pollution

[shadow_fighter]

Is there any way to tell a worker to automatically clean up all pollution?

[joncnunn]

Shift A is recomended in that case over the offical command. On the offical command, they get bored when there is no polution and alter tiles.

[Kloreep]

Like joncnunn says, Shift A. That will tell them to look for things to do automatically, but the Shift keeps them from changing mines and irrigation around. I wouldn't recommend using it if you don't have all your tiles mined and irrigated yet, as it will decide for you and probably not optimally so. But if all there is to do is clean pollution, they'll of course do that. And even if there's some railroading to finish up, you can trust them with that, though their rail vs. pollution priorities may not be yours. (If there is nothing for them to do, they'll go to a city and skip turns until there is something.)

[Dis]

I just use the automatic pollution clean up command. Yeah they stop working after all the pollution is cleaned up. So you need to reassign them when new pollution comes up. I'm not sure what the shortcut keys are, I use the detailed menus, so it's right there.

[vmxa1]

Why do need to automate pollution clean up? It is not so onerous that you can't do it manually.

If they go auto they end up in my cities while they wait around. This can often make it a pain to find them.

I prefer to stack a bunch some place and fort them until I have pollution to clean up. Then I grab the stack and send them over to clean it. When they are done I fort them again.

[chuckdelicious]

Shift-D is the official command. (I think that's what he was asking for guys.)

[gunkulator]

Depends on the size of your map and empire and also somewhat level dependent. Once all your territory is railed and improved, there's no harm in automating workers for pollution cleanup because they don't have anything else to do anyway. I realize at higher levels you tend to micromanage everything, including the number of workers and thus their actions but where I play (emperor), I usually have dozens of workers sitting around with nothing to do by the mid to late industrial age.

[Modo44]

vmxa, if one plays a peaceful game, he can often find his empire fully covered top to bottom by the mid-Industrial Era. I mean each and every used tile. Seriously, I'm not moving those Workers to Pollution by hand.

[vmxa1]

I tend to play domination or conquest, not much peace in that. The only way to have an empire done, is if does not grow. If it is not going to gain more tiles, the game is over.

What happens when you need to increase the food in a given city? Anyway it seems to me you would have to have exclusive ownership of your land mass to automate workers.

Otherwise they will wander into danger. The AI can demand you move workers, even though we can't.

The worse part of auto pollution is that you will lose production on that tile for a turn. The way I prevent that is to manually clean it and then go to the city and move the citizen back to that tile.

If automated, you probably will not do that. I have tried it in the past and it is going to cost you something. If moving a stack of workers over rails to clean a tile is too much effort, I would pick another game with less micromanaging.

It is not like I have to deal with a bunch of polluted tiles every turn. Yes it is annoying at times, but anything can be annoying at times. Waiting for the 134th attacker to finish can be more frustrating, especially if they have two more stacks left to hit me with.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I tend to play domination or conquest, not much peace in that. The only way to have an empire done, is if does not grow. If it is not going to gain more tiles, the game is over.

You are right, it is. I'd have to wait a long time to go airborne (Spaceship), or win the UN election. I often drop games at this point, or shortly after.

Originally posted by vmxa1
What happens when you need to increase the food in a given city? Anyway it seems to me you would have to have exclusive ownership of your land mass to automate workers.

Otherwise they will wander into danger. The AI can demand you move workers, even though we can't.

I assure you, I wouldn't. As to the tiles, I only automate Workers after everything is set up as I want it. I don't go to war very often, and I usually don't break any deals, so my diplomacy can keep dangers far away, and I don't mean geographically. Take a look at this save (link).

Originally posted by vmxa1
The worse part of auto pollution is that you will lose production on that tile for a turn. The way I prevent that is to manually clean it and then go to the city and move the citizen back to that tile.

If automated, you probably will not do that. I have tried it in the past and it is going to cost you something. If moving a stack of workers over rails to clean a tile is too much effort, I would pick another game with less micromanaging.

