Ducki Does C3C at Emperor

[furrykef]

No problem. It was easy enough once I realized how simple it is. =^^=' I think I like the editor more every day, even though I rarely actually use it (this game consumes enough of my time without my having to go make a mod or scenario )...you can learn a lot from playing with it.

Though, I think I might toy with making a "tutorial" scenario that revolves around setting up Settler and Worker pumps. Unfortunately I don't see a way to do any kind of scripting, and the built-in victory conditions, while not inflexible, aren't really sufficient for this kind of thing. Hmm.

- Kef

[ducki]

I have another Emp. start with pump-friendly terrain.
With all the practice I'm doing on this, maybe we could just collect all the sav files and someone that's a better writer than me could give a play-by-play, maybe something like cracker at cfc did with the Opening Plays pages(I'm remembering the Russia floodplain one, where he compares the AI vs the human) though I'm sure there are other good examples.

Anyone that wants to do something like that is welcome to PM me their email and I can start saving any start that has a pump in it to zip and email. I wish I was a better writer/compiler. The Pump Explanation I was going to try to paraphrase from this thread just isn't coming out readable. Blargh.

[Demege]

Regarding the settler/worker pump and micromanagment. If you set the city governor to emphisise food production you wont have to micromanage the city, the pump will be self sufficient.

When the settler is built and the city loses 2 pop. the governor (without the food prod set) assign one of the workers in such a way that there is a balance between shields and food production.

With the food preference set, after the settler is built the governor will assign the workers in such a way as a player would set it, thus takin away the micromanagement necessity. Of course the workers must be happy .

Cheers

[Theseus]

Nice one! I never thought of that.

[Demege]

Actually the governor settings are usefull. When a city gains population the new worker will be added according to the governor preferences You set.

Its good to set shield production ephasis in those production citys whenever there will be a population boom the new worker will go to the squere with most shields. The same things apply to science citys you just set the governor to commerce.

It takes away a lot of micromanagement. You dont have to set the workers yourself everytime the citys gain population.

[Dominae]

I sounds to me like you're just replacing one form of micromanagement (Laborer re-assignment) with another (Governor settings). In any case, you do not get Food nor Commerce from the newly-worked tile when a city grows, so I prefer just leaving the Governor on Emphasize Production (or whatever it's called).

I have the admit, though, that it's been a while since I've played with the Governor. Perhaps there is a minimal micromanagement solution there to be found...


Dominae

[ducki]

That's good information to know, but in a fair number of the pumps I've practiced on, I actually have needed at least 2 of the 4 "free" shields the governor gives me by auto-assigning to the (usually a forest) 2-shield tile. Not always, so this tip is very handy, but quite often.

Thanks a lot! I'll have to start trying this out where I have an abundance of shields.

[Rellin]

Great thread, never truly understood the settler pump myself, but with all these great explanations I think I will have to go try it out myself.

[ducki]

I've got a new question for the pump-gurus:
When and how do you turn it off?
The first question is, I assume, map-dependent, but surely there are some Rules of Thumb. Example - I am on a random map that I think is Large and Continents. I've got somewhere between 12 and 20 towns/cities in one big "glob" around/near my capitol and one very far away(think the tip of South America from Chicago) town to get some Iron flowing. There's one Australia-like landmass way down there too, and two others I can see unsettled but haven't explored yet(just got galleys).
There's one settler going around an AI, but is it wise to "surround" the AI with towns?
Do I keep settling until I can't find plots any more, no matter how far-flung and non-contiguous my empire becomes or do I stop soon after the FP notification popup?

That's the when. Now the "How?" Once I'm ready to stem the flow, what then?
Do I turn it into a worker pump until I can't support any more units? Do I just turn it into a wonder city, let it grow and spend a fortune on lux?

I never foresaw this being a problem, but this random map size has me stymied, as well as still having lots of land to settle even after the "Let's build a FP" popup.

I realize with no screenshot/sav, you are flying by the seat of your pants, but I'm just looking for generalizations here, not hard, fast, game/map-specific advice. You will not be held accountable.

[Enriquillo]

When and how do you turn it off?

Ok, you don't turn it off untill you've filled all available land or until you've reached the optimal amount for corruption, whichever comes first. This depends on difficulty level mostly.

