Did you try using City Focus Settings?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

They should build
Resource improvements (always)
Farms, Mines, Generators (based on city focus)
and
Roads (based on breaking even connection energy)

 

[EpicWestern]

My main beef with automated workers it that they seem to travel too far to build. Also its pretty clear you should automate at some point, there are tons of games where its basically over, but you still have to wait 20-40 turns for your victory condition to actually kick in.

 

[Miravlix]

The issue of workers working one tile in one town then go all the way across the map to work one tile on your new town and then goes all the way back to work another tile...

If it wasn't for that issue, I would always use a combination of automated and manual workers.

 

[Azem.Ocram]

Automated Workers should build tile improvements within the workable range of the city (or cities if in overlapping border tiles) in which they were in when automated. Automated workers should only build roads and magrails when given "route to" instructions. There should be 1 new check mark in the UI: 'Automated Workers can construct tile improvements with maintenance,' in addition to 'Automated workers can construct tile improvements that eliminate terrain yield' and 'Automated Workers can replace improvements.' That way, Terrascapes (which override terrain yield AND have maintenance cost) would need the first 2 checked off but chopping down a forest on a hill adjacent to a river to build a mine or generator would require the 2nd to be checked off.

 

[Ryika]

They should build
Resource improvements (always)
Farms, Mines, Generators (based on city focus)
and
Roads (based on breaking even connection energy)

I think this post is a great example of why it's not that easy. Because I disagree with all of this as good measures for a decent Worker-AI.

Resource Improvements aren't always good or even useful for a City. Strategic Resources are often not very useful overall.
Generators are extremely situation and I wouldn't want a worker to build them just because I have the City on Energy focus to work the highest food-energy tiles.
And building Roads just because the city connection doesn't cost anything anymore seems to be a weird idea when it's so much more important to have "a farm for every citizen" than getting that few extra gpt from a city connection.

So... yeah, no matter how it's done it's wrong.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Automated Workers should build tile improvements within the workable range of the city (or cities if in overlapping border tiles) in which they were in when automated. Automated workers should only build roads and magrails when given "route to" instructions. There should be 1 new check mark in the UI: 'Automated Workers can construct tile improvements with maintenance,' in addition to 'Automated workers can construct tile improvements that eliminate terrain yield' and 'Automated Workers can replace improvements.' That way, Terrascapes (which override terrain yield AND have maintenance cost) would need the first 2 checked off but chopping down a forest on a hill adjacent to a river to build a mine or generator would require the 2nd to be checked off.

Eliminate terrain yield is different from 'features'

And workers do need to be able to wander..., they should just not wander too much.

I would put the checks as
eliminate previous improvements
eliminate features
eliminate terrain yield/resources
require maintenance

(resource connecting improvements would be exempt)

The ideal system would be a 'planned improvement' where you can select any tile in your territory and select an improvement that workers should build when they get to that tile. (and you can also see what the 'AI selected improvement' for the tile is)

 

[Azem.Ocram]

Eliminate terrain yield is different from 'features'

And workers do need to be able to wander..., they should just not wander too much.

I would put the checks as
eliminate previous improvements
eliminate features
eliminate terrain yield/resources
require maintenance

(resource connecting improvements would be exempt)

The ideal system would be a 'planned improvement' where you can select any tile in your territory and select an improvement that workers should build when they get to that tile. (and you can also see what the 'AI selected improvement' for the tile is)

You are right! That would be ideal! Improvements connecting resources and maintenance-free tile improvements (over empty terrain) would be the only automation with no checks marked.

 

[Lucius_]

I think automated workers are crap, but the ability to just queue up improvements would be a huge step forward. Plantation here, paddock there, farm, farm. Ok let me know when you're done with all that.

 

[Karmah]

I think automated workers are crap, but the ability to just queue up improvements would be a huge step forward. Plantation here, paddock there, farm, farm. Ok let me know when you're done with all that.

I agree 100%

 

[Manannan]

Don't automate your workers. Yea, it's a feature and it should work but I think we can apply that to basically every feature in the game at this point with equally disappointing results.

Also its pretty clear you should automate at some point, there are tons of games where its basically over, but you still have to wait 20-40 turns for your victory condition to actually kick in.

Uh, at that point you can just delete/sleep workers whenever they want orders; still better than automating them.

 

[Azem.Ocram]

How difficult is it to mod the UI? It's such a shame that we must rely on a mod to fix things that should have worked at the release of RT and bring back features that shouldn't have been removed by RT. That's life! Hopefully sales figures will start sending clear messages to stop churning out massive amounts of unfinished content for excessive prices.

