212 hours 2 minutes 56 seconds

Spaced Cowboy · December 29, 2003, 11:15

Thats right, I just finished my first epic game of conquests (prepatch) (Emp, Egypt, large, 8 civs) winning with a space ship launch in 2005.

I was in disbelief when I saw the time stat, although I was in a habit of leaving the comp on overnight while playing.

I did notice two glaring problems.

The AIs use of armies....that is they do not use them that I could tell. On the replay, Germany produced a dozen great leaders (mil) on its march to take over its continent, yet later when I invaded with my armies, there were only counterattacks with single units.

As already mentioned by others, the AI also does not defend against attack very well. Seems like the Germans could have brought up defenders from the rear (the area that could not be attacked due to movement penalties) and shifted some artillery to the front to pound the attacking units before the assault. Any human player would have done this.

If the AI did those three things, then I would not have rolled over it as easily or at all.

The second issue was pollution. I really did not mind having to send workers to clean up the stuff (but that does get old too), but my main gripe was having to reassign the city worker that gets bumped off of his polluted square.

Most of the time, I was able to clean the pollution in one turn. So it was more of a pain to reassign the worker and readjust my specialists. I could have automated the workers to clean pollution, but then I would not have the visual clues to go into the cities and reassign. Well this did encourage me to build the mass transit systems and the recycling centers.

I guess that I start another game this week. I hope that it does not take as long this time.

thorpey · December 29, 2003, 11:38

I tried to automate my workers to clean up pollution and found that shfit-P was gone.

I know shift-C is there to 'clear damage' but couldn't find a way to automate.

Anyone?

Spaced Cowboy · December 29, 2003, 12:44

According to the Conquests manual, automating workers to clean pollution is now shift-D.

Jawa Jocky · December 29, 2003, 13:10

Quote:

Originally posted by Spaced Cowboy
but my main gripe was having to reassign the city worker that gets bumped off of his polluted square. I could have automated the workers to clean pollution, but then I would not have the visual clues to go into the cities and reassign.:

You can use the city governors to assign the population to work tiles automatically. The governors make poor choices, however later in the game it doesn't matter enough to micromanage anymore.

vmxa1 · December 29, 2003, 14:06

Drop that map size down to speed up the game. Use a stack of slaves to clear pollution and leave then forted in an open square.

I will make the stack as large as it takes to clean a mountain tile in one turn. With rails up, you can move them anywhere and clear it that turn and put the citizen back on the tile. If I have a very large empire I will have two stacks. All idle workers are gathered into a few stacks.

Donegeal · December 29, 2003, 14:38

I have found that late in the game, when all tiles are properly improved, using "Shift-A" (automate with out change) will set all your workers to the settings you want. Anytime there is pollution, the computer will send as many workers to the polluted area as needed to clean it up. At the end of the turn, you can go to the city that had pollution (easy to identify as it will have a stack of workers just sitting there by it) and then manually rearange the cities Work Force. You could also set the city governer to do this automaticly, but mistakes could be made. On the following turn, the workers that had just cleaned the pollution will now either go to a new source to clean it up or just automaticly go to the nearest city and wait for future pollution.

Spaced Cowboy · December 29, 2003, 16:17

Quote:

Originally posted by Jawa Jocky

You can use the city governors to assign the population to work tiles automatically. The governors make poor choices, however later in the game it doesn't matter enough to micromanage anymore.

What about the specialist, since all the thiles are full by this point, the only thing that I would worry about is the specialist. I try to keep most of them on science, but the stupid ai is always making taxmen (since I was running negative). Anyhow, I'll give it a shot.

Spaced Cowboy · December 29, 2003, 16:19

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
Drop that map size down to speed up the game. Use a stack of slaves to clear pollution and leave then forted in an open square.

I will make the stack as large as it takes to clean a mountain tile in one turn. With rails up, you can move them anywhere and clear it that turn and put the citizen back on the tile. If I have a very large empire I will have two stacks. All idle workers are gathered into a few stacks.

It was not the map size, but my habit of leaving the comp on all day with the game running. It prolly took more like 30-40 hours to complete. but I was micro managing quite a bit.

I do the same with my workers as you do, but now I will try the automate function to see if that helps.

vmxa1 · December 29, 2003, 21:27

donegeal you can get away with this is you have you landmass to yourself. Otherwise the workers will be getting into other peoples lands and get captured or causing them to complain.

Donegeal · December 29, 2003, 22:49

Bah! There just slaves! Let them b!tch!!!

