Land Improvement Boring?

[Jerh9e1k5]

Hello,

I've been playing Civ 3 for a while now. Long time lurker in these forums. I post every once in a while, lol. This is one of those times. I find that I play Civ and I have on times and off times. I'll play viciously for 1 month or a few weeks and then stop for months. Every time that I leave its because I get bored of moving my 50+ workers around the map and working every tile. In my games there is always a LONG period of making my continent full of mines, roads, etc...

Having just recently pinpointed what sucks the fun out of Civ for me I'm now posting it. Is there something I'm missing? Some way of getting through the boring terraforming? I could automate my workers but Irrigation on grasslands in despotism!?! Please help me find the enjoyment once again, lol

Jerh9e1k5

[Aqualung71]

Unfortunately there is no time-saver with workers. You can move them around in stacks, but must give them individual orders. The "worker gangs" idea was floated for a patch but was never implemented.

And as you know, automation is a pretty bad idea.

I don't think you're missing anything. What you're describing is part of the game - an important part. I've seen some players comment that to save the effort of MM'ing like this, they just drop down a level or two.

[Maquiladora]

Well well well, another complaint about workers.

Is there something I'm missing?

Public Works. This boredom-safe feature can only be found in Call to Power 1/2.

[Jerh9e1k5]

Thank you for the replies, but I do not understand what you mean by "public works". Were you trying to say that since CTP1/2 are modded a lot so they are "publicly" worked on?

[Maquiladora]

No. Public Works is the solution to moving 50 workers around. You assign a Public Works (PW) Tax % that gets taken from your civs total production, that gets moved into a pool to spend on tile improvements, such as Farms, Fisheries, Ports, Mines etc. If you set PW tax to 20%, all your civs cities will produce at 80% their production capacity.

To place the tile improvements (when you have sufficient public works) you click the icon for it and click on the square where you want the tile imp.

[Jerh9e1k5]

Thanks for the quick reply! I hope that Firaxis addresses the boredom issues brought up by moving workers around forever in Civ 4. I believe that it would really add to Civ's endless replayability. It is the only thing that drives me away!

[vmxa1]

I don't see any way around it in despotism, but later you could possibly get away with the automate and don't change improvement function.

Public works is just another form of automated workers. The AI does it for you, hence you do not have any edge.

[Switch]

I find tile improvement in the ancient/medieval age to actually be almost a joy, as there isn't a lot of it and you aren't so tired that planning it out is a pain. It's once RR and pollution hit that I find it to become a bore.

One solution is just to play with smaller maps, and have fewer wars (fewer wars=fewer conquests=fewer cities to improve around). But that isn't much of a solution, is it?

Sincerely,

[Antrine]

by Switch..... One solution is just to play with smaller maps, and have fewer wars (fewer wars=fewer conquests=fewer cities to improve around). But that isn't much of a solution, is it?

In a word: NO

[vmxa1]

Yes it is RR that is a pain. I sort of enjoy seeing my tiles improved in the ancient era.

[Rhothaerill]

I have to agree that tile improvement in the late game does get a bit tedious. However at the same time I still prefer to have all my workers under my own command. I can't stand letting the AI do the tasks.

Regarding public works, I did like the CTP system for that except for one thing...in the early going it was almost impossible to improve the tiles as you had almost nothing in the way of PW. It wasn't until you had a bunch of cities up before you could even make one road to connect a few cities. I didn't like that too much. In the late game it was nice as PW allocation was high enough to matter, but the early game workers in Civ3 are much better for tile improvement...and that's when it counts.

[Last Conformist]

The real funkiller is removing pollution in the late game. I really hope they rethink that particular concept for Civ IV.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Well well well, another complaint about workers.



Public Works. This boredom-safe feature can only be found in Call to Power 1/2.

Sounds like a good concept. However, if as vmxa1 says (which is almost always spot on), it really just amounts to another way of automating workers, then its use will be less than optimal. Is there any way of assigning (in CTP) what public works will actually be done?

[Maquiladora]

Public works is just another form of automated workers. The AI does it for you, hence you do not have any edge.

Thats wrong. You assign a PW Tax % to your own production, when youve taxed enough to spend you select what and where you want the tile improvement. So Public Works is nothing like automated workers.

Regarding public works, I did like the CTP system for that except for one thing...in the early going it was almost impossible to improve the tiles as you had almost nothing in the way of PW. It wasn't until you had a bunch of cities up before you could even make one road to connect a few cities. I didn't like that too much. In the late game it was nice as PW allocation was high enough to matter, but the early game workers in Civ3 are much better for tile improvement...and that's when it counts.

It depends how much you dedicate to PW tax, PW tax takes from city production, so its a choice. Rather than using a worker for tile imps which represents no choice and is a chore that HAS to be done on every worked tile ASAP.

In the Public Works system one city, in time, can produce the construction of all farms and outgoing roads for one city, because you dont have to place roads on every tile, only where theyre needed for faster movement, which also takes away the tedium of covering every tile with roads/rail.

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
The real funkiller is removing pollution in the late game. I really hope they rethink that particular concept for Civ IV.

Usually by that point I'll have most every tile improved so I can get away with Shift-A (automate but don't change) for all workers. They'll happily wake up to clean pollution and then go back to sleep in a city until needed again. They'll also complete your rail network in case you missed a tile or two.

Late game is also a good time to turn over control to the happiness governor. He not only prevents disorder from growth and WW, he'll automatically reassign citizens to tiles after the tiles have been cleared of pollution.