Getting rid of workers

[PieceOfMind]

Improvements now cost maintenance, so you wont want to build them until you need them.

Are you sure? Roads appear to, but I haven't seen any confirmation anywhere else that other improvements also cost maintenance. City buildings or city improvements on the other hand do cost maintenance.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Are you sure? Roads appear to, but I haven't seen any confirmation anywhere else that other improvements also cost maintenance. City buildings or city improvements on the other hand do cost maintenance.

There was a screenshot of econiomic balance, it showed improvements upkeep. But they could be mentioning roads.

 

[PieceOfMind]

You're right. I still have that screenshot. It says:

Expenses
Units: 24
Buildings: 34
Tile Improvements: 16
Diplomacy: 0

That gives you an idea of their relative sizes.

As for income, it was

97.69 gross per turn
23.69 net per turn (i.e. minus the expenses)

I'm going off on a tangent for a sec, but I really like that they are doing these calculations to at least hundredths. That was something they missed in the release of civ4, but added later with patches. But this time they also do it on individual trade routes! Fractional Trade Routes was an excellent mocomp for BtS IMO (inlcuded with BULL mod).

 

[JonoLith]

Well, and let's never forget that Workers are, themselves, a valuable resource. I will constantly start wars in the ancient era specifically, and only, to snag a worker from my enemy. If you make it so that tile improvement is tied only to cities, then you remove the a large aspect of marauding and pillaging that I so very much adore in the franchise.

 

[Schuesseled]

There aren't any tile improvements in CivRev. You can improve the yield of tiles by either building specific buildings in a city, or with some leaders by unlocking an additional leader ability when you move to a new era. Resources would automatically give their bonusses when you discover the appropriate tech.

Your wrong, without a worker working grasslands or plains, it looked like ordinary terrain, as soon as a city started working a farm appeared on the tile. It was a lame attempt to do a civ game without a worker unit, and such an activity should not be repeated.

 

[Ribannah]

In that case, can a roman legion and a worker build a road together?

Or you will get the message: 'Someone is already improving this tile, go and find something else to do.' I expect that other workers can pass through and therefore also occupy a tile that is being improved, too. They just can't help.



Now, if we could only have different worker units for mining, roading, irrigating etc., then we would really have to make tough choices in the early game!

 

[worldbuilder]

One thing that always bothered me with the civ series is that once you get your army of workers you can transform any land very fast. A whole new city radius could be shaped up just in a few turns with enough workers.

Why not removing the worker and instead make the citizens from the city screen "work" the tiles? While creating the improvement in the hex no resources are gathered.

I cannot agree more, not only to the idea but also to ezzlar's way of approaching civ game additions and changings with a natural view of the particular game aspect.

It's natural that workers within the city radius work the tiles, and no additional personnel. So it's necessary to let you split their work force concerning producing corn and shields and/or improving the land at that tile, e.g. building a road. Netting less symbols gives faster road building. Mere road building orders build it faster, but no corn and shields gathered. Maximum corn and shields, if no worker action chosen for the assigned POP.

This works for the game balance only if your full yield of corn and shields is slightly more than now, making it easier to grow the city if you improve nothing in its radius. But then there should be more city tile improvements possible, and defined amounts of city development should be necessary for the next POP point generated, not only fixed amounts of corn gathered.

On the other hand: If you need tiles worked outside your city radii: THEN you might be able to build special worker units for the purpose of moving and working. These would be called PIONEERS because they work outside the already civilized area. Maybe they would have some basic combat skills too for defence purposes. Improving tiles outside your national borders would be forbidden altogether.

If we might find out about some exceptions in history with special peoples having these exceptional building skills: If they are in the game give them a special unit that can build structures outside their national borders. Adds to game flavour.

 

[Shurdus]

Worldbuilder, your ideas seem to forget that moving workers around is pretty much the only thing that keeps the game from getting very dull early on. Also it its no use to over-rationalize the issue since workers are more a gameplay feature and an understandable way to present the options that players have rather than them being realistic.

 

[Calouste]

Your wrong, without a worker working grasslands or plains, it looked like ordinary terrain, as soon as a city started working a farm appeared on the tile. It was a lame attempt to do a civ game without a worker unit, and such an activity should not be repeated.

Adding a graphic to show that the tile is being worked isn't the same as adding an improvement to improve the yield of the tile.

