Mandatory retirement?

Foot · February 4, 2002, 19:05

Is it because of difficulty? How well you're doing? I thought the game was supposed to go to 4000 ad!

August Borms · February 4, 2002, 19:22

No, Civ games have always ended in the 21st century...

Foot · February 4, 2002, 19:35

But with the way that the bleeding technology is so damn slow, how can you reach modern?

Grumbold · February 4, 2002, 19:43

YOu have to talk to people in Civ 3. Once you have met a few of your opponents, trade your new techs to each of them for anything you can get, and buy their techs if they wont swap them directly. Each one will want to do better than you from the deal, but if you do enough trading you come out ahead. Depending on the difficulty level you can then hopefully edge ahead in the Industrial Age so you get Cavalry or Tanks first and kick butt. You will lose badly if you try to stay isolationist.

Foot · February 4, 2002, 21:12

But I'm not isolationist, dammit! Last game, I was in contact with all 12 of my opponents, had all the same tech, and by the time I retired I didn't have railroads from one end of the country to the other!
I think the game would be way better if techs took less time to research, or you could research 2 at once.

Harovan · February 4, 2002, 21:21

You should not only exchange one tech for the other with the AI, but aggressively sell your tech. Do it often (at least once in 20 turns, may be twice) and get the AI pay you gold per turn. You can pump all into research, setting the research slider to 90 or 100%, and the AI will have lesser and lesser money for own research. There are people who launch the Spaceship about 1000AD, so why speed research still more?

But be aware and don't drain too much money from the AI. If it can't pay off it's debts, it declares war.

yin26 · February 4, 2002, 21:24

Quote:

and by the time I retired I didn't have railroads from one end of the country to the other

I think this is a crucial hint you just gave us. If you want to max out research and other improvements before retirement, you need 100+ workers. Yes, 100+, though some people manage with fewer.

This raises one of the most blatant failings of Civ3: Do you really want to micromanage 100+ workers in an almost nightmare fiasco of click click click click click click mindlessly wasting away your playing time?

The choice is yours.

Zachriel · February 5, 2002, 00:30

Quote:

Originally posted by yin26
I think this is a crucial hint you just gave us. If you want to max out research and other improvements before retirement, you need 100+ workers. Yes, 100+, though some people manage with fewer.

This raises one of the most blatant failings of Civ3: Do you really want to micromanage 100+ workers in an almost nightmare fiasco of click click click click click click mindlessly wasting away your playing time?

The choice is yours.

The technique I use cuts down on worker tedium.

Build plenty of workers in the Ancient Age, and micromanage them. It's fun at this stage. Set them to automatic (shift-a) when you get bored. This works quite well. With the invention of railroad, make even more workers. Build your connecting railroad. Then automatic (shift-a) again. Late in the game, with animations off, it takes almost no time for all hundred workers to do their thing.

yin26 · February 5, 2002, 00:36

Yes, that's better than nothing. Though the AI on the workers is pretty weak. They will run around literally in circles sometimes doing NOTHING while some pollution, for example, sits nearby. Or the computer doesn't calculate that the 5 workers already on a pollution tile will finish the cleanup long before the other 50 workers now running across the map to get there will ever arrive.

The good news, we hope, is that a patch can work on those issues. Anyway, good advice. That will at least let him get further ahead in the game.

zergling · February 5, 2002, 00:56

Quote:

Originally posted by yin26
Yes, that's better than nothing. Though the AI on the workers is pretty weak. They will run around literally in circles sometimes doing NOTHING while some pollution, for example, sits nearby. Or the computer doesn't calculate that the 5 workers already on a pollution tile will finish the cleanup long before the other 50 workers now running across the map to get there will ever arrive.

It is obvious that you know nothing about the game. Automated Workers NEVER run around doing nothing if pollution is nearby.They NEVER doing nothing unless all your territory is fully improved (railroad and mines/irrigation on each tile) and have no pollution. I suggest you play some Civ3 BEFORE starting to comment on the game's AI.

However, I agree that AI on the workers is weak. It doesn't calculate that 6 workers (not being an industrious civ) work on a polluted grassland will clean the tile instantly. It only sends two workers to the polluted tile while the other 4 just sit in the city. Haven't checked if it is already fixed in the 1.16f patch though.

yin26 · February 5, 2002, 00:59

LOL! What a joke. Sure, kiddie. Workers never run around wasting their turns.

Tell me: Have you played the game?!

P.S. Nobody better tell this guy about the governors that NEVER keep building useless crap even after you told them not to. He might start stomping his feet and throw his cookies at you! LOL!

Archaetus · February 5, 2002, 01:25

I've said it once and I'll say it again, the workers are little evil beings. They're lazy, ignorant, and should all be dropped off a cliff. Yin, you're totally right about the automation, it sucks. Never in my life have I seen such idiotic little creatures.

