Radical Idea to Reduce Tedium ... Might be Possible

[nato]

Earlier I posted a not-too-hard to program way to fix losing armies to defection. I am hoping that this is a possible solution to tedium that again would not be impossible to program.

This is an extreme solution, but please don't reject it without reading the whole thing.

I have a radical idea to try to reduce the tedium ... remove irrigation and mining from the game entirely, and remove the output bonus from roads and rails. Instead replace them with technologies that increase output. For instance, you discover "Crop Rotation" and all your grasslands, plains, and flood plains produce +1 food, or you discover "Strip Mining" and all your hills and mountains produce +1 shield, or "Commerce" gives +1 trade to all non hill and mountains. There could be one food, one shield, and one trade output increasing tech per age.

Furthermore, change pollution. Make pollution reduce the output of the square it appears on, and automatically be cleaned up after perhaps 5 turns. Some technologies like Recycling reduce the number of turns it takes to disappear ... the final tech, perhaps Environmentalism, stops it from appearing altogether.

Now only one improvement is left, which is the movement bonus from roads and rails, and the trade net connection effect they have. Keep these ... one of the fun things in Civ to me is connecting places by roads / rails ... unlike mining every darn square, connecting with roads is fun and not tedious. So I would leave that as is (ideally I would use a Public Works type thing for this, but thats just me).

Therefore the sole remaining purpose of Workers would be the somewhat fun task of connecting places with roads ... lots less tedium!!

On a sidenote, the Industriousness trait would need some sort of new bonus given to it to make up for the lost bonus of double speed workers.

This is just an attempt to automate a tedious no-fun part of the game, like automated Workers. However, a really efficient routine that automates Workers doesn't seem to be doable. Furthermore you still have to build and watch 150+ Workers move around each turn.

I know this is pretty radical, but I think it is a cool idea. Anyone else like it, or does everyone actually enjoy mining / irrigating, roading, and railing every single square in their empire?

If an editor option were put in that allowed technologies to increase land output, then a mod could be created that would do most of what I have described. Massive Worker reduction would be possible, which would be a massive tedium reduction ... imagine playing a game with only 10 - 20 Workers!

Just give the editor an option to allow techs to increase terrain output, and this would be possible! I know thats a big just, but I think it would be fantastic way to reduce the tedium problem ... and there don't seem to be many other solutions out there.

Thanks for reading.

[yin26]

I like it. Also, how about if all tiles count as roads to begin with? If there is no inherent strategy or difficulty in placing roads as they stand, why not make workers totally useless? I know that roads are an important part of the luxury equation, but I'd be willing to let that slide if I *never* had to see another worker again.

Just taking the radical idea to the logical conclusion. BTW, would the AI adjust?

[MrWhereItsAt]

YES! Excellent idea! It does need some serious thought, though. If you had techs that increased food in grass, minerals in Mts etc, then some city sites would be useless for growth or development. But if you brought in techs that increased both minerals and food for the same terrain, perhaps some cities would grow TOO strong.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this idea and hope to God it attracts the attn of some of those genius tinkerers in the Creation or Files fora - perhaps you should put this idea there too.

Keep the roads though, as I think it is too much to try to play the game without restricted access to resources - I gotta be able to cut those damned French off from rubber!

Otherwise I WANT to see this happen.

You have got a revolutionary idea there - something I don't think any Civ clone or successor has dared try!

[MarkG]

i also have that idea of mine.... it's called.... PUBLIC WORKS!!

[MrWhereItsAt]

ARGH! CTP... it's happening again.... NOOOOOO!

Ban the PW!

[nato]

Edit: Responding to Yin here, others came in as I typed ...

Thanks for the response.

I for one enjoy connecting things with roads ... for some reason that seems like part of the fun to me, as opposed to mindlessly irrigating and mining everything. Somehow connecting roads is part of building an empire to me, while improvements are pretty mindless. Maybe it is because roads designate some areas as important to me, places I want to be able to get units to quickly. Therefore they have a little strategy to them, rather than knowing I want EVERY tile mined or irrigated.

