how far should I trust automation?

[FlowKey]

Hi,

I just played my first few games of civ5. I have been playing civ since the first DOS-version tho. This is probably why I have a basic distrust of automation. Back then a simple go-to command could easily go wrong. So I was wondering what your views are on automation of
- workers
- units (explore)
- choices for employment of workers on tiles

I am eagerly trying to find the right balance. In the past the tedious micromanagement often led me to abandon a game out of sheer boredom, but of course I don't want to lose the edge I have against my AI opponents. I haven't encountered any real bugs that led to a disaster (so far ...)

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and stories!

 

[chgrogers]

I don't trust Automation of workers at all. I like having lumber mills and Automated workers seem to chop every forest in sight.

I generally Automate 1 scout or the 1st warrior in the game as they seems know always know were the ancient ruins and city states are.

In the city I leave them alone using the focus to change the used tiles. Unless changing focus also puts me in neg gold then ill will switch 1-2 citizens to larger gold tiles as well.

 

[bryanw1995]

I never automate workers/units. Sometimes I allow cities to pick the worked tiles, but typically even that is only when I feel that the game is already won.

That could make an interesting challenge for an immortal game, however. Just always work whatever tiles the city chooses for you.

 

[Trickster7135]

well city tiles are usually picked well, if you use the focus options, although they sometimes do curious things like run a food deficit if you emphasis production.

I never automate units, except to travel from point A to point B, and even that I have to fix it sometimes if another unit gets in the way.

 

[aimlessgun]

You can have automated workers not clear terrain and leave old improvements alone. At that point they're fairly competent. But I certainly wouldn't do it for 95% of the game.

 

[Misterboy]

I don't automate workers, *except* at the end of the game, when I don't care much.

I always use the production focus buttons for citizen management as it works perfectly. Exceptions being when it causes a food/gold/etc deficit. Then I manually override.

I scout manually at first... pretty much always, until late in the game, when I'm exploring territory that has no direct impact on my game. Then automate. I believe, in general, that automating explorers is basically pretty safe.

Edit: RE worker automation, selecting the option that disallows workers from changing improvements or altering terrain is worthwhile if you really want to automate them.

 

[Tabarnak]

From a number from 1 to 10, i give automation a 0(zero).

I never never never(did i say never?) automate units. Unless i plan to double move somebody in mp....

I do automate citizens allocation at the end sometimes, but thats not really important.

 

[Polycrates]

I never ever EVER automate workers. Ever.

But I find that the default city focus tends to work remarkably well 90% of the time, with maybe one or two tweaks, as long as you've specialised your tile improvements appropriately. So if you've focused on trading posts, it will primarily work those (as well as your really good resource tiles) as well as enough farms etc to keep your city growing. It seems to get a good balance between growth and gold/production, and it will automatically cut back on food in favour of gold/production if your happiness dips negative, and return it once you're in positive again, which is really nice. Production focus only when I'm racing for a wonder or something, food focus in a specialist city, but otherwise I hardly ever use the other specialisations (except in conjunction with avoid growth when there's happiness problems).
But I always force manual specialist allocation though.

I usually automate my caravel once I've discovered all the other civs. Automating scouts seems to be a recipe for pissing off every city-state in the game though, so beyond scouting my own continent I often just wait for satellites because I really couldn't be bothered.

 

[PScirocco]

If only they bring back "auto-improve this city" from civ4 (assuming that it works, anyway), the main problem with automation is that citizens place way too much priority on any type of resource, like going across the continent to improve a deer that is not needed at all.

That said, if you have a lot of puppets, a bunch of auto-workers do fine filling those cities with trading posts.

They seem to go nuts when you get railroad though, they build broken rails all over the place instead of starting from the capital...

 

[Aldor]

I never ever EVER automate workers. Ever.

But I find that the default city focus tends to work remarkably well 90% of the time, with maybe one or two tweaks, as long as you've specialised your tile improvements appropriately. So if you've focused on trading posts, it will primarily work those (as well as your really good resource tiles) as well as enough farms etc to keep your city growing. It seems to get a good balance between growth and gold/production, and it will automatically cut back on food in favour of gold/production if your happiness dips negative, and return it once you're in positive again, which is really nice. Production focus only when I'm racing for a wonder or something, food focus in a specialist city, but otherwise I hardly ever use the other specialisations (except in conjunction with avoid growth when there's happiness problems).
But I always force manual specialist allocation though.

I usually automate my caravel once I've discovered all the other civs. Automating scouts seems to be a recipe for pissing off every city-state in the game though, so beyond scouting my own continent I often just wait for satellites because I really couldn't be bothered.

Quite similar here on automation. For me however, production focus is the "default" for 90% of the games, as it almost always gives better production AND food for my cities (default focus uses far too many specialists for my liking).

EDIT: now I'm thinking of it, I should probably use the "don't assign specialists" option rather than changing the focus

 

[sebasm]

I never, ever automate workers or leave cities to pick their own working tiles. It's more micro-management but if you really want to optimize your cities' output there's no other way to do it.

Exploration I don't do because I find it cheesy how the AI goes straight-lines towards the ruins.

