Version 2.0 keeps players in control without the overwhelming micromanagement.
The crafting queue is gone.
The crafting quotas and priorities system is in.
It is very straightforward:
Set how much of a thing you want
Decide what priority it has, if any, of the things the crafter can build.
There is no step 3.
This lets you set your nation up as a well-oiled machine. Once you set it up, you will never be interrupted with a “crafter idle” message again because they are never idle – unless you want them to be due to having enough of whatever item they were crafting and you want those resources to go elsewhere.
Let’s take a look:
Crafting at the city level
Here we have a weaver. This is one of the more complicated supply chains in the game and yet now, it’s just so obvious and simple once you get past the excessively gridded looking UI.
So here I always want to have 25 rope in my nation. That’s because a lot of construction projects, especially Triumphs, need rope. So, I set that to 25. Once I have 25, it goes to the next item: fabric. However, if at any time I go below 25 rope, it will switch back to working on rope until I get back to 25.
Then I have fabric which is used everywhere, but if I do manage to stockpile 30 fabric, it’ll go down to the tunics which use fabric. I only need, say, 10 of those. Tunics, in turn, are an element of garments. I only want to keep a stockpile of 5 since it’s just used as an amenity and as long as I have 5 spare, I should be good to go.
Crafting at the national level
Late Game: Self Manage
So, you’ve taken over an enemy city on around turn 600. I know in early game, you were so diligent about every little thing in the cities you care about, but the city of Zamora? I conquered it. And I don’t care. I mean, I care, because I’m a really caring kind of dictator, but I don’t care care and the game is asking me to set up the 17 little shops in this conquered city. This is where you just let the Zamorians handle it. They seem nice. They lived here. They know what’s up. So, in 2.0, there’s a new button next to “Rename”:
. . .and the next turn it has set up the entire priority list here. Sure, it put “Indoor Toilets” as the lowest priority, but we’re not here to judge. This is a place of love. Not a place of sanitation. We wouldn’t want to shake hands with the Zamorians, but as you can see, it set up the priority list and it intelligently chose ingredients, and it made sure I have lots of money before using that (I’m running a huge surplus). It didn’t fill some of the slots with anything because I didn’t have enough of that in stock, but someday, we will have toilets, because as soon as that first toilet is done, it’s going to London. It needs it.
I’m not sure what it says about me that I have a slot for “Piano” but not a slot for “Toilet” in housing improvements, but it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to touch that piano.