Micromanagment OR NOT??

[Ferdi]

I have read many posts in this forum and a question always come to my mind.
How many of us like micromanagment and how many don't?
I think this question might be important but I bet that the response is balanced to 50% of people against micromanagment.

As for me, I dislike all sort of micromanamgment. What's your opinion?

[Darkstar]

I dislike it, but it's just part of the formula. We all have our own playstyles, and that's USUALLY not in step with the computers, even where there is automation available (like SMAC).

So, I think we'll still have humogous amounts of micromanagement. And that's better then NOT being able to micromanage... after all, we want control of our empire, to do things OUR way.

-Darkstarr

[Ferdi]

Yes, it's better to have an opportunity to micromanage but I'd rather not to be bound to! Now that's the case in all civ like games I've played, just because automation systems were wrong or non-existant.
We would be able to program some actions triggered by this or that event, thus avoiding to have to scan each city each turn to do something. A game like civ become quickly annoying if you have to repeat the same little action more and more again.

[Urban Ranger]

I agree with Ferdi.

For those who likes micromanagement, they have the option to do so.

For those who don't, facilities should be in place to aid automation.

[Qilue]

Perhaps a terraform queue.
eg
irrigate
build road
move N
build mine
build road
move NE

With the option of unit stacking available to do this faster and automated unit stacks available too.

[The Joker]

I think there should be significant disadvantages of having a large "Civ-type" civilization, meaning that smaller ones with perhabs 20 cities should be better. In such a civ it wouldn't be as annoying to be nurcering your cities. Although I still think there should be more automation in the game. I would really like a working automated formers system, which worked together with the cities to move workers to the squares that had just been irrigated. I would like just to build formers (/engineers, whatever) and then think no more of that.

I would also like less micromanagement and more macromanagement. I think that in Civ-games your more rule a bunch of individual cities in stead of a civilization. The only macromanagement is when you change SE settings once in a while, and when you talk with another Civ-leader. I would like far more extended diplomacy and SE, and more civ-wide actions to take, and then have the AI take care of some small matters.

[Ari Rahikkala]

What about Clash of Civilizations style? If I understood it right, player can micromanage as much as he wants, but if he doesn't want to micromanage, the game does it for him.

[SWPIGWANG]

I WANT
User Programable automation

With a system like that, everyone should be happy
It would be even better if the queue/langrage used can be made into packs people can download.......

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'm the different one here. I LOVE micromanagment! However, in some respects I think macromanagment is better (like in building of improvements, etc).

[War4ever]

i agree with the above as i am a lousy micromanager..... every game i lost out on thousands of beakers and shields because i forget to look at cities or i am afraid of takingtoo long in MP.... although i am getting better and it is helping out my advantage. Automation is good for some people and the option is important but even someone who hates micromanagement like myself would probably not use it much

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They call me Mr. Fierce

I like the found "complete" cities idea Utrecht..just so you know
perhaps with customizable city imp.
temple+marketplace+barracs+3 riflemen
temple+marketplace+library+barracs+citywall+1 mech inf.

Of course someone is going to complain...(hey how will you be able to build a city with all that in a turn when it takes like uh 20 in the ancient age)...sigh

[Darkstar]

I always thought it was silly having to tell a city to build a market, bank, or temple, for example, especially in modern to futuristic times. I mean, if you have any merchants about, they are going to want a market. Whereever they get together to sell their stuff (well, to trade between them and what not), IS going to become the market. Bankers are going to want to branch out (more profits). And people will build temples, whether you, the state, sponsor them or not (especially in places where the common citizen has more personal freedoms then early tryanies). That sort of thing bugs me.

In the beginning, when you have the people tightly controlled, and they are tightly focused on whatever it is they are doing, I can understand. But in 1950, in a democracy? Come on...

-Darkstarr

[Utrecht]

Darkstar,

You are right in the black and white sense that no American President is going to tell the City of Hoboken to build a library.

However, you could look at it another way. You as a leader give Tax credits to Hoboken to improve literac. Hoboken takes it an pop out comes a library.

Doberman, I think that many of those complaints of anchient build times vs. modern build times can be understood though modern construction practices and their superiority to older ones. After all it used to take 10-20 years to raise a cathedral in the dark ages, but 1-2 years today.


[This message has been edited by Utrecht (edited January 03, 2000).]

[Biddles]

I like micromanagement to an extent. But what I would like to see is a customised build queue that can be saved and used in multiple cities. Especially in the late game i get sick of having to finish production of fusion lab, build quantum lab, build psi gate.. when all I am doing is the same queue over and over. When you get 50 + cities you end up spending 10 minutes a turn changing production.

I like being able to micromanage as much as possible, but I don't like pointless repetition.


