governers!any use?

[supaguruzebidy]

just wondering if governers have uses! Old civ 2 player just moved up to 3 and while familiar to many of the features in the game, governers are still a black spot for me!!!

 

[Hawkster]

Simple answer - whilst you are learning the game they can be useful but once you have mastered the game basics they are better left off as a competant player can do better than the govenors.


Same applies to workers manual control is much better than automated.

 

[CerberusIV]

Governors work OK if you only let them control citizen moods. Then they mostly work the best tiles and keep your cities from rioting. Still worth checking on them from time to time though.

DON'T use them for anything else - they invariably build things you don't want.

Using governors too much brings you down to the level of the AI civs - not a good idea!

 

[zerksees]

I use the governor to manage citizen moods, and to emphasize food and production in citizen placement. In early game play I might leave it off but after I get 6-10 cities I get sloppy and cities end up in anarchy, so I am better off using it. There are always exceptions where I would turn it off for a settler factory city, or a newly captured city

I do not use the governor to control what is produced.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Originally posted by zerksees
I do not use the governor to control what is produced.

There is one case where I do find it useful to tell the governor what to produce. In those outlying, totally currupt cities I typically just produce workers forever. Get yourself 20 or more cities producing a worker every 10 turns, and you've got a whole lot of workers!

The governor will keep trying to get you to build temples, libraries, tanks, etc., but if you tell it to build workers "Often" it will make the right choice. I still set the game preference that tells it to show a popup asking me what to build, but at least this way I can just OK that dialog instead of constantly changing to worker.

I also usually tell those cities to emphasize food. I still need to reset everyone back to being specialists every time a worker is produced (stupid governor!), but this way I don't need to move people to the best food-producing tiles. I just turn them into taxmen, and I'm good.

 

[kb2tvl]

I use the govenor to manage moods, sometimes. I will not use the govenor to manage my core city if he is not setting food production to just make a pop growth. This can be huge in the early game.

Example: size 1~6 needs 20 food to grow and 10 food to grow with a granary. You can set which tiles you want to work to get just 5 or 10 food per turn for max growth. Once you have the city up to the size you want, move the production tiles to tiles that give more shields and less food. This can give a 50% improvement in the rate of settler production.

Now, manually moving workers give a much bigger bonsus but this can give you those extra cities sooner on higher levels.

 

[downwithgravity]

i manage all of my cities individually...moods, production, everything. takes friggin' forever, but it's worth it if you're a crazy nitpicker like me.

 

[Dr Corbett]

I usually end up with lots of cities. Therefore, governor saves me time.

 

[Goober]

I use the Governor to Manage Citizen Moods, Emphasize Food and production, but that is all. I rarely use the Governor to manage Production, because it usually chooses things to build that I do not want it to build (like stupid Trebuchets . . . )

 

[silver 2039]

I never use goveners for anything. I prefer to do it myself.

 

[nullspace]

The best use I've found for governors is when going into anarchy. Manage citizens moods and emphasize food will keep keep your cities from rioting or starving. And it saves you from having to examine each city.

Other than that, I use manage citizen's moods sometimes late in the game. When you've got big cities, one turn of anarchy can me much worse than one or two citizens working on non-optimal tiles.

 

[bjbj1991]

how do you stop govs. from building great wonders.

 

[magicianeer]

I let the governer manage cities that I am not currently "using". I load the build queue with 3-4 items for such cities. I turn off the governer for a city when I need to build a wonder, build the expensive military units (knight,cavalry) Fast, or I find the governer doing an especially bad job.

The governer seems to work much better with larger cities and in cities where the land is fully mined/irrigated.

Originally posted by bjbj1991
how do you stop govs. from building great wonders.

Double -click on any of your cities-- city management window appears.
Press G-- governer settings window appears.
At the bottom of the governer window are options for not building wonders.

 

[The Great Quan]

I've started using it for mood control and it keeps the smoke from rising in my cities. I'll turn it off on occasion if I'm in a hurry and want to maximize production.

The drawback I think is not being able to choose which tile to pull off to be an entertainer (not matching strategic priorities). And you lose some control of taxmen and scientists stuff.

When I have them on I'm usually to busy with the stuff I love in Civ like campaigning and building infrastructure etc.

 

[Goober]

I find automating workers to be the best thing since Sliced Bread. I am not sure why people do not like automating workers, it is VERY effective. The workers do what they should, without you wasting your time. I am wondering if there are any specific reasons why people do not automate workers?

 

[downwithgravity]

i find that workers often do the exact OPPOSITE of what should be done if they're automated...irrigating where mining would be more efficient, etc.

 

[Hawkster]

If you read crackers opening play strategy article in the war academy you will see that the biggest difference between a human and the ai - is the intelligent use of workers. The AI tends to follow a set pattern of worker actions - wheras a human can adjust and think ahead - so manual worker control allows better fine tuning for maximum benefit.

For example during despotism the AI will irrigate tiles which will suffer from the food penalty and will not help city growth - wheras a human player would mine the tiles to maximise shield production without effecting growth. This can be a big help in the early game.

 

[The Great Quan]

Workers = Roads

The AI can't comprehend good road building that links cities for trade and/or military purposes.

I usually don't build enough workers to let the haphazard efforts of the algorithms eventually fill in my networks.

 

[OldieMagee]

I never automate workers until I get out of Despotism.
The governer is great like ZERKSES said, after 10 cities or so, because inevitably a city will grow and riot because I usually keep them at the brink of balance and one more citizen is enough to kill me.

 

[jammasterlee]

governor is really effective i think in the beginning for managing moods when every turn is precious. i'm bad at timing the anarchy avoidance when a city grows past a certain level (3+ give you all unhappy's at monarchy lvl i think)...also automating workers is the bomb...saves your wrists from a whole lotta clicking! also use shift-a to keep your original improvements..very useful once you get steam power...