Enjoying the conquest, but not the aftermath...

[Great Ape]

Hi folks,

I've been having an issue lately in my games that's preventing me from wanting to finish them (currently playing standard speed/size, pangaea, emperor). I really enjoy the process of planting down a nice, thick empire (10-20 cities) after a progress or authority start, including the conquest; I'm able to do this fairly often (though not consistently) by the end of the mid-game. And in terms of keeping everything together, I generally have no issues (barring glaring mistakes on my part, of course).

However, usually somewhere around turn 250+, managing over a dozen production queues, shuffling around 40+ military units, managing a boatload of workers, combined with everything else, begins to feel quite tedious. And I do like to take my time making decisions- I feel like if I automate things, or just start haphazardly giving orders, the AI will catch up/take off with its massive bonuses. I find myself yearning for the early game, with so little micromanagement, so few decisions, yet so much weight behind each.

So I'm asking- what do you suggest for me to be able to enjoy these games to the end? What can I reasonably automate without risking my position? Do you have suggestions for cutting down on decision-making time? Has anyone else struggled with this?

I will say that I've been enjoying 5-6 city tradition more and more- fewer production queues, less workers, and lower supply cap (therefore less military) is a nice plus. There is the downside of some necessary specialist management, but it still feels like much less micro overall. Seems to me, though, that many starts are simply not good for tradition- and I'd rather not do this every game, even if it is possible.

Thanks in advance for any helpful comments.
-Ape

 

[chicorbeef]

You could set focuses-eg. culture focus for a culture city, a dedicated guild city would have GP focus, etc. Set focus to production or growth as you see fit.That should take away from some micromanagement.

Set units/generals to sleep as garrisons (you should have a railway network that will allow reinforcements to travel quickly anyway), delete workers (how much stuff do you need to build with workers in the late-game anyway? Railroads are all I can think of), delete old unnecessary units, take puppets (puppets are good anyway because they don't raise culture/science costs).

You already use production queues so I assume you have firm build orders in mind-make a firm build order for each city and stick to it. Think what your empire needs to prioritize overall and what your happiness needs are. Look at buildings that give high yields for their costs above all. Generally, simply queuing up buildings to resolve the most pressing area of unhappiness is a solid idea. After that, look for synergies between buildings. Having a good idea about what to build in advance should make it a little less tedious.

That's all I can really think of for now. I absolutely understand where you're coming from in how tedious and slow the late-game can be, but remember the overall goals for your empire/stick to them. You did, after all, spend 200+ turns to get here.

You can automate diplo units if you so desire as well.

Btw, you don't necessarily need to plant 10-20 cities to succeed as Progress. 8 cities or so can do just fine. Puppet nearby land later that you do not really need. And 20 cities is pretty overkill as Authority imo. Authority can play 6 city games just fine-puppet everything else.

 

[Great Ape]

You could set focuses-eg. culture focus for a culture city, a dedicated guild city would have GP focus, etc. Set focus to production or growth as you see fit.That should take away from some micromanagement.

Set units/generals to sleep as garrisons (you should have a railway network that will allow reinforcements to travel quickly anyway), delete workers (how much stuff do you need to build with workers in the late-game anyway? Railroads are all I can think of), delete old unnecessary units, take puppets (puppets are good anyway because they don't raise culture/science costs).

You already use production queues so I assume you have firm build orders in mind-make a firm build order for each city and stick to it. Think what your empire needs to prioritize overall and what your happiness needs are. Look at buildings that give high yields for their costs above all. Generally, simply queuing up buildings to resolve the most pressing area of unhappiness is a solid idea. After that, look for synergies between buildings. Having a good idea about what to build in advance should make it a little less tedious.

That's all I can really think of for now. I absolutely understand where you're coming from in how tedious and slow the late-game can be, but remember the overall goals for your empire/stick to them. You did, after all, spend 200+ turns to get here.

You can automate diplo units if you so desire as well.

Btw, you don't necessarily need to plant 10-20 cities to succeed as Progress. 8 cities or so can do just fine. Puppet nearby land later that you do not really need. And 20 cities is pretty overkill as Authority imo. Authority can play 6 city games just fine-puppet everything else.

Thank you for this- I will be trying several of your suggestions in my games.

I rarely use the "focus" setting on cities- but it's a fair point that if I know what I want to focus, I can probably trust the AI to do it for me once I check the right box.

And I always end up in this awkward state with workers where I refuse to automate them (I HATE the way the AI manages improvements/roads), but I can't find anything useful for them to do- somehow I had never considered just deleting most of them after I'm done setting up my land.

I also very rarely puppet anything after courthouse unless I'm playing tradition just on principle (always want to raze or annex for some reason), but that's fair- it sounds like it is strong and obviously cuts down on micro. Keeping my core cities to 6-8 and puppeting the rest sounds pretty appealing with how my games have been going.

 

[tu_79]

The problem in my opinion is warfare. The other units you can automate, even the archeologists.

So, reduce your wars. Play on the defensive. For a while.

