More questions from the novice

[Sten Sture]

Monkey - SoL is the Statue of Liberty. Cheers!

[Ilkka]

Automated settler really stink in civ2 as someone already said, but in future I would like to see automated settler controlled by artificial intelligence not by artificial idiot! Moving 100-200 engineer every turn take a long time.

[tobyr]

If an automated settler is simply not allowed to leave the city it is currently in, it will improve land in that city and go back to manual when all straightforward improvements have been made. How difficult is this for AI?

(A) move a minimum distance (give preference to squares with cits on them) that need improvement to a square that needs a road, irrigation (that does not transform) or mining (that does not transform); improve it; but postpone changes to lousy lands that are not occupied by citizens, such as (see step C):
(B) If two irrigations at most would bring in needed irrigation to other valuable squares, do those.
(C) (do the same on these next):
tundra, desert, etc.
(D) After doing those, if some percentage of a city's squares are forest, jungle (etc.), mine/irrigate them to change them. [Have a game option to turn this step off.]
(E) Enginners similarly would transform if all else is done [Have an option to turn this off].
- when all such improvements are done,
return to manual mode. Do not improve city squares currently worked by a foreign city.

Placing a unit in auto mode that is OUTSIDE of a city should only have the function of causing it to connect nearby cities efficiently with roads/railroads. Come out of auto mode as soon as it is not obvious how to do this, or if the needed road is more than N squares (N approx = 5).

Placing a unit in auto mode that is in an enemy city should cause it to stay in the city and pillage.


- toby robison

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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com