23-10-2000 18:04									#1
	Dead Settlers? Increase Your PM Length

I've had this a couple of times recently: put my Settlers to work irrigating a grassland/river square, and after a zillion turns they still hadn't finished. It also seems that more than 2 Engineers don't work any faster together on transforming jobs than just 2. Three Engineers making farmland are sometimes free again after 1 turn (as it should be), and sometimes 1 or 2 are still tied up on turn 2.

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

	24-10-2000 09:41									#2
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

I haven't had any "middle management" settlers since moving from Civ I. Those were always very annoying, and one of the reasons I started clicking on my settlers at the end of every turn. Maybe MGE has accedentally reincluded that problem

As for the loss of of an extra engineer/settler turn, there is a way around that (Xin Yu had a post a long time ago about how to engineer transform in 1 turn using 20 engineers, not quite sure where that is off hand atm). Alternatives of that would be to try and have certain preworked units paired with unworked units so that the total amount of work of the 2 units adds up to the total work needed. For example, I like to have 2 engineers and a settler irrigate 2 squares every 2 turns (2x2 + 2x2 + 2x1 = 10). The settler bounces between the 2 engineers so that each turn it(1 unit of work) adds the 5th turn of work to the 2nd turn engineer (4 units of work).

Also, when more than 1 unit is working on a tile, you can lose an extra turn if the wrong unit goes first. An example would be an engineer(1 turn = 2 units) and a settler (1 turn) irrigating. If the settler goes first, total work is 1x2 (eng) + 2x1 (settler) = 4, and the engineer is needed to reach 5 (2x2 + 2x1 = 6). If the engineer goes first, however, the engineer finishes the work (2x2 + 1x1 = 5) and the settler is free to move this turn, although it loses its 1 turn of work.

I've never really tried to figure out how to use 3 units on the same time doing the same thing, since I almost always have many things I need done and I do have a way to minimize lost work.

Of course if you have several things you need to do to a tile, you can combine them effectively. One of my favorites in OCC is to start 2 engineers teraforming a grassland to a hill, while taking a settler and set him to mining on the same tile, so that the first 2 engineers create hills, the settler mines the hills (instead of creating a forest). Also if necessary, I'll have 2 engineers railroading the tile while it is still a grassland. All in all, I have 5 units working a grassland tile - 2 railroading, 2 transforing to hills, and 1 mining, and a grassland with road becomes a railroaded, mined hill in a timely manner

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Sleep is a luxury and I don't have Shakespeare's Theatre in my back yard.

	24-10-2000 15:01									#3
	Full PM-box? Change here!

I have managed to find Xin's (third) reiteration of his dastardly multi-engineer ploy here.
Not that I have ever doubted any suggestions from Xin, but I can personally assure you that it works wonders....



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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor
"The Great Library must be built!"

	24-10-2000 16:47									#4
	Remove this text

Thanks! Seems Catullus was right, Civ2 is much like real life, only the first two persons assigned to a job will contribute .

My findings so far confirm most of what Xin says - except for 3 Engineers sometimes being able to create farmland and all be available the next turn. However, this doesn't explain my dead Settlers. I will have to restart OCC#4 because of them (still can, since nothing was revealed that wasn't available at the start).

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire
[This message has been edited by Ribannah (edited October 24, 2000).]