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- Biddles

"Now that our life-support systems are utilising the new Windows 2027 OS, we don't have to worry about anythi......."
Mars Colonizer Mission

[Utrecht]

It really depends.

Mostly on the repatative nature of the tasks.

Examples of this:

In Mastore of Orion (1 and 2) I would simply destroy the planet rather than conquering it because I did not want to have to deal with the management of the plant. However, I very much enjoyed the expansion of the first hundred turns.

Civilization: After about the first 20 or so cities, I stoped building because the creation and growth of them became boring. However in the early game, the micromanagement was fun.

Early game: Micromanagement = fun
Mid game: = Chore
Late Game = BORING.

So perhaps a better question is what changes to make micromanagement less "fun". Obviosly the early game ius focused on creating a stable source of income (both knowledge and coin).

Mid game is more of a consolidation of position and the beginnings of offensive. This is where the majority of games are realy won or lost. The switch to military focus has begun.

Late Game: Simply staving off the inevitable or mopping up. Almost entirely military based.

Some solutions:

Be able to found more "complete" cities. I never understood the need to build a temple in a city in 1900. This means that the costs of a city founding in late game goes up or there are certain technology gates that once passed, raises the default buildings built in a city.

As suggeseted above an robust custimized build order for all cities. In my opinion this some what workable, but unfortunately is unable to react to changing needs quick enough.

I am sure there are others, but they make the growth of cities "fun" almost a roleplaying type experience and I do not believe that Wonders are sufficient to this purpose.

Biddles, I haven´t actually used build queues very much but it seemes like a novel idea. I would like to be able to set production like this too though..

By holding down Ctrl and left klicking on cities I should be able to select several cities, then by right clicking I should get a menu, here I should be able to change production/or set a build queue for all the selected cities.

Maybe micromanagement should gradually automate itself as the game progresses, since that happens in real life. While the Colonists on the Mayflower may have judged whether or not to build a library, Bill Clinton does not.

[Darkstar]

Being able to save Queues, so you can just load them from disk, would be GREAT!

I know that my build preferences CHANGE over the tech ages. And by having some basic queues saved, I'd just pick the one I wanted.

Being able to specify several cities at once to build a particular thing would be nice as well.

Remember, Bill Clinton doesn't give a tax break or anything to Hoboken for it's library. Now, Hoboken's State might, or some functionary in the Federal Burea might, but... The pres is concerned with the MACRO management. He has people to figure out the details...

-Darkstar

[mwaf]

I agree with Utrecht on the fact that micromangment gets boring the more cities you have and the more advence you are.

This can be solved with SWPIGWANG idea of programable automation. You should be able to set a list of what should be built first, next and so on, also stuff like "IF rifelmen < 3 THEN build rifelmen" should be allowed to put in this production list.

This would need quite much micromanagment ONCE but no micromanagment after that.

[Kropotkin]

yes i have to agree with a lot of you that utrecht hit the spot. I myself kind of like building great cities and thus want some micromanagment (i actually liked moving around my settlers in the 1900s in civ2, and yes i know i'm one sick puppy ) while others want none of it witch makes the game more like pong than civ...

one pretty obvious solution to the finished city idea is that some modern discoveries means that you don't have to build that structure anymore. the discovery of (lets say) capitalism would mean that all cities are equpied with marketplaces just as some wonders used to do.

One example how they managed to remove a lot of micromanagemt without taking away any gameplay possiblities in the old games was the control of what tile the pop. worked on. that worked fine even if you didn't care about it but manicas like me could move 'em around (and making it possible to build even more settlers!!!!).

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"Only the dead are free"
Free YYYH and Stewart Spink!
WE SHALL NEVER FORGET!

[Theben]

Well there were some ideas on this subject that made it into the List, so hopefully Firaxis will look into it...

1) Settlers: Click on a tile and select what should be done to it in what order, and the settler moves there and does it;

- Select a group of tiles or a line (for roads, rr's), all those tiles will get the same tasks performed on them (FE, irrigate and build road);

- Have a preference list for "auto"-settlers w/in city limits. The settler checks the list before doing anything (FE, check for grassland w/ shield: if YES goto and road, irrigate, if NO then check for plains, etc.). The player can modify the list from within the game. They can also modify the AI in the game files.

Free- markets: Have multiple items available to build in cities each turn; in republic/demo &/or somewhat free markets part of the production is controlled by the AI (i.e. your citizens). They tend to concentrate on temples, markets, libraries. You won't have to mess with it if you don't want to.

Aside from that I agree that maybe in modern times cities could be built with some improvements in place, or the improvements appear when a certain city size is reached.

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Theben
Co-Moderator of the Civ3 Forums

[Krenske]

Stodlum & Utrecht,
Try this one on for size.

