Nicol.Bolas
King
I expect you read
tmit on speedciving
I tried to use the general ideas from his guide, and would like others to share the practical uses and settings.
Lately I have fallen in love with macro style of playing the game (I was former MM maniac)
I assume you read his guide and maybe even tried it, to have any chance of understanding what this is about.
In no way is this to doubt that this can beat MM. it simply can't. But I would say it can get to 85%-90% efficiency and saving huge amounts of time
IE: if on deficit, I command all cities to prioritize commerce, if not enough, then I go lurking in city tabs.
I found to have much more fun, since I spent more time on actual strategy, rather then worker commands.
First an aim in human language in italic is given, then the necessary toggles are listed, with comments
controls
i) automated workers leave old improvements
ii) automated workers leave forests
iii) turn on citizen automation
iv) turn on production automation
v) automation produces workers
vi) automation produces workboats
F) prioritize food
H) prioritize hammers
C) prioritize commerce
S) prioritize science
G) prioritize GP
X) halt growth
vii) auto built network
viii) auto improve nearest city
ix) automate worker
x) auto explore
* Each time I expect only one automation is issued to workers
xi) goto
xii) repeat built and alternate repeat built
xiii) ctrl all cities
xiv) ctrl capital, then ctrl/shift built new building not built in capital or deselected cities if the build is possible
xv) city production spreadsheet to manage buildings (needs bull)
xvi) ctrl capital and select desired priority empire wide.
observations and applications
I. workers
from simplest to most sophisticated.
I recommend that you only do one automated task at a time. and properly check all the settings. If you do more tasks at once, the result will be bad due to conflicting settings.
1) building roads and connecting resources
i) off
vii) on
workers will cover everything by roads and RR, will connect all resources
if you i) leave this on, they will NOT connect IE. aluminum if you have windmill there, or replace fort on oil after combustion
when building RR I select few pairs of workers and do a RRto basic network, since automated workers donť conect cities too well, in civ2,3 this worked better, they connected cities, then did the rest
on other hand, they do prioritize RR mines and lumber mills, which is great
2) take care of marginal cities but leave old cities
empire is going well, improving newly captured cities is getting boring
i) on
ii) on
ix) on
F)-X) select role of marginal city
workers will improve unimproved tiles only, if you selected roles of the city, they will do so, but won't replace what is there already.
more on roles later
if all is done, then they will do 1)
3) take care of this city, show me what you can do
good way to try automation, bu unfortunately there is a major flaw
i) off
ii) depends what you want in that city
viii) on
F)-X) select role for this city
major flaw: the workers will improve closest city, but if the BFC are overlapping, they will hop into another city, for this reason this is almost useless, I lost control soon each time. But otherwise it nicely shows how role selection affects workers actions
4)built lumber mills
effectively same as 2), if you let forests around here and there like I do
observations and applications
II.macro and city roles
5) clearing all macro
I expect you do this each time before experimenting with empire macros
ctrl or alt (if +1 continents) your capital, double click or triple click on all priorities.
now priorities in all cities are unselected.
manually reassign your GP farm, and powerhouses if applicable
5)simple empire macro
so you want to maximize science, get out of strike, or maximize hammers for war
xvi)
you should see macro information changing / increased speed of building
6) stop growing unless I allow it
xvi) halt growth
xvi) selected other empire priority
now citiez will deprioritize food, and you will manually allow growth when applicable
this combination will really bring a lot of extra commerce/production and is useful when most of your cities are at easily definable caps (early-mid game)
7)city roles and individual city settings
each city should have a role assigned (this tool is in opposition with 5),6))
7)A) F)-G) = 1 selected
will maximize that production or grow to it, then maximize it
the automation calculates max happy cap, max hammers to produce at that cap and food, then grow to it.