GhengisFarb™ · December 29, 2003, 23:00

Quote:

Originally posted by donegeal
Bah! There just slaves! Let them b!tch!!!

Be nice, Roleplay Workers are people too.

thorpey · December 30, 2003, 06:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Spaced Cowboy
According to the Conquests manual, automating workers to clean pollution is now shift-D.

Aaah, thanks Spaced Cowboy!

You read the manual? What a weird concept

Kuciwalker · December 30, 2003, 10:29

that's a long time

Spaced Cowboy · December 30, 2003, 10:31

Quote:

Originally posted by thorpey
Aaah, thanks Spaced Cowboy!

You read the manual? What a weird concept

No, I was trying to spell pollution and could not remember if it had one or two l's. I looked up pollution in the index, but no go, then I looked up cleaning, then I saw the shortcut and actually had the manual propped open on that page when I read your post.

steven8r · December 30, 2003, 16:01

good answer!

NEVER admit to actually reading the manual.

Premise:

=

Reality:

=

(or at least wimpy!)

Steven

The Hack · January 1, 2004, 12:45

Quote:

Originally posted by Spaced Cowboy
According to the Conquests manual, automating workers to clean pollution is now shift-D.

I was im an epic war and tired of manually moving my workers to clean up pollution and used Shift-D and half my workers went to clean a volcano annd the next turn it blew killing about 15 of them. Also the others the next turn went to the battle area to clean craters and it was a pain protecting them untill I got them out of their. I agree that manually moving them is tedious and reseeting the city workers is a pain. But late in the game the governers to well enough at that too not really matter that much in most of the cities.

The Hack · January 1, 2004, 12:47

Sorry for th spelling!

Plotinus · January 1, 2004, 12:54

[The Hack] Hey, there's worse spelling than that around here!

[steven8r] I think I am the only computer games player who likes manuals. I refuse even to load up a game until I have read the entire manual from cover to cover. Should I seek expert help?

Vince278 · January 2, 2004, 02:06

Quote:

Originally posted by The Hack

I was im an epic war and tired of manually moving my workers to clean up pollution and used Shift-D and half my workers went to clean a volcano annd the next turn it blew killing about 15 of them.

There's a manual?

The last manual I actually read was for MOO3. (Insert favorite MOO3 joke here).

vmxa1 · January 2, 2004, 03:08

Nothing funny about Moo3 manuals or strat guide. That was some hard reading and for nothing. Not to mention about 70 bucks or so.

Vince278 · January 2, 2004, 03:32

I'm afraid I fell for it hook, line, and 70 bucks. I did get some fun out of the strat guide by being the first to find a legal Ithkul picture before the game came out (Apolyton news about 13 months ago). One of the reasons an Ithkul is my avatar (that and like an Ithkul I kinda grow on people after a while

).

Cerbykins · January 2, 2004, 03:55

It took me a full day to get through that MOO3 plotline...nothing funny at all

As for spelling, my typos are infamous, andsoon will be around here too

Vince278 · January 2, 2004, 07:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Cerbykins
It took me a full day to get through that MOO3 plotline...nothing funny at all

I actually liked the back story but the place to write a good book is not in the middle of a manual.

CerberusIV · January 2, 2004, 07:22

I do use governors for moods but they have their limitations.

The biggest problem is that they don't use civil engineers so are useless at finishing improvements in corrupt cities.

Also watch out with agricultural civs in the early game. I had a start as the Celts with an extra food in my capital so the governor chose to work a forest rather than a shield grassland. Not smart when you are trying to get the city size up for your first settler.

The only consolation of seeing the governors screw it up is that all those AI cities are being run the same way.

Cerbykins · January 3, 2004, 04:08

I suppose, from the governor's perspective, he can get more use out of un-corrupt 'specialist gold' (at least I assume, perhaps wrongly, it's uncorrupt

)
And considering by this point I lack the will to care about the outer empire, and/or buy the courthouses/PS - I've not really caught on to using them yet. I suppose they have their use, and I can SEE how they'd be used, yet somehow - the opportunity just don't come these days

And don't be so sure the AI is using the same strats on itself, I'm sure I saw it choose mines over checkerboard landscaping, even with water available. Or it could just have been co-incidental bad planning on the AI's part. AGAIN.

I will get back to playing MOO3 sometime, but I'd still like to see how to successfully/productively over-rule the governor on more than just ship design (categories, not the designs themselves) and mass colony ship building at the start