City governors still don't work

ChrisShaffer · February 15, 2002, 00:12

sigh

I installed 1.17f and started a game. My capital has mostly forest and grassland. There's a wheat on grass (3/0/0) and a furs on forest (1/2/2). I instruct the city governor to emphasize production and commerce.

Three turns later, the city governor is still using the 3/0/0 square in preference to the 1/2/2 square.

I told the governor to emphasize production and commerce -- not food!

Guess I'll be waiting for the next patch.

Grumbold · February 15, 2002, 00:24

Like all good managers s/he had no doubt set up a series of committees to extensively review the situation and propose possible courses of action. Had you waited another two turns he would have had a completed report to examine before referring the matter to a new sub department set up specifically to implement at least one (but no more than three) of the more trivial points so that they could demonstrate progress. In the meantime another committee would have come up with lots of nice slogans to show that their emphasis was firmly on production and commerce even though nothing had yet changed. I'm sure that serious consideration would have been given to allocating the next pop point to a resource intensive activity

Unfortunately if you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself. Just like in the real world.

ChrisShaffer · February 15, 2002, 00:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Grumbold
Unfortunately if you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself. Just like in the real world.

Unfortunately, doing it myself has two primary drawbacks - happiness and pollution.

If I manage workers myself, I have three choices for happiness:
[*] check the domestic advisor every turn to see which cities are about to go into disorder (made more difficult because cities entering or in disorder are not highlighted in any way).[*] check each city each turn to see which cities are about to go into disorder (I play the game for fun, not work, and this would be work)[*] let cities go into disorder and fix them after the domestic nag tells me about it (I lose a full turn of production, drives me nuts, too frustrating)

If I manage workers myself, I have three choices for pollution:
[*] each turn that pollution has been cleaned, open the city and reassign workers accordingly (difficult, as there is no notification that pollution has been cleaned in a particular city radius)[*] check every city every turn to see if pollution has been cleaned, and reassign workers accordingly (too much work)[*] not use squares that have been cleaned until I happen to open the city and reassign workers (yeah, right)

The design of happiness and pollution gives me the choice of depending on the city governors or doing it myself. The interface for doing it myself is more work than fun, thus making the game more work than fun, thus making the game a chore and not really a game....

Skanky Burns · February 15, 2002, 00:58

Grumbold is on a roll - very well put

ChrisShaffer · February 15, 2002, 02:14

He's on a roll for amusement, no question about that.

I think he's wrong when he says:

Quote:

Unfortunately if you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself. Just like in the real world.

Civ is a game -- it isn't the real world. I'm not interested in individually managing each worker in a 20+ city empire. I want to use the tools to set priorities and have those priorities followed by the tools. That's all. It's not like it's asking too much for Firaxis to set the city governors to obey the commands they are given, is it?

When I say "emphasize production" I mean "emphasize production." Simple, easy. If the governor isn't going to emphasize production, what's the point in having the governor? They could have spent their time coding something else instead, eh?

Grumbold · February 15, 2002, 06:50

I'd love it to be different too.

I lose a turns production from time to time then its no big deal (unless that turn was sooo vital in which case I can always decide to reload).

but..

The Civ-3 pollution method making the tile unfarmable and then not reallocating it when its cleaned though is awful. Having automatic pollution workers is all fine and dandy but you still have to examine every speck of pollution to work out if it means a city needs its production adjusting.

I think there needs to be some payoff for deciding to hands-on manage your cities but it shouldn't be because the governor can't handle basic common sense actions like reutilising a tile after its cleaned.

ChrisShaffer · February 15, 2002, 08:38

Quote:

Originally posted by Grumbold
I'd love it to be different too.

Quote:

I think there needs to be some payoff for deciding to hands-on manage your cities but it shouldn't be because the governor can't handle basic common sense actions like reutilising a tile after its cleaned.

Ah, OK, you agree with me. I misread your first post.

Mark_Everson · February 15, 2002, 09:23

Hi Chris:

Yeah the governors is a Vital thing for them to get right... the game is Drowning in micromanagement, or so it seems.

