was the CTP1 worker system better?

[child of Thor]

Yeah agreed[lol with Locutus+Mr.Baggins!] I liked the colony harvest thingy - still a lot of this is only really that important if we get proper strategic resources

So i'm in favour of the CTP2 system(which i voted for) and looking at a better way to manage your trade/strategic resources.

Is it the percieved(and real!) extra control over your city radius management that gives the CTP1 system the nod for you Hex?
I found it became a bit too MM intensive after a while, kinda off setting the good bits in the early game....

[MrBaggins]

You know.. the optimal system would be confining the choice to when it mattered...

By choosing which tiles are worked prior to growing to the second ring... thus you only are presented with the choice when its an important choice.

The problem is that you have to maintain the fractional value system of CTP2... a city could grow at size 6... so 1 tile worked does not equal one city growth...

I do agree with Hexagonian, that there is a problem with the valuation of tile improvements... that they aren't important enough when only one of two are improved... but when you've got all the squares worked, then TI's become TOO important, particularly with multiple levels of TI's... as has been mentioned elsewhere.

[Maquiladora]

I used to prefer the CtP1 setup because i didnt see as much strategic options in CtP2, now i have seen the light. In CtP2 system i make use of all specialists (ok not merchants) in different cities but at different times. Mostly the use of specialists depends on your current growth rate, and so your ability to keep the city growing even when its specialized to hell.

What I don't like about the CTP2 system is that tile improvements are practically worthless until you are able to completely work the entire ring of terrain.

I disagree. A size 4 city on all plains without specialists it would grow at +731 under Fascism, add 3 adv farms it goes to +1368, thats enough reason for me to place only 3 adv farms, otherwise that size 4 city would take forever to reach size 7.

The biggest problem is too much reliance on food and together with that the power of specialists.

[Locutus]

Edit: nm

[MrBaggins]

lol... an hour plus DP?

[Ekmek]

I do like the idea of choosing squares because some squares have more food or some nore shields and choosing which to develop and get shields/food from is a bit micromanaging but its important for those distant civs and starting them up.

I cant really recall how Production affected cities individually, but it seems you cant spread those resources around it'll be hard to get new cities producing fast instead of growing pop.

[tyrantpimp]

I never use the specialists too much micromanagement its a big pain going from city to city especially if you have like fourty or fifty. Most annoying is going through conquered cities and undoiing the ai's use of specialists. Unless theres a better way to use specialists (read: more user friendly, easier, less micromanagement) that im missing i dont think i will ever use them. Which is probably my loss but oh well the ai isnt that bright anyway

[Locutus]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
lol... an hour plus DP?

I initially used the Post Reply screen, but after some copy-pasting moved to Quick Reply instead and posted from there, but forgot to close the Post Reply screen. After working on other things for an hour I noticed the Post Reply screen was still open and figured I had simply forgotton to press Submit

[MrBaggins]

I assumed that... I just found it... amusing.

[Gilgamensch]

Same for me, when I first saw Locutus post I thought I clicked on the wrong link, but then I realised, no it was him

[J Bytheway]

It might be possible to make TIs more useful by slightly tweaking the way in which CTP2 distributes workers amongst the tiles in any given ring, so that if there are two tiles in the ring with one worse than the other in every respect then the better one will always be worked in preference to the worse one until it is being fully worked. Of course, this could prove an absolute mightmare to implement, but I think it would be alright if done properly.

Actually, on second thoughts, it is harder than I anticipated, but it could be done. The most significant problem might be the fact that it would be that the algorithm would be much slower than the current one. (I think that it would be O(n^2) rather than O(n)...).

Generally speaking though, I think the CTP2 system is better than the CTP one, primarily because it allows variable city radii much more easily.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by child of Thor
Yeah agreed[lol with Locutus+Mr.Baggins!] Is it the percieved(and real!) extra control over your city radius management that gives the CTP1 system the nod for you Hex?

