Terraforming trick

[T-hawk]

Here's a neat trick (bug? exploit?) for managing terraformers.

If a terraformer is currently working on a task, it can be interrupted and keep all its stored terraforming turns. The trick is to activate the terraformer NOT from the main screen. Instead, go to the terraformer's home base, find it in the "Units Supported" window, right-click on it, and choose "Activate Unit" from there. That wakes up the terraformer but does not cancel its terraforming investment! The former can change to a new terraforming action, or move to a new square, and it will remember and apply its "stored" terraforming turns.

The "stored" terraforming turns stay with the unit and persist through almost every action. The former remembers its stored turns even between game turns if the former spends its turn moving, and remembers through a game save/reload. If multiple formers are gang-forming, each one remembers its invested turns separately, one of them will store all the turns.

Only a couple things cancel the invested turns. One is if the former's square gets attacked by any hostile unit, even if the former itself does not defend. Another is if you somehow issue a "Cancel Orders" to the unit. This is hard to do if the former isn't actually terraforming, but one way is to give the former a "Go To" order and then cancel that.

Fundamentally, there is a difference between "Activate Unit" and "Cancel Orders". Only the latter loses stored terraforming turns. Any activation of a busy former from the main screen triggers "Cancel Orders" -- but go to the former's home base and you can access "Activate Unit" without triggering "Cancel Orders".

Of course, this multiplies the micromanagement in optimal terraforming considerably. Suppose you want to build a borehole on square X which is currently unimproved and unroaded. The optimal way is to move one former to square X and build a road, while any other helping terraformers first start any other terraforming project in nearby squares. When the road in square X is finished, wake up the helping formers with the home-base trick, move them to X via road, then do the borehole.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

This isn't even an exploit when applied to the bug Darsnan brought up, where forest spreads to a square where a former is already planting forest, and it wastes a turn continuing. I've always hated that, and thanks to you, can do something about it.

You da man, hawk

[Russia4Life]

I knew about this already you can do the same thing in civ2. There are also other ways of activating a unit without canceling the orders that don't require going through the home city.

[GooglyBoogly]

I will probably make a note of this in my next update to the datalinks.

[Ell_man]

Are you sure the work "charges" stay with each former when 2 formers are cooperating on a job?

The reason I ask is because in civ2, if 2 settlers are working on an improvement together one of the formers will passes its charges to the other former.

Here's a quote from the guide to settlers:

4.1. Using two workers on the same task
The speeds listed in Table 3 for completing tasks can be cut in half when two Settlers/Engineers are placed on the same square and assigned to the same task. If one Settler is assigned to irrigate a square, and another Settler is assigned to put a railroad on that square, they will have no effect on each other. But if two Settlers are moved onto a Hills square and both are told to mine, the mine will be completed in half the time. If two Settlers start irrigating a square at the same time, on the third turn the work will be completed with one charge left over. This will result in the second Settler assigned to the work to wake up and be available for further commands on that same turn.
The result is the appearance that the two Settlers/Engineers are both holding their charges until the work is complete. But that is not what is happening. Whenever two workers are assigned to the same task, the first one assigned to the task passes all its charges along to the second one. If two Engineers have been trying to transform a Hills square for 8 turns, and you wake up the first Engineer assigned to the task and do something else with him instead, the second Engineer will be able to complete the transformation project in 4 turns. It accumulated 8x2=16 Engineer-charges already, and only 4 more are needed. The first Engineer, whom you moved somewhere else, didn’t keep any charges. It can be hard to remember which worker started the project first. But if you moved them onto the new square one at a time and started them up in that order, clicking on the square will list all the units on that square in the order they arrived. The top Engineer should be the one that started first.
The result of the above rule is that it is possible to use more than two workers on the same task.

I've always assumed that alpha centauri evolved out of the civ2 code so the code on terrain improvements is likely to be the same.

Anyways, I'm going to see if I can test this.

Speaking of game concepts ported from civ2: Is the key-civ research penalty in alpha centauri?

