Issues with Small Statues / Monuments

[huxtiblejones]

So, I have a fairly large city. A ton of Mastabas, 13 educated workers, 64+ farms, 30 military men, one finished very small pyramid, one half-way finished small pyramid, and a lot of empty bases for monuments (such as Lesser Striding Pharaoh) that need "small statues." Now, I have a basalt quarry that has quarried out about 11 of these small statues. There is a work camp there, and its actually not too far away from the regular city. It has shops, an entertainer, 10 laborer's houses, an overseer, and a shrine. The problem is, I can never get the laborers to work on taking the small statues over to the places they need to be. I even put one small anubis statue right next to the basalt quarry to see if they would react and they didn't do a thing. Yes, all the bases are built, it says "50% completed, 0/1 small statues." I have tried setting the overseer to oversee the nearest site, quarry basalt statues, oversee construction, and nothing works. The laborers simply walk over to the quarry and stand around for a few seconds, then go home, all the while the overseer is overseeing the statue base!

I dont understand it. But, I might have a hunch. I have the pyramid quarry camp across the river. It is a fairly large camp, 10 laborers, 1 overseer, and they have absolutely no trouble building the pyramid. Now the major problem I am seeing is that the laborers from across the river are taking reed boats over, walking through the city, and over to the basalt quarry. From where they begin, that is a freaking long walk. So what I think is happening is that the should-be pyramid builders are going over to the other half of the map to quarry, getting exhausted and going home, and the people that should be at the basalt quarry are going across to the pyramids. This is a major lack of control that I have. I've tried shutting off either of the overseers for a while, and then they start quarrying basalt across the river, and on this map, I cannot import cedar for barges, so there is no way I can get those ones across.

What is going on?! I have screens too, if you'd like to see them.

[Wicked Mouse]

Ever considered to set your overseer's job to "Oversee construction"?
Oh nevermind. I see you did.

Well laborers aren't specially assigned to one overseer, as you may figured. To let laborers haul statues to a site, you will need to set the overseer to "oversee construction". But overseers have a way of priority too. So when a pyramid is going to be built, that's the number one thing they will go to. Every overseer that's set to construction. Then laborers will haul the large stones that are needed. When a (second) overseer goes to a statue that needs to be built some of the labour force will go and haul a statue to the site the overseer has been standing next. But just like every worker out there they need rest and food. So now and then they will return.

There are two things you could do: make sure you begin with projects that require laborers' help one by one. Or get a laborer force big enough that will handle all the tasks it's assigned to. An overseer can oversee a lot of laborers. You only need more than one if you really like to do more than one job at the time (quarry statues, dig gold, mine emeralds, etc.)

[huxtiblejones]

I finally solved that problem. All I had to do is let them finish the pyramid and the AI kind of took over on its own. Now I have around 8 or 9 Grand Obelisks, probably 20+ small / large statues, 2 pyramids (VS, S) and 1 in production (M.) I also have 2 cult temples and 4 regular temples.

Morale of the Story: Don't attempt anything else until you're done with your pyramid!

[Maatkaamun]

Morale of the Story: Don't attempt anything else until you're done with your pyramid!

With multiple overseers in Men-nefer, I did manage to get other things built while the pyramid was building. However, it required every overseer who was set to construction to visit the pyramid, then decide that he didn't need to duplicate and wander off to construct a statue or stele. So, if you duplicate enough, things work. (at least IMO) :D

[huxtiblejones]

With multiple overseers in Men-nefer, I did manage to get other things built while the pyramid was building. However, it required every overseer who was set to construction to visit the pyramid, then decide that he didn't need to duplicate and wander off to construct a statue or stele. So, if you duplicate enough, things work. (at least IMO) :D

haha, I think that too was my problem, except the distance between the basalt overseer and the pyramid overseer was half the map across a river, so when he got back to the other side, he was too tired to work and went home. Damned lazy peons! Follow your 10 year old leader! (thats how old my Pharaoh was at the time :eek: )

[wodinoneeye]

After playing for 2 days and seeing alot of the problems others have reported
(as well as 3rd turtorial getting stuck etc..)

This problem with the construction projects getting delayed and jammed up really needs to get fixed in the first patch that they do.

Too frustration seeing the workforce wasted while they sit idle (all of them continuing to consume) and yet for some reason in the tutorial the quarrying teams fill up the valley with cut blocks. (Having 2 overseers die off waiting for them to get something completed is too rediculous)

Im seriously thinking of getting a refund and buying it again next year when they might have these bugs fixed.


