The two words that I hate in this game

Hehe, I know what you mean... I always have full production queues so the idle bonuses are pointless to me. But it depends on play style I guess.

I don't mind cities being idle when they have built their useful parts. I'm not going to start building units in a conclave just to keep the queue full.

Haven't played much of Beta 4 yet, but there have only been a couple of cases in previous games where any of my cities have had a chance to sit idle - there were always useful improvements to be built of one kind or another, and the backwater settlements that didn't need to churn out troops also tended not to reach high levels and get the better buildings.

Then again, it also doesn't help that I never get to the late game on large maps any more due to the load save/crash bug, so my cities tend to be limited in number and geared towards troop production.

These should all be cut they dont add any fun to the game. They subtract fun by encouraging the non-fun strategy.

Cities, especially now in Beta 4, should never be left idle in the first 100 turns or so. There has to be a prompt when cities go idle and it shouldn't go away until you explicitly select an 'idle' option for the city.

Oh, and by prompt, I mean an obtrusive pop-up every turn.

Agreed, especially now that using every bit of production is so important. We definitely need a popup or a better warning for when a city finishes its queue. Although I am not in favour of another popup, I'd rather have a user interface animation with a sound played.

I think all bonuses when idle should be removed and replaced with something else. Its annoying, and I never want such buildings. It feels half-baked to me. 

I agree that a production warning (with an option to toggle it on/off in options) would be nice. Warlock: Master of the Arcane does this so well, that sometimes I feel the game is playing itself

I've been saying this since WoM. The message at the right side of the screen is not enough. At the minimum we should receive a message when pressing end turn asking if we're sure we want to end turn even though some of the cities are idle.

Also, I agree that the buildings that only have "when idle" bonuses seem stupid. I'd rather have every single building give some sort of "when idle" bonus, so that your city's idle state becomes more powerful each time you build something.

ofc no but there is ALWAYS something to build

even some research building to have a better research later

right now i just dont see much working

i mean i always choose to build something because if i have 50% research more for few turns then i will have 70 80 less for the next

i dont know  the idea behind is interesting but it doesnt seems to work totally, but im open to hear some different feedback

My biggest problem with "does X when idle" is the placement in the current system, conclaves get this extremely early on, when they have tons of stuff to build, while it would be more fitting as a lvl 4-5 upgrade or a lategame building when you are running out of options.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I agree. Warlock has an excellent solution for that, though it's not completely copyable as the queue there makes a difference between units and buildings.

In AOW:SM when a city is idle it automatically converts is productivity points it generates into gold per turn based on the size and any production bonuses the city has.  It is simple and you don't waste an ability to give it this ability.  So if there is nothing in a que for a city don't worry your getting cash from it.

This sounds like a simple solution worth trying if they can't think of anything better.  I think they call the option in AoW "Produce Goods" or something like that, of course FE doesn't have to use identical terminology.

Anyway, I like the idea.

I really dislike the "when idle" mechanic myself.  It's boring.  I never pick those options because they're boring.

You have to watch the upper left for when cities go idle.

Yes, FE needs to steal the idea of Civ5, where the Next Turn button isn't even there until you've made all the decisions you need to make.  It gets replaced with a button that addresses the next decision pending.  And yes, "Idle" should be a specific thing you have to set the city to, and it should show what bonuses you will get at that city if you choose it.

Quoting myself from another thread:

All these %-when-idle bonuses should be replaced with bonuses dependent on the kind of hero(s) that's governing the city.  So wealth and production bonuses require a hero with the Administrator trait to be stationed in the city.  Research bonuses require a Researcher.  Magic bonuses are generated based on the type of magic skills the heroes stationed there have.  Military bonuses could be calculated based on the Strength/Agility/HP of the stationed heroes.

As such, units stationed in a city with a bonus-producing building should gain a trickle of experience (regardless of whether they have the applicable skill).

I don't like them either. I especially don't like that a Conclave's most significant early game research bonus is when idle. 

That's a good idea.  Maybe bonus scales with level, and this would also be a buff to governor heroes.  The hero should get free xp as well.

Problem is you'd need to get the levels to get lvl 3 in those skills, why I suggest the free xp so bonus to both hero and town.

i don't like the "when idle" stuff either... maybe if it was an awesome benefit worth doing, but i don't believe the current benefits outweigh building more stuff.

I agree.  'When idle' boni should either:

1. be gained when a city becomes level 2, and increase with each level thereafter.  Towns should gain gildar (+25%/50%/75%/100%) and growth(+1/2/3/4); fortresses should gain xp for trained units(+1/2/3/4) and reduced unrest(-5%/10%/15%/20%); conclaves should gain research and mana (+25%/50%/75%/100% each).  Maybe these bonuses would be enough to be a viable choice for the player?
2. go away.

I also agree the "when idle" bonuses are of little use.   I will often not build a building with this bonus unless it comes with another useful bonus or I have just run out of stuff to build near the end of the game and will actually have cities sitting idle.   By that time I am usually just deciding which method I will use to win the game and am powerful enough that the bonuses have little real value since I have tons of gold and have already researched every tech.  They should get rid of them or make them big enough there might actually be a benefit at a particular point n the game where using the idle bonus out-weighs the drawbacks of halting production.

If you stack several when idle bonuses in the same city, especially the bigger ones, you can leave that city idle and use your other ones.  Some of those bonuses are awesome.

I'm okay with idle bonuses, even if I rarely put them to use. You can actually see the type of idle bonus the city is getting (if any) in the city display bar. My biggest concern is that they often come to early. My guess is that they were implemented to make rush researching the civ tree less impactful. I honestly haven't tried bee-lining warfare instead so I can't say if they are working correctly. Given that research comes from city levels though, and how much a difference food from tech/buildings makes, it's unlikely bee-lining warfare would be a viable strategy.

If they increased base food from grain and reduced grain gained from buildings the idle bonus for warfare civs might become more relevant.

Yes! Also, you could actually put "produce goods" into the production queue. So if you were low on cash you could "produce goods" for three turns and then produce a unit.

Sort-of agree with OP, but it depends partly on details of implementation.  If they could make it faster to build things and tweak it so some cities would spend more time being idle while top-line specialist cities focused on building stuff, then ok.  Otherwise ..... AoW:SM really did handle this well, like everyone says.