How do you develop your terrain

[Paulo Posso]

Hi, I´m new here. I just want to ask tow things.
1. I usually set the improvements in my city radius so the city produces exactly 40 food , so the population gets fixed at 20 with no speciallist at all. I do it in cities producing wealt because I think I get more from the shields generated mining than the 1 gold a tax collector can get. What do you think?
2. Please help me, how do I stop the AI patrolling? I read you can
do it editing a .ini file but I can´t find any on my civ3 directory an
subdirector¡es (except of course for the units) there is a Civilization3.Ini file but it is not related with the AI (I think, please
correct me if I´m wrong).

thank you.

P. S. Please forgive my bad spelling, english is not my mother thonge.

 

[wasteland]

Hi Paulo,

You did fine in English... my spanish is horrible so I'm glad
you were able to post in English. Can't help you with the
ai patrolling, but as far as landscaping I like to grab around
10 (slave) workers as that is the number it seems to take for
them to make a road in 1 turn on hills. I basically terraform
my entire land using other peoples laborers, that is until I
either bash them into submission or vice/versa.

It's annoying with the patrolling, I didn't know you can edit
it out. What I ordinarily do is just try to post my people in such
a way that my cities are nearly blocked with the aid of 5-6 troops to block the other people out... then threathen them with war and if they come with the settler, all the better... attack them and have more workers for terraforming.

 

[Paulo Posso]

Wasteland, thank you fot posting. I see I wasn´t clear enough, I ment what do you think about fixing the population at 20 without any specialist. BTW I like too grabing slaves, is one of the best things of razing a large city besides, the enemy loses a very productive city.

 

[Goober]

Well, I recommend Automating your Workers by pressing "A" whenever you have a worker selected. Automated workers do a great job improving your terrain, whatever others may say. This way, you can spend less time micromanaging, and more time Civving!!!

Welcome to CFC, by the way!!!

 

[Brewster]

Pump out a HUGE workforce and road and improve every tile before leaving it. I find having at least 2 workers per city is a good mix. This will allow you to get the most out of your territory and increase production and income much faster than the AI.

Note: Many of the top players on this site recommend you control your own workers and not automate them. Afterall, the AI uses the same method when developing thier land and don't do a very good job of it.

 

[Cathy]

Originally posted by Paulo Posso
2. Please help me, how do I stop the AI patrolling? I read you can do it editing a .ini file but I can´t find any on my civ3 directory an subdirector¡es (except of course for the units) there is a Civilization3.Ini file but it is not related with the AI (I think, please
correct me if I´m wrong).

thank you.

It's a PTW thing. (probably C3C too) From the readme for the latest patch:

Additions in v1.27f:
* Added an INI file option to turn off AI patrolling. The option is NoAIPatrol and if set to 1, the AI will no longer use its units to randomly patrol if they have nothing else to do. The default is 0 (meaning the AI will patrol). In multiplayer games, the host's setting will be used for all players.

Hope this helps.

 

[Miluss]

@PauloPosso: IMO best prevention from AI patrols is to block the roads into your territory with your forces so that they cannot go in. It happens also from AI side, if you have ROP with them and try to look into their lands they often put their forces on the roads so that you cannnot see all of their land.

@ RealGoober: Automating workers with A makes them instantly changing irrigation into mining and vice versa. Better idea is to use Shift+A, what means automate, leave existing improvements.

 

[Paulo Posso]

Cathy thank you so much, I finally understand it. Now I MUST get PTW which is rather dificult here.

 

[Gengis Khan]

Originally posted by RealGoober
Well, I recommend Automating your Workers by pressing "A" whenever you have a worker selected. Automated workers do a great job improving your terrain, whatever others may say. This way, you can spend less time micromanaging, and more time Civving!!!

You're kidding, right??

 

[Goober]

Originally posted by Gengis Khan


You're kidding, right??

Of course not. Automated workers do a very good job, IMO. I appear to be the only one that actually finds Automating useful, since I find the AI does a good job automating, and can react to your cities, as they grow and get more citizens

That being said, I do control some workers for specific projects, or set them on various stages of automating for various projects, like a few workers dedicated to clearing pollution, a few for roads, a LOT for Jungle, then just general automation . . .

 

[Miluss]

Originally posted by RealGoober


I appear to be the only one that actually finds Automating useful, (...)

Hmm, I use automate workers also - but partly. Early in the game automated worker always begins with cutting down the jungle or some other useless activity. I usually automate some workers and send some to specific jobs. Later in the game, when most of improvements are made, and there are more workers (slaves or natives) I automate them with option "leave existing improvements", because having them 60 or so, even if they do something useless, does not disturb the development so much.

