Yup! I usually play on a huge map. Regardless of the map size, I have always controlled all my workers manually.
Manually control ALL worker??? Really?
- Thread starter Frank Grimes
- Start date
Yup! I usually play on a huge map. Regardless of the map size, I have always controlled all my workers manually.
SalvationArmy
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2003
- Messages
- 1
I have tried experimenting with all the variations of automated/manual control, and ended up abandoning automation completely.
I played a game once where I had manually controlled workers is the main, but about a dozen which were set to automated railroads. It was fine for a while, but when they had railed every tile on the continent, including ones outside of any city's area, they defaulted back to the standard automated worker pattern and began to dig up my irrigation, or irrigate my mines. Played hell with town development until I tracked down all the culprits and took them over manually. I had expected them to act like the automated pollution cleaners, and ask for orders when thye were done, not default to another mode.
Has anyone else had similar problems with changes to orders when workers can't continue with what they've been told to do ?
I played a game once where I had manually controlled workers is the main, but about a dozen which were set to automated railroads. It was fine for a while, but when they had railed every tile on the continent, including ones outside of any city's area, they defaulted back to the standard automated worker pattern and began to dig up my irrigation, or irrigate my mines. Played hell with town development until I tracked down all the culprits and took them over manually. I had expected them to act like the automated pollution cleaners, and ask for orders when thye were done, not default to another mode.
Has anyone else had similar problems with changes to orders when workers can't continue with what they've been told to do ?
Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
There isn't an 'automated rails' function is there? I only know of the 'build railroad to' function. The ones that were set to 'build railroad to' would not go back to normal automation, they would stop and wait for further instructions when they complete the rails. You probably didn't have all of your workers on 'auto-railroad', but still had a few on normal automation. When you have dozens of workers, it is easy to miss a few that are still doing other things.
Use shift-A, not 'a' or the automation button, and they won't mess with previous mines/irrigation.
Think about it rationally.
When a new game comes out (like Conquests), everything is relatively new & so you are having fun learning everything and seeing the new eye candy, etc. After a while, you have seen all that you will, and your thoughts turn to 'hey, maybe I should try to win by diplomacy/space race/culture/etc' - and soon after 'beat Monarch/Emporer/Deity/etc.
Obviously this comes down to many variables: time to play, map size, ease of current settings, game knowledge, etc.
As far as automating workers goes - do what you're comfortable with. Some say people who play 'automated' are lazy, others say people who play 'manually' are anal. The bottom line is, play at your level, you will naturally improve over time as you learn the game.
Personally, I struggled when I started playing Civ3 - as did a friend. He jumped on some forum where he was told to automate his workers. We both did just that and went from Cheiftan to Regent in about 2 games. Now, as a Monarch player - I can confidently say that I know better then the 'automated AI' when it comes to managing my tiles.
However I'm not ready to make the switch yet, as I still haven't learned to counter many of the AI's moves (bombers/fighters, currently). Eventually I will, and will then get bored as I'll continue to win - therefore pushing it to the Emperor level, where I will be forced to learn more ...and likely, manually control my workers.
It's your game. Play it how you will. Don't manually control them just because the best players do so. The point is to learn, have fun, and hopefully win. You will want to manually control your workers when you know you have to in order to beat the next level of play - when you get to that point.
Isn't there a Build Network function to get workers to concentrate on interconnecting your cities? I've never tried it, but I seem to recall seeing a reference - Control-N or some-such?
Grille
panel insect
Build trade network will only make road connections to every city - may be even annoying if you have cities that are located in the middle of nowhere...
Anyways, you won't get a road on every (work-able) tile, and this kind of automation won't create a single rail road (in vanilla, that is).
For railroad connections between cities (or similar), you would use control-shift-r plus destination tile; the worker will then create a more or less direct rr conection from his current loacation to the destination tile. It's kind of semi-automatic...
I see myself using this function pretty much often for a portion of my workers. These workers would also create a road first (if missing), but I wouldn't recommend this function if there's roads missing between worker's current- and target destination.
There is an automated option to complete the trade network (don't know the english name, i have a french version), basically it build road on every ressources lux/str on your territory, it might connect each town but i'm not sure.
Edit: Sorry Grille, i didn't see your answer.
Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
Control-N is pretty annoying. When you get down to the last city or resource that needs to be connected, then you have 100 workers all trying to put a road on the same tile.
wilbill
That Old Time Religion
To me the most convincing argument in favor of controlling workers yourself is to look at the job the AI civ's workers do. Look at the way even one of the stronger AI's develops and it won't take long to realize just how much better you can do it.