Quote:

Originally posted by ChrisShaffer
Civ is a game -- it isn't the real world. I'm not interested in individually managing each worker in a 20+ city empire.

It isn't that way in the RW either! No Dictator or President issues orders at the level that happens in Civ... The orders are broad, and are interpreted and implemented by people below them, rather like the governors. Except no historical civ, no matter how corrupt or inept is liketly to have had governors as incompetent as those in civ.

Grumbold: LOL

Zachriel · February 15, 2002, 09:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Grumbold
I'd love it to be different too.

The issues of workers has apparently been addressed in the patch.

The mayor seems to work for me, but I only use the first option for allocating labor. It does reallocate labor when pollution is cleaned, at least in my games. The emphasis option works only to a degree, the mayor just being one bureaucrat.

I'm usually happy if the mayor just doesn't betray me (flip). Do you think I am not setting a high enough standard for my mayors?

DrFell · February 15, 2002, 12:50

Just do it all yourself, you can do a better job than any half-wit AI anyway.

ChrisShaffer · February 15, 2002, 13:01

Quote:

Originally posted by DrFell
Just do it all yourself, you can do a better job than any half-wit AI anyway.

Did you even read the messages above? We know we can do it better than the AI - but it's too much work, not enough fun. If the governor AI worked correctly, we wouldn't have to do it ourselves.

I want to set priorities, not micromanage.

Thrawn05 · February 15, 2002, 13:21

Quote:

Originally posted by ChrisShaffer
sigh

I installed 1.17f and started a game. My capital has mostly forest and grassland. There's a wheat on grass (3/0/0) and a furs on forest (1/2/2). I instruct the city governor to emphasize production and commerce.

Three turns later, the city governor is still using the 3/0/0 square in preference to the 1/2/2 square.

I told the governor to emphasize production and commerce -- not food!

Guess I'll be waiting for the next patch.

Funny, mine stopped working before I installed the new patch. I have put citizens back in the spots that had pollution that I cleaned up or else I loose a pop point or two, or three, or four, or...

ChrisShaffer · February 15, 2002, 13:23

Quote:

Originally posted by Thrawn05

Funny, mine stopped working before I installed the new patch. I have put citizens back in the spots that had pollution that I cleaned up or else I loose a pop point or two, or three, or four, or...

Oh, they've never worked. I just keep hoping that a patch will fix the problem.

DrFell · February 15, 2002, 21:23

Quote:

Originally posted by ChrisShaffer

Did you even read the messages above? We know we can do it better than the AI - but it's too much work, not enough fun. If the governor AI worked correctly, we wouldn't have to do it ourselves.

I want to set priorities, not micromanage.

A little micromanaging is part of civ I feel. It's not entirely a war game, and it's not that much work. I know it's unfortunate the governors don't work, but even if they did I'd still do it myself, it only takes a few seconds to go through all your cities.

ChrisShaffer · February 16, 2002, 04:03

600 turns. Average 20 cities per turn. 20 mouse clicks x 600 turns = 12,000 mouse clicks per game. And you still think it's not too much trouble?

DrFell · February 16, 2002, 05:34

It's not a problem becuase you don't have to click on every city every turn. A lot of people managed it in Civ2, although I suppose you do have to click a bit more in Civ3 (worse interface and all)

Pius Popprasch · February 19, 2002, 06:22

There could be an option to have a no-pollution game. But then it would be a different game. And who wants that?

volcanohead · February 19, 2002, 06:56

Apart from pollution the governor still does not get the production priority right. For example, a size 6 city not on a river and with no aqueduct was set to emphasise production, but it was still producing 6 excess food which were just going to waste. Manually reallocating doubled the shield production.

I don't understand why it's so very hard to get this right; a couple of loops and checks and you have a nice simple algorithm to maximise shields when the city can grow no more. Very annoying.

