How do we reduce micromanagement in Civ 4?

[Optimizer]

Please post your suggestions for ways to decrease micro-management in a future civ game.

Some of mine:

* Cities connected by rail/highways could form a "food pool" and "industrial pool", sharing all their food and shields.

* Diplomat and spy actions would be accessible through the map by clicking enemy cities.

* Automatically trade resources with allies.

[Trifna]

* Stacked units

* Rally point

* Workers replaced by "which area do you wish to ameliorate?"

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Optimizer
* Diplomat and spy actions would be accessible through the map by clicking enemy cities.

That would be a nice addition, right click on a city and be able to investigate it. I like that, but only in addition to the menu we already have in C3C (PTW)

Originally posted by Optimizer
* Automatically trade resources with allies.

no thanks. I don't necessarily want my allies to have resources

[GhengisFarb™]

Play something other than Civ. Micromanagement has always been a part of Civ.

[MrBaggins]

Huh? He said reduce... not eliminate.

CTP2 massively reduced micromanagement through stacked armies and great nation management dialogs integrated with build queues, plus larger than 21 square cities.

[Switch]

Have options available to units available through right-click. One benefit of this would be if you wanted to upgrade all of your base defenders, you wouldn't have to wake one of the first. Just right-click on the one unit and select "Upgrade all." Though keyboards good and all, I sometimes prefer to just use my mouse, which was actually do-able in SMAC.

And I think making pollution back into a simple effect, rather than a terrain element, would greatly reduce MM. Of course, don't lessen the effects of pollution, and don't make it any easier or harder to eliminate. Just don't have 8 workers per city running around cleaning pollution.

[asleepathewheel]

pollution control/cleanup is definately one of the areas that could be streamlined in Civ4.

[Illuminatus]

Why reduce - increase? But certainly decrease micromanagment with unit movement.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
Play something other than Civ. Micromanagement has always been a part of Civ.

Right, and why we're at it, why not make it so that spearmen beat tanks all of the time, since that's always been a part of Civ, too?

When people talk about micromangment they usually are talking about the chores of the game. Things that are simply never fun, but must be done.

I agree that I don't want automatic trade with allies, since that simplifies the political game (not just MM).

Stacked units, good governors (that would be sort of a holy grail), build queues (that don't ask for a confirmation after every completion, like Civ 3), and more extensive right click options are all great.

If the game were tweaked to make empire growth slower, that would help. Managnig a ten city Civ is usually lots more fun (if not as powerful) as a fifty city Civ. The best way for that would be more Civs per map (which causes its own problems, yes), since any other way to limit growth (4 pop cost settlers!) would feel artificial.


This is a good topic to explore, I wish I had a few more ideas right now.

[wrylachlan]

1) Rebalance the unit costs and upkeep to lower the total number of units (see my thread on the subject).

2) More high level controls like -
Military Advisor - upgrade all. Automates the whole upgrade process, including waking units up, moving them to barracked cities, upgrading them, then moving them back to their fortified position on the front.

3)The superworker = ability to combine 2 or more workers into a superworker.

[GhengisFarb™]

Reduction of micromanagement was one of the big killers of MoO3. Players felt as if they were just along for the ride and weren't playing the game.

I really don't want to see Civ get murdered like MoO did. Tools and options to handle some of the micromanagement are fine, but a lot of players like the micromanagement of the game.

I don't see why we have a mandate to change Civ4 into a version of RoN or something else, Civ is a distictive game, maybe some consider it a dinosaur, but for a dinosaur Civ 3 and its add-ons seemed to have done pretty well.

[MrBaggins]

MOO3's problem was in the design concept... remove a lot of abstraction, to make it more "realistic". Then they had to add in a ton of automation, to allow players to function without dealing with every tiny detail. Thus players felt disconnected, and rightly so.

MOO3 didn't reduce micromanagement at all... just hid it.

Reducing micromanagement doesn't have to go this route. Better interfaces... like CTP2 Nation/Build manager, for one... always reduce micromanagement. Automation for repetitive commands helps a lot too... like automating bombardment.

Reducing the number of map entities, including cities AND units is the other important approach. People can only concentrate on so many items (I recall a number like 7,) simultaneously. Concentration tends to degrade beyond this.

A tendency for players to group cities into administrative regions, and informational helpers, like sortable lists and triggered reminders, somewhat makes up for this... but even with this, large empires are more difficult to micromange than smaller ones.

[GhengisFarb™]

Eliminate cities and units and it wouldn't be Civ. I'm all for a lot of these ideas and think they would make great games but there's a fine line between improving/inhancing the game to make the next version and transforming it into a completely different game.

Civilization is a classic. I would like to see it stay as true to the original spirit of the game as possible.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
Eliminate cities and units and it wouldn't be Civ. I'm all for a lot of these ideas and think they would make great games but there's a fine line between improving/inhancing the game to make the next version and transforming it into a completely different game.

Civilization is a classic. I would like to see it stay as true to the original spirit of the game as possible.

I didn't say eliminate. I said reduce the number of.

Stacking means less things to move on a map.

Larger cities (more than 21 squares) mean less cities on a given map.

Both reduce micromanagement, without removing the "civ" concepts.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
there's a fine line between improving/inhancing the game to make the next version and transforming it into a completely different game.

There is also a fine line between "staying true" to the original and being stubborn.

A lot of players "love Civ, but..."

And the micromangment required each turn to do what should be simple things (upgrade your obsolete units, move your army a little closer to the other guy, build up cities, etc...) is very often what follows in the above sentence.

