Citizen Automation Question

[americanlt]

Do you guess highlight the Citizen Automation button? Is this a good idea? I see you can emphasize production, commerce ect..... Does this really work? How well does the computer take control?


Thanx For Responses

 

[JBossch]

Its a good question and others may know more technical details about what exactly the buttons do to the AI. I never used them for the longest time but as I got better at specializing cities I started to experiment with them a bit. I think they are useless if you are micromanaging EVERY city EVERY time it grows in pop. Now I will admit I tend to micromanage but nobody watches them that closely. The main value of the citizen automators is to minimize the damage when you forget to assign every citizen in perfect harmony with your specialization scheme. The AI can basically figure out to work a plains hill mine instead of an undeveloped cottage if you pick the hammer automator.

Be warned though: they can totally backfire. I recently clicked the GP points automator in my GP farm (running approx. six scientists) and it assigned new citizens to be artist specialists! (presumably because it was a captured city, marginally threatened, culturally speaking) The GA pollution resulted in - you guessed it - a Great freakin Artist instead of a GS. Be wary of citizen automation.

 

[Refar]

I - usually - like how the governor assignes worked tiles based on the focus, but the choice of specialist citizens is often incredible dumb. Sometimes i highlite the automation button, to see what is suggested - check if i missed a good tile to work or something, then deactivate it again, even if i choose to keep the settings - you never know what idea might strike the gouvernor the very next turn.

Never automate citizens in your GP farm. One lausy turn running a Artist sitizen in your Great Library city might end giving you a GA instead of a GS at low odds... This is where i usually miss the "Shoot Governor" button.

I usually do not automate citizens in my first 4 - 5 cities - this many you can easily micromanage your self. When the empire grows bigger by conquest/expansion and also the population grows, the mm becomes tedious, and at the same time the relative value of many cities becomes less important... So i keep only a few primary specialized cities on manual, and let the rest be handled by automation.

 

[Zanttu]

the choice of specialist citizens is often incredible dumb.

Agreed. The most common one I see all the time is after building Angor Wat(?), when you get total of 2 hammers and some gold from priest specialist, the governor still prefers engineer, which gets same hammers but no gold.