V

Zachriel · February 19, 2002, 07:21

Quote:

Originally posted by volcanohead
Apart from pollution the governor still does not get the production priority right. For example, a size 6 city not on a river and with no aqueduct was set to emphasise production, but it was still producing 6 excess food which were just going to waste.

Actually, it shouldn't even take a setting in the governor screen, when it is obvious food is going to waste. When I hit 6 or 12, I either rush the appropriate improvement, or turn off the governor.

Selkirk · February 19, 2002, 12:26

It unfortunate that the city governors don't work correctly. I think this is the biggest flaw left in the game after the patch. Are they governors permanently set to emphasize food?

When I see a city hit a limit at 6 or 12, I will manually re-allocate production. The AI should get this advantage, too.

The user interface for the governors is also really pathetic. It seems obvious from the interface that this feature is an afterthought.

Having three separate True False controls is silly and confusing. There are only six combinations, they should be in one control:

Emphasize

Food, Production then Commerce
Food, Commerce then Production
Production, Food then Commerce
Production, Commerce then Food
Commerce, Food then Production
Commerce, Production then Food

Or, an alternative would be to use two controls:

First Priority: (Food, Production, or Commerce)
Second Priority: (Food, Production, or Commerce)

The problem with this, though, is that you have to prevent The First & Second from being set to the same thing. It is, of course, unnecessary to specify third priority.

It would be nice to see the governors working correctly, with a better user interface to control them.

ChrisShaffer · February 19, 2002, 16:34

From the Feb 15 chat:

Quote:

<ChrisShaffer> Question: Why do the city governors disobey instructions to "emphasize food|commerce|production" ? I choose "emphasize commerce and emphasize production" and the governor places my citizens on a 3/0/0 grassland wheat square instead of a 1/2/2 forest fur square. Why?

<Soren_Johnson_Firaxis> Chris: the governors do not ignore the instructions... however, the governor put a high weight on food, so sometimes that overrides the prefs. If it was a 2/0/0 square, I bet the governor would have picked the forest.

<ChrisShaffer> so then the question is: Why does the governor override the prefs?

<Soren_Johnson_Firaxis> chris: well, it is not overriding anything. it is making a decision, and the prefs are one of the factors it considers. it's highest priority, however, is feeding it's citizens, which is why it puts a high priority on 3+ food tiles

So, apparently, by design food is most important, and it really doesn't matter what you tell the governor to do -- he's going to go for food.

Selkirk · February 19, 2002, 17:12

Where can I find a transcript of that chat?

Raion · February 19, 2002, 18:17

I thought that I read in the manual whereas you have to make a few decisions first as to what you want the city to do, then the governors learn from your decisions.

I do not see the problem.

Think of your civ at first as being dumb, that you have to tell them what to do, that they will learn after awhile what you think next.

After that, then change what you were thinking, and do the opposite.

Just change it yourself!

(The computer can not determine what you are doing!)

Raion · February 19, 2002, 18:19

In Civ II, you would change the screen, but the computer would change it back repeatedly. At least in Civ III, once you change for production instead of food, it stays there!

ChrisShaffer · February 19, 2002, 19:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Raion
I thought that I read in the manual whereas you have to make a few decisions first as to what you want the city to do, then the governors learn from your decisions.

I do not see the problem.

Think of your civ at first as being dumb, that you have to tell them what to do, that they will learn after awhile what you think next.

The governor learns from your selections for the build queue, not your placement of population on the map.

Quote:

Just change it yourself!

Sorry, not interested in doing that much work. Didn't you read the messages above?

Quote:

In Civ II, you would change the screen, but the computer would change it back repeatedly. At least in Civ III, once you change for production instead of food, it stays there!

Nope, unfortunately, this isn't true. The governor takes over when the city grows, when the cultural influence expands, when enemy military prevent use of squares, and when pollution prevents use of squares.

Using the governor is also the only efficient way to avoid riots.

ChrisShaffer · February 19, 2002, 19:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Selkirk
Where can I find a transcript of that chat?

Several people have posted uncut transcripts in other threads.