The Workers don't matter here. It is the city Governor, who can bring the citizen back, but unless I do OCS, I don't use them very often. You still have to put the citizen back manually, regardless of Worker-automation. Unfortunately, I found no way to help that, as Governors tend to mess up citizen allocation.

Originally posted by vmxa1
It is not like I have to deal with a bunch of polluted tiles every turn. Yes it is annoying at times, but anything can be annoying at times. Waiting for the 134th attacker to finish can be more frustrating, especially if they have two more stacks left to hit me with.

You are right - it's not extremely tedious. But since I can do it safely, I automate it. By the way: Turn off combat animations.

[vmxa1]

You do not have cities/metros that run out of food due to growth at some point? The only way to avoid that is to not grow or irrigate every tile you can.

IOW in a typical city/metro you have mined everything that makes sense. You can get to a point, especially after size 20, that you must irrigate a mined tile to feed everyone.

This requires intervention on those automated workers.

Regardless of the manner of the use of govenors, you will lose production, if you do not manually replace the citizen after cleaning on the turn.

The gov will do it next turn and of course may put it someplace less advantageous to you. Now you can still do this yourself if you are paying attention, but with auto workers, that is not as likely.

Anyway my position is not so much that knowledgeable players should not automate, as it is you should not tell others to do it.

I do not think it is good advice for newer players as they do not have the experience to manage the transition and reqcognition of the timeing. IOW they will be likely to get into loss production and workers.

The are better served by running the workers and learning how to get the most from them. Once they have that down, then it becomes an option.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by vmxa1
You do not have cities/metros that run out of food due to growth at some point? The only way to avoid that is to not grow or irrigate every tile you can.

IOW in a typical city/metro you have mined everything that makes sense. You can get to a point, especially after size 20, that you must irrigate a mined tile to feed everyone.

This requires intervention on those automated workers.

No, it doesn't. I count if the food surpulus is an odd number beforehand, and change citizen allocation if it is. If moving citizens doesn't help, I change some tile improvements. This happens at the time, when I go and Mine a big part of the tiles, that were Irrigated before Rails. In the save I posted, you will see Forests - they were planted for that exact reason. Not a single tile needs to be changed in that game. If a city is close to starvation due to some turns with Pollution around, I build a Worker, and let it grow a new food supply.

Originally posted by vmxa1
Regardless of the manner of the use of govenors, you will lose production, if you do not manually replace the citizen after cleaning on the turn.

The gov will do it next turn and of course may put it someplace less advantageous to you. Now you can still do this yourself if you are paying attention, but with auto workers, that is not as likely.

The governors will always put citizens back to work as soon as the tile is cleaned. Finishing a Worker job inside a city radius triggers this. The problem is, they don't know when a different city should be working that tile, so they will frquently mess up the allocation I prefer.

BUT, if all my cities are at zero surpulus, I can see perfectly well which one needs attention. Namely the one with a food shortage.

Originally posted by vmxa1
Anyway my position is not so much that knowledgeable players should not automate, as it is you should not tell others to do it.

Good point. Mine is: do whatever is more fun to you.

I agree it is not good to automate Workers anytime earlier, than in the Modern Era. My comments are only for games, in which not a single tile needs the player's attention anymore.

[Grim Legacy]

The pollution thing is bothersome in Civ3. I tend to play builder-type games and do get a number of tiles polluted due to city sizes on a given turn. With the mass transit tech so much farther up the tech ladder than sanitation, it can become tedious.

Is there a command to order the same thing for a stack of workers other than joint movement? Like "all irrigate" or so.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Grim Legacy
Is there a command to order the same thing for a stack of workers other than joint movement? Like "all irrigate" or so.

No. You have to do it for each Worker.

[joncnunn]

[shameless plug]
In the creation subforum, I've posted my alternative to whack a mole polution.
[/shameless plug]

Originally posted by Grim Legacy
The pollution thing is bothersome in Civ3. I tend to play builder-type games and do get a number of tiles polluted due to city sizes on a given turn. With the mass transit tech so much farther up the tech ladder than sanitation, it can become tedious.