making the game faster

[Tobiyogi]

On my last game, I spent 16 hours... also because I micromanage a lot. That's okay, don't wanna lose that habit. But I wonder if some things can be accelerated?

1. Can I order to workers what they should do next turn? (not needed as India I suppose). So I step into the forest and know I will chop, but still the turn ends. How can I tell him to chop next turn?

2. Can I define that building "wealth", "culture", "research" shall be limited for a number of turns? Like when I know I want to start on a settler/worker as soon as the city has grown one more...

3. And really, how to set waypoints? I have no idea. Does it apply to military or to all kind of units?

Thanks for answers!

 

[rah]

1. Yes, after the worker has finished moving you can double click on the activity and the activities will disappear but the worker will remember the order.

2. No

3. don't know since i don't use waypoints, just goto.

 

[Tobiyogi]

1. I have used that already. A little problem is that "unit cycling" forces me to recall that same worker, which is not much better than giving him the order next turn. Maybe unit cycling is wrong? I just don't wanna forget somebody....

3. Ok, but how do you tell every unit (also the not-yet-built ones) to "go to" a certain tile...?

 

[Qactus]

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/tmits-guide-to-speed-civving.301900/

 

[Tobiyogi]

Cool!

 

[earthy]

for waypoints, you click on the city name/bar to select the city, and then shift+right click on the tile you want them to waypoint to.

if you want to waypoint several cities, you select the first city and then shift+ left click to add additional cities to the selection before finally shift+right clicking the waypoint. note that you can't waypoint to a city you have selected.

to make that faster you can control+click or alt+click a city to select all of them at once. Ctrl+click gets you all cities on your continent. Alt+click gets you all cities in the world.

just a quick example: let's say you want all of your cities to waypoint to one of your border cities. you would control+left click any of your city bars to select them all, shift+left click the border city to remove it from the selection, and then shift right click the border city to set the waypoint.

 

[Tobiyogi]

That's nice, thanks @earthy
This will definitely help me. Just a simple click.

 

[lymond]

You probably know about setting up your build queues in cities. However, you may not know that you can set a city to infinitely build a unit. I think its ALT+click on unit. You will see an asterisk next to the unit in the queue. Like setting up build queues you can setup more than one unit to build infinitely. For example, use ALT+click Swordman and Swords will appear with asterisk in the queue to build indefinitely. Then Shift+ALT+click Catapults and catapults will appear below the Swords in the queue and build indefinitely. The city will then alternate between those builds infinitely building Swords and Cats one after the other.

Furthermore, say in times of war, you want most or all cities producing units. Using earthy's advice on select all cities at once, you can setup the above builds in all cities in one go. You can even whip all cities at the same time this way although you may want to manage cities more individually in that regard.

 

[Tobiyogi]

Great advice, does it also work for more than 2 units alternately? (maybe not needed). Yes, whipping all cities at once would ruin best overflow, etc... I simply used the building queue so far, not even the city bar (always opening the city screens). Time-killer!

 

[lymond]

Sure. I even sometimes do the same unit more than once so I can control how many are produced. Granted most times I do this is with something like Curs which at that point I'm only building that unit. But if I'm fighting siege warfare, I may want to build attack units, siege units, and some support units, but don't want a lot of support units. Let's take the Sword/Cat thing for instance. I queue up *Sword+*Cat+*Axe+*Spear. But I mainly want Swords and Cats so I add some more *Swords and *Cats to the queue. That's just and example, and if I'm fighting at all with those types of units, which is rare really, my empire is likely smaller anyway at that point in the game. This helps more late game like with Rifles+Cannons or whatever or maybe Medieval warfare with Maces+Trebs or something.

Point is there is no limit really to what you can add to your queue - infinite build or not.

As for controlling overflow, that would indeed factor greatly early with things like Swords, cats and axes. However, if I'm using this on Cur builds it not so big a deal just as long as you know you are not doing global whipping on the first turn of the build. When you first set this up its easy as you just hit end turn and then whip all cities. After that its not so certain though.

Regardless, I am more likely just to micro all this stuff but occasionally I have used this trick.

Waypoints as described by earthy can be really useful. I sometimes setup all cities on a waypoint (or rally point). However, sometimes I want to create stacks on different fronts, so after setting the first waypoint for all cities, I go back and select a few cities to go to a different waypoint. Again, really only use this once my empire starts becoming quite large.

 

[dankok8]

Never used waypoints. Actually just read TMIT's guide the other day. It's a massive time saver in late game wars. Setting build queues is something I've done before because then cities won't keep bothering you about finished builds and what to build next. These two things can easily shave an hour or two of game time.

 

[Tobiyogi]

Big empire or Always War. So I will definitely use not only building queues, but also waypoints and that asterisk thing. If I think about my (AW) games, I rather build one unit type per City. Like the siege from the city with a settled GG and cheaper units in spots that struggle with production. Is there any advantage in making mixed stacks in the same city? (unless that old upkeep-saving trick of changing production right before completion, but here you have to micro again....)

 

[lymond]

I've never really thought of advantages/disadvantages of setting up mixed units in cities so really not sure. In most cases where I'd mix things up is to makes sure either a) I'm getting a reasonable proportion of siege to attack units across the empire b) I'm getting at least of few of the support units I want. But thinking deeper on the point, I usually will have the power unit(s) not mixed up with stuff in most cities; i.e., most cities will build the single power unit with just a few or one city mixing things up. HE city will build things fast so I might mix up a few things there. The other question is how important it is to have a few odd units in support or not and how many you want....I may not even asterisk those guys but just make sure I build a few. Most games though I go mounted so mostly just building mounted units but maybe mix in some cheap MP guys.

How you deal with things like settled GGs and stuff probably just goes to personal preference. I don't settle GGs much at all.

And majority of games I don't use this approach but rather micro, at least until I get so big that it doesn't matter. I'd say ones desire to save time or play faster is really personal preference as well.

If you are playing "competitively" all the details matter.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

I used to love waypoints when I was playing on PC, made late game wars so much more enjoyable. Unfortunately, they seem not be a counterpart of it on Mac, at least I have not found it. Don't even know how to copy a city build queue on Mac, but it is not such a big deal, don't play with big empires these days. Although if shortcuts, especially waypoints, exist on Mac, could help me finish more GOTMs

 

[Capellan]

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/tmits-guide-to-speed-civving.301900/

TMIT also posted many Civ4 videos back in the day (close to a decade ago) and a couple of "Automaton" games where you had to 100% automate your workers 100% of the time.

 

[Tobiyogi]

How you deal with things like settled GGs and stuff probably just goes to personal preference. I don't settle GGs much at all.

And majority of games I don't use this approach but rather micro, at least until I get so big that it doesn't matter. I'd say ones desire to save time or play faster is really personal preference as well.

If you are playing "competitively" all the details matter.

Sounds logic to me not to settle GGs when you prefer to go for mounted warfare. Stable is already good for something and higher promotions on HA/Cuirs are not so interesting, imo. Maybe it's more the numbers you need here.

I love to settle those guys to get better siege and maybe shock melee units (the latter only for AW games). And as I began to discover the power of CHA leaders (shame on me for my earlier statements....), settled GGs help my units towards 8 exp quite nicely (probably 1-2 won fights are necessary).

The infinite queuing works nicely, if you do it on your own. I am used from Bat MOD having to click off that stupid option "Train ... units forever".