Worker verus Public Works?

[Toby Rowe]

Cybershy.

Less of the newbie stuff please- their points are as valid as anyone else's.
For the record, I brought Civilization when it first came out on the Atari, and I still have my orginal PC game, but probably make less interesting posts than most newbies.

I do agree with you however on the value of a physical worker on the board- the fact they can be both killed or captured leaves me with no end of logistical nightmares early in the game with barbarians afoot- defend the city or the workers "just in case", is a common dilema I face, but it's fun.

All;

Automating workers in Civ 2 and 3 is a waste of time for me- they never do what you wish they would. I only ever use the Shift-P for them, and boy is it needed in Civ 3.

I think GePap has a good point- why not allow us to still build a worker unit and have a public works system?; building roads outside your territory will always need workers.

What I really miss is the "select all" feature in Civ 2 so that you could move 12 units in a single turn- that was really useful and I was shocked to see it gone in Civ 3.

I only play on huge maps and moving 150 workers to the border after a nation has declared war on you simply isn't fun, combine that with 80-odd military units heading the same way it gets mightily boring.

I think the solution GePap offers is an excellent one: both is good, and at the end of a turn you can reduce or increase public work spending, but you'll still have the workers you built regardless.

Toby

[Adagio]

My vote goes to anything but PW... I simply hate it

PW system is nowhere less micromanagement than workers, so it's not better than having workers...
I also never got used to it while I was playing ctp. Often it went very many turns before I remebered to build something. Often I could upgrade half the country because I've saved up so much PW

[wrylachlan]

I've said this before in some other thread that's disappeared into the void, but:

I vote for a hybrid system. Workers work the land doing whatever you specifically instruct them to do. If they run out of stuff to do, they check in with the "Public Works Administrator". The PWA is a central location where you can cue up worker priorities like roads vs. irrigation vs. mining, etc. etc.

The PWA would also allow you to "paint" on the game map a la SimCity where you would like workers to build something. So for instance, you "paint" a road between City A and B, and what appears on the map is a transparent "ghost road" that shows your intention to build a road there. When a worker in the area runs out of specific directions, it will go to the "ghost road" and start filling it in.

[Toby Rowe]

Hi mate,

Nah! Not for me. A cost slider for public works and the ability to also build workers is what I'd like, but I fear they have a huge radical change in the offing for Civ 4, such to make talk like this redundant.

If it's to be in 3D, I can't see how workers can be logically used within that type of environ compared to a top-down 2D view- you simply can't get the type of perspective needed to use workers gainfully.

Toby

[Adagio]

I assume the 3D is just as much "3D" as SMAC, so no huge change...

[Shogun Gunner]

hybrid

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Adagio
My vote goes to anything but PW... I simply hate it

PW system is nowhere less micromanagement than workers, so it's not better than having workers...
I also never got used to it while I was playing ctp. Often it went very many turns before I remebered to build something. Often I could upgrade half the country because I've saved up so much PW

Er... that was the point, you take production from each city builds to gather public works. If you had so much to upgrade half the country then you didnt have enough buildings or military. Just like you could only build workers and upgrade everything as soon as possible, but never build military or granaries etc.

Id like to hear why you say PW system is "nowhere less micromanagement", or was it just a thoughtless remark youd seen someone else say?

[Toby Rowe]

Well,

The only time I disliked micro-management was clearing up pollution time after-time after turn after turn, especially cities you captured that had both the dreaded hospital and aquaduct, yet you are forbidden to sell them.

This level of micro-management is considered only fun by the programmers, and I doubt they tried a game.
That sounds harsh- sorry, Publishing houses dictate when games are published, not the programmers- Sorry, I just wish they'd stand up just once to the house and say "this game ain't finished"

Fun for me is shaping a city- either by PW or workers, having both would be great as you must still build the unit- but a unit can travel in other nations as some bloke above mentioned, whilst PW cannot, and if Civ 4 also has poor AI, then a worker will be needed- don't forget we don't yet know the time-scale or budget the programmers have.

Toby

[Maquiladora]

PW can travel by using forts. Forts extend your national border, so you then build roads in the new borders. Or you can take a settler, settle a city outside your border, build roads in the new border and disband the city in the same turn.

[Toby Rowe]

Hi mate,

don't you simply think the fact that you can have public Works and also build a worker unit to do with what you will is simple and effective?

If we still do view the world through a top-down view in Civ 4 and if faced with the current AI level in Civ 3, then I want a road linking all cities on my borders to the nations that will eventually attack me. It's as useful to me as it is to them, however irritating the AI is.

It of course also allows you to complete the road network for trade as most border nations take until about 1200 and Industrialisation before they complete the entire world link on a contintental map. One of their distant neighbours will use a road to attack you, but hey, at least the trade link is done, and you will get money per turn until they each decide to attack you for no reason at all.