I would prefer a PW type thing to take care of roads, and thus totally eliminate Workers.

You might have the better idea though ... that is even more daring than I was thinking. It would have ramifications for defense that you'd have to think about. Good one though!

I think the AI could adjust ... after all it doesn't automate Workers very well to begin with. Just assign a high value to the output increasing techs and it should make things simpler for it I hope.

[Libertarian]

I believe the idea has merit; however, I don't like in general the whole idea that technological advancement comes to anyone and everyone who simply sticks with it long enough.

I would like to see a less linear advancement paradigm in which various appropriate contingencies play key roles. For example, rather than achieving Monotheism simply because you've clicked End Turn a sufficient number of times, I'd like to see a prerequisite of four-fifths of the cities having Temples. Or, rather than getting Monarchy simply because you waited long enough, I'd like to see a requirement that you've demonstrated good governance — perhaps a ten-turn lag or so with no pop rushing. That sort of thing.

[nato]

MrWhereItsAt - Thanks for the nice words! That is a real good point, some city sites would be impossible now ... good observation.

I don't have a great answer to that, but I think maybe one could be figured out with time ... of course my dream solution would be to allow cities to send excess food and shields to each other, like real life nations, not individual city states.

MarkG - Actually this isn't PW really ... playing CTP I eventually felt PW was tedious too, though not as bad as Workers. This is an attempt to do away with tedius per tile improvements altogether, to let you spend more time on fun strategy stuff.

The problem with PW is that, like Workers, it requires time spent on each little tile, one at a time. My way is different.

I do think that PW is better than Workers, but only marginally. I think my idea solves the problem much differently from either, and with a lot less busy work and boring decisions.

There is just no way that improving each little tile one at a time is very much strategy ... I'd rather automate it and spend time deciding who to attack, who to ally, what to build, where to expand, and so on.

Thanks for reading and respoding!

[Skanky Burns]

Actually, i enjoy being able to build roads AND improvements in the tiles. The only time i get annoyed with my workers is when i have nothing to improve, but have to keep them around to clean up pollution.
Pre-patch I could either:
1) Keep about 8 awake each turn, if no pollution arrived, space-bar them, or
2) Put all my workers to sleep on a mountain, wake them up when pollution arrives and then Shift-P them to clean the pollution. The next turn put them back to sleep on the mountain (one by one).

Post-patch, i still have 2 options:
1) Shift-A all my workers, let them clean pollution 2 workers per tile (taking up to 8 turns, even though i know putting more workers on could clean the pollution this turn, or
2) Put all my workers to sleep on a mountain, wake them up when pollution arrives and then Shift-P them to clean the pollution. The next turn put them back to sleep on the mountain (one by one).

If Firaxis got rid of the stupid 2-autoworker limitation for cleaning pollution, i would have ABSOLUTELY NO worker-related tedium throughout the entire game. (well, perhaps the turn i set them all to auto, but thats only once per game, i can live with that).

[notyoueither]

This is cool.

I agree with you about keeping roads.

Go a bit further. The terrain graphics could change with the improved tech. Green expanses give way to little homesteads give way to barbed wire and cattle ranches.

Unfortunately, I think this goes a long way beyond what patches will do. civ4?

Salve

[nato]

Libertarian - Thats a super cool idea for tech advancement; it would make a good thread of its own. I think it would be fun to play, and it is an original way to do tech advancement. I wish game companies were more willing to try new ideas like yours instead of following the original too closely.

Skanky Burns - Well I guess you avoid the whole tedium thing by automating everyone. That is the best solution available now, even with the less than optimal routine.

However, turns still go slower because of all the extra units, and I really can't stand the way continents look once they have been railed to death. I still don't understand why they would want to ruin all that time and effort they spent on terrain graphics just to cover them over with such a hideous look.

Still you have a good point; I just was under the impression that not many people automated all Workers because of the imperfect routine. If MP ever actually happens I doubt many people would automate.

notyoueither - Thats a cool idea about changing graphics. Sadly you're right about probably being beyond a patch ... however if an editor option were put in that allowed techs to increase output, a mod could easily be made to do just this.

