BtS unofficial patch

[Solver]

What's the problem? If there's a resource to be improved nearby, it'll still go for it.

[wodan11]

I don't know if it's a "problem", but if I establish a soon-to-be colony (say, New Zealand), I don't necessarily want my work boat from London to go haring off. Anyway, what it means is that I simply can't use the automate feature the way I did before. Again, that's not necessarily bad.

Wodan

[wodan11]

Okay, it's definitely a "problem", in the sense that if a resource needs a workboat, it does NOT always pick the closest automated workboat. The selection criteria is something else, either random, or perhaps the order in which they were automated.

I had an automated workboat at a single island city, waiting for culture border to expand. 24 turns away (48 tiles), I had another city, also with an automated workboat, also waiting for culture border to expand. The latter city expanded first. The former workboat went for it.

Wodan

[Solver]

Well, yeah. It'll only consider resources already in your borders.

[khearn]

I suspect it's not saying "This resource needs a boat, which one should I use?" I think it's looking at each boat saying "Is there anything this boat can do?" and seeing an unworked resource and sending the boat off. It just happened to check the boat that was farther away first. Then when it got to the second, closer boat, it knew there was a boat on the way to the unworked resource, so it didn't send the closer boat.

One could write the routine so that it considers all idle automated boats at the same time, but that would probably require a significant amount of rework, since the whole unit handling system seems to be set up to think about one unit at a time, in order.

The other alternative would be to have the check on the second boat realize that it could get there much sooner, and have it revoke the first boat's orders and send it back to where it came from. But that would require remembering where it came from...

All of the is based on my experience with how software typically works (I'm a software engineer), and not based on looking at how the actual code in CivIV is written, but I'm fairly sure that is how it works.

[snoopy369]

I would suggest the simple fix is to just not automate workboats - there aren't ever that many even in an islang map for it to be a big problem just handling them yourself. Civ cycles through the units (as khearn notes) so it's not ever going to be able to 'choose nearest workboat' (which is cycling by resource, not by boat). It also generally doesn't rework orders based on other units' orders, as far as I know, though I imagine that's not impossible to fix. The risk there is infinite loops

The only simple solution I think, is to have a maximum radius that the boat will search - say 20 tiles - and say anything over that it just won't do, or else have two cycles, one of within 20 tiles one of whole globe and do a second pass after it's checked that there's not a closer boat.

[wodan11]

So, there's a feature that doesn't work. The fix being "is just not to use it"?

Sorry, but I don't buy that. It isn't conducive to the game nor good for players that don't know they HAVE to cycle through all units every single turn. If boat automation doesn't work, let's not enable that as an ability of workboats. (By "not enable" I mean remove the icon from the list of available actions.)

Or, as kearn suggests, change it from a loop of "what does this boat have to do" to "this tile needs worker or boat action, go find the closest one to work on it" (though the latter has its own complications, which makes me think it won't work).

Either way, this seems to me to be a programming / bug change.

(Not being nasty or anything, just looking at this from the point of view of a newbie player.)

Wodan

[wodan11]

Anyway I guess this belongs in the bug report thread, not here, as it seems to be an issue with BtS not the unoffical patch.

Sandy

[snoopy369]

The feature behaves as expected. IT IS NOT A BUG. Many things behave differently from how you prefer them to behave, but something that behaves as expected is not a bug

It is unlikely for it to be significantly modified, because the aberrant behavior is due to how the turn is processed. That will not change, because it is simply how the program works - they'd have to recode the whole game to change that. I suppose they could do a multiple pass apporach as I mentioned, going first after only a closer area and then later after a further area, but that takes valuable processing time.

Ultimately your concern is that it does not perfectly mimic you, not that it doesn't work. It doesn't choose the workboat that you would choose. In that case - you choose it. Automation is not as good as human intervention, and that's the price you pay.

[wodan11]

I agree, it's not a bug.

I do think it should be on the list of requested changes, however. It's non-intuitive, an that's all that is needed.

Wodan

[Kuciwalker]

It would be computationally prohibitive to make the behavior how you want it. Snoopy's idea doesn't generalize, though in some (most?) cases it would work.

(Yes, snoopy, I know you knew that )

[joncnunn]

This definately isn't something worth holding up the upcoming patch for, but I do think that work boats should be disallowed even post-Astronomy from entering ocean tiles that are outside of cultural boundaries.

In the mean time though, I've got to wonder about someone who can't be bothered to even give goto orders to work boats; it's very rare for me to have even three of them in existance in the same turn. For that matter, I've been on some maps where there were only a total of 3 fish type resources in my territorial waters.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by joncnunn
This definately isn't something worth holding up the upcoming patch for

Oh, definitely not!

but I do think that work boats should be disallowed even post-Astronomy from entering ocean tiles that are outside of cultural boundaries.

Eh, don't care either way. I suppose there was a reason they changed it to how it is now.

In the mean time though, I've got to wonder about someone who can't be bothered to even give goto orders to work boats

It has nothing to do with the "bother"... There is value to pre-building work boats, you can build them when you have a lull and can fit them in conveniently. And then, yes, give a manual go-to order so that they're near the improvement once your cultural borders expand.

The question then becomes that you are forced to watchdog for the cultural expansion. It's not an onerous burden... until the game ends up with a dozen things you have to watchdog for. If I wanted to micromanage I would play SE.

it's very rare for me to have even three of them in existance in the same turn. For that matter, I've been on some maps where there were only a total of 3 fish type resources in my territorial waters.

Same here, on both counts. That seems irrelevant, though... ?

Regardless, thanks for your thoughts!

Wodan

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by joncnunn
This definately isn't something worth holding up the upcoming patch for, but I do think that work boats should be disallowed even post-Astronomy from entering ocean tiles that are outside of cultural boundaries.

In the mean time though, I've got to wonder about someone who can't be bothered to even give goto orders to work boats; it's very rare for me to have even three of them in existance in the same turn. For that matter, I've been on some maps where there were only a total of 3 fish type resources in my territorial waters.

I also don't think it's realistic for work boats to explore outside their territory. They are fishermen, not scouts.