Terrain Improvement?

[Tall_Walt]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
...I think that the total number of units in Civ3 gets to be a problem, and workers are no exception. ...

Give that man a cigar!

Remember how slow Civ3 when it first came out? Someone forgot to do the math.

Here's the deal: IIRC, you have a 256 x 256 map for 65,536 tiles. Say 30,000 are land. The idea is to develop as much land as possible and conquer the world, so let's imagine a point where you've got 20,000 tiles conquered. You might have 200 workers repairing battle damage, building rails, cleaning pollution etc. What Civ3 originally did was look at each worker going dig, dig, dig for about a second. Ok, 200/60 = over 3 minutes PER TURN of dig, dig, dig. Mind numbingly boring! Later patches spent less time looking at workers going dig, dig, dig; but it still really slows the game down. And if you want still bigger maps....

So:
1. Big maps
2. Reasonable turn times
3. Workers

Pick TWO.

I'll take 1 and 2, and shed no tears for stupid workers that are often doing the wrong thing, very, very slowly. In my opinion, of course.

[Tall_Walt]

Originally posted by snoopy369
... (how exactly are you going to build a road to conquer your neighbor without a worker?) ...

They're called combat engineers, and I think they'd be a good addition to Civ.

[Addled Platypus]

Combat Engineers doing regular engineering?


Should that be the Army corp of engineers?

[Colonel Kraken]

I can't believe I read this whole thread!

I really don't visit Apolyton anymore, but this Civ IV thing just has me looking all over for answers and discussion.

This is one of the topics that really tends to get me fired up. I'm not sure why. I know that I simply will never understand the die-hard "If it doesn't have workers, it's not Civ" fans.

So you know where I'm coming from, I'm going to start out saying I've been playing Civ since Civ I on Mac. I've played all of 'em, including CtP series, except SMAC. I'm a "casual" player in the sense that I like to sit back on Regent and just have a fun, relaxing game, with a little bit of challenge, without having to worry that I didn't make THE most optimal worker moves and terrain improvements and THE most optimal trades, etc.

With all this in mind:

I hate workers.

I hate moving workers. I hate messing with 'em. To me, workers are like a bunch of annoying flies I can't seem to get rid of. And before you say anything, workers on automate are too stupid for even me to tolerate! Later in the game I do automate them, simply because I would go insane otherwise.

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE FACINATION WITH WORKERS!

Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable.

NOW, having said all of that, I DO understand people who don't like a total PW system. What else is there? There have been some very nice hybrid proposals made that I really would have no problem using, if this type of model must remain in Civ.

What do I mean by that?

Simply this: the player decides everything for their empire. There is total control. You're not an emperor; you're a god. One person here alluded to what I am thinking. Why does the player get to decide where farms spring up? Why don't citizens automatically farm the best tiles? As population expands, why don't the citizens automatically increase food production through more farms. As technology increases, why don't the citizens automatically take advantage of the new techniques to improve food production?

To get even more radical: the whole system of everyone lives in the cities and everything is done in and through the cities should be at least modified.

Does everyone live in the city (especially in Ancient and Medieval times!)? Why do people live in cities? Jobs. Lifestyle. Government. Etc. Why do people live outside of cities? They need food to live! That's the only way the know how to make a living (namely farmers).

Why do we have to keep this idea that I plunk down a city and can only work a set number of tiles surrounding a city? Why can't I have cities but also farm and mining towns all over my territory and not have to worry about perfect city placement to take advantage of every possible resource? Why can't I take advantage of all the resources in my territory without having to have that tile in one of my city's radius?

I know this is simply too radical for most of you to fathom. And, if not that, it simply wouldn't be the same old 15+ year old game with out the good ol' same city model.

I envision cities as government and cultural centers with population increasing and decreasing with how attractive the city is, what it has to offer, jobs, technology, etc. I envision immigration and emmigration. I envision citizens populating tiles to take advantage of resources, rich soil, and other economic and livelihood reasons. I envision you actually having a reason to have a military presence outside your cities: to protect these farming and mining communities and to expand your borders! I envision you having to build roads to connect to these communities if you want to have provision for your cities (granted, cities will be able to provide some of their own food). I envision cities expanding to more than one tile and swallowing these rural communities. I envision these rural communities growing into cities!

Sure, there can still be sponsored colonies, forced relocations (depending on government type and social "technology"), etc. But these are rare and/or expensive. Colonies would become MUCH more worthwhile, fun, and realistic. You sponsor citizens to move to a certain tile to take advantage of a resource (or simply to expand your borders!). These colonies may increase with population over time and even become cities! Or they might be economic failures!

The possibilities seem so cool and immersive.

