The Governor is really stupid!

[Willem]

I thought it was bad in Civ 3, but it's even worse in this game. I can't even count on it placing citizens on the land properly. I just restarted a game where I was wondering why it was taking so long to gain techs and grow my first city. And when I looked, it had placed the only citizen on a wooded hill so there were some hammers happening, but no gold and worse, no growth.

And there's been a couple of times I've placed people on certain tiles and the next turn, they've all been rearranged to squares I really didn't want them working. Plus quite often, it will create a specialist even if it means starvation in the city. Fortunately, we now have the option to turn off the automatic placement of citizens, so I'm certainly going to put it to good use.

[Axxaer]

I have also found them sometimes incapable of relocating to maximise food when the town is starving. This should be a basic automation and easy to program.

[Willem]

Yeah I know. There have been a few times when my city was starving and clicking on the city center didn't help, even though there were plenty of food sources available. I ended up having to to it manually. One time I remember the city was starving even though there was a special food resource with over 5 food that wasn't being worked.

[TheHateMale]

Was avoid growth checked?

Also, I've sometimes seen the automation get switched off with me having no memory of doing so.

[Denny]

I had a situation in my last game (only my 2nd game) where i assumed i'd missed something obvious, now i'm not so sure...
My capital(mongol), and a opposition capital i'd took v.early (paris) both dropped from double figures population to 1 during a shortish war with france and the incans (the only other inhabitants of my continent) in the 1800's /1900s.
(i had reduced science and culture to 0 to get some quick marines and mech.infantry out)

Paris's population drop was certainly infulenced by many sea squares being pillaged, but the mongol captal never saw an enemy soldier (the only thing i can think of was that: emphasise science was checked).

After the war, despite having loaves of bread in the adjacent city squares. the govenor refuse to click them (prefering to make them artists or preists), even if i overrided it (alledgedly bringing growth in 5 turns), at the end of the turn the city was back to stagnating and the farmer was out of the field and back preaching to himself. Even if i checked and unchecked any box, these city's would not grow.
Was i doing something wrong, is this normal practise or is it a glitch?

Denny

[TheHateMale]

Do you have a save at all?

[RodLosAngeles]

I had a similar thing happen to many of my large cities during a long war. I assumed it was because everyone refused to work. And those who didn't protest the war were being employed to control the unrest. A lot of cities went into very rapid starvation, to the point where I had to end the war prematurely. It took a long time before my income and research were back under control too.

But yeah, the governor would keep allocating priests and such. And even when I sent them back to work in the fields, they were reset in the next turn. Weird.

[TheHateMale]

Selecting optimize for Food + Trade + Production should stop specialists being assigned.

[Willem]

Originally posted by TheHateMale
Was avoid growth checked?

Not that I know of, at least I didn't select anything. Even still, there's a big difference betwen no growth and actually starving the city.

[Willem]

Originally posted by RodLosAngeles
But yeah, the governor would keep allocating priests and such. And even when I sent them back to work in the fields, they were reset in the next turn. Weird.

A lot of times the governor will create a Priest or other specialist and it won't let me remove it. I try to hit the minus button, but nothing happens. The only thing I can do is select another type of specialist. And no I don't have Mercantilism selected.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Originally posted by Willem


A lot of times the governor will create a Priest or other specialist and it won't let me remove it. I try to hit the minus button, but nothing happens. The only thing I can do is select another type of specialist. And no I don't have Mercantilism selected.

That actually happened to me yesterday, as a matter of fact.

The city was starving and when I checked why, it was because the gov had made a specialist. When I tried to get rid of it to work an available food square, all it would let me do is switch the specialiast type.. not actually make them work!

I found that by turning off citizen automation, I was able to remove the specialist, work the food tile and save my citizens from starving.

[DudewithaWig]

Did you have the wonder that gives +1 free specialist in all cities? I've found that when I get this wonder there will be an extra specialist that is created that I cannot get rid of by clicking the minus sign.

If, by turning off the auto-assign feature, you can turn these into workers for your city then there may be a bug.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

No I didn't. The only thing I can think of that might have done it was the Hanging Gardens. Which gave an extra pop point that the gov turned into a specialist. Which in turn, made the city starve.

[Soren Johnson]

Re: The Governor is really stupid!

Originally posted by Willem
I thought it was bad in Civ 3, but it's even worse in this game. I can't even count on it placing citizens on the land properly. I just restarted a game where I was wondering why it was taking so long to gain techs and grow my first city. And when I looked, it had placed the only citizen on a wooded hill so there were some hammers happening, but no gold and worse, no growth.

do you have a save of this?

[Willem]

Originally posted by Rancidlunchmeat

I found that by turning off citizen automation, I was able to remove the specialist, work the food tile and save my citizens from starving.

I just discovered that option recently. I suspect when I had those problems it was on without me knowing it. I'll make sure to check that on a regular basis. It obviously doesn't work very well.