Terrain Improvement?

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by Bleyn
While we (almost) all hate micromanagement, there is one thing that is worse than having to micromanage. That is being unable to micromanage. Especially something as critical to game flow in a Civ game as terrain improvement is.

Imagine not being able to give commands directly to the workers in Civ3, and only being able to control them through an interface like the City governer one.

Easy, then REMOVE individual workers and allow players to 'instantly' upgrade any terrain feature assuming they have enough in their "public works" account as CtP does now.

What's easier to program, having an AI automatically stick a certain percentage of it's GDP into a fund that can be easily assigned to certain terrain, or having to move workers, that can be captured, etc?

I sincerely HOPE that for Civ4 they drastically reduce the amount of MM required regarding workers, and such because it's unnecesary.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
Not sure if someone has already mentioned this possibility but, how about you have a public works budget, as in CtP, bus STILL have workers? In this system, the amount of work a worker can perform is limited by your PW budget! That way, even if you have an army of workers, you can't do much with them if you don't have the neccessary budget (for both labour and materials!)

See my posts above in this thread - that is pretty much what I proposed...

[CerberusIV]

I voted other. Having played all the versions of Civ and CtP the idea I really like is being able to say what you want done on a particular tile, and what priority it is, and have the workers automatically assigned to do it.

It would be Civ but you could have a choice between automating workers (who will do the specified tile improvements) or retaining control yourself. That way you could effectively automate your core areas (where there is little danger of workers being captured) and retain control of workers in more dangerous border areas.

A better way of setting out what you want workers to do rather than the present hopeless automation or having to do it all yourself for every task gets my vote.

[Greenwatch]

I like the system currently implemented in civ3. Units modifiing the terrain is definitely a better way than using the public works method. I think however that military units should be able to act as workers but only during piece time and less efficient than a standard worker. This could really add an interesting element to the game.

One additional thing I would like to see is the number of tiles with trees affecting global warming. Say a civ plants forests on all of it's un-used squares. This should slow down global warming. Further, all civs do this, it should significantly slowdown or even stop global warming. On the other hand, if the forests of the world are desimated by logging/clearing, this should severly affect the global warming issue.

Just a couple thoughts. Let me know if anyone likes these.

[lajzar]

Foe reference, the CTP system is a public works budget. This is taken from the industrial production by a slider. You can then place improvements anywhere within your borders, and a "under construction" icon appears immediately, replaced with the actual improvement a few turns later.

Also for reference, the MoM system is that only certain races can build improvements (the only improvement in teh game was roads), and it costs gold to build, as well as requiring the use of a specialised worker unit.

I have yet to see any system as good as public works. For those who want to be able to capture workers, you could add that any pillaging done while an improvement is under construction has a chance of capturing workers. Captured workers are represented as slave units. A slave unit can be sent to a city and added to the population. Cities with slaves in them ought to be able to resend them again by building a slave unit, which can then be added to the population of a different city. Blood cult govs can sacrifice them, and certain other units (slavers) can turn defeated military units into slaves, or capture population and turn them into slaves.

[OliverFA]

The Public Works system that automatically manages the workers is the best option. If you are a micromanagement lover you can still control all of them, but if you like to delegate in an effective way (not like the horrible automatic settings of Civ3) you can also do

In fact this should be extended to some other parts of the game. Some sort of national policies that apply to all your cities.

[MJohn99519]

I don't think the added complication of the PW as another point indicator would be needed.....just some sort of method by which you can tell your workers to concentrate on specific improvements, and lay out an exact path or area that you want them to develop. That way, we can still micromanage, but we won't have to pay nearly as much attention to them as we currently do when we use the 'build to' command, and they dont fill in the area that we want them to.

[Panag]

hi ,

Civ3 style - Workers working the land. Physical units.

and it should be possible to improve the desert to plains , plains to grassland , etc , ....

have a nice day

[Lawrence of Arabia]

ctp was rotten through and through. i dont see why in every thrread people want this game to be more like it. keep the civ3 style - workers working the land.

[grap1705]

My idea is: how does it work in real life?

The mayor (in this case: us, enlightened leaders of our glorious civilization) determines the urban plan, with zones for framing, industry, shopping malls, etc... But after, that depends on private initiative. If you have no farmers, then building a farm is of little use.

On the other hand, some improvements are conducted by working teams under public orders: roads, airports, fortresses, etc...

So my suggestion is:
- when you create a city, you can determine right away the urban plan for farming, mining and trading, for the 21 squares (or to be adapted if it is decided cities can grow over than 2 square radius or if the map evolves to hexes!), even if the city limit is temporarily limited to the surrounding 8 squares. And then, those equipments improve over time, depending on city size (intensity of exploitation factor) and power supply (see my thread on energy: a strategic national issue).
- but in parallel, you use workers (and later engineers, or some kind of more efficient worker evolving with explosives and bulldozer tehcnologies) to conduct specific public tasks like roads, highways, railways, airports, fortresses, etc...

So combining over time improvement and workers seems the most real solution to me.
And if we want to improve micro management (which I personnally like, being fond of controlling all levels and aspects of my game) we should also make workers' work dependant on the availability of a public work budget (to be collected nationally through macro economic indicators like in CTP2, but used through workers that can be captured or killed like in Civ).

Ideally, to satisfy everybody, the game should give an option for activating or not micro managmeent, so that fans of pure military strategy can still play Civ rather than desert it for Risk. But they probably already did, over bored by the lousy military handling.

[Addled Platypus]

I like the public works system as well


How is this for a twist

If there are Idle workers, they can contribute to building a wonder

[Skanky Burns]

Civ3 style - Workers working the land. Physical units. 26 41.94%
CtP-style Public Works 26 41.94%

Well this poll was decisive.

[snoopy369]

I of course vote Civ3 style, from those of you who read my posts

Skanky, you should make that first post without any bias -- ie, take out the "micromanagement hell" part, and anything else like that. Original posts in polls should be informational, not biasing.

[Panag]

hi ,

grap , if you want to know how it looks like in real live , take a look at Israel , from desert to plains , from plains to gras , ..... with loads of labor , thats why it should take like 24 turns or so , and loads of water , ..... so only squares with special irrigation should get transformation , ...... and for the next 24 turns those tiles should lose one shield as to cover the work thats done there , .....

have a nice day

[Lord_Davinator]

let nature take it course... and if you do not like what nature does... take her in your hands and shake her until she does what you want her to do