As certain tech points are reached certain city improvements fall out of the queue and become part of the basic city infrastructure. This basic city infrastructure is a seperate item that has to be the first improvement built.

But wait you say I want to build a rifleman not spend 80 turns waiting for the grainary and temple and market and courthouse ....

Easy fixed. Use 3 queues one for units, one for improvements and one for special projects or for feeding the production pool. What is then needed is a set of 3 sliders which allocates the production between the three queues.

The production pool is an idea I have had which becomes a sort of global production allowance. This pool is broken up by sliders into 3 areas. These being public works, city support and general production.

The public works production is used to actually build the terrain improvements (the improvements are defined by a "survey" type unit (eg. engineer, settler and maybe with later tech and within city areas just defined.)) the improvements are built in a similar way to city improvements. Each defined improvement will slowly accumulate production until its finish point is reached. A settler or engineer can still count as a certain amount of production per turn towards any improvement being constructed in the same square. A special tech point may be reached that allows you to define a rush or critical job with a cost of 3 for 2 and 5 for 3 respectively.

The city support section is used for aiding cities producing initial basic city infrastructure (and possibly other build items if a flag is manualy set for that item and city). This added support allows your set of major cities to assist the new cities you found to build their initial improvements.

The general production pool is used to assist in the construction of units, wonders and non support city improvements. This general production pool could also be traded to allies etc to allow them to produce more or to aid joint special projects. (eg. lend lease during WW2)

There are really three concepts involved here. They are
1- Basic infrastructure -over time certain improvements bacome "basic" and must be constructed in cities or they suffer happiness problems or health crises etc. The option may exist for the player to place certain improvements into this "basic" set.
There is the problem of what to do if a improvement is added to the "basic" list when some cities do not have it. That can be solved by simply popping up a message box allowing the player to make a choice. Thus when sewers are discovered and they are considered basic you have the choice of automatically adding them to the end of all queues, next in all queues or to become the current item in all queues. Once they are basic they must be added.

2- Multiple build queues- for the three different production using areas and the ability to manage the spread of production. The units, improvements and special queues allow for more flexibility with the cities. The special queue can be used as an option queue allowing wonders and possibly a second unit or improvement. When empty the production for this queue is passed on to the pool.

3- The production pool- assists smaller cities and less productive cities to grow etc, as they are supported construction wise by the older and larger cities. The pool can not be banked for later use (maybe this is possible with later techs) and is split between its target areas with the allowance for prioritisation within the areas. In the case of there being no public works being defined then the pool could spontaneously construct public works but they would not necessarily be where the player wants them. (AI guided) The city support pool if overflowing could improve general happiness as it supplies festivals / feasts / other happiness expanding events. The general production pool will if overfull generate additional funds and scientific research.

So anyway this would all require a fairly easy way of controlling the sliders for the different cities. This could actually occur on the city inquiries screen with the three different queue items being listed oon top of three small sliders. Within the city management screen itself the option to fix the pattern for 10/20/or infinite turns could be given with a one click flag thus stopping any global changes overriding certain important cities for a period. Certain tech advances in the governing area would limit the movement of the various slider bars at the city and national level. A full command economy would allow almost total freedom while a free economic democracy woul require all areas to have at least some productive expenditure.

Thats about it for now I need to go and hose down my fingers. They are starting to smoulder with all the typing.

[Utrecht]

Hmmm, interesting ideas.

Number one will certainly minimize the micromanagement of cities. However, it does not address another concern of mine.

The fact that late game cities take entirely too long to become productive members of the empire. In that fashion, I believe that complete cities would suffice. Again using gateway technologies as the breakpoint.

I like Number 3, the fact that a portion of a cities production comes from the national level. This is both realistic an helps to address the productivity issue of new cities.

O am not sure that I am fond of the 3 different build queues, but I think that I could live with it if it is implemented.

But great ideas!

I used to play Dune 2 (but I never could get it to run on a Win95 machine). I really liked the way that each structure functioned separately. The Construction Yard made buildings. The Barracks made various soldiers. The Factories made various vehicles. But I would propose limiting it to two build menus for each city "operating" at one time, with a slider splitting the shield production between the two chosen.

The city's general production queue could produce anything except specialized units requiring Structures. Barracks could be a separate build menu that could produce non-motorized land units, train existing land units (any type) to vet status, combine these functions in one step, or "repair" a non-motorized land unit.

Perhaps separate add-ons (toggles, essentially, costing much less than a structure) would be required for the general queue and the Barracks to produce or train mounted units, special mounted units like camels or elephants, and gunpowder. Cannon should be available as a add-on only for Barracks and not for the main queue to better represent the cost of that specialized foundary work.

A separate shipyard wouldn't be required for wooden vessels, it would be just an add-on, however cannon would have to be supplied by a Barracks foundary, or by disbanding a cannon unit, in order to make armed vessels.

