Computer playing for me

[tobyliv]

Firstly, I'd like to point out that I love Civilisation 4 and I enjoy the challenge. One aspect of the game has been driving me crazy though and I swore after the last time not to play anymore. In desperation I have come here hoping that there is a fix.

I like to try for cultural victory and so I only want Great Artists. However the computer keeps assigning priests and scientists etc in my villages. I click it off and 2 turns later it does it again. It's driving me nuts.

Micromanagement is intensive enough without me having to click every village every turn to check whether the computer has decided to play the game for me. I wouldn't want it to make the decisions for me if they were correct but I certainly don't the computer to make bad decisions for me.

If I was playing AoE would the computer change my build queue or send my cavalry to attack. Of course not. This seems a ridiculous aspect of an otherwise fantastic game. Why would the programmers make the computer play for the player and even do things that impede the players progress?

As you can tell I've had enough because it's ruined my last 2 games. Please let me know if I can stop the computer assigning specialists for me.

 

[BakingTheArt]

There's no way. I think it's quite possibly the most annoying thing in the game. Every game I try and play, the computer sends my cities into starvation to support artists I didn't assign and don't want. It's insane. I hate it.

 

[skyline5k]

I noticed clicking on a specialist either highlights them or moves them up or down. Would that lock them into place, not allowing the computer to remove them?

 

[RandomPerson]

I think in a city there's a governor screen where you can check off something like "automate great people" or whatever.

 

[Rycheman]

The worst one for me is the dreaded Spy specialist.The computer only seems to auto assign spies in my games and i hate them.Having to constantly check to see if they're assigned automatically annoys me to hell.When i remove them they always re-appear a few turns later.

 

[Willem]

Yes, that's been one of my biggest beefs in this game. I prefer to keep my specialists pure, i.e. all Scientists in my science city etc. but the governor keeps wanting to mix and match. I really don't understand why Firaxis didn't provide us with a way of controlling what specialists the governor is allowed to create. I'd rather have an ordinary Citizen pop up in my science city, at least they don't pollute my GP probablities. It really gets on my nerve when I suddenly get a Great Spy popping up in my science city because I happened to miss that Spy being created when the population increased. It doesn't matter that it was only for a few turns, that was just enough time to screw things up.

 

[tobyliv]

Well, I tried again and turned all automation off for every city but the computer still decided to build a great scientist in my capital which completely ruined my culture game.

I'm afraid that's it for me. A fantastic, well-developed game ruined by a simple, little flaw. Is this an oversight by the developers or did they intend for us to have to contend with the computer making irreversible, negative decisions for us so that unless we check every city every turn our games are ruined. I find it hard to believe that they wanted that kind of tedium of micromanagement after reading their intentions.

I can't believe they haven't patched this given the number of people complaining. One guide by a top player advises not even going "Caste System' because of having to deal with the computer assigning so many specialists that it makes the micromanagement more trouble than it's worth.

I have BTS so I was hoping someone could tell me if it happen with that expansion. If I will face this issue there too then I am uninstalling. If not then I'll give BTS a go.

 

[Rycheman]

Toby, imo its worse in BTS.The computer just seems to decide how many espionage points you need and starts to auto assigning spies in your cities.I've not tried it with "no espionage " option thou'.

 

[fed1943]

I agree. It would be nice to have an option that truly
disables the city governor,i.e.,cities remain as the player
puts them and when a new pop comes it just asks the
player to place it.
Best regards,

 

[IAM]

I agree. It would be nice to have an option that truly
disables the city governor,i.e.,cities remain as the player
puts them and when a new pop comes it just asks the
player to place it.
Best regards,

I heartily agree. With the possibly caveat that some may not want the option so it should have an on/off switch in the custom game menu or options menu.

 

[globaooba]

i have never had that happen.it'ill probably hapen to me today though.that hapened with cs4.i saw a video about it shuting down and then it started to shut down.

 

[Matthew5117]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the BUG mod. What's so easy about it is that it will tell you when (# of turns), what (which type) and where (which city) a GP will appear next right at the top of the screen.

 

[Ramesses]

I heartily agree. With the possibly caveat that some may not want the option so it should have an on/off switch in the custom game menu or options menu.

Isn't there a mod for that?

If not, WHY HASN'T IT BEEN MADE ALREADY?

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the BUG mod. What's so easy about it is that it will tell you when (# of turns), what (which type) and where (which city) a GP will appear next right at the top of the screen.

Well, you still have to put everything back.

 

[Matthew5117]

Just for one city though!

 

[Onionsoilder]

Maybe the next BUG update could include a screen telling you what specialists you're running on a global scale.

 

[Yngvi]

I have many pet peeves about this game, but oddly this isn't one of them, though it can be annoying. Even when I micromanage, my cities aren't "pure" anyway, and I go for cultural victories often.
Sometimes the wonders I build can mess it up, adding the "wrong" GP points, but the opportunity is there, and I want the wonder.
I often just like different kinds of GP: artists for cultural victory, science for research, merchants can be great when I'm upgrading units, always engineers, but they're rare. Even the spies can help; I often neglect espionage and those little specialists can really help when my neighbor starts causing trouble.
I usually only have 2 or 3 real GP farms anyway; the right conditions are not always easy to find. If the city is a real concern, I just watch it when it goes up in pop or sometimes when a new build is started.
Tobyliv, I hope you don't give up the game. I've made the uninstall vow a thousand times, and I always come back.

 

[Bushface]

The BUG mod doesn't tell you what variety of GP will, for sure, appear (unless your city can only generate one variety, of course). What it tells you is where the next GP will spawn and the probabilities of the most likely types, so giving you some slight chance of switching specialists around to bias selection towards what you want. This naturally does not stop the accursed RNG handing out a late-game Great Prophet, at 1% probability, when you've tailored for a Great Engineer at 49%.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

- Go into the city screen.

- Force the desired great person so that there's a gold highlight around the specialist type you want.

- That city can now assign no specialist types other than the highlighted one, even if it runs out of slots.

- If you don't want specialists of any kind in that city, play with the emphasize button until it doesn't assign any. Hint: emphasizing food won't run specialists unless there are no tiles with >0 food left, emphasizing hammers will only hire engineers or priests, else it will work even crappy hammer tiles before specs, emphasizing commerce will work every cottage (and in many cases even coastal tiles) possible until it runs out. Using some combination of these appropriately drops your chances of the governor assigning an unwanted spec type to about 0.

 

[Matthew5117]

How do you force? I've been trying to figure how to.

 

[Nestorius]

The reason the specialists are getting auto-assigned is that your city has grown an extra unit of population. You absolutely NEED to micromanage those specialists on Monarch level and above.