One thing that's always bothered me about city automation.

[Sailor]

Okay, first of all, I think it's very cool that, by default, you have to have a family member in a city to control taxes, construction, and recruitment. But there's one thing that's always bothered me. If I am trying to save up for one very expensive improvement in one of my cities, I can never get there because the automated cities use up all of my money if I let it sit.


What I would really like is a way to not allow the automated governors to build anything at all. I always move the save/spend slider all the way to save, but that seems to make no difference. I have had to resort to turning on "manage all settlements", and then whenever I have a city without a family member, clicking "automate" on that city screen, but then unchecking the recruitment and construction boxes, and not allowing myself to build anything there.

I'm would really like to come up with a better solution, and to hear your opinions on this. I am playing on hard with EB by the way, which I think exacerbates the problem, because there are hugely expensive buildings in it that really have to be saved up for. Is there a better way to deal with it in game, or is there a way to mod it?

[The Hedge Knight]

How about you just untick the little arrows for construction and recruitment for every settlement so they don't build anything?

[Sailor]

Josst, that's exactly what I do. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear from the OP. It's just that that solution is not very elegant. I end up moving family members in and out of settlements quite often, so it's tedious. And it's just a lot more fun if it's the game restricting me from directly governing all settlements, rather than me using a house rule where I don't allow myself to build anything in settlements without a family member. Plus, sometimes, I do want them to build things [of their own choice]. But that's what the spend/save slider should do. However, if you put it all the way on save, it still seems to build stuff just about any chance it gets. If you're trying to save up for a 30,000 cost building in your capital, you will never get there. CA introduced a very cool feature, I just find it unusable because the spend/save slider doesn't do its job.

As I said, I would like to find a better solution. It seems that moving the slider all the way to save doesn't do much. Maybe one could modify the effect of the slider, so that if you move it all the way to save, your automated governors will never build anything at all.

[Lysimachus]

Click the "Control all settlements" button then. (or whatever it's called)

[|Sith| Max]

yeah that works best. does take an incredible ammount of time.

[Sailor]

Legnica, that's what I've been doing. |Sith|Count_Max, I realize it's not a big deal at all, and that it's pretty simple to just turn control all settlements on, and make sure to only build/recruit when there's a family member there. I understand if you think it's a dumb question/complaint/forum topic, but maybe someone actually has an idea for a solution. I play RTW a lot, and I'm always trying to make my experience with it that much closer to perfection.

1) It's a little annoying to do it manually like that with a "house rule" basically, when CA has actually implemented it into the game.

2) I actually do want autonomous governors a lot of the time, and hoping they'll build what they should. However, sometimes I just want to save up for a few turns for a certain building.

If the save/spend slider simply worked properly, it would completely address my complaints, and make it a perfect system. When put all the way to save, I believe governors should not build/recruit at all. As it is, the slider hasn't made any noticeable difference for me. So, I thought maybe someone more knowledgeable than myself would have some clue as to how the function of the spend/save slider could be adjusted.

Once again, I am playing the latest version of EB on hard campaign difficulty, if that makes any difference at all.

[Sextus Molestus]

I see your point, Mr. Sailor, and I agree that it would be frustrating, but I believe that Legnica is correct in that there is no alternative.

[Steve2295]

I believe there is a slide button with Spend and Save.

Simply slide the ball to the save side. Or crack out the cheats

[Lysimachus]

Well, since it's impossible for the game to detect what you want to build a feature like this would be impossible to implement. Sadly, the game is not a mind reader and you're going to have to build what you want by yourself

[Sailor]

I see your point, Mr. Sailor, and I agree that it would be frustrating, but I believe that Legnica is correct in that there is no alternative.

But there is an alternative. CA already has it in the game. It's the spend/save slider which I have mentioned a few times in this thread, and Steve also mentioned. The only detail is that it doesn't seem to do much. If you put it all the way to save, the automated governors still seems to build/recruit just about every chance they get. If that slider simply worked, it would make the whole system vastly better than it is now. So I thought someone more knowledgeable than me would have an idea about the spend/save slider works, and how it could be modified to be more effective.

[G-Megas-Doux]

Remember that there is a building policy that each settlement follows as a general couse and taxes I believe will be adjustable also. All you need to do is review the finance scroll every turn so you can see it makes money then adjust with minimum interferance when needed.