I've always been able to reach the modern age. Make sure that your science funding is as high as it will go without losing money and trade for luxuries to keep your people happy. I always aim for a diplomatic victory which requires the United Nations (i.e. Fission), first of the modern techs.

I've never gone for the space race though but I'm pretty sure it's totally possible if your focus is science throughout the game. The key is to start early, and make sure you have enough temples, luxuries, etc. to keep your people happy. Using Republic or Democracy helps as well.

zergling · February 5, 2002, 01:59

Frankly, I use worker automation only once in all my games (I prefer to control them manually) and that is when all of my cities is connected with railroad. They always clean pollution once it occured. And they even improve land which is not in any of my city's radius. In a fully railroad connected civ, you can't waste turns because it costs nothing to travel in railways. I never use worker automation in road connected cities thus never see how they behave. I guess I just assumming things. I apologize.

yin26 · February 5, 2002, 02:02

No problem.

I'm glad you are enjoying the game. I'm waiting to see if the patches will fix various issues, but I still have hopes that the game will be fun (for me) several months from now.

Foot · February 5, 2002, 09:03

I think that the patches shouldn't just fix bugs, they should fix the complaints people have about the game. Such as giving you longer to appreciate your science. Making the game go to 4000 ad would be good.
And fixing the science would also be handy.
As well as making the AI stop cheating.

OneInTen · February 5, 2002, 09:27

I don't see why some people have such big issues with the workers. For me, it's generally that my land is completely improved before railroads, so I'll either join my workers with cities or fortify them in wait for the tech to come (depending how long I have to wait).

When I get the prerequisites for railroads (steam power, iron, coal), i'll either wake my workers, or have the cities pump them out for a couple of turns. With this worker army (usually closer to 30 than 100, but whatever), I can always get the railroads over my entire civ in under 20 turns (I know this because that's often how long I'm trading iron or coal for).

After that, I just let my workers join the cities again for more growth (since I'll have hospitals by this stage), leaving under a dozen for polution clean up.

So I don't think you need 100+ workers, and the worker intensive period only really lasts 20 turns max, and during that time you could easily automate most of them to only build railroads, since that is a job they usually can do fairly well. I prefer to get the job done ASAP so I move them myself. It's pretty quick - just a flick in one direction with the numpad, shift-R and another tile bites the dust. I get a perverse kick out of making those ugly brown roads disappear!

Yes, it's not the most exciting job in the world, but it's hardly anywhere near as tedious as some make it out to be.

barefootbadass · February 5, 2002, 13:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Foot
I think that the patches shouldn't just fix bugs, they should fix the complaints people have about the game. Such as giving you longer to appreciate your science. Making the game go to 4000 ad would be good.
And fixing the science would also be handy.
As well as making the AI stop cheating.

Umm, I haven't heard anyone besides you who wants to be able to play to something like 4000 a.d., and only a handful that want to go any further.

Really, aren't you sick of a given game by 2050? By 1900 I'm ready to be done with a game, and that's like 125 turns (I think) from the end at 2050.

If you want to have longer to appreciate your science then make it faster(switch to democracy, build up your cities, build more cities, trade more with the ai, and/or go to a higher difficulty level)

Fixing science? What are you talking about?

The AI cheating is currently the only way you are going to get a good challenge. In fact even if they could make an AI that really was smart, there would need to be some kind of handicapping system to challenge people that were still better than it and give those who weren't that good a chance to play a competitive game.

barefootbadass · February 5, 2002, 13:36

Quote:

Originally posted by yin26
Yes, that's better than nothing. Though the AI on the workers is pretty weak. They will run around literally in circles sometimes doing NOTHING while some pollution, for example, sits nearby. Or the computer doesn't calculate that the 5 workers already on a pollution tile will finish the cleanup long before the other 50 workers now running across the map to get there will ever arrive.

What's really dumb is that the automated workers run around to different squares on your railed empire trying to decide where to improve, and that every consecutive worker goes through this 'decision' process. Why they couldn't have had the unit ai for the worker calculate it 'in its head' is beyond me(actually it isn't, they could have, I should have worded that 'Why they didn't have'). Look there! I'm thinking like an automated worker, taking you to every random place(or not so random) place my thoughts go.

Flight · February 5, 2002, 13:50

workers on automatic will improve things wherever they can until there's no squares left ot improve when they will sleep in the nearest city. What's wrong with that? You can stop them changing tile improvements with shift-A.

Yeah they dont all go to a pollution spot, but iirc that is a known bug that will be fixed in the next patch (whenever it arrives) so then your workers will all sort out pollution until its all gone. I've never seen them run in circles or do any other strange things, but then i have all unit animation turned off

The only annoying thing that isn't a bug is when they dont connect your cities with railroad (or road) straight away, but improve all the tiles around a city first. I think you can fix that with shift or ctrl (i forget) + N. Simple...

Also i agree about the AI thing, most of my turn time in the modern era is workers cheacking every tile, aren't they all one entity, where that entity checks for improvable tiles and sends out individual units to do the task?