 

[Xzylvador]

One thing that always bothered me with the civ series is that once you get your army of workers you can transform any land very fast. A whole new city radius could be shaped up just in a few turns with enough workers.

Wait... given the same time, 500 people can work more land than 50? That's absurd!
</sarcasm>
I for one will miss stacking workers... without that and without infinite roads, I expect to be self-destructing a lot of workers late-game.

 

[Teodosio]

Wait... given the same time, 500 people can work more land than 50? That's absurd!
</sarcasm>
I for one will miss stacking workers... without that and without infinite roads, I expect to be self-destructing a lot of workers late-game.

You are missing the fact of "decreasing returns" here eheheeh
This means that if I can craft a chair in 1 hour, 3600 people together cannot create one in 1 second

 

[Tarkhan]

Well it would be better said that 500 people can work more land than 50, and produce ten times as much harvest. but 500 people can't work the same land as 50 and get ten times the harvest.

 

[worldbuilder]

Worldbuilder, your ideas seem to forget that moving workers around is pretty much the only thing that keeps the game from getting very dull early on. Also it its no use to over-rationalize the issue since workers are more a gameplay feature and an understandable way to present the options that players have rather than them being realistic.

You're probably right, but your arguments give not much hope for a meaningful early game if moving workers and seeing them operate means so much then. Maybe game designers should do more about this period, releasing a Civ:Stone Age building up from there with expansions. Like with the "Age of Empire" series in real time strategy.

This would make for much deeper gameplay right from the start. Otherwise nobody would buy a copy, if you got not more to do, when the whole game is about that age. We always have to wait for them modders to get the situation mended a bit. But they also face limitations being not the official coders with source code access.

Wouldn't mind splitting the series for that matter, releasing both kinds of civ games. One traditional for going all the way, and one modular with each era being a full game staging up. Of course with portable save games from one era to the next.

 

[sucksforyou112]

Same stuff as in the other thread, but still relevant

Here's my thoughts:

Howabout each time a city gains a pop, a worker is produced/stacked in that city. That unit can be moved to go make a resource, such as a farm. For free. Then, if you decide to change the improvement there, you pay for the improvement to be changed, and it changes the next turn.

Also, you can take a pop from the city to make a worker, and then send it out to work a tile (any tile with an improvement would always be worked). This way, the cities would not be uber city states, and it would be more like a society with big cities, and people also live in suburbs/rural areas.

Since you can take pop out of cities, you could choose between high pop/high production cities and small pop/high food cities (So each pop would make an amount of production/research, with bonuses when in cities. So a pop in a grassland farm is +3 food +1 Research, a pop in a city is +2 production +2 research, lets say). This would work best if food was global, so the agrarian cities/nations could compete.

Food could even be a tradeable resource like gold, as a lump sum from your stack of food to help a starving nation or over time, as an amount per turn.

There could be a way to cut off food or regulate which cities get food so as to make it so if one city starves they all do not as a result.

If a tile is pillaged, it is turned into a worker, and if recaptured could be put back to work.

Roads would be built by the city screen or something, and tiles would be individually selected, then an amount of gold would be payed to make it, with the road arriving the next turn. If a worked tile is selected, then that tile does not produce its normal output, instead making the road. If an unworked tile(s) is selected, then the nearest worked tile(s) will work on them, for the same result.

Workers could be added to cities as well as taken from them.

 

[civnoob13]

One thing that always bothered me with the civ series is that once you get your army of workers you can transform any land very fast. A whole new city radius could be shaped up just in a few turns with enough workers.

So? If you consider how much a turn is in terms of years it is realistic, and if you have that many workers you probably haven't built much else, in which case you're screwed. I don't see the problem in this, especially seeing as workers no longer stack.

Why not removing the worker and instead make the citizens from the city screen "work" the tiles? While creating the improvement in the hex no resources are gathered.

Because that would make the game extremely boring, especially early game. What would you then do early game apart from occasionally selecting a new building or tech? I would not buy a game with no workers.

 

[builer680]

This is (was) a 5 month old thread. I'm not sure about this forum, because I haven't read the stickies... but most forums don't much like necro posting. But since it's already necro'd, I wanna quote someone from an August post they made.

Worldbuilder, your ideas seem to forget that moving workers around is pretty much the only thing that keeps the game from getting very dull early on.

I have to agree, except maybe to change "early on" to "the entire game."