Problems with Worker automation..

[Mylon]

So I tried automating my workers just to see how that would work and if it would save me time. That was a big mistake.

The workers focused mostly on building farm after farm so my cities grew to huge numbers before I could reasonably support them. Worse is that my economy was doing very poorly because I had no commerce. I had to take manual control of my workers to put down more hamlets. I was able to do this in such a way that my city populations didn't go down very much at all, but my commerce went way up.

The moral of the story: If you want it done right, do it yourself.

On a side note, automating trade network works just fine--it homes in on resources and builds the appropriate building and builds roads. They have their priorities right, and there's not much to mess up anyway.

[Nailfoot]

In all of Civ I have never been a fan of automated workers. I just don't trust em. It seems to me that after all this time flags would have been introdueced on the worker's behaviors. There is one, Not to destroy any improvements already implemented, but that may not be enough.

Oh well.

[Mylon]

The way I build improvements is very straightforward:

Natural production - Improvement:

1 food - Farm
2 food - Cottage
1 industry, 1 food - Sawmill (tundra forest)
Hills - Windmill.

This way heavily emphasis commerce and limits industry but allows the support of an arbitrarily large empire. I don't build things fast but I build them in large quantities. Plus, the commerce gives me a tech advantage so I can get a head start.

I think the cottages are just a litte too useful: At town level with the right techs/civic, they provide some 7-8 gold. This gets multiplied the heck out of when it comes to research and commerce buildings.

[Gelondil]

Odd, my automated workers did exactly the opposite. It seems all they want to produce is commerce, at the loss of production and food to a lesser extent.