 

[Gorbles]

How difficult is it to mod the UI? It's such a shame that we must rely on a mod to fix things that should have worked at the release of RT and bring back features that shouldn't have been removed by RT. That's life! Hopefully sales figures will start sending clear messages to stop churning out massive amounts of unfinished content for excessive prices.

Speak for yourself, and not other people. I don't rely on a mod for anything.

Certainly, not Workers.

I think automated workers are crap, but the ability to just queue up improvements would be a huge step forward. Plantation here, paddock there, farm, farm. Ok let me know when you're done with all that.

Throwing my vote down for this.

 

[Westwall]

Hopefully sales figures will start sending clear messages to stop churning out massive amounts of unfinished content for excessive prices.

I like your optimism. But at this point it should be obvious that BE's initial failures weren't just bad luck. You have a very limited engine being haphazardly adapted by a development team that has neither the will nor ability to really make it work.

These are the same people who couldn't even bother to add a "crater" terrain type so they just added the art, left it as "mountains" and called it a day.

 

[Azem.Ocram]

I like your optimism. But at this point it should be obvious that BE's initial failures weren't just bad luck. You have a very limited engine being haphazardly adapted by a development team that has neither the will nor ability to really make it work.

These are the same people who couldn't even bother to add a "crater" terrain type so they just added the art, left it as "mountains" and called it a day.

Sales figures send the strongest message to a software company. However, it would take a shopping frenzy OR mass boycott (obviously not both since they cancel each other out) to send a message of change.

Think of customers as voters. Paying Full Price for a product is a YES vote for that product. Paying Nothing is a NO vote for that product. Paying a Discount is a lower priority yes vote (think Australian alternate voting) for that product. Without enough yes votes, the product fails to continue.

The threshold is now money, specifically the cost to develop the software (initial programming and maintained updates). Software developers make money through artificial scarcity. That is to say that in order to make money off something that costs nothing to copy, they get exclusive rights to it. Each additional sale that sends any revenue to the software developers is entirely profit. Artificial scarcity grants the holders of the intellectual property a complete monopoly over it. Therefore, they will charge the price(s) that maximizes profit (which is now revenue - maintenance because there is no cost to make another copy).

I usually buy games at discounts because they are rarely worth full price to me. Civilization Beyond Earth's Rising Tide expansion is worth $20 to me. I payed a little over that price (after tax) so I have no consumer surplus from the purchase, hoping to gain back a surplus through free DLC (patches and mods).

Back to the topic at hand. I never automate my workers because they behave illogically. I never automate research after noticing 2 Turn Techs. I never automate city production. Puppet cities in Civ5 were the only exception. The AI in the game is insufficient at fulfilling its duties. The rules in the game are inconsistent and buggy (farms over copper, academies over algae, generators over reslin, chelonia, & chitin) and some of the features are as well (like Strategic Networks).

Speak for yourself, and not other people. I don't rely on a mod for anything.

If you paid full price for base and DLC, you are part of the problem.

 

[Westwall]

If you paid full price for base and DLC, you are part of the problem.

This, basically.

 

[DWilson]

I disagree. While I paid full for neither, I think their value is higher than full, and would have paid full if I had not been able to do otherwise. Anyone who thinks it is worth whole and is willing to pay it are not part of the problem. They're part of your problem, at worst.

 

[Azem.Ocram]

I take no issue with gamers placing differing values on games than I put. If paying full price gives them thousands of hours of enjoyment and hundreds of dollars worth of consumer surplus, more power to them.

What I take issue with are consumers who place absolutely no value on 3rd party extensions to products that are best improved by free 3rd party extensions vs the official, paid extensions, who then turn around and rave how much "better" the official stuff is that does things worse than the free things released earlier by 3rd parties. These people get many names but the most positive one is "Loyal Brand Evangelical," coined by Apple. They are guaranteed repeat power users. If a company (such as Electronic "Arts" Games) pushes out loads and loads of games and DLC of decreasing quality and increasing price, the last demographic to stop buying are the Brand Loyalists.

You see my bitterness because my first real computer games were by Maxis. I got into Civilization after playing Civ 3 & 4 on a friend's computer, picking up Civ4 complete at a hypermarket on sale after growing bored of SimCity 4 + Rush Hour and The Sims. I registered for Simtropolis in 2005 to download from the STEX, not even realizing what an Internet forum was until 2007.

Now time for some desperately needed sleep before Junior-level statistics class starts in 8 hours.