Judicial Review #1 - Organizing Workers

I agree that if it's possible for the governor's orders to be carried out without wasting worker turns that they should definitely be done. It's the absolute nature of the wording that gives me problems. As it's also only marginally reasonable after rails it needs to be qualified as such.
 
Rails will be going on for a very long time, Shaitan. Our cities need work now. As we can't seem to get Governor's Instructions done by the DP, even before rails became your issue of choice, we need the 3 item Priority List for each Province. If the Governor of a given Province refuses to put up a Priority List, then the DP is allowed to do what ever work they want in that Province, with no regard to priorities.
 
Rails are not my issue at all. Worker efficiency is my issue. A worker should not have to travel to a task. They should work to a task. If a worker has to go into an undeveloped tile they need to make a road before they leave it. If the target tile is 3 spaces away, the worker needs to stop and work on the tile 2 spaces away so that turn isn't lost.

Mandatory lists will force inefficiency in the workforce.
 
Is that why, when Chieftess had 9 workers in my Province and it only took 1 turn to get to all three worker actions, one of which was already roaded, that none of the work was done, Shaitan?
 
Originally posted by Shaitan
Rails are not my issue at all. Worker efficiency is my issue. A worker should not have to travel to a task. They should work to a task. If a worker has to go into an undeveloped tile they need to make a road before they leave it. If the target tile is 3 spaces away, the worker needs to stop and work on the tile 2 spaces away so that turn isn't lost.

Mandatory lists will force inefficiency in the workforce.

Shaitan, the solution to your worries is to elect governors who would use the workers efficiently. There is no guarantee that the DP/President won't have workers walking over undeveloped tiles to get to other projects.
 
Perhaps, in a future release of Civ4 or 5 in which multiple players can play at the same time for the same team, I can see the benefit of distributing workers amongst the provinces for control by the respective governors.

However, as there can be only one DP, the notion of allowing governors to "release" their workers to the DP for special projects and critical needs as they arise within the game seems borderline impossible.

Please keep in mind that the biggest threat to the success of the DG is stagnation. Case in point, this current term. The forum has descended into near anarchy, and I'm fairly certain it is because we have gone 17 days and only progressed 12 turns.

If we were to adopt such a system and the DP could not order workers to perform tasks without prior approval from the governors, the chance of completing 5 turns in a single chat, let alone 10, becomes quite difficult.

I must also agree with Shaitan that workers moving from one work site to another is indeed inefficient. They should work their way to the new site, performing needed tasks (even if they are not as critical) along the way. Of course, there are exceptions, and because of these and for many other reasons, the flexibility of worker priorities must remain solely with the DP.
 
Originally posted by eyrei
We may have trouble finding anyone willing to be President next term...

Fanatika is too large for us to expect the DP to never miss anything, particularly worker actions. And if we make more laws (something we simply do not need) regarding worker actions, it is just going to open the doors for constant PIs by governors against the DP. This game is not about PIs...

I agree we do not need any more laws. As for wanting to be president, Octavian's been running for a few thousand years now. He's like the Energizer Bunny, he keeps running and running and running... :D

It is because Fanatika is so large that we need to allow governors to manage their provinces and give worker instructions. If we divided up the workers among the provinces things would be much easier. There is no reason the DP can't perform worker actions the same time that build queues are done, i. e., right when the instructions are read.
 
Originally posted by FortyJ
With all due respect, Cyc. I fear that such an addition would require a number of subset rules that would allow for conditional over-rides.

For example, if a governor has posted instructions to mine a ridge of hills, or irrigate from a river to a city (much like the great irrigation project in Southwest province earlier), but during the turn chat, the situation changes (a new resource becomes available and needs to be connected to the trade network, a foreign city flips to our side and needs to be connected, foreign troops loom close by one of our border towns, etc...), the DP would have no flexibility to adjust the worker actions accordingly.

I think the President/DP must be afforded the flexibility to prioritize actions as needed throughout the turn chat.

The DP/President does have the flexibility to deal with these cases. It is called the adminstrative vote which was designed to allow the president to react to new situations.
 
Originally posted by FortyJ
Perhaps, in a future release of Civ4 or 5 in which multiple players can play at the same time for the same team, I can see the benefit of distributing workers amongst the provinces for control by the respective governors.

However, as there can be only one DP, the notion of allowing governors to "release" their workers to the DP for special projects and critical needs as they arise within the game seems borderline impossible.

Please keep in mind that the biggest threat to the success of the DG is stagnation. Case in point, this current term. The forum has descended into near anarchy, and I'm fairly certain it is because we have gone 17 days and only progressed 12 turns.

If we were to adopt such a system and the DP could not order workers to perform tasks without prior approval from the governors, the chance of completing 5 turns in a single chat, let alone 10, becomes quite difficult.

I must also agree with Shaitan that workers moving from one work site to another is indeed inefficient. They should work their way to the new site, performing needed tasks (even if they are not as critical) along the way. Of course, there are exceptions, and because of these and for many other reasons, the flexibility of worker priorities must remain solely with the DP.

As I said in my reply to Shaitan, what makes the DP more efficient at worker use than a governor? Are we expecting a governor to post this kind of instruction:

The jungle near Jungle City needs to be cleared. Please send all the workers we have to the interior of the jungle so they can clear it and work their way back.

We elect governors to decide what our cities will build, arguably the most important thing we do. Can't we give them the benefit of the doubt that they will provide reasonable and efficient instructions for our workers? If they don't at least we would see them and could adjust our votes accordingly.

