22-03-2001 19:18									#1
	Multiple engineers working as a team! Got spare money?

I've been experimenting with the idea of getting multiple engineers/settlers to work as a team. I got inspired by this Xin Yu's excellent idea (quoted below).

First a little background information (in case you didn't know): normally you can put max two settlers/engineers do the same work on a single square. The third assigned to the same job doesn't help anymore. However you can put multiple pairs of engineers on a same square doing different things; ie a couple building (rail)road, another couple working on irrigation/farmland, the third cleaning pollution etc.

But what if you want those engineers do the same job as a team? You don't want to wait 15 turns to transform a mountain to hills, right? That's what it takes by using a couple of engineers. Or you have OCC game going and have bribed a nice lot of engineers and want to start changing those rivered grassland tiles into hills..

Then it's the time when Xin's advice kicks in:

quote: Originally posted by Xin Yu on 05-18-2000 07:28 PM1 turn transformation of terrian: engineer #1 starts transforming the land, then engineer #2. Before engineer #3 begins, click on the square then click on engineer #1 so the "O" on its shield disappears. Now #3 can start transforming. Similarly, dismiss #2 from the job before #4 start working, and so on. When you have too many engineers on the same square, it is not possible to activate, say the 10th, unit. You can first move an engineer to a city and assign it the home city (the city must supports less than 8 units), then go to work. When you try to dismiss him from the job, open the city window and call him "back to home city", that will do the trick. The sequence is very important. If you dismiss #2 instead of #1 it won't work.

This works just fine. However, I tried to find a more 'user-friendly' approach to the problem. If you insist to have everything done in a single turn I'm afraid this 'homing/calling home' is the only alternative. But it's so easy to miss the proper order of the engineers and thus blowing up the whole effort.

There is another way. You can handle max 9 engineers without using rehoming city trick so I suggest you use any number of engineers between 1-9 on a given tile. Do exactly as Xin has suggested. Move #1 engineer to a tile and give the order. You can give any order you want (o,i,r,e...) Do the same with #2 engineer Move #3 engineer to the tile, then click the top engineer in the list to remove the order and give the order to the #3. Repeat with the #4. Note that the engineer who's order you have to remove is always the highest one with that order in his shield.

After doing this to the last engineer, leave them there (the last two in the engineer list should have their order written in their shield). When next turn comes, move all engineers away from the tile leaving just the two with their orders. Then start moving them back one by one and again the engineer who's order must be removed is the highest on the list. Repeat this as many turns as necessary until the job gets done! The reason why I suggest you moving your engineers out and in is simply because it's easier to keep track of the proper order of removing/giving orders.

One more trick: you can 'charge' your engineers before committing them to do a hard, time-consuming job. You see, the job done by engineer is accumulated to the engineer himself, not to the terrain. Just make them do something (like 'o') and immediately click on them to remove that order. After that they have 'job count' of two. You can go further and repeat this as many times you want. Let's say you have 'charged' you engineers to the job count of five. If you have say 2 of them you can put them making a 2x5=10 turn job in a single turn, for example transforming a plain to a grassland.

You can even mix charged and non-charged engineers if you like using Xin's method. No job done will ever be wasted.

Don't forget Ribannah's clue, it's very useful in OCC games!

quote: Originally posted by Ribannah on 02-10-2001 07:38 AM Farmland is 5 turns for Settlers, and therefore 2½ for Engineers. If you still have your original NON-Settlers plus two Engineers, you can be very efficient by having the Settlers aid first one Engineers unit, then the other.

Just do this with your settler and two engineers using Xin's method and you get one-turn farmland!

Read also the thread The Lone Engineer at Work (started by Gastrifidis, stolen by SlowThinker). There is a lot of useful information, for example the turn counts an engineer needs to do the various jobs.

	23-03-2001 18:05									#2
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Marko Polo
IMO this thread is worth an Embassy
Well done.

	26-03-2001 21:37									#3
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Marko, reading your interesting post may have cleared up one point that has been puzzling me recently. When pre-working a settler/engineer I have been trying to figure out whether it costs any time to cancel instructions. But from your post and one by Rah which pointed out that if you cancel a settler/engineer's orders in time you get to move him in that turn I conclude that it does not cost anything. If you cancel after the settler/engineer has done his work for that turn it simply remains stored within him, if you cancel before his turn to work has come then you can either move him or give him new orders which will set him back working during that turn.

Have I got that right, now, do you think?

For completeness I'll have to try using up one of an engineer's move points, then give him some instructions and see whether he stores up half his work during that turn. But that seems rather elaborate and I'm guessing that it's either move or work, never a mixture of the two.

	28-03-2001 21:39									#5
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Just a quetsion : Is "work" points of an engineer stay in memory after save the game and restart it ?

	29-03-2001 02:00									#6
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Yes - I hope so. Otherwise it is not a saved game!
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	29-03-2001 18:01									#8
	Got spare money?

Great stuff this, Marko!

I realised after I posted that an engineer can do work and move because, of course, we are all familiar with a road appearing straight away when he uses up one movement square and is then told to start roadbuilding. But I had not got my thinking into any sort of decent order and your explanation has clarified things real well.

The fact that you get 100% work in exchange for only a fraction of a movement point may mean your idea about pre-working has quite an extensive application - even going beyond the case you describe.

Highly practical stuff this. Good land management is obviously one of the crucial parts of the game if you are any sort of perfectionist.

Always love it when engineers appear in my civ.

By the way, I sometimes realise I have moved units in the wrong order and could have progressed better if I'd given the engineers their orders first. I may try systematising the way I go about giving my move orders better - as I think was suggested (for slightly different reasons) in a recent thread.

Also I am reminded of a point I picked up from the SGs. On those happy occasions when you get a settler as a result of bribing a city, he may well be pre-worked. Twice I've been able to get an important fortress in place to stem a counter attack by keeping that in mind.

	03-04-2001 11:12									#11
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Corollary: Any time two Engineers (/Settlers) go to work at the same task, the first passes its charge(s) on to the second.

Try this: Set two Engineers to irrigate the same square. The job will not be finished. You can wake them now, or wait until early next turn. On the next turn, move the second Engineer to a different square and tell it to irrigate there. The job will be done immediately. This Engineer holds both the charges from last turn, plus its abilities for this turn. The other Engineer, the first one, will not even be able to instantly build a fortress. It has no charge. As soon as the second Engineer helped out with irrigation, it passed its charge along.

The multiple engineers trick is simply this corollary taken to the extreme. It explains what happens when you wake the Engineers in the wrong order. If you wake the Engineer with all the charges, you can't access them any more this turn. But if you know which Engineer had them, you can use them next turn.

	04-04-2001 14:18									#15
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A definite breakthrough - thread now flagged in the GL

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Scouse Git[1]

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