[MrWhereItsAt]

I just was under the impression that not many people automated all Workers because of the imperfect routine

Not just imperfect, downright inefficient. It seems to me that every advantage you have against the AI, especially at the higher levels - is needed, if the strats of the Deities amongst us are anything to go by. Thus you need to control your workers to improve the right squares early so as to receive max benefits over time. Same goes for MP.

Surely there's a mod somewhere in history that replaces RR with something less ugly? If so this would be a nice complement to all of this. Maybe Sn00py would be interested...

[Grumbold]

I love the idea. It was brilliant when it was first used in Master of Orion and deserves to be resurrected and adapted with all speed. Of particular interest (to me) was the pollution control mechanism. By default, every planet (city) would spend enough of its own generated production to clean up the waste it produced as it went. The player (and the stronger AI levels) could override this to accept significant pollution of the environment if they temporarily needed to devote the production to something more important. Most of the time it was not necessary and you could have a tedium-free empire that ran itself efficiently without a single worker in sight.

[HugoHillbilly]

Although this idea sounds great, how would you account for pillaging? A great strategy in war is to pillage alot of your enemies mines and irrigation and starve them of resources. How would you account for this if technology gave the resource bonus?

[DaveV]

Originally posted by nato
I think the AI could adjust ... after all it doesn't automate Workers very well to begin with. Just assign a high value to the output increasing techs and it should make things simpler for it I hope.

The problem is that the AI is programmed to produce a lot of workers, enough to do all that mining and irrigating. If all the AIs have a horde of workers standing around leaning on their shovels but the human is smart enough to build just a few workers, that represents a huge lost investment for the AI, and a big edge to the human.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Not just imperfect, downright inefficient. It seems to me that every advantage you have against the AI, especially at the higher levels - is needed, if the strats of the Deities amongst us are anything to go by. Thus you need to control your workers to improve the right squares early so as to receive max benefits over time. Same goes for MP.

Surely there's a mod somewhere in history that replaces RR with something less ugly? If so this would be a nice complement to all of this. Maybe Sn00py would be interested...

Dont get me wrong - I control ALL my workers myself, until all my tiles are improved and the workers have nothing to do except pollution duty. I hate pollution. Getting rid of that would also go a long way towards reducing late-game tedium

RE less ugly railways: Both soufie and I have been working on railways, hopefully getting something slightly less ugly. Nothing super just yet though.

[mmmBEER]

These are some good ideas. Personally, I find the worker thing annoying. The game I have now, I must have 100+ workers (probably lots more courtesy of destroying enemies cities) and they take forever with shift-a.

I think most people are right, terrain improvements, while fun for about the 1/4 of the game become mindless afterwards. Though, I do enjoy roads & rails.

I think that advances make more sense anyway. There's alot to be said for people just irrigating & mining on their own in history. So get an advance, then the computer chooses the optimum applicable modification for that terrain (all the while allowing you to change it if you want).

As for roads, I think that just saying each segment of road costs 1g to build (and 2 turns to build) and you can point and click your way from here to there is much better than doing it through workers.

Even though it's off the topic, I think the suggestion for civilization pre-requesites for advancement is a great idea. Though, I think that they shouldn't be necessary, but act more as a modifier. For example, having 5+ temples reduces researching Monotheism by 1/3 or something and having 10+ reduces it by 1/2 etc (the reduction slowly diminishing). Interesting idea though...

[Akka]

This idea is definitively too extreme for me. Removing all the terrain improvement ? Well, why not auto-improving city while we're at it ? The city just need to get a certain size and whoop here appear a new building.
The Public Work idea is the best idea I saw so far to get rid of the workers, but removing all terrain improvement is just throwing a big part of the game away.
Rather than technologies auto-improving the terrain, I would prefer different version of improvements allowed by tech : a +1 irrigation by ancient time, then cultivation (+2 food) by the end of middle-age or industrial times, and finally a +3 food farmland in modern times. Same for mines, and same for transportation (yes, just like in CtP, but with better graphics than the ugly block of steel).
For the late-tedium, stacked movement could help a lot, auto-worker are dumb but are useable, and a switch to a system of public works could be useful. Though I'm old-school and like to use waves of workers

[player1]

Originally posted by MarkG
i also have that idea of mine.... it's called.... PUBLIC WORKS!!

