Very annoying build queue!

[Matthew5117]

Imagine this:

Its the modern era and, its a win or lose sitaution.

Your neck to neck in military against Shaka. He's got his troops at his border and, I got my troops at my border.

After 20 years of raging war, Shaka's army strikes yours. Your defense bonus lets your army live. Shaka's troops are defeated except for a measly tank. Your about to attack with your only unit that was damaged and when you finished you could be claimed victorious!

You move your mouse over Shaka's tank and attack!

You are immediately disappointed to find... what?

A spearman.

A spearman attacking a tank.

What the odds?

You die. We all know.


Now I realize you can't build a spearman in the Modern era and also that one tank wouldn't make a difference. But my point is, when your preparing for war and you building up units you have to repeatedly click the unit, scroll down (which is the most annoying part), click the unit again, scroll down over and over. Most often you choose the wrong unit and find a spearman attacking a tank. I haven't found any shortcuts to solve this and neither have I found a way to make the icons smaller.

In conclusion, the build queue, without a shadow of doubt, is VERY ANNOYING!!!!!

 

[Lord N.]

I'm not sure if this will help, but if you hold Alt while clicking on the unit from the queue, you'll be constantly building that unit.

 

[Willem]

I really don't see what point you're trying to make. What does attacking a Tank with a Spearman have to do with build queues? And if you're refering to your SoD, you don't have to scroll at all. Just select your stack and choose the unit you want to attack with from the icons that appear at the bottom of the map.

 

[JustinianVII]

No , eh...

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Spearman > Tank. Everybody knows that. Hell, in Civ3, I even had a Modern Armor turned back by a Spearman.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I love the build queue. Can't say there's a single thing that's annoying about it.

 

[Matthew5117]

I'm not sure if this will help, but if you hold Alt while clicking on the unit from the queue, you'll be constantly building that unit.

I've held alt while clicking on the unit, but that just makes the unit be built immediately (at least for me...).

I really don't see what point you're trying to make. What does attacking a Tank with a Spearman have to do with build queues? And if you're refering to your SoD, you don't have to scroll at all. Just select your stack and choose the unit you want to attack with from the icons that appear at the bottom of the map.

I'm not referring to the SoD at all. My point is I have a spearman instead of my anit-tank or whatever unit I really wanted. This is because when I am prepping for war, I select a city and make it so that's building a unit over and over. For example, I will have a city make tanks for a long time by having a tank queued after one another. That means I have to click on a unit over and over again, the annoying part is though, I have to scroll which is especially annoying in the modern era. All I want to know is what solutions are there to this if there are any.

Sorry if that wasn't clear.

 

[S.ilver]

Uh... If you hold ALT while clicking the unit icon in the city screen (not sure if it applies for the "What do you want to build?" popup), it will perma-build that unit until you tell it to stop (you'll know it worked right if an asterisk appears after the unit name).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I love the build queue. Can't say there's a single thing that's annoying about it.

There's one very annoying thing, actually. It scrolls back up automatically when you select a unit, which is garbage. If I want to build 4 rifles then 2 workers, LET ME DO IT WITHOUT AUTOSCROLLING ALL OVER THE PLACE AND PUTTING UNITS I NEVER EFFING CLICKED ON IN THE QUEUE, PLEASE!

Definitely some annoyances with the queue system, even though I'm glad...oh so glad...to have it in general.

 

[Ghpstage]

I've held alt while clicking on the unit, but that just makes the unit be built immediately (at least for me...).

Usually cntrl click moves a build to the front of the queue, alt should make it appear with a dot on the left meaning it'll keep building that unit type (or you can set up a repeating queue of say destroyer, transport, transport, repeat) until told to stop. I think alt does move it to the front too, but if you hold shift with alt it'll go to the back (with the dot on left)

 

[Willem]

I'm not referring to the SoD at all. My point is I have a spearman instead of my anit-tank or whatever unit I really wanted. This is because when I am prepping for war, I select a city and make it so that's building a unit over and over. For example, I will have a city make tanks for a long time by having a tank queued after one another. That means I have to click on a unit over and over again, the annoying part is though, I have to scroll which is especially annoying in the modern era. All I want to know is what solutions are there to this if there are any.

As mentioned, all you have to do is press Alt when you're selecting the unit you want to build. You can even build a series of different units this way. When the first is completed, it will drop to the end of the list and the next one in line will begin construction. There's nothing annoying at all about that, in fact it's quite convenient. You can even alternate between buildings and units. You can also select where in the queue to place a unit by using the Shift or Ctrl keys at the same time. As for the unit being built immediately, you probably just have an overflow of Hammers that allow the unit to be built quickly.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

That means I have to click on a unit over and over again, the annoying part is though, I have to scroll which is especially annoying in the modern era. All I want to know is what solutions are there to this if there are any.

Sorry if that wasn't clear.

The solution is exactly the solution you use, but the problem is that it's not always convenient to check up on a city that's doing a permabuild if the empire gets too big.

Use the city list view. It tells you in a list every city and what it's building. Of those little icons on the top right (or using hotkeys F2, F3, etc.), the far left one is the list of cities in your empire...

Every once in awhile I have to step back and overview my many cities to make sure they are on task doing what they are supposed to be doing. I can catch incorrect builds pretty quickly in this screen that shows my entire city list. This would be where I notice stuff like an out of date unit being permabuilt somewhere.

 

[Willem]

Use the city list view. It tells you in a list every city and what it's building. Of those little icons on the top right (or using hotkeys F2, F3, etc.), the far left one is the list of cities in your empire...