Well, between the three systems, I like the CTP1 setup the best because it strike a nice balance between micro- and macro- management.

The 'Maximze' buttons are a quick way to specify what a particular city should focus on, and it also allows for the means to slightly alter that emphasis (you can use the 'maximize' button to automatically place workers on all of the relevant tiles and then shift one worker to adjust that setting slightly).

In civ3, you have to manually place workers to get the setting you want, which ends up being tedious.

I won't argue that Tile improvements in CTP2 aren't important for cities that aren't utilizing the entire ring - after all, every tile improvement will add something, but it is skewed toward cities that are utilizing most of the ring. I always end up improving a city all at once, and when it is close to maximum useage of the ring. So the decision factor for improvement placement is limited to those cities. (after all, a size 2 city with a single (+10) production improvement generates only about (+2.5) production, while a size 8 city will generate (+10) production for that single TI.)

You tell me which you would rather have???

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
It might be possible to make TIs more useful by slightly tweaking the way in which CTP2 distributes workers amongst the tiles in any given ring, so that if there are two tiles in the ring with one worse than the other in every respect then the better one will always be worked in preference to the worse one until it is being fully worked. Of course, this could prove an absolute mightmare to implement, but I think it would be alright if done properly.

Actually, on second thoughts, it is harder than I anticipated, but it could be done. The most significant problem might be the fact that it would be that the algorithm would be much slower than the current one. (I think that it would be O(n^2) rather than O(n)...).

Generally speaking though, I think the CTP2 system is better than the CTP one, primarily because it allows variable city radii much more easily.

Isn't this really only an issue for small cities?

Couldn't we just implement a preferential system for cities less than a given size... like <5 or so... and that really wouldn't be much slower... right?

The only reason not to, that I can concieve, would be that going from a specific to an averaged system could be numerically disadvantageous theoretically.

[Maquiladora]

I won't argue that Tile improvements in CTP2 aren't important for cities that aren't utilizing the entire ring - after all, every tile improvement will add something, but it is skewed toward cities that are utilizing most of the ring. I always end up improving a city all at once, and when it is close to maximum useage of the ring. So the decision factor for improvement placement is limited to those cities. (after all, a size 2 city with a single (+10) production improvement generates only about (+2.5) production, while a size 8 city will generate (+10) production for that single TI.)

You tell me which you would rather have???

A size 2 city is a bad example compared to size 8, especially with a production improvement. You dont need any tile imps on a size 2 city, thats what farmer specialists are for.

Depending on what your land looks like and how much time you have to improve it, you can do several different things, its not just a simple choice of improve the biggest cities first. What if you only have enough time to place mines around the bigger cities? The smaller cities are growing now, but if they dont have farms in the future they will slow growing when we are at war and cant afford more PW investment. Placing tile imps in CtP2 takes long term planning as part of a whole strategy.

I would say these are more important and difficult choices than CtP1, place tile imps only on tiles that are being worked, fisheries in shallow water, mines on mountains. Maximize growth at size 1, maximize production at size 2, rinse and repeat...

[tyrantpimp]

All of this talk about tile improvements got me thinking about the reality of farmland. For starters its possible to over cultivate and destroy fertile land. Add this with the fact that subtle climate changes cause land to become unusable over time. Coupled with the fact that farmland is rarely consistantly fertile from year to year (different yields etc.) It seems like if making the influence of TI's less dramatic was a goal, simply allowing for some of the above would help. Of course this is only for farmland and other considerations would have to be made for other TI's.

This could go both ways though, for instance different types of crops could have different yields. Some crops would only be available to certain geographic areas untill "discovered".

Also im not sure if this is a part of the game allready or not if so i never noticed it. Happiness could be tied with TI productivity. If citizens are just content then they wont work TI's as hard, if they are happy then its full production. If they are upset (not rioting just not happy) then prod is much lower. (i think someone else mentioned this in another thread not sure . . . what the hell it was worth a shot )

I think thats overcomplicating things but what do you think?