should it be the traditional civ way of settlers or engineers, or should it be more of a Public works thing like in CTP?

quote: Originally posted by thor015 on 12-30-2000 03:20 AM should it be the traditional civ way of settlers or engineers, or should it be more of a Public works thing like in CTP?

I dont like Human player Public works - at least not CTP-style, because the city-area view is "streamlined away". Without the inputable city-area view, i can not...

a/ See and understand the inner-workings between all used tiles within a blink of eye.
b/ Let the field-workers emphasize either food-, shield- or coin-generating tiles.

For the latter, you can of course incorporate public works emphasize-sliders, but that is a rather inexact and roundabout method, compared to the city-area view.

At the same time, I dont like the idea AI-civ controlled settlers/engineers visibly moving around within the city-areas, updating the tile-improvements either. The AI is notoriously weak then it comes to pathfinding, and in such a strategical/logistical important area, like maximizing the AI-civs production output, should be done by some kind of city-area mature-process, or by the use of templates instead.

quote: Originally posted by MarkG on 12-30-2000 11:23 AM you dont need to.

If you go to work, without understanding how and why your work actually adds to the overal process - that same work becomes rather meaningless, right?

The same things happens if one dont know how this or that added tile-improvement or city-improvement actually adds to the overal end-result. I have played many strategy-games, there i didnt had that exact notion. It all wined up with that i added "just another gradual improvement", because - in one way or the other, that i didnt clearly understood - it supposed to be beneficial.

It all felt rather inflationary and meaningless, in the end.

quote: you've got specialists for that

Specialists can only be used really effective in big modern end-game cities. Early on, in smaller cities; the drawbacks of lifting out workers from the fields, is simply not worth the benefits.

Just like our history: For a large part of history, 90-95% and more worked on the fields, right? Its basically the same for a "large part of the Civ-game".

Perhaps a new system, a little like public works, but where there is no `public works stockpile' or specific production. Instead, you can order any improvement built anywhere in your territory at any time, as many as you want. Then that improvment will be built by syphoning off production from the city whose radius it will be within. Possibly the improvement might syphon off resources averaged across your empire, but that might make it too easy. Perhaps you'd start with each city building their own improvements, but technology would eventually allow you to build more and more kinds from the Empire's stockpile.

A city could build one farm at a time, or lay out several, and have them each build more slowly (or possibly the computer could build them one at a time in the order you laid them down).

This way you could set out areas to be farmed, or mined and have cities slowly improve themselves, based off your orders. The computer would probably be more able to figure out what to build as well, without worrying about moving units around and such.

quote: Originally posted by Fintilgin on 12-30-2000 03:23 PM Moving the settlers around gives you a feeling of control and purpose, but can take a lot of work.

The irony of it all, is that even with a revamped public-works idea implemented in Civ-3, most civers still want to control exactly on which map-tile (whether its inside, or outside any of your city-areas) this, or that tile-improvement shall be applied. In both models we are dealing with the exact same increasing number of tile-objects in the overal game, thats needs attention. If anything, the micro-management of tile-improvements actually increases with the public-works model.

The reason to this, is that with the old settler-system, the player is lead-guided automatically, both when and where any settler is out of work (by map-recentering and unit-flashing).
With the Public-works model, on the other hand - the player have to manually check if theres enough build-points to build a tile-improvement, then manually drag around that damn map back and forth, in order to find just as many appropriate and potential tile-objects, as in Civ-2.
What the heck has actually been gained, in terms of less micro-management, by incorporating "public-works?

Of course, one can argue that, with the Public-works solution, the player can wait until enough build-points have been gathered, so he can build tile-improvements on several squares in one go.
But, this means losses in use-efficiency. To loan arguments from real-life business: It would be like replacing "just-in-time" (= settler-model), with inefficient "stock & store" (= public-works model).

Also, is it really worth it, considering the hard-to-finger-point "detached feel" (less control and purpose) that many civers complain about, over at the CTP-2 section?
Sure, many civers complain about the settler-solution as well, but as you can see of above arguments, the whole tile micro-manage problem isnt that easily solvable.

Besides, I have never understood why people think the settler-model is so laborious. If the map automatically re-centers, and the unit is flashing, then whats the problem? Remember, Civ-3 isnt realtime - its turnbased! You got all the time in the world.
Also; the days of founding huge 50+ empires are probably over. Its already confirmed that Firaxis shall implement anti-ICS, and anti-BAB (Bigger-Always-Better) in the game.

quote: The computer would probably be more able to figure out what to build as well, without worrying about moving units around and such.

As i mentioned in a post above, there are ways to deal with that. If your interested in AI pathfinding problems, by the way - then check out this thread:
../../Forum6/HTML/002067.html?17

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 12-31-2000 07:21 AM Besides, I have never understood why people think the settler-model is so laborious. If the map automatically re-centers, and the unit is flashing, then whats the problem? [This message has been edited by Ralf (edited December 31, 2000).]

I guess one of my main gripes with the settler-model is due to a particular annoyance I have. This annoyance is when I am trying to keep the surrondings of my cities farmed/mined/whatever then the AI moves a destroyer or brings a barbarian in and destroys my settler/engineer like nothing.
Now granted with an unit-stacking or army creating possiblity this might not be as bad but still how many defenders are you going to stack with a settler?
Another thing I find troublesome with the settler-model is when you are trying to develop a smaller or newly developed city, farther from your well producing cities, and your settler gets destroyed.
These are small details but I believe these small details make the game that much more enjoyable.

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 12-31-2000 07:21 AM With the Public-works model, on the other hand - the player have to manually check if theres enough build-points to build a tile-improvement, then manually drag around that damn map back and forth, in order to find just as many appropriate and potential tile-objects, as in Civ-2. [This message has been edited by Ralf (edited December 31, 2000).]

However, it would seem to me that you won't be using settlers to build roads, farms, etc in Civ III.

I think settlars should be used to build, roads, railroads, mines, fortifications, airbases.

Now, if we could only have Oil-rigs, warehouse, assemply line, gardeners, fishermen... workers.
Hummm, that'd make it too complex! Population is available TO settlers and engineers duty. Road, fortress, irrigation... are TOO.

21 squares is large enough, but a mine might give out material-S, farmland might supply Fruits and Milk.
Trading commodities as diverse as the actual economy produces has, for example, the appeal of putting rubber tires to vehicules or fueling the Helicopter in a field airport. Commercializing stockpiles of, say, paper made out of trees... between cities is another aspect.

My camel is bringing Spice (which i didn't produce!) in exchange of Coal from a city in a middle of a desert.

My point is this > let the settlers improve the real world and the engineers build products.