Benign neglect?

[Colonâ„¢]

I've had Civ4 for a few months now (always on noble) and it's been a little frustrating since I (eventually) fall behind in technology most of the times. I've come to understand I need to pay a lot of attention that my research, civics etc are in tune with a particular economic strategy. However, I don't bother with deciding what tiles should be worked and which specialists should be assigned. I may choose to automate a focus on commerce or on GP-points and leave it up to the AI. I regularly don't even bother with intervening when I'm getting unhappy citizens or when sickness is higher than health (other than building improvements to counteract this).

What I'm wondering is whether a laissez-faire approach is viable on noble or do I really need to micromanage my cities?

[frenzyfol]

I wouldn't let the AI do my laundry

[davypi]

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[frenzyfol]

"uncovering your dirty laundry."

lol

[johnmcd]

Re: Benign neglect?

Originally posted by Colonâ„¢
I've had Civ4 for a few months now (always on noble) and it's been a little frustrating since I (eventually) fall behind in technology most of the times. I've come to understand I need to pay a lot of attention that my research, civics etc are in tune with a particular economic strategy. However, I don't bother with deciding what tiles should be worked and which specialists should be assigned. I may choose to automate a focus on commerce or on GP-points and leave it up to the AI. I regularly don't even bother with intervening when I'm getting unhappy citizens or when sickness is higher than health (other than building improvements to counteract this).

What I'm wondering is whether a laissez-faire approach is viable on noble or do I really need to micromanage my cities?

Should be viable, be careful about what improvements your throwing up though.

If you have people being unhappy, buy them luxuries and such.

[Seedle]

Davypi: Thanks for making my day

[The Priest]

I wouldn't worry.

I normally play on Emperor and I rarely find there is any need to micromanage cities. In most cases the AI puts the citizens to work on the most applicable tiles. The only situations I find I do need to look much are:

1. Near the beginning when land isn't improved and there are choices to be made between say a forest or a coastal tile. If you have three such tiles in a city, the different can be noticeable near the beginning (three hammers or six commerce) and you may want to specify which (i want to get this granery build - work the forest; I am despareate for money/research - work the coast).

2. Having specialists. The AI will normally allocate specialists to choke off growth when it is hitting happiness/health caps. This is sensible except when you know that you are going to get some new resources (if the plantation is about to be finished you know that the cap is about to rise, so want the extra growth).

3. Specialist choice. I rarely like the choice of specialists. It is always trying to get me to have spys when I don't want. So when you have specialists you do need to check they are the ones you want. Normally if it is a GP pump, you are doing this naturally because you are choosing what GP you want. But if you get a specialist everywhere say because of Merc. you do need to then go through and choose the right specialist for each city, but one the whole you only need to do that once.

Specialising cities is important, but that is not done by allocation of citizens or even in most cases by choice of specialists. It is done by decisions over what buidlings and improvements to build. Those decisisons should never IMHO be left to the AI. But if you choice what improvements you have the AI will normally be sensible in then working them.


And lets be honest, even if you could squeeze an extra 5% by city micromanagement, who wants to. I play CIV to enjoy myself.

[Colonâ„¢]

Cool post.

I'm sticking to Warlords so the issue with spies doesn't bother me.

[Wiglaf]

But doesn't BTS dramatically improve AI control of specialists and workers?

[The Priest]

Yes, but no AI can know what you want. Buildings, workers and choice of specialists is all about your chosen strategy in that particular game. But other elements of micromanagement which are about just geting the best out of the situation, yes the AI does well.

[TriMiro]

Human can always do better than the AI. The only question is do you feel like doing the micromanagement and is it worth the benefit on the particular level of difficulty.

I am surprised that one can go without much mico on Emperor. I would have assumed that anything Monarch and above would require detailed micromanagement. Good AI I guess.

[Colonâ„¢]

I'm wondering why I even asked. Since the AI has to deal with the same AI when managing cities, I'm not experiencing a competetive disadvantage if I leave it up to the AI (since I play on noble).

[Wiglaf]

I'd imagine the AI at least knows when to emphasize commerce or research or culture in specific cities. The excessive micromanagement and creative city placements are unfair on noble however.

[wodan11]

IMO the AI suffers in two general areas:

-- worker management of tile improvements. Never leave this up to the AI... it's broken. (Excepts perhaps letting your workers do "trade networks" which means just roads and resources.)

-- specialist management. If you have enough food, then force just one specialist in each city. Otherwise, whenever that city reaches the max it'll almost certainly put in a spy specialist. And, unless you're running a spy economy, then that's almost certainly not what you want.

Wodan