Please add this to next patch

rebo · December 21, 2003, 20:16

Please add this to next patch::

The ability to mark squares as irrigate/road/mine etc, so that workers on automate respect that instruction.

There is nothing worse than haveing 6 Corruption filled cities to irrigate and have to tell each worker to do it manually. Id much prefer to "paint" my improvement instructions onto the terrain, and then set my workers on automate.

Ofc this is for the mid to late game where you usually have a larger number of workers.

Btw if this is already possible, please shoot me

.

steven8r · December 22, 2003, 14:00

Rebo,

About the only thing that you can do is automate with the Shift+A command. This puts your workers on 'auto' w/o altering any existing improvements. i.e. They won't start irrigating a mine, or mining a field. There is no current way to make an 'improvement queue' for tiles.

I feel your pain, but I've found that in order to use your Workers most effectively, it must be done manually. Otherwise, you wind-up having your territory look like the AI's. The computer isn't too smart when it comes to Worker tasks.

Of course, I'm more of a control freak and I don't like my Workers doing anything w/o my express instruction. I'll usually have Worker 'teams' that will go around in a group so that whichever task needs done can be done in 1 turn. Then the next turn, I'll move my team to the next square and improve that one. Rinse and Repeat.

vmxa1 · December 22, 2003, 15:49

Manually controlling workers is a necessary evil as it now stand. Othrewise you take the hit and will have workers minning tiles that can never be worked or wandering into enemy hands.

Jaybe · December 22, 2003, 16:53

There is also the alternative of lowering yourself to the level of the AI by automating all your workers. No, I have never done that either.

mrmitchell · December 22, 2003, 17:24

Why by gum that's a good idea!

Be able to queue actions for your workers, for example, "Move to this tile, Irrigate it, move to that tile, road it, move to that other tile, mine it, then road it".

EDIT: You hold down some useless key combination (like Shift+Ctrl+F12+Q) and then while holding it type out the orders like usual (Numpad7, I, Numpad4, R, Numpad1, M, R for example). Then you're left alone without it bugging you for many a turn

Then again, this could pose a problem if some calamity happens that means you need to order your workers away--it'd make them real easy to forget.