Regarding governors

From reading the encyclopaedia it seems the way the governors work is pretty straight forward.

But my question is how effective are they in reality? Since all your planets have different production levels then your buildings and units will be popping out at different rates.

And what happens when you add a recently colonised planet to a governors list that contains planets that are already quite developed?

Just interested to know how you beta testers have handled those problems.
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Reply #1 Top
From what I understand, the governor would probably more accurately be called a "production template". It's just an ordered list of things to build in a specific order. You might set one up for new colonies in safe areas that emphasise infrastructure and population/economic growth, another one for new planets in hostile territory that produce more defensive improvements in the beginning and infrastructure later, another one for producing primarily warships, etc. If you assigned a governor to a planet that already had certain improvements, it would presumably skip building those because they are already there but otherwise follow the plan specified.

Can anybody confirm or deny this?

--Soulfire
Reply #2 Top
Basically Governors are just build queus. You don't add planets to the governor's list, you asign a governor to a planet. So in essense you have 4 unique build queus that you can assign to planets at specific times. I usually have 1 governor for research, one for manufacturing, one for new colonies and one for economic growth. I keep an eye out for moral and deal with that myself as well as building trade goods and wonders.

~SDC~
Reply #3 Top
I like the idea, they are no jackass Vicious-Roys LOL !

But why just 4 queues ? If there were more they could be more "specialized", wouldn'it be useful ?
Reply #4 Top
I agree having maybe 8 would be better and would be happy if they increased the number, but I'm pretty sure I can live with 4.

Maybe they just couldn't think up enough snappy names like Mr. Smith and Ms. Jones to have more than four? :D

--Soulfire
Reply #5 Top
Ah ok that makes more sense, I assumed they were more like regional governors. I guess they're more ministers or secretaries than governors.

And yes, in an empire of possibly a 100 billion people you would expect more than 4 ministers, they must have some pretty hefty portfolio's :)
Reply #6 Top
I don't usually even use more than 1 or 2 until late in the game... and even then at least 1 has barely anything in their queue and only get assigned rarely... but that's just me.

~SDC~
Reply #7 Top
Uhhhh, can someone compare this to say CivIII?

I'm used to in CivIII being able to decide exactly what each city builds at any given time.

This sounds like I have 4 build queues, which though I can change, all my planets must be using one?!?

This kinda seems overly restrictive. Am I wrong? Or do I just not see 'the big picture'?
Reply #8 Top
The names for some (all?) of those governors are other people who work for Stardock.

~SDC~
Reply #10 Top
Travathian -- I've gotten the distinct impression that using a governor is NOT mandatory; in other words, if you want to adjust every build queue in your Galactic Empire to make them all unique, you can. What the governors might be particularly good for would be building up new colonies, since there might be some basic buildings you'd like to see on large numbers of worlds.
Reply #11 Top
There are effectively 5 build queues - 4 Governors and no Governor. I find that I only use 1 governor in most games and have the queue contain generic projects. Any colony I want to have build specific project(s), gets the personal touch and I override or suppliment the build queue. On larger maps multiple Governors can be a big help.
Reply #12 Top
I too was going to suggest having more production templates (governors). If there were 8 I would still use them all. My nature is to think very deeply and do more customizing or refinement of my strategies.


NEW SUGGESTION: First, I assume that the player decides for himself "what" items to put into his governor templates. How about having the templates saved to a file, so that they don't have to be re-entered for each new game?
Reply #13 Top
The governors are only used for the social project list. The ship projects are completely different. (Yes, you can build a ship and a building at the same time.) The governor's list can be overridden without unassigning the governor so you could decide to assign the building of something not on a list and after it is built the planet will then switch back to the governor's list.

~SDC~
Reply #14 Top
As far as saving the templates, I think that is a great idea. Just have the template saved as the governor. Then you can 'call up' whichever governors you need for the type of situation you're in.
Reply #15 Top
"As far as saving the templates, I think that is a great idea. Just have the template saved as the governor. Then you can 'call up' whichever governors you need for the type of situation you're in."

Yes, that would rock. :)

--Soulfire
Reply #16 Top
Yes, yes, thank you, thank you.

[Crouds cheering, pure extacy ensues.....] ;)


Want another suggestion?

A "Quick game" button like MOO3 has. This button makes it so you don't have to re-enter all your race picks and game settings all over again if you don't like your galaxy starting position. You just hit the quick game button and it simply generates a new galaxy without having the toil of re-entering all your setup choices.

(Frankly, I really think MOO3 got that idea from the SSG forum about 18 months ago when I suggested it for SSG. Who knows? Well, anyway....)
Reply #17 Top
Actually Stardocks The Corporate Machine defaulted to the opposition settings of the last game. I really liked that.


~SDC~
Reply #18 Top
Ion Stream, just use Ctrl-N and you'll get exactly what you suggested.
Reply #19 Top
The "Quick Game" has been a feature of at least the last two Civ games (maybe all 3 I don't remember if the first one had it or not) and it was always very handy.

--Soulfire