 

[Point13]

i usually get 3 or 4 workers, (eventually just to fight pollution) and have them irrigate everything they can, then mine the rest

 

[Padma]

Originally posted by Paulo Posso
Cathy thank you so much, I finally understand it. Now I MUST get PTW which is rather dificult here.

If you can find it, you are better off getting Civ3:Conquests, the 2nd expansion pack. It includes all the core game from PTW, PLUS a bunch of new stuff.

 

[Dignitas]

1. I usually set the improvements in my city radius so the city produces exactly 40 food , so the population gets fixed at 20 with no speciallist at all. I do it in cities producing wealt because I think I get more from the shields generated mining than the 1 gold a tax collector can get. What do you think?

That's perfect and the way I do it too. The only real benefit of a city with more inhabitants than tiles to work is a better score in the end (For a bigger overall population. Since I never play for score but for an efficient empire, i try to keep my cities at optimal size too.

Needless to say that you need to try to avoid Shift-Automation or even Automation for as long as possible if you want an optimzed landscape. With a really huge empire it can become very boring to micromanage the workers. Then I use Shift-A too (After I have optimized my core cities). But that's very late into the game close to the end of the industrial age.

Edit: In C3C specialists are a bit more efficient (3 beakers per scientist, 2 gold per tax collector) so it might be an option there.

About the patrolling I have no idea what you mean. Maybe just turn off "Show/Animate Friend Moves" under options?

 

[kb2tvl]

There is a balance between the size of a city, specialists and shield production.

Some cities become very corrupted and these cities gain very little from cash luxaries so specialists are the only way to keep control of these cities. Specialists are not effected by corruption but do not get modified by city improvements.

Also, as you grow a city, it becomes more difficult to keep people happy in a corrupted city so unless you are looking for score, I do not bother with growing large corrupted cities or try to use specialists.

In uncorrupted cities, I would guess that keeping your cities near size 20 is about as good as a specialists. Lets see, if 4 shields = 1 trade then a factory + power plant and two mined tiles translates into two irigated tiles(+2 food or 1 specialists).

 

[Dignitas]

You definatley have a very good point there. Keep the core and semi corrupt cities close to size 20 and optimze the distant corrupt ones for food only so you can have as many specialists as possible. I guess that's what i will do next time, if I have enough patience to micromanage

 

[Paulo Posso]

Does the population affect the pollution? (of course I’m talking after you build recycling and mass transit). Before I used to think so, but now it seems to me it is decided very randomly. I’ve set scenarios with no pollution at all from any improvement and it still appears. If pollution do depend on the population there is another reason for keeping a maximum of 20 pop. But I don’t think it does.

I believe a labourer on a mine gets more money because besides the shields, it produces trade.

 

[tao]

1. If at all possible have your first worker(s) dedicated to improve your capital (or 2nd city) into a settler factory.
2. Do all the important improvements by manually controlling workers, at least in Acient Times and Middle Ages.
3. Use manually controlled forresting operations to get maximum benefit.
4. Once you know steam, have stacks of workers finishing railroading in 1 turn. I always build a strategic rr network first and then select in the F1 screen cities which would benefit most from rr.
5. Never ever automate workers with "A". They will change mines to irrigation and vice versa creating havoc on your cities.
   This is consenus among all who really know the game.
6. In the later game, you may automate some of your workers with <shift>"A" and they will not change existing improvements.
7. Be careful in times of war. Automated workers expose themselves to enemy units and are captured or killed frequently.
8. Always keep some under manual control for important tasks.
9. Automated workers (at least in vanilla 1.29) have the great weakness that the AI does not stack more than 2. Thus they clear many jungle tiles or pollution concurrently instead of clearing them one after another.
10. Don't aim at "pop 20". Better aim e.g. at 40 shields after corruption, if the city shall build 80 shield riflemen.
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[Miluss]

Originally posted by tao
[B
Automated workers (at least in vanilla 1.29) have the great weakness that the AI does not stack more than 2. [/B]

I can remember one of my games (vanilla 1.29) where the whole island was fully improved so I put all my workers on Shift+A mode. They remained dormant in the cities and when pollution hit they all imroved the tiles so it never lasted for more than one turn. So the 2-stack rule may not be so rigorous.

 

[tao]

Originally posted by Miluss
I can remember one of my games (vanilla 1.29) where the whole island was fully improved so I put all my workers on Shift+A mode. They remained dormant in the cities and when pollution hit they all imroved the tiles so it never lasted for more than one turn. So the 2-stack rule may not be so rigorous.

The rule applies, if there is more to do than can be done in one turn. Example: 3 tiles polluted, each tile needing 6 worker turns. If you have 6 workers on "A" two will go to each of the polluted tiles.
If only 1 tile is polluted, it gets cleared of course the same turn.