Should I automate?

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by Willem


No sorry, they will still cut down Forests. The only way I could get mine to stop was to add a mining bonus.

What game are you playing? shift-a will NOT CUT down forests. I ususally have to automat with shift-j or shift-c or somthing to that effect to get them to cut down forests.

And believe me, I ALWAYS automate, since they do a better job at it then I do. At least they'll be on 24/7 pollution patrol.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Willem


No sorry, they will still cut down Forests. The only way I could get mine to stop was to add a mining bonus.

BTW, doing that also means that Railroads will increase production in Forest squares, which I understand they don't now. Almost 2 months now and I still haven't reached that point. Damn that editor!!

Works for me. Do you have the latest patch?

[Zachriel]

If you accidentally forget to press the shift key, then that particular worker will start irrigating your mines; forever, unless you find him and change his orders.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Zachriel


Works for me. Do you have the latest patch?

Yes I do, and who knows, maybe I'm mistaken. I stopped trusting those little guys awhile back and so I haven't used automation much for quite some time. At any rate, adding a mining bonus to my Forests kind of fits with my mod so that's good enough for me.

[planetfall]

Mariakles-- You are getting great advice. The learning curve on this game is horrible because Firaxis did not think through game play very well. This is not an Electronic Arts style game with psychologists and educators on the payroll. They seem to be just a bunch of game playing programmers. Their biases are rapant in the game.

Some things make no game play sense and are only included to distract the player from the mission at hand. Firaxis forgot that doing something is not better than doing nothing if there is no purpose in doing something. For example, later in the game pollution shows up and needs to be cleaned up. If for no other reason to clean up the map. Ok, we know there is pollution. But what is the point of it in the game. Remove workers from "constructive work"? What constructive work, by the time pollution shows up most everything is mined, roaded, irrigated, railroaded, cleared or planted. What is left for workers to do if there are no wars destroying improvements? Nothing, ala pollution tiles. Since pollution does not change game play at all, I open the editor {this is in the same folder as civ and is an executable file. Open the civ3bic file with the editor} and remove pollution from factories, etc just to speed up game play.

As others mentioned, don't use a{automate workers}. In first era you need to control worker actions as automate does not work well. You have limited resources and need to direct their actions. This is fine with 1-40 workers. But in next eras with up to 200 workers it sucks big time. Best strategies are to either use Shift-A or Shift-? {look in manual, where they stay within a city borders.} If don't turn off pollution, you can use Shift-P {clean up pollution}.

I timed my turns all manual vs all Shift-
A. One turn all manual took over 20 minutes, but with S-A on, turn was only 8 minutes. Yes I loss some control, but game speed was more important. Be sure to change preference to "Wait after each turn" if automate workers. Like children, sometimes the workers need to be directed. So at the end of your turn, you scroll the map and click on all workers doing something bad:
1-- in another civ's territory
2-- working in area A and you need project in area B quickly
3-- irrigating a mine you need
4-- not cutting a forest when you need shields.

After select worker with click, right mouse and activate worker. You will get a message "this unit has already moved". Then next turn you direct the unit, thus you have just turned off automate for this unit.

If you have workers stuck in an area with nothing to do, your options are:
F- {I call freeze, actually "fortify",} for workers, means they don't move until you reselect and give them a task. Occassionally I use frozen workers as part of a line to stop settler pairs from invading my land. Later when I have more military, I unfreeze them to get back to developing infrastructure.
-- disband for a few shields, don't see real value in this. There will be a war sooner or later and there will be something for them to do. They don't seem to cost anything to keep alive but frozen.
-- join city, sometimes useful if need to pump up city size.

What's really bad is if you try to provoke a war by moving a bunch of pieces into another civ's territory. I have only completed a couple of games, so it was an easy mistake to do. I didn't want to declare war but I wanted a war with the americans. I moved about 50 pieces into their territory. Naturally there was a challenge on their turn. But the same message "do you want a war, get out" keep on
looping. After too many times, I didn't count number of pieces before turn of "challenge" and not choicing A- sorry, I'll move, or B- tired of your insolence, prepare for war, but C- goodby and then having military advisor popup: A- they are scum, eliminate them or B-no we should respect our neighbors. I got tired of pressing B, so pressed option A. Opps, that starts war. Ugh. I could have started war 8 minutes ago, dumb programming.
I needed a "goodby to all messages" from americans. simple to program, but see they never thought anyone would move in more than 30 units into another civs territory on all fronts.

Opinion of game is changing. I have definitely decided I will not play the game as default configured by firaxis. I am still checking out alternatives with editor settings and many mods to see if game can be made more fun to play. It definitely has great potential.

It might develop bad habits, but one way to avoid the frustrating corruption problem while trying to climb the learning curve of what is an improvement, what do wonders do, what do units do, what does AI usually do, is
to open the editor BEFORE you start a game and change the number of happy citizens from 5 at chieftan level to 7 or more. You won't have to worry about happy for a bit and this will give you time to see what happens with the game before you reset happiness back to default firaxis levels.

The biggest reason for the huge learning curve--firaxis and most discussion comments, forget a key part of getting a game accepted is in helping new players get to a high enough play skill level that the game is fun. Guess what, if learning curve is not fun, will play other games or follow other activities. There is a world beyond firaxis progamming.

Oh, forgot. another way to shorten the learning curve-- limit other civs to 2-4, until learn the other stuff. It can still be fun. It is also alright to throw away games and start over. Yes I know it is frustrating after spending so much time starting a game. But helps the learning curve. I have tossed at least 8 games and only completed 1 full game. I am in 1970 in second game and playing to see what space race graphics are like and would like to see what nukes are like, but they need Uranium and Alum within city borders. Don't think that combination is close enough anywhere in my present world for any city to have nukes. Also nukes are not bombs, only ICBM's. Guess firaxis never heard of B52's.

Get stuck again, create another new post. There are players here that will help you and speed up the learning curve.

just have fun!