No one is advocating a system wherein the DP could not order workers to perform tasks without prior approval from the governors. What we are advocating is that the DP cannot perform worker tasks contrary to a governor's tile improvement instructions without a proper over-ride vote.
 
Originally posted by donsig
Shaitan, the solution to your worries is to elect governors who would use the workers efficiently. There is no guarantee that the DP/President won't have workers walking over undeveloped tiles to get to other projects.
You are correct. There's no guarantee that the DP will use workers effectively. It's a safer bet than a general reliance on governors though. Unfortunately there are good micromanagers and poor ones. Also unfortunately it is very difficult to fill our offices and the majority of governors are not elected. I believe only two provinces were actually filled by election last term. The rest ran uncontested or were appointed. In contrast, the Presidential election is always contested.

This isn't really about any of that though. The problem is that mandated work orders or arbitrary division of workers do not give the person with the live game the flexibility to complete things as efficiently as possible.

Originally posted by donsig
There is no reason the DP can't perform worker actions the same time that build queues are done, i. e., right when the instructions are read.
Sure there is. If there are 80 odd workers scattered about it would be an absolute nightmare to try to track the progress of each one at the beginning of every turn. "This worker is building a mine. Are you sure you want them to stop?" Realistically, nobody is going to tend to worker tasks until the workers come up in the unit movement queue.
 
Originally posted by donsig
No one is advocating a system wherein the DP could not order workers to perform tasks without prior approval from the governors. What we are advocating is that the DP cannot perform worker tasks contrary to a governor's tile improvement instructions without a proper over-ride vote.
That's it! This is exactly what I've been trying (and obviously failing) to convey. I agree with this 100%.
 
Donsig his hit the nail on the head. Any such system were worker actions had to be pre-approved would never work, would take too much time, and effectively reduce our game playing rate to one turn a chat. The system we have been using of getting stuff done could work fine, if governors had an understanding that there are some things more important than what they need done, and if the President was willing to balance priorities. If mistakes are made, governors should not be scared of speaking out, and the President should fix them.

Of course, that is an idealized world, but our system can still work.
 
Forty, herein lies the key to that fabled Utopian society you speak of. :)

Originally posted by Octavian X
...if governors had an understanding that there are some things more important than what they need done, and if the President was willing to balance priorities


In other words, the governors should understand that the current rail project will eventually allow the DP to get to their instructions faster. When I first came up with the idea of a Priority List, it was to be a combination of project importance and proximity of the worker. The rails will only help to facilate the needs of the governors more quickly.

That said, the Priority List will only work if we have a DP that is willing to balance priorities. I am not yet convinced that this can happen.
 
Originally posted by Shaitan
ABsolutely correct, 40J. The governors decide what is to be done, the Pres decides how and when to do it. The Pres also must balance national agendas, development for provinces/areas that were not defined by their governors, work/rail networks and worker resources due to quantity and location of the workers. The Pres is absolutely not required to jump at a governor's development orders.

Originally posted by donsig

No one is advocating a system wherein the DP could not order workers to perform tasks without prior approval from the governors. What we are advocating is that the DP cannot perform worker tasks contrary to a governor's tile improvement instructions without a proper over-ride vote.

The governors decide what is to be done, the DP decides how and when to do it. And the DP cannot perform worker tasks contrary to a governor's tile improvement instructions without a proper over-ride vote.

As I see it, this is the best way to do it, and I believe it is the way we already are doing it?
 
OK, perhaps there is enough in the mill for the judiciary to make a ruling? If so, I hope no one minds us pursuing some of the loose ends brought up here...

Originally posted by Shaitan
Sure there is. If there are 80 odd workers scattered about it would be an absolute nightmare to try to track the progress of each one at the beginning of every turn. "This worker is building a mine. Are you sure you want them to stop?" Realistically, nobody is going to tend to worker tasks until the workers come up in the unit movement queue.

If the 80 odd workers were not scattered about randomly but organized into stacks of 6 domestic or 12 foreign workers and the stacks distributed among the provinces we'd have one or two stacks per province. When the DP does the provincial instructions each city has to be opened and the queue checked for changes or additions. So the DP is looking at the area of the map for a particular province. Clicking on a stack of workers to see it if is in the middle of a project doesn't seem so time consuming. If the workers are idle then the DP has the instructions right there for what they should do. If they are busy let them continue and go back to the proper instructions later or jot down what the stack next to city XXXXX should do when they are ready for a new job. Seems like this might even be easier for the DP and speed things up a bit.

Mind you I am not suggesting a permanent system here for every demogame from start to finish. I am suggesting that once all of Fanatika's cities are connected by rail it might be better for us to form our workers into groups and assign the groups to specific provinces on a more or less permanent basis.
 
Stacking workers would make organizing them easier, but if building a road only takes one worker one turn, what shall the rest of the stack do?
 
Originally posted by Cheetah
Stacking workers would make organizing them easier, but if building a road only takes one worker one turn, what shall the rest of the stack do?

Haven't you ever seen road work crews? Only one guy works at a time while the others stand around watching. :D

I'm not suggesting the stacks be rigid inflexible things. Of course the stacks could be split and rejoined as needed for efficiency. The point of the idea is to dedicate a given number of workers to each province so that no provinces are neglected. It is also hoped that more workers will be recruited if we tie those workers more closely to the provinces building them.
 
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