if all the other tiles give no more hammers, it will halt growth even below max cap
it does calculate max production over time of building wonder (whether growth pays off in that time)
this can cause a lot of grieve with commerce. since almost every tile produces commerce, the city will grow until max size THEN work the gold......which doesn't help in strike
7B) F) + H)-G) selected
you select prioritize food + one of H)-G)
will maximize population, THEN and only then, the production of H-G
most cities should have this,
but doesn't seem to take happy cap into account
observations and applications
III.specialists
either you use these with city roles or simple empire macro
don't touch specialist manually unless asked to
some flaws: AI manages growth, shrink normal unhapines, whipping well, but is messed up by war weariness
I can see right thorough you? how get rid of spies?main cause is selecting no governor AI and not macro managing your empire
8) need science
S) - on
will prioritize commerce and food to get best science currently, including specialists
F+S = will grow city to max, then do the above
any specialist will be scientist
9 GP farm and review of F-X
G) - on
will assign current max amount of GP, modifiers:
H) max engineers, priests
C) max spies, merchants, scientists, priests (later more on this)
F) max population THEN other
S) max scientists
none) from top to bottom ( cause of the notorius spy hate)
10) more on prioritize commerce and specialists
C) will assign the specialist according to sliders
for this to work properly, everything must be restart and resseted by 5)
by empire setting F) - on, you will only see specialists after max groth
and or! depending on if city role has been maxxed! 7)
IE. hammerless city will start running engineers very soon!, if it is set to H)
observations and applications
ques and production "how to stop building x.plant?"
in this section i will just give a small example of what can be done, since I am getting burned out:
production automation works quite well.
core cities are all on repeat builds
(infantry etc.) with a waypoint given near rivals border.
marginal cities are on auto production to build all the infrastructure, or saved lists
a new building (factory) is avaiable
ctrl capital
ctrl add factory
now all cities work on factory, when finished, they will retourn to their automation of repeat builds
a city has two repeat builds: missionaries of two types.... it alternates them just in time so I use them
some turns later, I want plants to be built everywhere.
ctrl capital
I want this to be done as NEXT build
shift hydro plant
now all cities will finish what they are doing, and then build hydroplant, and then return to their repeat builds or automation or lists
for cities unable to built hydro, this order was nil
for next step you need advanced city screens (bull or even bug?)
sort by production and power, sort by hydro plant
shift select all cities not having it in ques, shift coal plant
(ot can be done on normal screen of you ctrled the hydro plant)
this method of building buildings works so well for me, that I do not use production automation by the time AI gets the urge to meltdown my cities by nuclear plants
final word
there is more to write about this, but I will see how much interests it stirs.
I would certainly like to hear from you, what worked or didn't in your automation attempts.
as i said, when i am not doing well, I MM everything anyway, but some of these tricks are just pure net Gain at no efficiency loss
I do think all the automation possibilities are very poorly explained in the game and thus underestimated and underused
tmit on speedciving
I tried to use the general ideas from his guide, and would like others to share the practical uses and settings.
Lately I have fallen in love with macro style of playing the game (I was former MM maniac)
I assume you read his guide and maybe even tried it, to have any chance of understanding what this is about.
In no way is this to doubt that this can beat MM. it simply can't. But I would say it can get to 85%-90% efficiency and saving huge amounts of time
IE: if on deficit, I command all cities to prioritize commerce, if not enough, then I go lurking in city tabs.
I found to have much more fun, since I spent more time on actual strategy, rather then worker commands.
First an aim in human language in italic is given, then the necessary toggles are listed, with comments
controls
i) automated workers leave old improvements
ii) automated workers leave forests
iii) turn on citizen automation
iv) turn on production automation
v) automation produces workers
vi) automation produces workboats
F) prioritize food
H) prioritize hammers
C) prioritize commerce
S) prioritize science
G) prioritize GP
X) halt growth
vii) auto built network
viii) auto improve nearest city
ix) automate worker
x) auto explore
* Each time I expect only one automation is issued to workers
xi) goto
xii) repeat built and alternate repeat built
xiii) ctrl all cities
xiv) ctrl capital, then ctrl/shift built new building not built in capital or deselected cities if the build is possible
xv) city production spreadsheet to manage buildings (needs bull)
xvi) ctrl capital and select desired priority empire wide.
observations and applications
I. workers
from simplest to most sophisticated.
I recommend that you only do one automated task at a time. and properly check all the settings. If you do more tasks at once, the result will be bad due to conflicting settings.