The ideas in this thread are about removing that "but." We want to be able to say, "I love Civ, period." If we stick to a clunky interface that demands turns take forty minutes in the industrial age before we hit enter because "micromangment has always been in Civ," we're going to keep on making exceptions to the "I love" statement.

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by Fosse
A lot of players "love Civ, but..."

And the micromangment required each turn to do what should be simple things (upgrade your obsolete units, move your army a little closer to the other guy, build up cities, etc...) is very often what follows in the above sentence.

But thats exactly what I don't want to lose. I don't want the computer upgrading my Pikemen in my core cities when the ones on the front are the most important to upgrade.

I, and a lot of other players LIKE the micromanagement. Your trying to take away one of Civ's selling points and make it a generic game that's no different from a dozen other titles out there.

I have no problem with the option to have the AI manage aspects of the game, but the player should have the option to micromange if they want to.

[Trifna]

Then perhaps there could be an option that would toggle automatic AI management off, no?

[cumi]

I think the micromanagement is what's the game is about.

I would even increase it in soma aspects, like battles, trade, foreign affairs...

[Plotinus]

I agree with Fosse. The micro-management is only a pain when you've got a great big empire. Some of my most enjoyable games have been with relatively small nations. The answer is to tweak the game so that large empires are not rewarded so well - change the scoring so that it's not simply on the basis of how many citizens you have, and rack up corruption!

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by Plotinus
I agree with Fosse. The micro-management is only a pain when you've got a great big empire.

Then your not agreeing with Fosse. Fosse and MrBaggins are of the opinion that all micromanagement is bad. I agree that is a pain as you build larger empires but that comes with a larger empire.

Elimination of micromanagement should be an option but my no means mandatory as they are proposing.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
Then your not agreeing with Fosse. Fosse and MrBaggins are of the opinion that all micromanagement is bad. I agree that is a pain as you build larger empires but that comes with a larger empire.

I think they have a slightly different take on the micromanagement issue. I would say that they are not in favor of eliminating all micromanagement, but to streamline aspects of micromanagement that end up tedious because of empire size. You are dealing with a game that changes over time because of size. Larger empires force a player to micromanage more because the basic gameplay elements do not change regardless of empire size.

For example, take combat - an area that both Fosse/MrBaggins have suggested needs a major overhaul...

Fighting a battle in a small empire is the same as in a large empire. Select a unit and click on the target. Over time, as you amasss a larger force, you end up with more repetition of that single action, because the game mechanics do not change.

If you go to a stacked format, where you can select multiple units to send into a battle at one time, you end up reducing a tedious action, and save time. An action that formerly required 5-10 minutes of tedious point and click because of the sheer number of units that have to be sent into battle individually gets reduced to a minute. In both situations, the end result is exactly the same, and you end up with time that actually allows you to play faster and, dare I say it, more total games.

You also open the door to create additional strategic considerations, because the game mechanics of stacked combat allow for elements such as flank/range/unit composition and number of units on a tile bonuses. These elements can play a much greater role in a stacked format over what can be done in the current system.

[GhengisFarb™]

And I think stacks are a very viable option. That does appear to be the route they are heading. Firaxis has already said they are trying to implement a "Super Worker" for later in the game where you can merge Worker units into Worker Gangs.

The Army unit also allows you to merge 3-4 units into a "Super Unit" so I think that is way it will go forward.

[MrBaggins]

Indeed. Theres a difference in my mind between micromanagement and being able to control everything. Micromanagement is having to.

Better interfaces, stacking and less, bigger cities are important ways of achieving this.

[GhengisFarb™]

Where I think they failed to follow through with a good concept was making the availablity of Armies so random in the game.

I think a fairly early tech say "Tactics" should allow the construction of Armies that allow you to stack 2-3 units into a super unit.

Either allow Great Leaders to build a Super Army that holds 2 more units than a built Army or give them some kind of unit effecting bonus, say any unit in the square with a Great Leader gets +1 to its attack stat or something.

You could have techs later on in the tech tree that expand the number of units you can place in an army so the armies and stacks are proportionaly larger later in the game when technologically it would be easier to control and coordinate a larger force.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb

Then your not agreeing with Fosse. Fosse and MrBaggins are of the opinion that all micromanagement is bad.

Nope. Never said, never meant. Hex had a good summary of my state of mind, and MrBaggins and I do seem to be in agreement here.

I've never said I want to have the AI upgrade all of your spears without asking. What I said was that I think it's absurd that I should have to hunt down every single spearman in ever single city withouta barraks, or on the front line, push them to a barracks city, upgrade them, and send them back every time I discover a new unit type.

That, and the pushing of one unit at a time into a stack of the other guy's units to resolve a battle, and the game mechanics that mean I'm wasting resources if I don't watch every city every turn (which I don't, but it's a pain to know I'm wasting them), and the diplomacy and ZOC rules that make me have to position troops on every square of border to keep the AI out of my land, and the fact that cities with build queues still ask for build orders after every build, and....

That's micromangment. Nothing strategic about it. That's what I don't like, and what most players (dissenting voices of this thread excluded) don't want.

Like MrBaggins and others said, better interfaces, better rules, smarter AIs, stacked combat (not three or four "stacked" armies that still fight one other unit at once. Real stacks), research point rollovers, more right click menus, smaller empires, grouping of cities into regions, etc etc... those are how to deal with the problem.

None of those solutions prevent the player from controlling every single tile and every single unit of his empire every single turn, if he should want to do that. They just allow him to think instead about the bigger picture.

I'll adopt MrBaggins definition of micromangment: it is HAVING to do everything.

When we put it that way, GF is right: I think all MM is bad.



Regards,
Fosse