No workers idea.

[tylor]

I know many (me included) don't like workers micromanagement. And I thought, may be it's better to do without them? Here is a sketchup of how how it can be done.

==Workers==

No workers.

==Roads==

Each tile inside cultural borders works as it have a road (with Travel).

==Improvements==

After several turns of working empty tile, Cottage appears on it

=Cottage=
+50% food/hammers/trade rounded down

=Hamlet=
+100% food +50% hammers/trade rounded down

=Village=
+100% food/hammers/trade

=Town=
+100% food +200% hammers/trade

Resources bonuses require respective technologies.

Cottage+ improvements works after terrain and feature/resource bonuses are applied, but before civic/trait/tech/etc bonuses.

=Agrarianism civic=
+1 food -1 hammer on flatlands

=Aristocracy civic=
+2 trade -1 food on flatlands

=Agriculture tech=
+1 food on flatlands

=Mining tech=
+1 hammer on hills

=Sanitation tech=
+1 food with Village or Town

=Construction tech=
Villages and towns spread irrigation

=Work boats=
After several turns of working water resource tile, work boats appear on it

=Forests=
Villages can't grow to towns in forests.

==Pillaging==

Work boats and cottages+ can be pillaged as normal.

==Specialists==

No limits or high limits for number of specialists. That makes for the lack of workshops (assign engineers instead) and money-making towns (assign scientists/merchants/bards instead).

Probably no priests. Seriously, they are pointless, especially with religions being so different.

 

[Skarn]

Seems like an interesting idea. Though I see some problems, mainly due to the fact that you can't work tiles outside of your BFC, but that you often need to exploit resources that are in your borders but not in your BFC (especially maritime and military resources).

Also I don't share your opinion about priest specialists: they're among the most useful, since they're available early, give you GPP for religious wonders, and are the key to the Altar Victory.

 

[tylor]

Off-BFC thing can be fixed in different ways. Either resource plot became "improved" after a while even if not worked, it just takes more time. Or any unit can improve them for some money.

As for priests... Reasoning was that if we limit flexibility of the land tiles (by removing workshops, etc), we have to make up for that with lifting limits from specialists. And if we have unlimited specialists, then there is not much need for "early universalists" priests.

And also, I just don't get it, what priests is supposed to do that nets his bonus? Is he working himself somehow, or inspires/forces other to work? Which religion is that priest, if there are different religions of the city? Why he does exactly same regardless what religions are in city?

So, only thing they really are good for (with unlimited other specialists), is to generate Great Priests. I think it's possible to make up for that somehow, by making some GPP-generating building or something... Or instead don't remove priest specialists, but make them more interesting somehow, so they are not a horse of one(and a half) trick.

 

[Valkrionn]

Or you could have resources within the radius of a fort (using fort culture as in RifE or Orbis) be gathered automatically.

 

[tylor]

There is a problem. No workers = no forts. I'm not sure how bad is this. I nearly never find a need for building a fort.

Hmm, may be make "Engineer" a promotion for foot and naval units? So, units with this promotion can build forts and upgrade far away resources.

 

[Valkrionn]

A "Combat Engineer" promo would be easy to add in RifE; Promotions can add build orders.

Hell, we have one. It's just for Workers, and allows them to build Castles rather than Forts.

 

[Skarn]

And also, I just don't get it, what priests is supposed to do that nets his bonus? Is he working himself somehow, or inspires/forces other to work? Which religion is that priest, if there are different religions of the city? Why he does exactly same regardless what religions are in city?

Actually this is more of a lore question than anything else, but the playable religions (Order, OO, and so on) aren't the only religions in Erebus, there are lots of local cults and worshipping (see the Pagan Temple Pedia entry for more details). So the Priest specialist could be a priest of the official religion, but could also be a priest for some bizarre deity no one has ever heard of. Same for his role, Kilmorph priests probably work themselves while making money from taxes, while a Veil priest may force people into labor and take their goods, when a priest of Cardith Lorda the Omnipotent God-King will inspire its people and collect donations. It's just a gameplay mechanic, it doesn't really need a complex explanation.

Also I don't favor unlimited specialists being available at the start of the game, since it could make cultural victories too easy. Just go for a GP farm and stack the Great Bards.

As for Forts, they're pretty useful to defend choke points if you're using the Erebus mapscript.

 

[tylor]

Hmm, my be it's better to leave specialists as they are, or with minimal changes. That would limit ability to compensate for lack of hammer or coin (especially hammer, as there are trade routes for coins) terrain around city, but it can be not necessary a bad thing.

 

[Jarrema]

You can also add another building/civic giving +% to hammers, or + 1 hammer per specialist

 

[Morkonan]

I know many (me included) don't like workers micromanagement. And I thought, may be it's better to do without them? Here is a sketchup of how how it can be done....

Wasn't there a Civ that didn't have workers? Call to Power, maybe?

The problem is that if you have a system of automagic improvements, you lose the ability to customize production and resource exploitation for a city. Since Civ IV is very much designed for the player to take advantage of that, you end up losing a key component of the gameplay. Every city would become entirely dependent upon the terrain, instead of its usefulness being dependent upon how the player exploits that terrain.

One of the major problems with Call to Power (If that was the version), other than archers shooting down jet fighters, was the missing component of the trusty Civilization Worker Unit and the additional gameplay that was afforded by that mechanic.

 

[tylor]

There is a choice of what tiles to work. And what specialists to assign. And what buildings to build.
And also it gives cities more "personality", instead of making them, for example, "cottage farm #8".

As for precedents... MoM had no improvements besides roads, afaik. Colonization and early civilizations had improvements, but without much choice, kind of "irrigate flat, mine hilly, road everything".

 

[Goodwill]

I think it's a great idea for fast paced quick games, like the ones I sometimes play in an hour or two with my office neighbor. We play quick speed with blazing turn timers and we would use it for that.