Micromanagement

[Insanity_X]

Lets face it, most of us micromanaged in CIV (and previous versions) to some extent. Whether that was binary research, telling the governor to get a new job because he's **** at running cities without you holding his hand, or whatever other micro tricks you've employed. However, with this game trying to streamline everything, do you think that more or less micro will be produced overall? and in which areas will we see an increase and reduction.

I think that there'll probably be more micromanagement overall, once we take into account having to move more units separately (however by making this task an interlectual problem, rather than checking the Gov'ner hasn't assigned the citizens to plains hills when you're trying to grow the city or the like, this may be less of a chore than previous microing), and optimising the city (I'm sure CiV Gov'ner > CIV's but it wont be perfect and thus if you want to ruthlessly optimise your gameplay you're going to have to do it yourself) and joint research (saving gold and then increasing science to get the most out of these boni (or is that bonuses?)). Still the new layout will make all that extra micro much pleasing to look at though.

Your take?

 

[Savoir10]

Unless they put in a "follow the leader" type feature, I think the unit micromanagement will be rather intense. However I'm sure they'll cater to the lovers and haters of Micromanagement as they have in all previous games.

 

[eleazzaar]

I think that the streamlining features that they have so far described will produce (drumroll....) less micromanagement. Yes, you'll have to think more about unit positioning, but you'll have fewer units... for some players a much smaller number of units. I wouldn't really call that micromanagement, anyway since unit placement is going to be strategically rather significant.


Allowing land units to turn into un-armed transports is another nice micro-reducing touch. I sometimes find making transports and having them around when needed to be a chore.


With the idea of switching road-building to something you only do for important roads, not all over your territory, it seems they could be moving toward reducing the amount of stuff you'll need to build in your cities radius.

City radii are bigger too, (3 hexes) which might indicate that there will generally be fewer cities, and/or that maps will generally have more tiles.

 

[Earthling]

Making the game smaller and simpler means less micromanagement; however anyone who wants/tries to/mods a game more to the scale of previous civ games would probably see more mm relative to what we have now.

 

[bonafide11]

What evidence is there that they're making the game smaller and simpler?

 

[eleazzaar]

Smaller and simpler? Huh?

Streamlining the game and removing micromanagement doesn't mean its going to be smaller and simpler. With 1UPT and no more stacks of doom i think it's pretty clear that military strategy is going to be richer and deeper.

I think what they are doing here is trying to maximize what Sid calls, "interesting decisions". Maybe some of their ideas won't work, but eliminating the busywork aspects of civ-management doesn't make it a lesser game-- it makes more room for the important stuff.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

@ Bonafide. 1st, finite resources-combined with unit maintenance-immediately place upward limits on the maximum number of units a player can field at any given time. 2nd, we've been told how units are now able to survive combat, so the *need* to produce thousands of the same unit has been significantly diminished. These two things alone point to the *possibility* of less, rather than more, micromanagement.

Aussie.

 

[bonafide11]

@ Bonafide. 1st, finite resources-combined with unit maintenance-immediately place upward limits on the maximum number of units a player can field at any given time. 2nd, we've been told how units are now able to survive combat, so the *need* to produce thousands of the same unit has been significantly diminished. These two things alone point to the *possibility* of less, rather than more, micromanagement.

Aussie.

Obviously there's going to be less units, but less units doesn't mean smaller and simpler. Combat will be more complex and spread out because of the lack of stacks of doom. Maybe the game will be smaller because it will have less units, but we have no evidence yet that the maps will be any smaller. Nothing we've learned about the cities or workers has suggested that the game will be any simpler. I'm sure people will be able to micromanage them like they always have.

 

[glg]

I sure hope so! MM has always been a favorite part for me. Grabbing an extra shield here, a few extra commerce there.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

I sure hope so! MM has always been a favorite part for me. Grabbing an extra shield here, a few extra commerce there.

Yes that is exactly what the better MP players feel, that the ability to MM the infrastructure is key to being in that top percentile of players. Things like doing the complex math with hammers, growth and slaving in Civ4 is one example.

But for the casual civer MM can not be a must, just an option, so the game must be capable of not requiring MM but offering it to the players that eat that stuff up.

CS

 

[Shurdus]

I like the MM aspect of the game, but I welcome the reduction of it. We still do not know what city management looks like, but I can see where less cities would be very helpful. It pulls the focus away from city management and puts more pemphasis on overall strategies. It is something I quite like. It will hopefully make both the early and late game less of a hassle.

 

[kivanc]

i think civ5 will be less 'micromanagable'. and btw, mayors have always sucked

 

[Shurdus]

i think civ5 will be less 'micromanagable'. and btw, mayors have always sucked

They did not even explain yet how cities work, how workers work, what way the tech tree is organised and how we manage the cities. How can you then say that it is less micromanageble?

Maybe every system in the game will be more smooth in function and such, but then still you need to actually make an effort to squeeze the system for every little edge you can get. Even if the options for doing this may be reduced due to smoothening of the gameplay, there will still be possibilities here and there so that there are still options to micromanage. Therefore it will be just as micromanagable as Civ IV was.

 

[kivanc]

well, i just feel like it. i have a strong 6th sense and a wisdom of 18
no, not only wisdom but really, changes sound like it will be simpler. anyway, i don't wanna discuss it much.

 

[Senethro]

Well thanks for telling us about your irrational beliefs you don't want to discuss.

 

[kivanc]

Well thanks for telling us about your irrational beliefs you don't want to discuss.

you are in no situation to call my belief irrational

 

[Chalks]

Unless they put in a "follow the leader" type feature, I think the unit micromanagement will be rather intense. However I'm sure they'll cater to the lovers and haters of Micromanagement as they have in all previous games.

Someone has suggested that perhaps they could consider implementing the ability to move multiple units at once even when they inhabit different tiles. Obviously, it wouldn't be able to do anything too complex, but it could significantly speed up the movement of units in some situations.

This is certainly something that could be a bit of a headache.

 

[Chalks]

you are in no situation to call my belief irrational

Do you not understand what he means by this, or are you intentionally making no sense?

 

[Shurdus]

Maybe they can make it possible to select multiple units rather than just one, and then by holding the mouse button you can make them move, as it did in civ IV. Then of course you would get movement from several tiles to several tiles, which would make it a bit harder, but you would get the functionality to keep the positions of the selected units relative to each other, so that if you move them one tile ahead they all move one tile ahead in the exact same manner. Or you could change the position relative to each other with an icon that appears when right clicking. A simple drawing on the map appears when ordering the proposed move, you release the mouse button to confirm it. This is how it worked in Civ IV, the icons for relative-to-each-other positions are my idea.

This is how I see it, I am sure they will come up with something practical. I can hardly imagine that Firaxis is trying very hard to reduce micromanagement in one area, and then they introduce a whole new area of frustration. It just makes no sense, so here is to hoping.

 

[Ahriman]

I like "intelligent" micromanagement, that requires strategic decisionmaking, like choosing which improvements to build on each tile.

I dislike tedious "working the system" micromanagement, like exploiting the mechanics of how whipping works, or when tech progress and hammers didn't roll over across projects.