PW is best improvement to civ-type games in last 5 years.

[geoffbland]

Nice idea - I like it, but....
The irrigation, road building, mining done "human" effieciently is one of the things that gives you an edge over the PC. So I'd like to keep that.
Pollution control is a pain - like your idea about that. But could be done by removing the "2-worker" limit on auto-cleanup, which I think is better as it allows you to scale how fast you do clean-ups.
Hate the rails everywhere. Civ2 mix of road/rail was much nicer. I would like rail links between cities for fast travel and else only to give extra 33% shields rounded down (i.e to coal mines & oil fields) - so minimising rail-sprawl.
I'd also like to bring back farmlands.
I'd also like to have someway of converting desert/tundra to better land - terraforming?
And finally one nice to have - what about a extra to have highways/motorways terrian improvement. Free movement & plus one gold for every city linked per turn to treasury.

[cutlerd]

I would miss the strategic and tactical implications of road building. I would have no problem with a tech advance that updates roads to rails automatically. And no problem with tech advances that irrigate or mine automatically. But road building needs to be left in the game IMO.

[barefootbadass]

By far the largest contributors to tedium for me are military movements(esp after railroads are around) and city management(turning the governor on when you need him and off when you need to change what he's doing because he isn't doing what your priorities you have set told him to do, and of course arguing with the stupid domestic advisor every time you do this.). Worker management adds to this but is in a distant 3rd I think.

I have never finished even a single game(although its all been normal map size and larger for me, but no huge maps). I may just drop all of my current ridiculous ones and go to small maps from now on.

[GePap]

I agree with Akka that removing improvements is too radical, and also unrealistic. Public works is a fine idea- I would go even fruther and implement a notion of man power- to do ANYTHING, you need a certain amount of manpower- PW, building buildings, running buildings, so forth. Making military units would reduce manpower (men away at war), so that a tiny population could not both have a large army (which is Civ is determined by industrial power and wealth alone) and huge public works- but at most only one. Tech would change the manpower needed to implement any activity (with better machines available) so that the improvement over time of productivity would be exponential, as it is in life (much bigger pops. mixed with much better tech). This would call for much better managuement, make the cost of war much higher and realistic, and also limit mindless expansions since sending all your pop to make new cities far away means that you deprive your cities of the citizens needed to carry out tasks.

[GeneralTacticus]

I like this idea, but I think there is a better way. You could have it so that, after a square has been inhabited (worked by citizens) for a certain period of time, it becomes irrigated or mined. Roads could also be built in this same fashion, but you could spend money to have them built immediately. You could also invest money to speed up the building of improvements, and have techs that would speed up the rate of improvement and/or increase their output.

This would mean that the longer an area has been settled for, the more developed it would be - which would be a change from looking back at your oldest cities and seeing that you forgot to give them any irrigation. I mean wouldn't the farmers want to water their own fields, even if you're not doing it for them??

[zorbop]

with pw you couldn't go beyond your borders(for roads and colonies and stuff)

i think the solution is some way to reduce workers.

workers could turn oblsolete when you enter a new age, so you have to build new ones.(they wouldn't be upgradeable)

or the best way would be able to combine them, but not with stacks. so 2 workers become one doubley fast worker.
or when workers are captured you have the option of dispaning them admedietly to heal your capturing unit

of course, another way to reduce tedium is to shoot the domestic adviser. would you like to build an aqu...(click)would you lik...(click)would y...(click)woulBAM!!!

[MrWhereItsAt]

GeneralTacticus - if the improvements in a square were to turn up after a number of turns of use, you would need to have the game remember the turns used, 'cos frequently I need to switch around the squares I use due to changing priorities. And would the improvements disappear when you don't use them for a time? Or does the city keep it up even when noone is working there? (No-one works the land in the industrial district where I work, but roads etc don't disappear, same with residential areas, where ppl don't work to produce at all!)

