Micromanagement Problem

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Micromanagement problem

Anti-matter is precious.

By cscoles Posted March 30, 2008 13:31:06

    I encountered a problem when playing the game that I might even send to support as a bug. The problem is that when a ship has two ability options, the ability consuming the least amount of anti-matter (and usually the lesser cool-down time) activates over and over. My capital ships, for instance, would never use top end abilities if I did not micromanage it.

    This would be fine ordinarily. I can turn off all the auto-casts and do it myself to an extent. But in huge, epic games, I might have 3 capital ships fighting at the same time. Micromanagement becomes too much. I am only human, not a computer. In that scenario, I had droid ships that I believe stopped healing because they spent all anti-matter on attack droids. And I do not think that I should have to set one droid ship to attack and the other to heal. That is not very flexible.

    The game needs a way to prioritize abilities. For example, I might be able to flag the ability "armistice" so that the capital ship saves anti-matter for it. That way, I could auto-cast "ion cannon" without fear of losing my ability to escape later on. The fix would be easy. Just tell the game not to use an ability when another is flagged unless the ship has enough anti-matter for both A and flagged B abilities. Obviously, the unflagged ability A should not actually cost as much as both A and B.

 

PS. Idea for an expansion:

I really liked the idea for training capital ship crews, but it could be made better. Why not be able to train different types of crews:

1) Conservative Crew

      - The conservative crew saves anti-matter based on the fix above.

2)  Warrior Crew

     - The warrior crew improves the base military functionality of the capital ship (eg. damage and armor), but loses conservation.

3)  Tactical Crew

     - The tactical crew might receive a bonus to anti-matter but not be able to conserve.

    This way, the user can choose which capital ships he would like to micromanage, and whether as a bonus for losing this ability he would like more anti-matter or more attack. But obviously, I would like this fix as soon as possible.

2,847 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Could you please delete the three unnecessary copies of this thread currently residing in the general forums? I think you went click-happy when posting this thread.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
The forums are slow, and sometimes it's hard to tell when your post has registered.

Anyways, right-click on the lower-power ability to turn its auto-execution off (the little circular arrow on it will disappear) and take manual control over it. That way, you'll be able to have sufficient antimatter for the more expensive power.

-- Retro
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
No, I know that. The problem is that turning all the skills off requires unmanageable micromanagement. Anyway, this is not the full post, and I cannot figure out how to delete it. Can anyone tell me?
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Well, I changed it to the full post at least. I think the moderator has to fix this.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
No worries, it's all good. These forums CAN be pretty slow. :\

You've got a good point about the smart antimatter usage too. It'd be nice to have the ability to designate a reserve amount that the computer will never auto-cast below. I hate having an enemy cap ship get away because I'm 10 antimatter short of an ion bolt...