If you think you need an intervention, or really want to go for domination, use high grade units. This is, beeline any warmonger technology, rush the new unit and use it. With a big technological advantage you don't need that many units. Even more, in the latest eras, supply limit diminishes quite a lot. Also, aircraft is quite handy. You put lots of them in a city and destroy whatever dares to get near, with very little micromanagement. The weak point is nuclear weapons that can destroy all your city garrison. If you are still too early in the game, just play defensively until you get to those new units. Artillery, submarines and planes change the war pace.

If going for domination, remember that you only need to capture capitals.

 

[CppMaster]

delete workers (how much stuff do you need to build with workers in the late-game anyway?

They are very useful for connecting recently discovered strategic resources, repairing tiles of conquered cities and connecting railroads to them. Automated workers can do that just fine, their maintenance cost is neglectable. Moreover, forts become nice tiles with Colonialism policy.

Btw, you don't necessarily need to plant 10-20 cities to succeed as Progress. 8 cities or so can do just fine. Puppet nearby land later that you do not really need. And 20 cities is pretty overkill as Authority imo. Authority can play 6 city games just fine-puppet everything else.

Do puppets increase Supply Cup? If not then it could greatly limit your army, which is essential for conquest.

And I always end up in this awkward state with workers where I refuse to automate them (I HATE the way the AI manages improvements/roads), but I can't find anything useful for them to do- somehow I had never considered just deleting most of them after I'm done setting up my land.

If you can't find anything useful for them anyway then why would you even care the way they do it? Just automate them and forget about them, then use them when you notice sth important to do with them, instead of producing/buying new ones.

 

[Great Ape]

The problem in my opinion is warfare. The other units you can automate, even the archeologists.

So, reduce your wars. Play on the defensive. For a while.

If you think you need an intervention, or really want to go for domination, use high grade units. This is, beeline any warmonger technology, rush the new unit and use it. With a big technological advantage you don't need that many units. Even more, in the latest eras, supply limit diminishes quite a lot. Also, aircraft is quite handy. You put lots of them in a city and destroy whatever dares to get near, with very little micromanagement. The weak point is nuclear weapons that can destroy all your city garrison. If you are still too early in the game, just play defensively until you get to those new units. Artillery, submarines and planes change the war pace.

If going for domination, remember that you only need to capture capitals.

This is an interesting point that I hadn't considered much. I kinda already knew it in a way, since in my tradition games I've been forced to keep a small but high-tech military to avoid getting straight up crushed by AI hordes. Hadn't really thought to use the same approach for progress/authority starts.

They are very useful for connecting recently discovered strategic resources, repairing tiles of conquered cities and connecting railroads to them. Automated workers can do that just fine, their maintenance cost is neglectable. Moreover, forts become nice tiles with Colonialism policy.


Do puppets increase Supply Cup? If not then it could greatly limit your army, which is essential for conquest.


If you can't find anything useful for them anyway then why would you even care the way they do it? Just automate them and forget about them, then use them when you notice sth important to do with them, instead of producing/buying new ones.

I guess I could automate them with the "won't replace improvements" option checked- I despise them ruining my carefully planned roads, farm triangles, village placements, etc. But then, what's even the point in late game? I guess the compromise is to just keep a few sleeping in cities and activate them when I notice something that needs doing.

 

[CppMaster]

guess I could automate them with the "won't replace improvements" option checked- I despise them ruining my carefully planned roads, farm triangles, village placements, etc. But then, what's even the point in late game?

They do that? Maybe I have the option checked, so it's not an issue to me.

 

[chicorbeef]

They are very useful for connecting recently discovered strategic resources, repairing tiles of conquered cities and connecting railroads to them. Automated workers can do that just fine, their maintenance cost is neglectable. Moreover, forts become nice tiles with Colonialism policy.

You really don't need a whole lot more than a handful of workers to connect resources (and you can plant Citadels to get them instantly if you so desire) once you've established your railways, and if you happen to need a handy worker, they're cheap enough to quickly buy/build again with no real cost to your game. Plus Bank science is cool compensation. I've actually spam bought workers one time just to speed up the acquisition of a tech by one turn (to time a steal of a later era tech) when I had nothing else to invest in.

I usually delete half my workers when I reach the Modern Era.

Or yeah, just put them to sleep. I like the cleaner feel when they're gone because I know I don't use at least 50% of them but putting them to sleep makes sense.

Rebuilding captured cities isn't even all that important at this stage in the game. I prefer to puppet them and let them burn so as to deny my enemy pillage health.

Do puppets increase Supply Cup? If not then it could greatly limit your army, which is essential for conquest.

They don't. But you can still get by with 6-8 cities for awhile assuming war weariness doesn't wreck your supply cap. You could always annex cities later if you really need to.

Because of 1 UPT there isn't much point sending 80 units to invade somebody anyway when 20 can do the job. And going over the supply cap near the end of the game when you have a huge veteran army and a lesser AI doesn't matter.

If you can't find anything useful for them anyway then why would you even care the way they do it? Just automate them and forget about them, then use them when you notice sth important to do with them, instead of producing/buying new ones.

It's just extremely frustrating to see your neat planned tile networks wrecked. I wouldn't be able to stand it.