I prefer just opening up the screen of my first city then cycling through them all using the arrow keys. That way you can check up on all aspects of your city at once, not just what they're building at the time.

 

[Matthew5117]

There's one very annoying thing, actually. It scrolls back up automatically when you select a unit, which is garbage. If I want to build 4 rifles then 2 workers, LET ME DO IT WITHOUT AUTOSCROLLING ALL OVER THE PLACE AND PUTTING UNITS I NEVER EFFING CLICKED ON IN THE QUEUE, PLEASE!

Definitely some annoyances with the queue system, even though I'm glad...oh so glad...to have it in general.

This is exactly what I mean, the automatic scroll once you've selected something...



Was what I said not clear...?

As mentioned, all you have to do is press Alt when you're selecting the unit you want to build. You can even build a series of different units this way. When the first is completed, it will drop to the end of the list and the next one in line will begin construction. There's nothing annoying at all about that, in fact it's quite convenient. You can even alternate between buildings and units. You can also select where in the queue to place a unit by using the Shift or Ctrl keys at the same time. As for the unit being built immediately, you probably just have an overflow of Hammers that allow the unit to be built quickly.

I did not know this but this was the solution I was looking for. I'll be sure to try out!

The solution is exactly the solution you use, but the problem is that it's not always convenient to check up on a city that's doing a permabuild if the empire gets too big.

Use the city list view. It tells you in a list every city and what it's building. Of those little icons on the top right (or using hotkeys F2, F3, etc.), the far left one is the list of cities in your empire...

Every once in awhile I have to step back and overview my many cities to make sure they are on task doing what they are supposed to be doing. I can catch incorrect builds pretty quickly in this screen that shows my entire city list. This would be where I notice stuff like an out of date unit being permabuilt somewhere.

You remember your cities' names? I really don't. I go by visuals.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

You remember your cities' names? I really don't. I go by visuals.

No I match up the stats with the build. You can sort by science, by build, by hammers, etc. Just click on the heading at the top of the screen.

Heavy science city and great person farm should never be building a unit since it's light on production multipliers. Unit farm should never build anything to improve commerce multipliers since it's light on commerce. More or less... There are exceptions but that is my rule.

After sorting by science or gold, the top of these lists should NOT be building a unit. Then sort by hammers, the top of the list should not be building universities or banks (edit - there are exceptions with "hybrid" cities, but that just means I didn't specialize the city very well)... Sorting by build, I can quickly count how many cities are building science and how many are building gold, big picture stuff.

I don't check this screen very often but I find it useful to go there at least two or three times a game since I sometimes miss things scrolling through the cities in the city screen. I would think I can see a spearman being permabuilt in the modern era with that list.

 

[Willem]

I did not know this but this was the solution I was looking for. I'll be sure to try out!

It's one of my favourite features in Civ 4. Sometimes I'll have a city perpetually build a single unit but then alternate that with a building. When the unit is complete, I know that I need to go into the city screen and add another building to the end of the queue.

 

[UWHabs]

Yeah, once I learned how to automate alt/ctrl/shift to build stuff, it was great.

alt-click tank = build tank, tank, tank, tank
then, alt-shift-click infantry = build tank, infantry, tank, infantry
Ooh, I need happiness, ctrl-click in a temple = temple, tank, infantry, tank, infantry
I need a marine first (ctrl-click marine) = marine, temple, tank, infantry, tank, infantry
Hmm, maybe I want more tanks (shift-alt-click tank) = marine, temple, tank, infantry, tank, tank, infantry, tank, tank, infantry, tank, ...
Oh, but I already put a turn into a tank, so let's get that one done (ctrl-click tank) = tank, marine, temple, tank, infantry, tank, tank, infantry, tank, ...

The only problem is planning too far ahead, so when you finally get to the units you alt-clicked first, you now also want to add on artillery, and bombers, and don't need any more infantry anymore, etc... then you need to click to get rid of them all from the build queue. But yes, definitely a time-saver.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Yeah, once I learned how to automate alt/ctrl/shift to build stuff, it was great.

alt-click tank = build tank, tank, tank, tank
then, alt-shift-click infantry = build tank, infantry, tank, infantry
Ooh, I need happiness, ctrl-click in a temple = temple, tank, infantry, tank, infantry
I need a marine first (ctrl-click marine) = marine, temple, tank, infantry, tank, infantry
Hmm, maybe I want more tanks (shift-alt-click tank) = marine, temple, tank, infantry, tank, tank, infantry, tank, tank, infantry, tank, ...
Oh, but I already put a turn into a tank, so let's get that one done (ctrl-click tank) = tank, marine, temple, tank, infantry, tank, tank, infantry, tank, ...

The only problem is planning too far ahead, so when you finally get to the units you alt-clicked first, you now also want to add on artillery, and bombers, and don't need any more infantry anymore, etc... then you need to click to get rid of them all from the build queue. But yes, definitely a time-saver.

A nice story!

Yes the alt/ctrl/shift keys are incredibly handy.

 

[JonathanStrange]

sigh...It's the nature of the game that when our empires become very large and tanks are rolling of the assembly lines, it does become a bit tedious to assemble them into one stack o' doom BUT the oppposite problem is worse: not having many cities left to stop invaders. The build queue hot keys become virtually essential sometimes.

 

[MacPhearson]

Actually JStrange, the hot key commands for setting Rally Points are still in the game from CIV III; I do not recall them offhand, but I have looked them up and used them in the past. Maybe someone else can add that information, but it is worth finding out if you play on large maps.