Terrain Improvement?

[hexagonian]

Well, the main sticking point for me with workers has always been the endless moving of units and then issuing the build commands for them once they got to the tile. With PW, you did not have to deal with moving units - just click an improvement on a tile and it would be constructed after a few turns. Very streamlined...

So if the AI could effectively manage worker movement, and all you had to do was click on a tile to select the type of improvement to build, then I'm sold on the idea. At least in SMAC, there was a multiple command option (build mine/road on a tile) This helped the micromangement problem to some degree.

Shield cost was merely the means to attach a cost to PW so it's of secondary importance.

[Brent]

Preparing Sites for Cities

I want to be able to tell workers (or public works) to prepare a new site for a city whose settler is not ready yet. Automatically build some roads or whatever in a proposed radius. You can specify a specific site, or let automation determine a good site and then another and another. Possibly use the existing Road To command and after that road is built, tell other workers to start preparing sites along that road, beginning at your current territory. Preparing city sites beforehand can lead to your opponents stealing your sites.

[Skanky Burns]

I think the system where you order improvements for the land and then have workers automatically assigned to an available task is a workable system. This allows for the hardcore player to still manually control his workers, and for the rest of us to have some control over what improvements are built (as opposed to current autoworkers) and be able to keep workers aside for projects we need done immediately such as trade roads.

Combine this with some high-level tools such as a brush (exact number of tiles it affects may vary, but a city-radius sounds good) that orders all tiles under it to have roads and/or rr built on them, irrigate all valid tiles, mine all valid tiles, etc.

With that, I actually voted in my own poll finally. Other option.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns I think the system where you order improvements for the land and then have workers automatically assigned to an available task is a workable system. This allows for the hardcore player to still manually control his workers, and for the rest of us to have some control over what improvements are built (as opposed to current autoworkers) and be able to keep workers aside for projects we need done immediately such as trade roads.

And one of the other really cool corrollaries is that it requires zero recoding of the worker AI. Since it is possible to control the workers individually, the AI can simply reuse (and hopefully improve upon) the Civ3 codebase.

And I have one more suggestion to add -
The ability to combine workers into superworkers.

I know this sounds kind of out there, but I think that the total number of units in Civ3 gets to be a problem, and workers are no exception. I propose a Small Wonder called Guild Hall(obviously the name sucks, but that can be another discussion). Once the small wonder is built, you can combine 2 workers in a tile to form a Skilled Worker whose work output is something like 125% of what the two workers could do combined.

This would make an incentive for the player to cut down on the total amount of units in the late game. If you found there were still too many units, you could even go one step further and use the Workplace Engineering SW to allow 2 Skilled Worker to be combined into an Engineer.

[Kuciwalker]

I'll join in and say that I really like wrylachlan's proposal.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker
I'll join in and say that I really like wrylachlan's proposal.

You're not going to believe this, but I just looked out my window (9th Floor) and there was this huge hog with wings flying by.

[Kuciwalker]

[Pedrunn]

I voted Public Workers because is more similar to my idea.

Which is to place Tile Improvements by choosing from a menu and placing it in the map with by clicking with the mouse in the tile ypu wanted. Just like the PW system. But instead of costing PW it costs Gold.

No need to add a whole new variable (PW)!!!

[Bleyn]

I would prefer something that is at least a variation of the current system, and am slightly indifferent to the CtP PW system since it really is just the same thing at a slightly higher level of abstraction(at least as it was explained here). But I am dead set against the idea of a system where you just express preferences and things happen on their own.

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. From my experience, no matter what emphasis you tell the governer to go with, it seems to get totally stuck on food and growth, even in cities totally surrounded by grasslands that will take forever to grow large enough to starve.

Unless a massive amount of work were done with the AI, that is probably about what we'ld end up with if Civ4 had an automatic terrain improvement system. And personally, while I wouldn't mind seeing enough work done to make worker AI worth trusting, I wouldn't want to be dependant on it.

[Trifna]

I think that CtP style with a way to give a geographical and "type of improvement" orientation could be the best.

[Brent]

Be able to assign a worker to improve an ally's terrain but still be mine. Have an automation option for a worker to find a resource to build a colony.

[Adagio]

I voted for "Terrain automatically improved over time", though with more user-control:

E.g. in the cities there should be an option where you set priority for food, shields, roads etc

[Bleyn]

Just out of curiousity, have you played MOO3 ADG? If you had, you might know what I mean when I say being unable to micromanage is worse than having to micromanage.

Specifically the planetary regions and DEAs. Sure you can manually order the construction of the DEAs themselves, but there is absolutely no way to order the construction of the enhancements to the DEAs. As a result, I find that it is almost not worth even trying to pay attention to that portion of the game. Essentially, I feel it is a matter of 'If I can't control it, I don't even want to see it. But if I can see it, I had better have some way of manually controlling it.'

The research model in MOO3 is also a good example of this. You can't actually choose what techs get researched. You can't skip a tech that you don't want. All you can do is adjust the amount going to each of the tech areas. For me, it basically became another area that I ignored. Not because I wanted to be able to ignore it, but because I had no reason not to.

That is what I am afraid automatic terrain improvement without any manual control would turn into.

[Spiffor]

I vote for CtP style public works, but with a little variation:

1. I think public works should be paid in gold rather than in a "public works reserve". The PW reserve was a useless clutter. Gold does the trick exactly as well

2. I think there should be a small food cost associated with a public work.

3. I think it should be possible to quicken a public work. One click = normal time to completion. Two clicks= twice as fast (and twice as expansive) etc.

4. A CtP style system requires a good and instinctive interface. Draw your roads like in Sim City. Use the Shift-click to cover all them connex grasslands with irrigation, just like in the Sims, when you cover a room's floor with fitted carpet. When you're deciding a PW project (before the construction actually begins), have it show in red when it's far from completion, yellow when it's near completion, green when it'll be built instantly. Etc.

5. Have some automation in the PW system. Have a PW advisor (similar to the science advisor), whom you grant X% of your income each turn, and to whom you give priorities: food, connectivity, development of a specific city, etc.

Automation and interface are very important in a CtP style PW systems, because those were the shortcomings that made the PW system a tedium rather than a progress.

[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!)
Industrious Civs would be able to generate more PW points, and there would still be workers to capture in the game-the advantage being that you can build terrain improvements for at most half the PW cost of a normal worker.
In addition, you could allocate additional PW resources to certain workers, which would increase the speed at which they finished their work AND/OR you could allocate the PW budget more generally, so that certain Worker tasks (like mines, fortresses) were done much quicker, but only by sacrificing speed on other tasks!!
Anyway, just a few thoughts!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.