ATTN Firaxis: Worker tedium solution - change the way orders are given!

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by UberKruX


firaxis has proven that they can't make a smart AI. we're trying to help them out.

maybe you should send them your resume, if you think you can help them build a better AI?

curious, but what game similar (or dissimilar) to Civ3 have you played where the AI is as good or better? I would like to know the measuring stick against which you judge civ3.

[Kilroy_Alpha]

Originally posted by UberKruX


firaxis has proven that they can't make a smart AI. we're trying to help them out.

SHUT UP.

[Skanky Burns]

Firaxis has made the single best AI* in a turn-based game that I have ever seen.




* That doesn't require "Deep Blue" to be able to number-crunch.

[Atahualpa]

While I agree that the AI is quite okay, it does make quite stupid descisions.

The good thing it tends to always search for my weak spots and attacks them. The bad thing is that I know it always goes for my weak spots.

For example the japanese built up a navy and navigate on the water all to the southest point of my island (I held the south and he held the north) and landed there with some troops. But he was so stupid to move inside my borders so I could see what he was up to and wasnt very surprised. Now if he would have navigated 2 tiles away from my border (outside my vision zone) I would have been much more surprised and he would have had more success. Good Tactic coped with bad execution.
The tactic was good because I would then have to divide my forces to fight the main border on the north and to recapture the city(ies) to the south. But well since he was so stupid to move within my visibility...


Soren, I think there is some work for you!

[wrylachlan]

Invisible workers

To cut down on the tedium of the late game how about just the ability to toggle workers who are automated visible/invisible. If you have all of them on Shift-A you're not micromanaging. You don't need to see what the hell they are doing. I'm sure there is some overhead to recentering the screen every time a worker finishes a project and moves. If they were toggled invisible you could do away with all the screen recenters.

[dawidge]

I haven't gotten far enough in my 1.21 game to find out for myself, but have they fixed the problem of automated workers trying to cross through "at peace", non-ROP AI territory to reach an unconnected part of your empire? I really hate taking the diplo hit for my automated workers doing something stupid.

[chiefpaco]

Not a bad idea. However, I usually think of it a different way. I'm happy with the automation if I can set up with a "workers rules" page. In it, the dialog would show each terrain & what I want done with it when workers are automated.

For instance, I want my grasslands mined, deserts & plains irrigated, etc. Of course, I can still use workers to manually override it, but that would be the general rule.

Right now, I don't use automation until all my cities have sufficient improvements like I want. Then, I use the (Shift)-Improve City automatically command cause I don't care how the last improvements go.

My problem with the current automation is I feel the workers irrigate grasslands too much for my style. Of grasslands, I like at least 66% of them mined.

Of course, my theory has problems too. First, I don't think everyone looks at making improvements this way (set rules for each tile). Second, it might be tricky when cities don't have access to water, or have to work it across - then, what do the workers do?

The 3rd dialog should be made available under the city governors screen to show the workers prefs. Then, the user can set it for each city, for each city on the continent, or all cities.

[The Rusty Gamer]

A simple improvement to automatic workers as the game currently stands would be to prioritise squares that citizens are currently actually getting resources from as per the city management screens. I don't think it does this at the moment, it just improves whatever squares willynilly.

[exeter0]

... or maybe just a task queue would help.

I guess it would be implemented via a waypoint mechanism. At each way point you can click on the appropriate construction/clear function you want to perform.

[Grrr]

Anything could make this problem better .