Micro management

[eromrab]

hmmm... either way would be fine with me... i kinda like the fact that you build improvements to determine the strength of a city... build more mines than irrigation and you have a production hog... build more irrigation than mines and you get a food-filled giant city...

but i wouldn't mind playing the way you recommend either... i think both ideas would be improvements to game play.

 

[frekk]

i kinda like the fact that you build improvements to determine the strength of a city... build more mines than irrigation and you have a production hog... build more irrigation than mines and you get a food-filled giant city...

I prefer that actually - not a radical change. It's a fundamental of the game, the way the workers function. I'm just outlining the maximum limit of changes to the worker system I would tolerate before saying "This isn't really Civilization anymore".

 

[dh_epic]

Aussie is right -- the most practical complaint is that you won't be able to capture slaves anymore. The most practical solution is that you still build workers in cities, and they accumulate in a "pool". When you start building a project, workers are allocated to that project. And if that project is interupted by an enemy force, said workers can be stolen.

Get rid of workers and it is not Civilization anymore, imho.

Anyone else want to play this card? People are welcome to get it out of their system.

 

[frekk]

There's other problems with that as well. Who really wants to spend the whole game micromanaging in the City Screen? An abstracting the whole ability to change the main map? I'd rather change the main map, on the map, with units, than be clicking around endlessly in city screens without being able to see the whole as I do so.

Other problems, your "pool"'s job, is it indicated on the main map? If not, I'm going to have to constantly be looking in the city screen and the enemy won't be able to see my massive public works project for some reason. If it is indicated on the main screen, then isn't it really just the same thing except I have leave the main map, go into the city screen and fiddle around with this "pool", and then come back out again?

And how am I going to build roads, colonies, forts and airbases outside my borders? That's not a practical concern? Slaves are about the least of problems here!

When I have "ppols" that aren't doing anything, will there be some kind of indication on the main map or will I have to tour all my City Screens every round, looking for idle "pools"? And if I've got 15 idle "pools" to give jobs to every round, whats the difference between that and 15 idle workers, except that I have to switch to City Screen in addition to assigning orders?

You see, "pools" don't really affect the key problem whatsoever. You'll actually be doing more, not less, micromanagement. The key problem is the necessity of developing all those tiles, which isn't reduced by "pools" you're just making it so that instead of assigning movement orders to workers on the main map, you have to go to the city and go into the city screen and click on the tile. The time it takes to do the movement orders is probably alot shorter, especially considering your workers will come up automatically in queue but your "pools" won't and you'll have to go over the whole map looking for finished jobs and idle pools, every round. I guess you could get rid of that by creating a "pool queue" but I really don't want my city screens or domestic advisor or whatever popping up more than they already do.

 

[Dida]

I support the idea to get rid of workes once and for all. The only problem is that we still should be able to build outside of our borders. Maybe just this much more expensive, and take much longer to complete.
Workers are not that important anyways. In any of my games, capturing workers, or my workers being captured never influenced the course of history in anyway, I don't see how worker unit is 'fundamental' to civ game. I have to say that I have never come up with any important strategic move to capture my enemy's workers. I just take them if I have free unit stand around. They are just annoying little bastards, that makes each turn 3 times as long as they should have been.
CTP got rid of workers, and CTP functioned alrite without them. The reason CTP failed is due to bad AI, not because of the lack of workers.
So, I said, keep workers, only for building stuff outside of your border, or come up with some other ideas that will replace the worker unit. But inside of your own border? Let them go, they are way beyond their age.

 

[frekk]

As I've mentioned, to get rid of workers (which isn't the problem anyway, its the number of tiles you have to work) requires some replacement for the workers. Where is it going to be, in the city screen? You're either talking endless pop-ups or endless hunting for idle labour power and therefore no less micromanagement. If you want to reduce all the micromanagement, there's only one solution, and that's to reduce the amount of development done to tiles, or reduce the number of tiles in the city radius.

The amount of micromanagement is primarily a function of the number of tiles. If you're going to develop each tile with roads, rail, and irrigation/mine, then 3 times you're going to have to select a job to do per tile and 3 times you're going to have to allocate labour to it, either by issuing a goto to a worker, or going inside the city screen, or making a choice on a popup (please no more popups). Do you see how much time you'll be spending on the popups or in the City Screen? And remember, you won't have a full view of the main map when you're in there. In any case, none of the work is reduced by replacing workers really.

Imho, if such a thing as reducing micromanagement vis a vis improvements is to be considered, then I'd say the options should revolve around the improvements themselves: have them appear, or perhaps grow organically, with the acquisition of various technologies; or eliminate and assume them. But keep workers to build main roads (just for movement, no trade bonus), airfields, forts and all that stuff. That way there would be very few workers and consequently not much micromanagement, but you could still build stuff on the main map.

 

[eromrab]

i agree with you about the pool thing frekk... which is why i said don't have a pool for each city... i would say have a "national pool" and you would just have the amount listed on the screen next to where you have your gold listed.

i don't like the idea of going into the city screen either... thats why i propose doing it from the map... and when there is an improvement being done you would have a lil "icon" of workers working the land so that your enemy could see and possibly target it and destroy the work...

but i also propose that you can still build outside of your borders, as long as it's non-claimed territory or an allies territory that you have a ROP with. and that would be taken care of in the same way that the things inside the territory are done... except maybe with an additional cost.

that way, each turn you look down at your gold and see if you can rush some things... well you'd do the same with the "pool points"... see if you have enough to build some things or rush projects that you already started...

