Micromanagement

[BOSS Roller]

I tend to micromanage my cities to death. Each turn, after moving my units, I loop through my cities to see if I can rearrange my workers so that I don't waste shields or food when their boxes get filled. I also ensure that my cities don't go into disorder (if the population is about to rise) by making a worker into a specialist. I often move workers around so that a happiness improvement is not built until the turn it is needed (ie. when the population goes up).

I think I am probably being overly meticulous and anal here, but I hate losing any of my production. Does anyone else play like this? I imagine most players only look at a city when it has finished producing a unit or improvement. I'd like to here how often other players look at there cities.
Thanks.

[Earthling7]

Which government, Communism?

I certainly don't go through all this trouble. I make sure the cities are efficient by assigning workers on the map, but every turn? Nah...

Neither do I make sure that the shields match the last turn. I just make sure my empire is powerful enough to be able to afford the waisting.

Sometimes I even use auto-build, but only occationally and when I have a very large empire. The function doesn't really work all that well in Civ2.

Anyway, I am not a neat as you. That's what I like about Civ, so diverse...

[The Mad Monk]

Oh, I have lots of ideas for Civ III. Most of revolve around what I found in MoO2. Like the six-place build queue, the way you could organize the colony summary screen by name, pop, production, what's being built, etc., and the way production is 'carried over' into the next project.

Diplomacy is another matter. I prefer MoO2's, but it's still another matter.

[Ming]

Micromanagement can give you the edge in MP games. Unless you are in a one on one duel, there is plenty of time between turns where you really don't do anything. This time can be well spent micromanaging your cities.

That little added extra can make all the difference in the world.

In games just against the AI... I will do it early. But later on, as your number of cities grows, I don't bother... because it isn't needed for beating the stupid AI

[tobyr]

Boss Roller, I do not micromanage as much as you do, but I come close. I usually have a feeling about whether I can trust the cits in a city to stay where I put them. I check for every pop increase, approximately, and for every settler improvement, and for every case where cits get chased off their squares by opposing military units.

When I have a lot of cities, this makes for a long game, but I hate to develop less thn my potential. Getting lot out of your development is the easiest way to keep a longterm big edge. I just HATE it when I accidentally move a settler in the wrong direction, or forget to put a cit back to work after solvinf a happiness problem...

Don't forget about moving all your cits around at both ends of a trade route, just before creating the route, and then putting all the cits back where the were again.

- toby


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[klesh]

I agree with Ming, in a game vs. the AI there is no need to micromanage after you've established a healthy lead. The mistakes made by the AI far outweigh any loss of production due to lax management.

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I am the Ukrainian Anti-Pope!
[This message has been edited by Field Marshal Klesh (edited April 11, 2000).]

[George Garrett]

I like to review each city in the early morning when I'm fresh, and a bit out of touch with the goings-on of the previous days. such reviews help remind me, of my overall stategy, and local tactics...they are also useful in making sure that each city is making the maximum contribution, soldiers fortified, settlers activated,etc...if I've lots of gold, I delight in rush buying especially in the newer, smaller,stuggling cities...I find that a market-place completed here, a factory there, is a great pump primer for production to come...after such a beneficial tour, I usually find my game enhanced, especially by a "population" grateful for the goodies I've bestowed.

[BOSS Roller]

Thanks for your replies.

I realize now that this type of micromanagement would cease to be an issue for me if the game engine were changed in a couple of ways:

1) Extra food and resources would be placed into their "emptied" boxes after population growth or production (in the same way that research is handled).

2) If a city experiences population growth that would make it unhappy, the newly created citizen would be an Entertainer (and a message box would appear (optionally)).

Does anyone think that this would be a good suggestion for Civ 3?