Factory would be required for metal hulled vessels and motorized units. Add-ons required for cannon (as above), armor, aircraft, electronics, rocketry, etc. If you wanted to be able to produce two types requiring Factories simultaneously (say, a ship and an armor) you would have to build a second Factory. It wouldn't cost full maintenance and could later be upgraded to Mfg Plant.

The cannon foundary capability would be shared by Barracks and Factory, if you had both in a city you wouldn't need to get it twice. Upgrading would be required for new cannon types.

[Orz]

Well - the "build-a-complete-city" concept is not bad, especially when it is about the temples. I still think that the Civ-like queue must stay. I avoid micromanagement using rather small maps instead of big ones.
Gateway techs (aqueduct, temple, power plant building) are an great and revolutionary idea.

Production pool: I agree with Utrecht. I do not think that it is necessary but I could live with it.

About prerequisite buildings: 100% agree!
Example. I conguer a city of an stagnant city on an isolated island and next turn I land my stealth bomber there!

Airport: air units - build air units
Harbor: build wooden ships plus fishing
Seaport: build modern ships + trade bonus
Factory: Modern units

[Krenske]

Utrecht

The concept of a complete city at once is a little quick if being created based on a single settler unit.
The option may exist to create cities with improvements by paying for these at the time the city is built but to match the improvement costs it will be very expensive. 1500 gold + to create a size 1 city with the barracks grainary temple and market preconstructed.

If you use accelerated and assisted production with a pool, then assuming only 1-2 new cities are growing at a time then it may only take 2 years for each basic improvement to be finished off. This assumes a large and productive civilisation assisting. This is not instantaneous but it is better than nothing.

The concept of settler assistance in city building could also be explored. For each additional settler in the stack when the build order is given you gain one basic improvement and an additional boost to population (note if a non linear population model is used this won't be a complete step up in population). This allows a large civ to generat 4-5 settlers stack them together and build a new city with a population 5xnormal and with the first 4 improvements completed. To stop abuse I would suggest that this be limited to just the initial founding of the city.

The three queue concept could be reduced to one or just two with the support pool assisting the creation of any improvements and the general pool assisting units and wonders. I just believe the three queue concept gives flexibility and allows for the simultaneous production of needed improvements and units in a small city.

Another idea that I am interested in is the possibility of setting a target city for a cities production. This would allow the cities new units to appear after a suitable delay at the target city therefore removing the need to micromanage movement to the front. Obviously only cities not near enemies and on the same block of dirt are eligible.
[This message has been edited by Krenske (edited January 11, 2000).]

[Krenske]

Don Don,
Iwas reading your post and I am a little confused . You are referring to having certain buildings (and upgrades there of) act as prerequisites to the construction of certain units are you not. Its just that I initially thought you were looking at queues for each and every construction building. (This is possible but would just increase micro management)

Anyway I like the idea of having a need for a basic industry to build certain unit types. I do see a need for some further specialisation later in the game. As an example I give the need for shipyards to build ships but certain units would require the shipyard to be upgraded (cost the same as the initial improvement perhaps). A good example of a special unit is nuclear subs. As a possibility you could just have three or four levels of each construction facility and have each unit valued as requiring a certain level to be constructed. Eg. Transport requires shipyard, Cruiser requires shipyard 2, Carrier requires shipyard 3, SSN requires shipyard 4. All that is needed then is to just upgrade each of the facilities rather than have brand new facilities although there is little difference in the end.

[Urban Ranger]

I would like to propose the addition of a Master Build Queue.

Suppose you know all the Civ advancements. How would you build a city from scratch? How would you arrange the builds in the queue? I call the arrangements in such a queue the MBQ (Master Build Queue).

When a Civ hasn't discovered the prerequisite advancement for an improvement in the MBQ, that improvement is simply skipped. When that advancement is discovered, the corresponding improvement will be added to the queue preemptively (inserted right after the current build, or starts right away if there is no current build).

The MBQ can be overrided by a local build queue.

I would also like to suggest two build queues for a city. One for units and one for city improvements. There is simply no reason why a city cannot build a library and a garrison at the same time.

[Biddles]

That's the kind of system I would like to see. But I would like to be able to have a few master queues (you would be able to have as many as you want but too many would defy the point): Industrial city, Mining city, agricultural city, trade city. In each city you would have the queue button and instead of selecting a structure or unit you select the queue.

Basically the same system with the option of multiple queues.


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- Biddles

"Now that our life-support systems are utilising the new Windows 2027 OS, we don't have to worry about anythi......."
Mars Colonizer Mission

the thread became a poll

results(april 21) below
[This message has been edited by MarkG (edited April 21, 2000).]