I want my Civ experience to be something new. I want it to be more than: build a settler, plunk a city, build improvement, build and move tedious worker geeks, make an army, build a settler, plunk a city, blah, blah, blah . . . .

I'm not the only one who thinks this way. There's a good following of us at that other Civ site.

But, I know. This is just too radical for most of you to accept.

[Tall_Walt]

Colonel Kraken,

I generally agree with all you say.

I think the idea of pulling things that affect the player out of his control is not going to happen after the MOO3 debacle. However, as you've seen, many options have been mentioned to either make that control far more efficient or largely unnecessary.

IMO, if Civ4 takes tens of hours to play, ithe series will die. Micromanagers may buy it, but it won't sell enough to finance Civ5.

May I ask which other Civ site?

[Epistax]

Realism does not especially matter in this sense. My only beef is end game, workers everywhere I have two choices: Manual control, or drunk AI. I just want a third option. Reading through all these pages there are some great ideas. Most other people I don't want to lose any control-- I just don't want it to take so long.

[Arrian]

So:
1. Big maps
2. Reasonable turn times
3. Workers

Pick TWO.

I pick #2 and #3.

I like workers. I'm not even sure I can adequately explain why, but I do.

-Arrian

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Epistax
Realism does not especially matter in this sense. My only beef is end game, workers everywhere I have two choices: Manual control, or drunk AI. I just want a third option.

Good AI?

[Colonel Kraken]

Originally posted by Tall_Walt
May I ask which other Civ site?

The Civ Fanatics Forums of course!

I think, in the end, I realize there is going to be no radical departure from the current general model. I would like to see one of the hybrid suggestions mentioned here, though. That would at least alleviate most of the headache.

[Arrian]

Hybrid is probably the way to go, albeit a conservative hybrid (heavy on workers, light on PW). Then, if PW really is the way to go, the Civ series can slowly be converted over. A drastic change would probably alienate quite a few hardcore fans, including me. I HATED PW when I tried CTP1 all those years ago (I fully admit I messed with it for 1 day, decided I hated it, and returned it).

-Arrian

[Tall_Walt]

Originally posted by Colonel Kraken


The Civ Fanatics Forums of course!

Thank you!

I think, in the end, I realize there is going to be no radical departure from the current general model. I would like to see one of the hybrid suggestions mentioned here, though. That would at least alleviate most of the headache.

If you mean "current general model" as what they have already decided on for Civ4, I agree.

However, I expect substantial changes from Civ3. Civ3 was nearly unplayable when released. Even at 1.29f it is very slow, and a game takes far, far, FAR too long for casual play. Yeah, you can probably get decent performance if you go to a minimum size map, but then where are you going to put enoug civs and terrain to keep things interesting? IOW, when you choose to reduce map size, you also choose to reduce diplomatic and tactical play. For one example of tactical play, you need large oceans to need aircraft carriers, and pretty large continents so the whole continent can't be covered by one air base.

[Quezacotl06]

Maybe you could assign people in the city to public works? It would work the same way you assign entertainers, tax collectors, and scientists, etc.

They could improve the rate of worker improvements in the city radius, which could be initialy slower.

As for automation, they should have automation features like "emphasize food/shields/commerce".

And "emphasize military" would be awsome. It could automate construction of bunkers, barricades, airbases, radio towers, outposts, and other military improvements.

[Addled Platypus]

Yoy mean like the Ho-Che-Min(spelling) Trial during Vietnam.

Several thousand workers toling hours on end. Maybe put a cap or more support to go over a set limit on how many workers can do a task.

I have been known to keep up to 10 workers just for pollution control, and about the same amount or more to get my empire conected by rail.

[wrylachlan]

IMHO, the reasons people hate workers are that there are just too damned many, each doing too much each turn, and it becomes tedious. Well, what I think is the obvious solution is simply to cut down on the amount of workers and works necessary.

a) Make workers progressively more efficient, so that it only takes 1 modern worker to do the work of 2 industrial/4middle ages/8ancient...

b)remove the tile bonuses from roads and RR and change it to a percentage bonus for "connectivity" to nearby cities. Essentially create an incentive to build roads connecting your cities to their neighbors, but a disincentive to build more roads and RR than necessary.

c)change the frequency/work required of pollution. Instead of a 1 in 10 chance of requiring 10 turns of work, a 1 in 50 chance of requiring 50 turns of work. So you're not cutting down on the dangers of pollution, just cutting down on the necessity for workers to run around from one site to the next.

4)Give workers an upkeep, which creates an incentive for you to disband unecessary workers.

[punkbass2000]

Workers have an upkeep, just like any other unit you build.