Automating Workers/Engineers - an alternative?

[TwoSalientOversight]

I know that there are some issues with working out an effective AI for worker units and everyone is unhappy and so on.

But here's an idea (that someone has probably suggested before... but)

Rather than telling worker units what to do, you actually indicate separately what you want to be done on certain hexes/squares. You set up a planned road/railway between your cities, you want those grasslands roaded and irrigated, that gold mine on that mountain needs to be roaded and mined. And so on. Priorities can be set up as well, with the player choosing to make that gold mine a priority and then the roads between cities... etc.

And so when you automate the workers, all they need to do is follow your plan and its priorities. And when your plan is complete, they can't be automated.

ie: Give the hex/square orders, don't give worker units orders.

[cazfi]

In freeciv-2.6 development code one can set "workertask" in city dialog. Currently this is limited to only one tile improvement / city. Autosettlers do these tasks first, only to decide things autonomously when there's no such tasks waiting.

[TwoSalientOversight]

How do I go about testing this?

[jerk-o]

Would it be possible to set up something for automated workers that's similar to the Citizen Govener? Being able to prioritize different types of terrain and terrain improvements might make it easier to just automate workers/engineers and still get the tile improvements you want. Example: Give forest tiles a factor of 5, give Plains with a buffalo a factor of 7, give Desert with no oil a factor of 0, and give Desert with oil a factor of 7 (with a possible way to "suggest" whether to put a mine or irrigation or a road on the tile).

[adamo]

Auto-cleaning pollution would be a great improvement.

[Alien Valkyrie]

Auto-cleaning pollution would be a great improvement.

Have to agree here. An option that'll automatically clean up pollution and fallout and then return to the city would be nice. Also, the Engineers/Workers should work together to do it quickly, but there shouldn't be ten engineers cleaning one piece of pollution when two of them already only need one turn.

[GriffonSpade]

Would it be possible to set up something for automated workers that's similar to the Citizen Govener? Being able to prioritize different types of terrain and terrain improvements might make it easier to just automate workers/engineers and still get the tile improvements you want. Example: Give forest tiles a factor of 5, give Plains with a buffalo a factor of 7, give Desert with no oil a factor of 0, and give Desert with oil a factor of 7 (with a possible way to "suggest" whether to put a mine or irrigation or a road on the tile).

Even something as simple as filtering out whether a terrain should ever get irrigation or mines.

On a larger, more difficult scale, it would be awesome if the advisors (unit advisors especially) were softcoded (ruleset or even client controlled). Being able to make our own micro AIs would be great.

[Grumbler]

i had an auto-engineer turning land into ocean, isolating my city! wtf!? a tile with a railroad no less. i wanted to smash my notebook to the wall.

something must be done about this. civ3 afair has at least some options like "keep improvements" and "keep forest".

[Ignatus]

Usually auto-workers clean pollution first if they find enough of it; the problem is that if the global warming goes on rampage they have no way to rise your sunken land back (if only your ruleset does not define floating engineers). Auto-workers are hardly appliable in real games since there are enemies everywhere capturing and killing them; it would be an advantage if we could restrict their movement to safe areas only, or better to make auto-run-away order like we may have autoattack.

[Grumbler]

also i had auto-engineers entering transports of allied nations and ending up spread across the map in the middle of nowhere i mean wtf