Still, without the workers in 3, trade links would be a long time arriving, and in the diplomacy window you can only see less than half of the nations, those that you can see, the AI often insists no trade is possible, "talk" to them and it simply isn't so, cntrl+RC to change a nation is simply very boring.

Toby

Toby

[Maquiladora]

Building forts to extend/protect your "external" roads can be as fast or as slow as you want it with PW. If you want trade badly enough you prepare and build the network.

Workers or PW for external roads, either is good for me. Its the using tens-hundreds of workers at once I object to, I have better things to do with my time.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Er... that was the point, you take production from each city builds to gather public works. If you had so much to upgrade half the country then you didnt have enough buildings or military. Just like you could only build workers and upgrade everything as soon as possible, but never build military or granaries etc.

You didn't get my point I see...

What is better (considering you're not going to get better improvements soon):

1) Build an improvement as soon as can afford it (whatever you want to build)
2) Build imrovements all over the country in one turn, and probably end up with more PW than you need (This happens much later than the first option)

The first option is of course better since you get the imrpovement faster, and at the time you can afford to upgrade the whole nation you've already got enough PW to do it anyway, so option 2 doesn't give any advantages...
My problem is I always "picked" option 2 because I kept forgetting about PW

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Id like to hear why you say PW system is "nowhere less micromanagement", or was it just a thoughtless remark youd seen someone else say?

I just don't see workers being "too much" micromanagement. And when I compare how much time I spent on workers compared to how much time I spent on PW there's no big difference...

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Adagio
You didn't get my point I see...

What is better (considering you're not going to get better improvements soon):

1) Build an improvement as soon as can afford it (whatever you want to build)
2) Build imrovements all over the country in one turn, and probably end up with more PW than you need (This happens much later than the first option)

The first option is of course better since you get the imrpovement faster, and at the time you can afford to upgrade the whole nation you've already got enough PW to do it anyway, so option 2 doesn't give any advantages...
My problem is I always "picked" option 2 because I kept forgetting about PW

Then the problem lies with you forgetting to use a game feature, for whatever reason.

[Adagio]

But the point is still the same: even if I remembered to use it there wouldn't be any advantages over workers

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Adagio
What is better (considering you're not going to get better improvements soon):

1) Build an improvement as soon as can afford it (whatever you want to build)
2) Build imrovements all over the country in one turn, and probably end up with more PW than you need (This happens much later than the first option)

The first option is of course better since you get the imrpovement faster, and at the time you can afford to upgrade the whole nation you've already got enough PW to do it anyway, so option 2 doesn't give any advantages...
My problem is I always "picked" option 2 because I kept forgetting about PW

Point being???? Both systems (PW and worker) offer the opportunity to do option 1 ASAP. As Maq pointed out, the designers have no control over a player forgetting to do something in the game.

Which leaves the amount of micromanagement as the main issue...

Originally posted by Adagio
I just don't see workers being "too much" micromanagement. And when I compare how much time I spent on workers compared to how much time I spent on PW there's no big difference...

The end result is still the same - the creation of a tile improvement. The journey to get to that point is what makes me grind my teeth.

I do find your statement somewhat hard to believe - having played both games extensively, I do find that the actual time involved in selecting 100+ workers in the current civ3 system and then sending them (even with the 'go to' command) to diferent locations, and then having to issue a build command for EACH UNIT once it gets there (more mind-numbing mouse clicks) to be much greater than than in a PW-based system. Not to mention that workers sometimes take multiple turns to get to a location - meanwhile other workers may end up finishing their tasks that may also be close to where you wanted to build that initial TI, so you end up inadvertantly sending those units to that spot, which ends up becoming an inefficient mess...

...as opposed to ONE single mouse click per TI in a PW setup - and you know at all times what is being done every turn because the visual is clearly presented on the map. No searching for workers, no need to recall just what workers are going to what location...What is especially frustrating in civ3 is that once you re-select a worker in transit, the orders you had for it are automatically cleared. More mouse clicking...

Forgive me for rolling my eyes at that... But different strokes for different folks.

I do agree that the ease of mass-building TIs with PW funds can be overpowering once your economy is humming. Setting your PW to 80% allows for a lot of TIs to be built quickly. Still, that is a gameplay balancing issue and not a game concept issue (big difference) that can be fixed via a PW cap or an gradual adjustment in cost of TIs based on the age the game is in.

IMO, the best idea I've heard is still a combination of the 2 systems. PW funds used within your borders and a worker requirement to build outside your borders, as well as the potential use of workers to speed up construction time once you make an outlay with your PW funds to build a Tile Improvement.

As it stands now, the PW/fort/disband city setup in CTP2 is closer to that ideal than the current civ3 setup.