Tile control for overlapping cities

[LKendter]

Somewhat a similar problem: Specialists get assigned automatically. There should definitely be a button, "don't assign specialists."

That is in my top 5 list of changes. In epic1 I was so sick of reassigning specialist back to workers. My fishing metropolis only hit size 20 due to constant MM. This is one of the only areas I feel I still need to MM.

[microbe]

Another display issue: if you've got too many supercitizens in a city, extra ones aren't displayed in a scroll window but are just, ehh, undisplayed.

[Sirian]

There should definitely be a button, "don't assign specialists."

From your fingertips to Soren's monitor. (That was a prayer, not a declaration of activity.)

That's all I can say.


- Sirian

[VoiceOfUnreason]

You actually can switch tiles between cities. In the city screen, just click on the grayed-out tile you want to use, and it will light up.

Very handy.

What documentation/help screen/user guide was I supposed to have read to learn that this was possible? It doesn't appear to be covered in the description of the City Map (p157-158 of the manual).

[Sullla]

Ah, I'm sorry VoiceOfUnreason, that's my fault. I wrote that section of the Civ4 Manual, and it was simply not something that I thought about at the time. Describing everything on the city screen was difficult enough; swapping tiles between overlapping cities never came to mind. I have to take responsibility for that and simply say that it was an oversight on our part. Game developers are human and make mistakes too.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Ah, I'm sorry VoiceOfUnreason, that's my fault.

No worries - I'll have my lawyers call your lawyers. It's not like you really need that first born child, right?

[theGrimm]

While we are (sort of) on the issue of tile selection and the governer, I notice that the governor sometimes seems to prefer a little bit of extra food over an extra turn of production, even with "emphasize production" turned on and "prevent growth" turned on.

For example, building the a wonder recently, with production maximized and growth turned off (city was at happiness limit), the governor was working a grassland forest tile. Switching him off, and working a plains forest tile instead, cut time to production from 7 to six turns, at the cost of one extra food a turn (i.e. from one food surplus to break even food).

And so as not to sound like a critic, allow me to say I almost always use governers, and the option to prevent a city from growing is the best! Except when you've just hooked up two happiness resource, and wonder 15 turns later why none of your cities have grown. Imgine if you just built up tons of surplus food, and could grow 5 population in 5 turns!!

There isn't a way to grow a city apart from working it's own food tiles, right? No food caravans or settling settlers in cities?

Okay, I'll shut up now.

[Sirian]

the option to prevent a city from growing is the best! Except when you've just hooked up two happiness resource, and wonder 15 turns later why none of your cities have grown.

The Avoid Growth option is primarily aimed at cities who have maxed out to their utmost potential. Short of that, if the governor won't do what I want, I just shut it off and micromanage for a while. This is SAFER because my attention is still on that city and I will be checking it. I turn the governor back on when things get to a point where the governor will do what I want.

I did all I could for the city governors. Wish we could have done even more, but there are (numerous) limitations with which we had to contend.


There are certain quirks about the governor that you should know.

1. The governors are set to ALWAYS maintain some food surplus, to keep cities growing.

2. The governors emphasize cottage investment/maturation (a lot) and mine use for the potential of popping a new resource (a little).

3. If you have bonuses that improve the output of Specialists (Ankgor Wat, Representation civic, Sistine Chapel, maybe some others) you are more likely to see the governors running lots of Specialists, because the specialists are made more attractive to its algorithms. (Meaning in these cases, you may have to shut the governor off more often, or take other measures.)

4. You CAN tell the governor not to work specialists by turning on multiple emphasis buttons. For instance, if you turn on Emphasize Food and Emphasize Production and Emphasize Commerce, it is the rough equivalent of telling the governor to DE-EMPHASIZE SPECIALISTS. A combination of Emphasize Food and one other Emphasize button is something I will use a lot when making intensive use of slavery, to get cities to regrow population quickly and not run specialists, without have to micro it. (In fact, micro-ing is a PITA since it may put a new pop point to a specialist category, but WON'T do it if the governor is emphasizing food.)

5. Avoid Growth Button -plus- Emphasize Specialists button or Emphasize Production button will overcome the "must grow" impulse in the governor. It's the only way, really, to halt growth while using the governor. But of course, there is the danger of doing more harm than good by forgetting that a city has halted its growth.

6. You can "force" specialists. The governor won't touch your forced specialists, but will work around them.

7. Unfortunately, you can't force specialists NOT to appear. *shrug*


- Sirian

[kryszcztov]

I lost a full post while answering yesterday, so let's sum it up.

Civ4 isn't nice at all to MMers like me. Those who think the governor doesn't do what's needed are left to working around those odd features. There should at least be the possibility to tell that this tile is being worked by another city or not, and that it is workable by the current city. And of course you shouldn't be able to mess any other city's tile assignment from the window of any city. We're able to build space probes to Mars and thermonuclear bombs, so I'm sure this can be done without touching what was implemented for those who don't want to MM.

[Sirian]

Civ4 isn't nice at all to MMers like me.

I don't see what the problem is.

You know that a city can only work tiles within its Fat Cross.

If a tile is inside your borders and inside the Fat Cross of a given city, it's available. Period.

So where's the complication? There is no complication. It's simple and direct. I'm sorry if it wasn't also CLEAR in the interface, but now that you know, there shouldn't be any more problem.


- Sirian