1) building roads and connecting resources
i) off
vii) on
workers will cover everything by roads and RR, will connect all resources
if you i) leave this on, they will NOT connect IE. aluminum if you have windmill there, or replace fort on oil after combustion
when building RR I select few pairs of workers and do a RRto basic network, since automated workers donť conect cities too well, in civ2,3 this worked better, they connected cities, then did the rest
on other hand, they do prioritize RR mines and lumber mills, which is great
2) take care of marginal cities but leave old cities
empire is going well, improving newly captured cities is getting boring
i) on
ii) on
ix) on
F)-X) select role of marginal city
workers will improve unimproved tiles only, if you selected roles of the city, they will do so, but won't replace what is there already.
more on roles later
if all is done, then they will do 1)
3) take care of this city, show me what you can do
good way to try automation, bu unfortunately there is a major flaw
i) off
ii) depends what you want in that city
viii) on
F)-X) select role for this city
major flaw: the workers will improve closest city, but if the BFC are overlapping, they will hop into another city, for this reason this is almost useless, I lost control soon each time. But otherwise it nicely shows how role selection affects workers actions
4)built lumber mills
effectively same as 2), if you let forests around here and there like I do
observations and applications
II.macro and city roles
5) clearing all macro
I expect you do this each time before experimenting with empire macros
ctrl or alt (if +1 continents) your capital, double click or triple click on all priorities.
now priorities in all cities are unselected.
manually reassign your GP farm, and powerhouses if applicable
5)simple empire macro
so you want to maximize science, get out of strike, or maximize hammers for war
xvi)
you should see macro information changing / increased speed of building
6) stop growing unless I allow it
xvi) halt growth
xvi) selected other empire priority
now citiez will deprioritize food, and you will manually allow growth when applicable
this combination will really bring a lot of extra commerce/production and is useful when most of your cities are at easily definable caps (early-mid game)
7)city roles and individual city settings
each city should have a role assigned (this tool is in opposition with 5),6))
7)A) F)-G) = 1 selected
will maximize that production or grow to it, then maximize it
the automation calculates max happy cap, max hammers to produce at that cap and food, then grow to it.
if all the other tiles give no more hammers, it will halt growth even below max cap
it does calculate max production over time of building wonder (whether growth pays off in that time)
this can cause a lot of grieve with commerce. since almost every tile produces commerce, the city will grow until max size THEN work the gold......which doesn't help in strike
7B) F) + H)-G) selected
you select prioritize food + one of H)-G)
will maximize population, THEN and only then, the production of H-G
most cities should have this,
but doesn't seem to take happy cap into account
observations and applications
III.specialists
either you use these with city roles or simple empire macro
don't touch specialist manually unless asked to
some flaws: AI manages growth, shrink normal unhapines, whipping well, but is messed up by war weariness
I can see right thorough you? how get rid of spies?main cause is selecting no governor AI and not macro managing your empire
8) need science
S) - on
will prioritize commerce and food to get best science currently, including specialists
F+S = will grow city to max, then do the above
any specialist will be scientist
9 GP farm and review of F-X
G) - on
will assign current max amount of GP, modifiers:
H) max engineers, priests
C) max spies, merchants, scientists, priests (later more on this)
F) max population THEN other
S) max scientists
none) from top to bottom ( cause of the notorius spy hate)
10) more on prioritize commerce and specialists
C) will assign the specialist according to sliders
for this to work properly, everything must be restart and resseted by 5)
by empire setting F) - on, you will only see specialists after max groth
and or! depending on if city role has been maxxed! 7)
IE. hammerless city will start running engineers very soon!, if it is set to H)
observations and applications
ques and production "how to stop building x.plant?"
in this section i will just give a small example of what can be done, since I am getting burned out:
production automation works quite well.
core cities are all on repeat builds
(infantry etc.) with a waypoint given near rivals border.
marginal cities are on auto production to build all the infrastructure, or saved lists
a new building (factory) is avaiable
ctrl capital
ctrl add factory
now all cities work on factory, when finished, they will retourn to their automation of repeat builds
a city has two repeat builds: missionaries of two types.... it alternates them just in time so I use them
some turns later, I want plants to be built everywhere.
ctrl capital
I want this to be done as NEXT build
shift hydro plant
now all cities will finish what they are doing, and then build hydroplant, and then return to their repeat builds or automation or lists
for cities unable to built hydro, this order was nil
for next step you need advanced city screens (bull or even bug?)
sort by production and power, sort by hydro plant
shift select all cities not having it in ques, shift coal plant
(ot can be done on normal screen of you ctrled the hydro plant)
this method of building buildings works so well for me, that I do not use production automation by the time AI gets the urge to meltdown my cities by nuclear plants
final word
there is more to write about this, but I will see how much interests it stirs.
I would certainly like to hear from you, what worked or didn't in your automation attempts.
as i said, when i am not doing well, I MM everything anyway, but some of these tricks are just pure net Gain at no efficiency loss
I do think all the automation possibilities are very poorly explained in the game and thus underestimated and underused