From Solo's ELG

2.2.5 The Importance of the Key Civ

There is another important relationship with the AI that depends on power ratings, that affects the cost of techs being researched. For a long time players knew that if they gifted all their techs to one of the AI (known then as the "6th civ") they could reduce their own research costs. However, it mattered which AI civ received the gifts and things were further complicated by the fact that this special civ was not always the same one throughout a game. So most players ended up gifting techs to all of the AI all of the time, just to make sure that key civ was included. Samson's key civ discovery allowed players to easily identify the AI civ they needed to give their techs to in order to minimize research costs.

It turns out that every civ in a game, including the AI, have their own key civ. The key civ assigned to any player is based on that player's power rating, and the civ colors are used to determine who the key civs will be. Here is a summary:

Power Rating - Key civ color

Pathetic - white
Weak - green
Inadequate - dark blue
Moderate - yellow
Strong - light blue
Mighty - orange
Supreme - purple

For example, the human player rated as Supreme will use the purple civ as his or her key civ. Other civs in the game will have a different civ to key on, and which one it is depends on their own power rating. Key civ assignments can change whenever there is a change of power rating assignments, a frequent occurrence in Civ II games, especially in the early years. It is also possible for a civ to become its own key civ. In this case no research penalties or bonuses apply.

Anyways, the point of all this is that human players will want to gift all techs they acquire to their key civ, in order to reduce their own research costs, since the penalties for not doing so can be quite substantial. In early landing games, the human player is likely to become rated as Supreme, so it's important to find the purple civ quickly and gift to them any and all techs that are acquired.

Since each AI has a key civ of its own, the human player can influence their rates of research somewhat by presenting gifts to key civ's of the AI they want to help and by presenting gifts to any AI civs they wish to slow down. Doing this may help certain AI acquire a tech you may want to trade for. The most can be made of these opportunities if embassies have been established or if Marco Polo's has been built, so that tech research choices can be monitored.

Finally, you can find out what your own power rating is by invoking the Foreign Minister option, where your power and reputation will be displayed. AI power ratings can be surmised when they are contacted by counting the weapons on the left side of their diplomacy screens. No weapons means pathetic, one weapon means weak, and so on up to the higher ratings.

[Ell_man]

Terraforming charge sharing:

According to some simple tests I just ran , charge sharing works just like in civ2. If 2 formers are working on a job, the former who initiates the terraforming passes his charges onto the second former. The initiating former doesn't hold any charges as he works- all are passed to the other former.

Key-Civ

In a game as the university, I gave all techs to all factions but the spartans and my tech costs didn't change. I tested another game as the spartans where I gave away my techs and tech costs didn't change. I'm thinking the key civ idea was scrapped in Alpha Centauri.

[vyeh]

I had a situation in ACDG6,where I had 2 formers working on a borehole next to a base. I wanted to re-home one of them. I was able to activate it (it hadn't grayed out), move it into the adjacent base, re-home it, move it back and continue constructing the borehole.

I didn't lose any of the accumulated work. Would it have made a difference had it been the other former?

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

What is this gray-out of which I sometimes hear people speak? I mean, it's plain what it is, but I've been playing since 1999, and never had moved/finished for the turn units or their flags, or anything turn gray. Is it a display option I've never used?

[T-hawk]

According to some simple tests I just ran , charge sharing works just like in civ2. If 2 formers are working on a job, the former who initiates the terraforming passes his charges onto the second former. The initiating former doesn't hold any charges as he works- all are passed to the other former.

You're right, I just ran a quick test too and got that behavior. OK, I'm not sure why I thought otherwise. Thanks for the clarification.

I had a situation in ACDG6,where I had 2 formers working on a borehole next to a base. I wanted to re-home one of them. I was able to activate it (it hadn't grayed out), move it into the adjacent base, re-home it, move it back and continue constructing the borehole.

I didn't lose any of the accumulated work. Would it have made a difference had it been the other former?

If you activated the former from the main screen, yes it would have made a difference which former.

[Psyringe]

What is this gray-out of which I sometimes hear people speak? I mean, it's plain what it is, but I've been playing since 1999, and never had moved/finished for the turn units or their flags, or anything turn gray. Is it a display option I've never used?

The unit flag (which shows the faction that a unit belongs to) will be overlayed with a pattern of thin diagonal black lines if a unit has used up all its movement points for that turn. That effect is the grey-out that people are talking about.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Maybe I just wasn't looking at it the right way- there is a visual change when units are done, but I couldn't describe it to save my life. I'll have a look.