 

[WeaselSlapper]

Typically the only thing I'll automate are my first Caravel or two when I don't really care to race to be the first to circle the globe. The way they search though is terribly inefficient, but it saves a lot of real time for me. So I'm trading a few caravel turns for not having to manually control them, but it's a good tradeoff for me. And whey they are done uncovering every tile they can, they automatically un-automate so I can bring them home.

However, typically citizen management is good with the one exception of production focus that has been noted. The City manager tends to go all in for production ignoring some highly productive tiles, but those tiles can be locked on so they will always be worked no matter what (a good idea to do for your GP improvement tiles, not that I use those that often).

I do agree with everyone else here that I don't automate workers. Typically I don't even at the end of the game because they build too many railroads and railroads are expensive. However I will tell them to build a route, they build the most efficient path for that.

 

[OmegaKabob]

I only automate my second or third Caravel. I don't trust anything else.

 

[LaminarFlow]

I know what you mean though, towards the end it does get a little annoying going through every worker to find something for them to improve. At this point I usually just tell them to sleep that way I don't have to worry about automation. Every once in awhile I'll look around to see if there are any tiles worth improving but I rather just not have to deal with them. At time's I've even deleted them to get a little gold/turn back. Though, this is usually when I've been warring and capturing a bunch of enemy workers.

 

[Hustapha Thool]

Workers, never
Cities, default usually unless I determined for a particular fast build/goal.
Units:
caravel - I play large maps and do not want to mess with it every turn. The downside of it is, the caravel really loves to explore the arctic zones first. Sometimes you have to send it another direction for a while and then back to explore.

Exploration units, usually not.

 

[Lokos451]

I play a fair amount of hotseat with buddies of mine, mostly CIV before the last patch. We've long had a saying: Automove is the devil.

Those tiny movements are the things the computer is most incompetent at, and the first and easiest place to regain the advantages they are handed on the more difficult levels. Ditto for city tiles, military movements, etc.

Although, if you prefer avoiding it in the lategame, go to options, select for your workers not to build over already improved tiles, and do the first critical improvements for your cities before letting those workers loose. It drastically improves their overall 'intelligence'.

 

[Horserush]

Typically I'll only automate scouts, and the city manager is not really that great from my experience. Like it will run negative food and shrink your city if you're not careful (production focus), or totally ignore production and do crazy things like assign a worker to the temple even though your city is only size 4 or 5 so I'll always turn that off asap.

I like the micromanagement though, it adds depth and strategy and if done right (I make a lot of mistakes ) you can get some highly specialized cities which I love.

One thing on scout automation, is it just me or do they always seem to run right up to the barb huts and walk all the way around them while barbarians pound them into the ground?

 

[Steelyglint]

I automate scouts, and first warrior, and caravels. Always. They know where stuff is and never get stuck. They fill in all the gaps very well, and find me good city spots really fast. They don't care enough about pissing off City States by walking through them tho. :/

I tell my workers what to do. They always build trading posts, which I hate except in jungle territory. I always build mines on hills of any sort, chop all forests, never build on deserts. If I let them be, they build farm on deserts, which grant 1 food for most of the game. That's less food than a Citizen needs to survive, and there is no reward for the loss of 1 happiness and 1 food. You just get the science. WTH? Obviously a bad idea.

I always leave it to my governors to assign Citizens to work tiles. Normally on Great Person Focus so no crappy tiles like unimproved Ocean or Tundra get worked, and Great People are produced and the very best tiles are always worked. This is really good when I do Freedom and build the Statue of Liberty.

 

[starrywisdom]

I tell my workers what to do. They always build trading posts, which I hate except in jungle territory. I always build mines on hills of any sort, chop all forests, never build on deserts. If I let them be, they build farm on deserts, which grant 1 food for most of the game. That's less food than a Citizen needs to survive, and there is no reward for the loss of 1 happiness and 1 food. You just get the science. WTH? Obviously a bad idea..

I've never had the above happen...lol. For me it seems like the A.I. does every well placing general improvements. It doesn't go into 'advanced strategy' of placing weird improvements on weird locations to 'specialize' a city but it does well enough if you just want a general city. I don't think I've ever seen them build a trading post except where it would make sense, I've never seen them put it somewhere where something would be much better...

 

[FaceUnderMask]

Haven't read the whole topic

City automation is pretty good, I use it instead of manual setup of every worked tile, maybe some minor corrections.
You should set up specialist yourself. Sometimes the AI choice of specs is weird.
Workers are complicated. They are alright sometimes, when your empire is like 25 cities or so. When you SHOULDN'T set worker on auto:
1) when you got nuked. They will focus on repairing tiles but scrubbing fallout seems very low-prioritized (just today saw how autoworkers repaired some tiles, then gone and replaced road with railroad. I won shortly after that so didn't saw if they even scrubbed it.
2) above mentioned railroads. they could easily make one from road even if the city connected is in tundra and don't even need this production bonus.

Actually NEVER automate scouts and first warrior. Don't know about recent patch but they just committed suicides, like walking close to barb camp etc.

I often automate naval exploration.