 

[frekk]

Ok, I don't entirely disagree with that, but still a few bugs. Really what you're saying is just to do away with worker movement (you'll still have little fellows digging away on the main screen to represent tile work, so in effect, you still have a worker unit - it just has unlimited movement and returns to the national pool when finished working).

The main bug is still doing work outside your territory. What distance from your border should you be allowed to do work? And if you have a really big national pool, what's to prevent you from building a great long road all in one round?

 

[eromrab]

i don't see anything wrong with being able to build anywhere outside of your territory... or building one great big road in one turn... but that's where the costs come in to limit it...

you see... you would earn "pool points" as you do gold... they would stockpile until you used them... there would be standard "build times" for improvements... we'll say 3 for a road on grasslands and 9 for a road on a hill... and that would cost "100 pool pts" to build... then you could speed that up for even more pool points... just like you can by piling your workers onto a square now...

and as for the "distance from territory" thing... you could possibly charge more pool points the further you get from the cultural boundaries? i personally don't care... i mean... if you can "see" the area you're building, i don't see anything wrong with being able to build there without increased costs... but if that is a problem, then i guess the increased costs could eliminate it... i figure, in order to "see" the terrain, you have to have a unit or city there in the area anyways... so it's still "fair"...

 

[frekk]

I see a problem with all that: expansion would be too rapid. Maybe you could have a "surveyor" unit to use outside your borders? Move 1, and the square he is on is available to use your pool on? That way you couldn't build a giant road all in one round and rush out units along it. You'd still only be able to expand at the speed of your surveyors. Nor could you expand in all directions recklessly. Also if you could build where you see, people would be asking questions about how come they could build further from a mountain or along a coast than from a forest.

 

[eromrab]

hmmm... i guess... but i don't really like the idea of getting rid of one unit, only to replace it with another... what if, instead of a surveyor unit, you could build on any terrain that had a unit on it? or... any terrain that had a unit fortified on it?

 

[Spatula]

you click on a terrain square... choose the function you want "build road"... then you move a slider left or right... you have a thing that says how many turns it will take and the cost that it will take tofor example... i click on a grassland square... a window pops up with some functions that i can do "build road, irrigate, build mine, etc"... i click "build road"... another window pops up... it starts with the slider all the way to the left and says "3 turns @ 100 gp"... i slide it to the right 1... and it now says "2 turns @ 200 gp"... i slide it one more and now it says "1 turn @ 300 gp"... i slide it one more and it says "NOW @ 500 gp"... something like that.

I like the idea. Here's how to reconcile it with the current system:

If you build too many units (or build a single one and are in Republic/Democracy) then that unit will cost 1 gpt. So if you did get rid of workers, and had this other system, than basically you could start with a 'worker pool' of a certain size with which to make infrastructure improvements. Each allocation would take the same base amount of turns as a worker would e.g to build a road will take 3 turns. But also you could allocate more than once - doing it 3 times will give you an instant road. And if you go over the 'worker pool', then you'll have to pay 1 gold - just like you have to do with units.

 

[eromrab]

yeah... but i'd want it more like a treasury for public works... it's like gold (or maybe even just use gold)... but it can only be used to do public works...

 

[Spatula]

What would determine the size of the treasury though?

 

[eromrab]

i was thinking maybe a tax slider... you have science and entertainment... have an infrastructure/public works slider??

 

[Spatula]

Then it's just gpt again, except you'd have to pay even if you were doing one little bit of work, which wouldn't happen with the current system under most of the Governments.

I'm surprised at myself - I used to think that getting rid of workers was a stupid idea, and now I hate them!

 

[frekk]

hmmm... i guess... but i don't really like the idea of getting rid of one unit, only to replace it with another... what if, instead of a surveyor unit, you could build on any terrain that had a unit on it? or... any terrain that had a unit fortified on it?

Well the problem isn't the unit (the worker) itself ... it's the amount of useless time it wastes doing its thing. Having just a few surveyors to do the work of, essentially, building roads and things outside your borders ... that isn't too bad, really. How much building do you really do outside your borders?And how much building do you want the AI doing outside its borders? I don't like the idea of getting rid of the worker just for the sake of getting rid of the worker, and being able to build wherever you like simply removes any strategy from the expansion of your road network. Same thing with using military units to do it ... it's too easy, then, to protect your work when it should be somewhat difficult. Using just a surveyor to build outside your territory eliminates the real problem with workers (micromanagement) while preserving all the attractions of workers (challenge and planning in expanding the road network, limits expansion speed, etc).

 

[eromrab]

hmmm... i guess so... would it still draw from the "pool"? and at normal costs or more?

 

[frekk]

hmmm... i guess so... would it still draw from the "pool"? and at normal costs or more?

Building on the square the surveyor was on would be the same thing as building within your borders.

 

[eromrab]

i guess i could go for that... but i still have no problem with building where you have troops... or between areas that aren't cultural but are between your cities... see... that would be the only problem is that you'd have to get some right off the bat for connecting cities that haven't culturally expanded yet...