I never automate, I've always got specific stuff in mind I want them to do, and it's always the opposite of what they want. 
And yea, I've seen the AI do some stupid stuff...30 workers show up on one tile to finish a road, I invade...presto, 30 slaves
And yea, I've seen the AI do some stupid stuff...30 workers show up on one tile to finish a road, I invade...presto, 30 slaves
Arrian
Warlord
I ask myself this basic question: do I want the AI deciding what my workers should do?
The answer, until I've done all the important stuff myself (see Arathorn's post a page or two back), is a resounding NO. But I will often automate my slaves in the mid-to-late industrial age. I will keep a couple of teams of native workers around to tweak specific city's tiles. All other native workers will be added to cities (unless I don't have enough slaves to instantly clear pollution each turn, in which case I'll keep more natives around).
-Arrian
The answer, until I've done all the important stuff myself (see Arathorn's post a page or two back), is a resounding NO. But I will often automate my slaves in the mid-to-late industrial age. I will keep a couple of teams of native workers around to tweak specific city's tiles. All other native workers will be added to cities (unless I don't have enough slaves to instantly clear pollution each turn, in which case I'll keep more natives around).
-Arrian
If you simply automate, your workers will waste time changing irrigation to mines or v/v, sometimes even meddling with what you manually had them do.
With Shift-A, they will never replace mines with irrigation or irrigation with mines.
I Shift-A almost all my workers... I know I could do better if I exercised more direct control, but it's too much bother. I'll take over a bunch of them if I need a particular railway built in a hurry, or I want some forts built, but I don't usually worry much about the general terrain improvements.
Emp.Napoleon
SUPER EMP!
I never manually control my workers since it takes to much time. I also don't know the art of mining or irrigating.
Emp.Napoleon
SUPER EMP!
I never manually control my workers since it takes to much time. I also don't know the art of mining or irrigating.
MadScot
Brandy's back!
Emperor
Learning how to maximise the power of your land through improvement with workers is one of the fastest ways to get better at the game.
I counsel you to take a look at Cracker's opening plays article in the War Academy - I think someone referred to it above.
Learning how to maximise the power of your land through improvement with workers is one of the fastest ways to get better at the game.
I counsel you to take a look at Cracker's opening plays article in the War Academy - I think someone referred to it above.
I never automate workers, but I really think it would be nice if u could issue Stack Orders (eg. Build Road, RR, Mine or Clear Pollution etc.) just like stack movement - ctrl+J!
I usually move my workers around in stacks - the later in the game the more workers in the stack - approx. 8 in late game - to build RR and clear pollution etc. Pressing shift+C 8 times is annoying when u could just press for example shift+ctrl+C and the whole stack would clear pollution.
Does that sound useful to u guys?
I usually move my workers around in stacks - the later in the game the more workers in the stack - approx. 8 in late game - to build RR and clear pollution etc. Pressing shift+C 8 times is annoying when u could just press for example shift+ctrl+C and the whole stack would clear pollution.
Does that sound useful to u guys?
The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
Stack clean pollution and stack bombard are no doubt the orders I'd most like to see added to the game.
Hellfire
Prince
yanno I just came up with an interesting idea for automation. We have a command for just about every kind of automation there is. We need to turn it into a dialog.
First, you select automate, then you select your criteria. Build only certain types of improvements, if you want to replace improvements or not, if you want to include cleaning up pollution, etc. It would be a list of checkboxes that would simply show what you want to automate on this worker. It could also introduce a new feature which states workers should not cross cultural borders to build improvements if no such land route around the culture exists.
There could be a list of defaults in the system settings, like the governor settings, and then you can alter them as you please for each worker. Finally there would be two options, one to overwrite all workers automation settings and one to clear them all out and start fresh.
Okay that's a good suggestion i think... I need to find the suggestion thread!
First, you select automate, then you select your criteria. Build only certain types of improvements, if you want to replace improvements or not, if you want to include cleaning up pollution, etc. It would be a list of checkboxes that would simply show what you want to automate on this worker. It could also introduce a new feature which states workers should not cross cultural borders to build improvements if no such land route around the culture exists.
There could be a list of defaults in the system settings, like the governor settings, and then you can alter them as you please for each worker. Finally there would be two options, one to overwrite all workers automation settings and one to clear them all out and start fresh.
Okay that's a good suggestion i think... I need to find the suggestion thread!
Similar threads