Zorbop - obsolete replaceable workers? Argh! Compounds the problem! But the DA should be sent to the enemy to give her advice - that would sort 'em both out!

GePap - smallish nations CAN have disproportionately large forces if they have the money for mercenaries. And before standing armies, citizens assembled with whatever weapons they could - and this wasn't just Warrior-type unit material. Horsemen, Knights, Swordsmen and Archers were assembled thisa way too! Unless the govt had kind of a conscript ability early on to increase the available manpower for these armies, you are invalidating much real world pre-Roman conquest!

barefootbadass - what military units do you have to move around? If you're at war or about to be, surely that's not just the tedium of moving units - it will soon turn into something quite other to merely moving them around sans incident. Workers, however don't often get involved in wars and unless you rely on the automate button (HA), you rely on moving them around just to keep your cities growing. And RRs help me with tedium - a goto on RR means instant transmission along it, and no need to watch their every move!

Skanky - yeah, I usually control all my workers, but I have found that the automate button ain't quite as useless as all that, especially once most cities are almost fully customized by me! And sorry, I forgot about your RRs - I haven't seen soufie's, but yours do look cool , but unfortunately have to follow that messy looking design... I hope someone finds a way around that!

I think that the radical ideas tend to have been the best in Civs - scenarios, PW (although I despise it - I can't improve much before reaching a critical mass of industry, GRRRRR!), and SMAC's unit customization. Pillaging is pretty major to a lot of players, but how about if there is an enemy unit in your city radius it decreases overall gathering? Your farmers would get the heck out of dodge if they knew there was an hostile army in the countryside, even if it wasn't immediatley present. But roads and RR should definitely be kept. Otherwise you just can't isolate places or deprive 'em of resources.

mmmBEER - Nothing. I just wanted to agree. Mmm. Beer.

[Grrr]

I don't particularly like the idea, as it gives players too much power if they start in a good location, or too little if they start in a bad location. However, if you want to make workers only build roads, why not leave it to settlers, they can do it too.
BTW, has anyone had a "too many units" or "too many cities" dialog yet.

I myself would perfer for tile improvements to mysteryously appear in all tiles currently being worked, and roads+later railroads, to appear in all tiles under my cultural influence. That would leave the only time necessary for workers is outside one's cultural borders.

[Grrr]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
I think that the radical ideas tend to have been the best in Civs - scenarios, PW (although I despise it - I can't improve much before reaching a critical mass of industry, GRRRRR!)

Yeah, What do you want?!

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt and SMAC's unit customization. Pillaging is pretty major to a lot of players, but how about if there is an enemy unit in your city radius it decreases overall gathering? Your farmers would get the heck out of dodge if they knew there was an hostile army in the countryside, even if it wasn't immediatley present. But roads and RR should definitely be kept. Otherwise you just can't isolate places or deprive 'em of resources.

I personally don't pillage, but surround the city in units, I'm not sure if this works in Civ3, but if it doesn't it should! I definately don't want Public Works, I hate it. Come to think of it, I use workers a lot, to increase my city size, all one needs is a city of size 7 with a granery and you can pump them out one a turn with no loss in city size.

[Hurry]

I agree with barefootbadass: automated workers is not a problem. I rarely see their moves at all - the game just stops responding for about 3-5 seconds, and after that it has moved all of my 100 workers. And since you can swith off other civs´moves as well, the only major tedium left is your army.

I´d manage perfectly well if Firaxis just gave us a proper stacking system.

And a small point when I´m on the subject: turing other civs´ movements off is great most of the time, but it´s not fun when you only discover that they have moved 100 units next to your city the turn before they attack you. So I would like to see a feature like "turn off friendly civ movements except for units inside your borders".

[tishco]

i think that cities sould build the farm/mine bonus themselves in the culture area, but only round the city, so you can destroy the improvements and move citizens around but the improvemnets will 'regrow' back. roads should keep workers.
also as many have said, change railroads function, its stupid and addd highway, like a super road
you dont see railway every square mile in the real would do you?