BIG problems with automated workers

[stormwriter]

During mid-game last night, I research the necessary technologies (Metal Casting and Replaceable Parts) to get more production from my workshops and lumbermills.
I was excited about this, thinking my army of automated workers would immediately upgrade/improve the land to make use of these newer improvements.

WRONG.

For example:

I had an irrigated farm on a grassland tile yielding three food and one commerce for the tile.
I ordered my worker to destroy the farm and build a watermill, which adds two production to the base grassland terrain square, for a total of two food, two hammers, and one commerce. Pretty good, in my opinion!

Next turn, my automated workers went back to it and turned it back into an irrigated farm.

So, apparently automated workers think a three food square is better than a two food and two hammer square!

Now i'm stuck. I can't trust my automated workers now. Do i have to manually tell them what to do from now on, if i wanted to focus on getting hammers from the land?

I checked, and there is NO option telling my workers what my priorities are, in terms of output per tile.

Should i use the "Improve only in NEAREST CITY" automated option for a little more control over them?

I can't sit there and tell my workers what to do for every little tile. That would add way more micromanagement.

[Aaron_Bevan]

Turn on the option that stops automated works from destroying previously built improvements, this will help a little thus allowing you to automate your workers but if you want to change any improvemnets you will have to do it manualy. The biggest downside here is you cant tell them to leave trees alone so eventualy they might cut down all your trees.

I like your idea of creating a priority list but even then it might not be whats best for that particular city.

Does anyone know if setting the city to focus on production ect affect the workers automation for its improvements around the city?

[stormwriter]

>>Does anyone know if setting the city to focus on production ect affect the workers automation for its improvements around the city?

Aaron, i tried that last night, thinking it might be the solution to my problem. But i'm pretty sure that setting the city to focus on production only controls the way citizens work the land in the city radii, NOT how the workers build improvements to terrain.
Dangit.

[Solver]

The governor options control what tiles the citizens work. However, in the game options dialog, the option to tell Workers to leave previous improvements alone prevents automated workers from destroying your built improvements.

[stormwriter]

Oh, NOW it makes sense!

So, if i hear you correctly, the option under the OPTIONS menu should be paraphrased like:

"Check this box if you want to manually improve the terrain with a worker, but you DO NOT want the computer to come back and change what you clearly specified the worker to do."

Why do they use the word "old" improvements then? It didn't make sense. They should change that wording.

[Solver]

Dunno, makes sense to me. Old improvements = already existing. Thus, automated workers don't touch already existing improvements.

[Arkalius]

I don't use automated workers. I don't like how they prioritize things. They also like chopping down forests willy nilly. Forests may prevent tile improvements early on, but they are kind of like their own tile improvement. I only chop them down when I really need a different kind of improvement for the land. Also, forests give healthiness, 2 points for every 5 forest squares (1 point at 3 squares). This is a good thing.

[Sartaq]

Yes, the more I play the more I am staying away from auto workers.

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Oh I didn't know that workers responded to the governors actions. Maybe that's why when I set them to auto they build cottages all over the place instead of mines and farms, because I am emphasizing science...

[jdchambe]

I sometimes used to let the workers all go automated near the end game when the remaining details of the improvements don't much matter and I have other stuff to focus on. I did notice some serious bugs in the automated worker AI this evening though... The automated worker on my capital city destroyed most of the farms and replaced them with cottages. I suppose that would be fine, but when he was done, I went and looked at the city and because the worker had destroyed most of the farms the city was in starvation and it was impossible to arrange the citizens in such a way that they would not starve. the city was doing fine and the automated worker went in there and butchered the city's squares into starvation!!! Was he a spy?!

I'm fine if the automatic workers have different priorities than I do. I expect that. But it's absurd that the worker AI appeared to prioritize a starving citizenry! It doesn't usually happen, but the fact that it happenned at all means the automated workers will definitely never be allowed to destroy existing improvements again. Not in my games.

[krytonix]

Originally posted by Dr.Zoidberg
Oh I didn't know that workers responded to the governors actions....

No, you misread Solver here. He said the citizens respond to the governor settings, not the workers.

I would be perfectly happy with automated workers if they'd just stop trying to be lumberjacks. It seems to be better once you get lumbermills though... Maybe there could be an option of selecting tiles to leave alone? Or else a setting to leave forests alone would be keen. I definitely always turn on the setting to stay away from previously existing improvements.