You turn it off by switching from food to shields after you've let it grow to a suitable size, limited by happiness, then switch to shields and build up your usual temple/library etc.
You might even want to mine that cow now

[Arrian]

Originally posted by ducki
I've got a new question for the pump-gurus:
When and how do you turn it off?

I usually turn mine off when I can no longer resist the urge to build things in that city (typically my capital). I reach that point around the time all the good city spots have been settled, and I get to thinking "what would I do with that next settler?"

The most efficient way of growing a city over size 6 is to add workers (because of the larger food box), but I'm not enough of a MM'er to have spend 12 turns pumping out workers and then adding them all to the city.

What I typically do is build a couple more workers, order them to develop the remaining land around the city (typically, I only develop enough tiles for 6 pop points to use, since that's all you need for a pump, before my workers move off to develop other cities' terrain. So when I go to turn the pump off, I need another bunch of workers to remedy that). Hopefully, this will include hills to boost production. If not, this will likely include mining over irrigation. I will let the city grow, building the best improvements for happiness (temple, market, perhaps colosseum) and then the others (library, barracks?) as needed. As this process goes on, I will probably add some of the workers back into the city (particularly once the temple & market are done).

Honestly, though, I probably do this all wrong. I probably should build more workers for the express purpose of boosting population (not only in the capital, but also elsewhere). I build a fair number, but mostly only the amount I feel necessary for reasonably quick terrain development. I cannot recall building a worker for the express purpose of adding it to another city in SP, prior to the late medieval (when cities max out at size 12 but still have a +1 or +2 fpt surplus, it's a good idea to build a worker once the food box is full, in between your other builds. The city will grow back to size12 the next turn).

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Enriquillo
Ok, you don't turn it off untill you've filled all available land or until you've reached the optimal amount for corruption, whichever comes first. This depends on difficulty level mostly.

Not even then. Excess settlers, within reasonable cost, are a tool of war and expansion.

[ducki]

Seriously Theseus? Even on a large map when you are just plopping down town after town to do nothing more productive than take up 9 tiles of terrain? And being on the other side of either a)the world on an island or b)the other side of your neighbor's capitol?
This is a funky map, and I had to shut it off, at least for a little bit. I can't manage this monster. I'll switch it back on once I get a grip. I also want to see what happens with the GLib/GLighthouse/GWall now that I have the Pyramids. Muwahahahahahahahaha! Soon your cute little Ancient Cavalry will meet my Samurai, dear Aztec neighbors. Soon, my little friend.

On another note, 1.15 BETA patch is out. Get it while it's hot.

Edit: Culture flips - if I refuse a town, is it refused forever, or will they keep begging me to take them in?

[Dominae]

I too build Settlers until I run out of space, then a few more for military reasons and simple good measure. Mind you, "running out of space" often coincides with "first war of conquest", so usually I keep on needing that Settler pump as enemy lands become mine (I abandon quite a few cities in early conquest). In your Spanish game above, Madrid did not stop building Settlers until the Mayans were half gone, IIRC.

Worker-pumps are different issue. If I only have one pump going, it will probably keep building Workers for most of the game (on a Standard map). In the "Peacekeepers" AU (a Large map game), I had two Worker-pumps going; one stopped sometime during the Industrial era, the other early-Modern. Because joining Workers to cities is counter-productive to improving conquered lands, I always seem to need a steady of supply of Workers throughout the game.

The key to micromanaging Worker-joining is to plan for cities to stop growing. Try to figure out what the city will need in terms of tile improvements for to have +0 Food output at size 12. Usually this just involves a couple of Hills tiles, but it can get a lot more complicated for weird terrain configurations.

Once you know what you need, order your Workers to make it so, then order them to Join the city and presto! you've got a maximum-sized city that you can just forget about. In practice it's more complicated than that, of course. For instance, you ideally want to tailor your Shield output at size 12 to be some multiple of the cost of the improvements or units you're planning on building; multiples of 10 are obviously great, but I find 16 to useful as well (Cavalry in 5 turns). This is another time when tight city-spacing is good, as you can exchange tiles between cities to ensure they're all maximally productive and without waste.

(Sorry for that digression there near the end...)


Dominae

[Arrian]

Worker-pumps are different issue. If I only have one pump going, it will probably keep building Workers for most of the game (on a Standard map). In the "Peacekeepers" AU (a Large map game), I had two Worker-pumps going; one stopped sometime during the Industrial era, the other early-Modern.

Did you ever build any improvements in those cities?

-Arrian