How do I stop my towns from doing what they want?

[jestevam]

I don't have those automated productions option on, but let's say i take away some specialists, and put it towards more food, usually after my town grows by 1 give or take a few turns, the town adds back the specialists

can i do anything about this?

[JackRudd]

Yes; every time your city (not town - that's a specific game term meaning something quite different) grows, reassign your citizens manually.

If you want to make it automatically pick things other than specialists, you probably want to switch on the "emphasise" buttons such as "emphasise food".

[couerdelion]

Once you get further into the game, and may be running many cities, I usually trawl through all the cities to check that they are building the right things, new population are assigned to the right tiles, units or buildings are whipped at the right times etc.

[absimiliard]

The more I play the less I like the micro-management of assigning workers to each tile and the more I realize I can almost always achieve my goal by some combination of the emphasis buttons. Usually I'm going emphasize food and either emphasize production or emphasize coins.

[DrSpike]

Jeez, call that micro? Kids today don't know they're born.

In my day we had to assign workers, keep lists to work out the tech blackspots, work out the beaker cost because of overruns, remember the specials pattern, stagger rush buying to save cash, micro trade routes, remember the oedo years for revolts, work out the key civ and gift to them, and calculate combat odds ourselves.

And that was on a good day.

Civ4 has no micro to speak of. If you don't like moving workers around may I suggest the Sims, or something equally inane.

[zeace]

Originally posted by DrSpike
In my day we had to assign workers, keep lists to work out the tech blackspots, work out the beaker cost because of overruns, remember the specials pattern, stagger rush buying to save cash, micro trade routes, remember the oedo years for revolts, work out the key civ and gift to them, and calculate combat odds ourselves.

Man, I'd forgotten all about the specials pattern, and I don't think I new the revolt years back then. Avoiding overruns was a lot of work, but nothing like the trade routes. They were worth too much to ignore, but took forever. Civ IV does in fact have virtually zero micro by comparison.

And yet there's still enough to complain about...

[joncnunn]

You might want to try Blake's better AI mod; it's also greatly improved the governors choice of which tiles to work.

[JackRudd]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Civ4 has no micro to speak of. If you don't like moving workers around may I suggest the Sims, or something equally inane.

Trust me, I do far more micromanaging with The Sims 2 than I do with Civ 4. The AI subroutines in the former are much more moronic.

[absimiliard]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Jeez, call that micro? Kids today don't know they're born.

Geeze Spike. Check our dates, I'm one month behind you. I hardly think I'm a kid on the basis of you having one month's seniority on me.

And as I recall wasn't I one of the folks doing seminal work on the econ in SMAC along with Vel and the rest of us back when it first started?

I've just been playing with the emphasis buttons a lot of late and discovering that generally speaking they get everything I want done. Not in every specific instance, no. I'll freely grant there isn't a game in which I don't control worker assignments in a few cities for at least a portion of the game, and in exotic cities I may never use a governor.

But for most cities it's pretty good. Give it a shot, you might be surprised at how well it's working now.

-abs

[Krill]

OMFG, micro in CIV is inexistant compared to C3. C3 Micro is ****ing awful. MMing in PBEMs and demogames meant I'd waste 3 hours running through a single simulation to make sure everything works out perfectly 40 turns from the turn Im on. Now it just doesn't matter nearly as much.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by JackRudd


Trust me, I do far more micromanaging with The Sims 2 than I do with Civ 4. The AI subroutines in the former are much more moronic.

Moronic, Sims2, you meet with my approval.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by absimiliard
And as I recall wasn't I one of the folks doing seminal work on the econ in SMAC along with Vel and the rest of us back when it first started?

I've just been playing with the emphasis buttons a lot of late and discovering that generally speaking they get everything I want done. Not in every specific instance, no. I'll freely grant there isn't a game in which I don't control worker assignments in a few cities for at least a portion of the game, and in exotic cities I may never use a governor.

But for most cities it's pretty good. Give it a shot, you might be surprised at how well it's working now.

-abs

Alas how far you have fallen.

I will help you get over this in any way I can.

[jestevam]

yea, pretty much i'd assign the workers to the highest food plots and it's switch it once the pop rose

clicking the emphasis food button seems to correct the annoyance

[absimiliard]

Originally posted by DrSpike


Alas how far you have fallen.

I will help you get over this in any way I can.

*laughs*

Alas, I've gotten fat and lazy in my old age.

Seriously though. With Blakes AI in place the governor has gotten a lot better. It's not perfect.

But you might be surprised at how useful it is for many cities. Definitely not all, but many.

-abs

[DrSpike]

/me grumbles about everything handed on a plate..............mutters might as well just let the damn AI play the damn game.