At what point do you guys automate planets?

[FULLCOMMUNISM]

Playing a massive map. I currently have like 20 core worlds and just now have managed to control my entire cluster, and there are two more clusters to go. Its starting to become tedious managing each planet, and its only going to get worse.

How is the AI at managing them? Do they handle over-population or am I going to check in on a planet in 50 turns and have everyone hating me or have it completely tiled over with houses?

[Illauna]

I never let the AI manage my cores. Once my empire is anywhere that large it's not that critical I micro each planet. So I'll just batch up a bunch of terraforming projects then do a round of improvement building. Otherwise, I might just set it to repeat build wealth or something else.

[ghost88]

I never, ever, never let the AI control anything but the AI races.
Letting it do your work IMHO is the wrong move

[graphitepaddle]

Originally posted by ghost88:

I never, ever, never let the AI control anything but the AI races.
Letting it do your work IMHO is the wrong move

+1

Even when every hex on a planet has something on it (i.e. nothing more to build), I still don't trust the AI.

Support some new hexes become available later in the game? The AI is too stupid to build on those correctly.

[Gregorovitch]

Never.

[Dorian Gray]

Ditto. I never automate either.

[pandreon]

I never want to waste electricity on a game to play itself. The point of gaming is for ME to do things. Otherwise, why not just watch sports?

[Dorian Gray]

Originally posted by pandreon:

I never want to waste electricity on a game to play itself. The point of gaming is for ME to do things. Otherwise, why not just watch sports?

Cannot agree more.

I have conquered worlds and seen the results of GC4's AI Planet Automation. Yuck!

If I want to optimize production from a conquered world, I have to tear down and rebuild a bunch of stuff every time. Why would I want to subject my own worlds to the mismanagement?

Only maybe once the planet is fully developed and it is becoming too tedious to manage myself..... But the game is nearly over by that point....

[Arknen]

Just look at the tile management of any colony you take over. That should tell you enough about how well the AI manages the resources on any planet. I end up rebuilding every assimilated or conquered planet from scratch. I wouldn't let the AI manage anything.

[pandreon]

I think the AI would do better to just decide on one purpose for each planet and spam those districts, rather than even try anything complicated.