One more thing would be to disable events if you have them enabled. Those things are annoying and can be incredibly tedious.

 

[CppMaster]

I've actually spam bought workers one time just to speed up the acquisition of a tech by one turn (to time a steal of a later era tech) when I had nothing else to invest in.

Nice, I haven't thought of that. Maybe I'll do this since I have plenty of gold from conquest

Because of 1 UPT there isn't much point sending 80 units to invade somebody anyway when 20 can do the job.

With more units you can attack at multiple fronts, especially with planes. Also it's nice to have a garrison in every city when playing Authority.

It's just extremely frustrating to see your neat planned tile networks wrecked. I wouldn't be able to stand it

What tile networks? Do you mean farm triangles? Or do they remove roads? Why not just check "don't replace improvements"?

 

[Great Ape]

In my experience, worker AI left to its own devices will remove all tactically placed roads, and often completely restructure the roads you've built between your cities. It will also gladly replace farms and mines with villages wherever it sees fit.

It's true, it would be possible to just uncheck the box and then automate them- but I figure they'd just build a bunch of improvements (and thereby jack up tile maintenance) that I most likely wouldn't have the pop to work anyway. And since they couldn't replace anything, they wouldn't be able to connect any new strategic resource discovered underneath an improved tile, anyway.

I do have events disabled- I got tired of randomly burning improvements, yield penalties, all that nonsense haha

Anyway, the bottom line I'm taking from this thread is that I should annex less, puppet more, not be afraid to delete/sleep workers, and focus on having a smaller but more advanced military. Also, maybe I should be a little less of a filthy warmonger boy unless I'm actually going for domination.

Side note, I have yet to try Venice, but it seems like the ultimate in minimalist micromanagement. Anyone have thoughts on that?

-Ape

 

[tu_79]

In my experience, worker AI left to its own devices will remove all tactically placed roads, and often completely restructure the roads you've built between your cities. It will also gladly replace farms and mines with villages wherever it sees fit.

It's true, it would be possible to just uncheck the box and then automate them- but I figure they'd just build a bunch of improvements (and thereby jack up tile maintenance) that I most likely wouldn't have the pop to work anyway. And since they couldn't replace anything, they wouldn't be able to connect any new strategic resource discovered underneath an improved tile, anyway.

I do have events disabled- I got tired of randomly burning improvements, yield penalties, all that nonsense haha

Anyway, the bottom line I'm taking from this thread is that I should annex less, puppet more, not be afraid to delete/sleep workers, and focus on having a smaller but more advanced military. Also, maybe I should be a little less of a filthy warmonger boy unless I'm actually going for domination.

Side note, I have yet to try Venice, but it seems like the ultimate in minimalist micromanagement. Anyone have thoughts on that?

-Ape

When you check the no replacement option for workers, it's true that they are not going to connect a resource that already had other improvement, but solving this is easy as cake. Regain control of the nearest worker and force it to modify the improvement. Voilà.

About those workers improving more tiles than your city can possibly work on, this is not really an issue. You actually are better with more improvements than pops, so you can switch your city workers to other tiles when the need arises. The improvements cost nothing but time (worker unit maintenance).

About events, you are supposed to install extra events. The base ones can be annoying without additional mods. Either way, I prefer a purer civilization experience, as I find events too distracting.

 

[Moi Magnus]

In my experience, worker AI left to its own devices will remove all tactically placed roads, and often completely restructure the roads you've built between your cities. It will also gladly replace farms and mines with villages wherever it sees fit.

If this happen when "automated workers don't replace improvement" is on, it is a bug. My automated workers are not even allowed to improve banannas since they can't clear forest/jungles.

 

[Great Ape]

When you check the no replacement option for workers, it's true that they are not going to connect a resource that already had other improvement, but solving this is easy as cake. Regain control of the nearest worker and force it to modify the improvement. Voilà.

About those workers improving more tiles than your city can possibly work on, this is not really an issue. You actually are better with more improvements than pops, so you can switch your city workers to other tiles when the need arises. The improvements cost nothing but time (worker unit maintenance).

About events, you are supposed to install extra events. The base ones can be annoying without additional mods. Either way, I prefer a purer civilization experience, as I find events too distracting.

I like your point about the flexibility of having more improvements than you can work. For some reason I was under the impression that tile improvements (outside of roads as well) did have a small gpt maintenance cost- though even if so, the flexibility might be worth a small gold cost.
Good point about the worker commands- I'll try automating a few in mid-late with the no-replace box checked and just track one down when aluminum and such are revealed.
I have yet to even consider mod'ing or editing anything outside of VP- but similar to what you said, I find there's more than enough going on to keep me quite engaged without events.

If this happen when "automated workers don't replace improvement" is on, it is a bug. My automated workers are not even allowed to improve banannas since they can't clear forest/jungles.

I haven't automated a worker in a while, so my memories of them ruining my tiles must be from times without the box checked- but when I try this again I'll pay attention anyway just in case.

 

[Enginseer]

Has anyone else struggled with this?

Alexander the Great.

 

[Great Ape]

Alexander the Great.

Funny you say this- my first name happens to be Alexander