Maybe they need to add a pull down menu listing all the current construction projects so they can explicitly be chosen.
The same may be needed for laborers to better control which project they work on...

[Son of Moose]

Wodinoneye:

Maybe they need to add a pull down menu listing all the current construction projects so they can explicitly be chosen.
The same may be needed for laborers to better control which project they work on...

That could indeed prove helpful and assist with assigning labourers to desired construction sites. :)

[huxtiblejones]

What I would kill to see is to have the menu you were talking about + the ability to designate which laborers belonged to which overseer, that way you could not waste manpower on switching up your projects and having people do them that live as far away as possible.

Imagine this:

You right click on the overseer
It says "Projects>>"
You click on that.
It gives you a dropdown menu on all needed work, and you select one.
Then you click on the overseer again
It says "Select Laborers."
Cursor switches to a laborer symbol and you choose 10 houses for which that one overseer will explicitly control.

It gives the ability to actually keep things moving instead of relying on semi-broken AI to do it for you. When it works, the AI is beautiful, but when it doesn't, it seems so retarded. They just sit around wondering what to do, all the while there is a giant pyramid right outside there doorstep with cargo drop-offs loaded with limestone. It is not human nature for workers to not do work that is right in front of them with their boss as a neighbor! Fix it pleeeease.

[Wicked Mouse]

After playing for 2 days and seeing alot of the problems others have reported
(as well as 3rd turtorial getting stuck etc..)

This problem with the construction projects getting delayed and jammed up really needs to get fixed in the first patch that they do.

Too frustration seeing the workforce wasted while they sit idle (all of them continuing to consume) and yet for some reason in the tutorial the quarrying teams fill up the valley with cut blocks. (Having 2 overseers die off waiting for them to get something completed is too rediculous)

Im seriously thinking of getting a refund and buying it again next year when they might have these bugs fixed.


Maybe they need to add a pull down menu listing all the current construction projects so they can explicitly be chosen.
The same may be needed for laborers to better control which project they work on...Or just expand slowly :D

[huxtiblejones]

Here is a menu example I whipped up real quick just to give you a visual idea of what I mean. So in this case, the user would have 4 projects to work on. They could tell the overseer to work on 1 of them, any of them, or whichever is closest. (I would also add in "off duty") Now, below that is the number of laborers the user can still choose to serve under this pverseer, that number being 5. I think it would be cool to be able to specifically control your camps, it would bring it a lot more micromanagement for the people that need it. Its hard to control the manpower when you have a large city. I also think it would be neat if there was a setting to put laborers on "Help Any Project," so that when the overseer was off duty, they could still go around and help any projects that are close and short of hands.

Ideas?

[EDIT: Dear god I cannot spell at night time.]

[Wicked Mouse]

I think the idea of the devs is to make a citybuilder where the people do the jobs. So you plan the city and place the construction sites and your people do the rest. So they left out the "total control" out on purpose. But would agree that the citizens could use a bit more intelligence :)

[Son of Moose]

It might however be an extremely useful "extra" for those players who are keen on increasing their micromanagement of the game. :) Those, who are not so keen on micromanagement, could then choose not to enable this additional feature. :)

[Wicked Mouse]

True, true :cool:

[Innovan]

Some possibilities:

1) Go back to area effects. An Overseer only directs the laborers living within 10 squares of his building. Cntl-L on a family home allows you to relocate that family elsewhere on the map.

2) Work camps. Overseers when placed also have a fenced in area where you can build laborers houses that are assigned to that laborer. Better coordinated, but hard to move.

3) Labor crew flags. Each Overseer has a symbol for his workcrew. When assigned to a job, his work crew flag appears at his next job site that he's walking to, and on all the laborers he's employing to do the job. You can override workcrew flags on laborers and others in the Overseer's employ manually.

4) Ability to activate an Overseer and then click directly on the worksite to complete.

[NilePlanckton]

I agree with these solutions! I also had problems with AI and the management of monument building, etc. More control wouldn't necessarily take the fun out of the game, or diverge from the original idea, but would make things easier, in my opinion. :D

[huxtiblejones]

I would just like it because sometimes the aesthetic doesn't incorporate the practical. Sometimes you want to build things that are remote and far away, and the work camps aren't there... or maybe you want to build it right in the city, but your workcamps are all sourced around quarries, resulting in a long time walking and a short time working. Better coordination is only an option that you can use if you feel the need to, there really is no permanent need.