Worker tile improvement spam...why??

[apostatedogfish]

I use manual workers from the start (so that I can develope my land as I need it, the way I want it) until I start going to war. I automate them only when it gets to be a pain to be moving a ton of military units AND a bunch of workers. If after conquests I need anything new done NOW, it's easy enough to wake an automated worker and send him to work.

I'd have liked expanded automation options like in Civ3, and I don't like have the "only virgin terrain" type of automation being in the options menu. Ideally, workers should have the "automate: cut forests", etc., options of the past. (Or, give the new importances, an automate: DON'T chop forests" choice.) Why did they remove them?

[Tattila the Hun]

It almost sounds like you didn't notice that Civ3 has automated workers too...

Anyways, I wonder if they stay away from the FRIGGIN' BORDERS OF A NATION I'M AT WAR WITH! Since the AI has a thing for pillaging, it's even more frustrating, when something gets pillaged, and the autoworkers hurry to fix the damage, and get captured...

[seebs]

I have autoworkers spamming roads in other empires, and I don't know why.

That said, if I'm on a largish map, I often carefully build new cities far enough out that I have open spaces between them suitable for filling in after my initial land grab, and I wouldn't mind at all having automated workers fill that in.

[Skanky Burns]

If they improve tiles within your city radius first, I don't see that you have much to complain about. Its either improve tiles you may use later or sit and twiddle thumbs. A potential benefit is better than nothing.

Plus did it occur to you to unautomate them once the city tiles are improved?

[Balderdash]

Originally posted by seebs
I have autoworkers spamming roads in other empires, and I don't know why.

They are building up your trade network.

[seebs]

Well, okay, then explain "converting roads to railroads in other empires".

[Aro]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
at least workers can be stopped from automatically destroying previous tile improvements

How?

[Frank Johnson]

The worker automation will put your economy on the same level as the AIs. I suspect that alot of people having trouble winning at the lower levels are relying too heavily on it.

The automation doesn't have the ability to think ahead and plan for future improvements, leave forests, or balance production/food/commerce optimally.

Basicly if you learn a decent worker first start and moderate your own workers to keep some forests and balance your farms and cottages, you will take your game up two levels against the AI...

As it is, the automated AI will randomly fly in after some tech advance like civil service or biology, and demolish fully matured cities for useless farms, or replace all your mines with windmills.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Balderdash

Why? Seriously, how is this ruining your gameplay so much so that it merits a full-blown forum rant?

Now, had you complained about idle workers changing your farms to towns like they often like to do regardless of the starvation factor, then you'd have a case. But to complain that idle workers build roads instead just sleeping and wasting a valuable turn is just plain silly.

Who said anything about it ruining gameplay? Please reread my post (note how I give the automation overall high marks). I don't see how this constitutes a "rant." Do you know what that word even means?

And how is it any less "wasting a valuable turn" for a worker to be doing nothing rather than making useless tile improvements? That's as nonsensical a statement as I've seen.

I wish there was a way to automate your workers and not have them tear down every forest in sight. Forests matter now that they add a health point to your cities AND you can't replant them like you could in earlier civs. Is there a reliable way to automate workers without them going nuts with the axes?

Precisely, thank you. This is the problem with the tile improvement spamming--it will destroy all your forests, even those outside city radii. That makes little sense.

Anyways, I wonder if they stay away from the FRIGGIN' BORDERS OF A NATION I'M AT WAR WITH! Since the AI has a thing for pillaging, it's even more frustrating, when something gets pillaged, and the autoworkers hurry to fix the damage, and get captured...

This has happened to you? Not to me. That's one of the cool things I've seen about workers on auto: when you get invaded by an enemy AI, they automatically retreat to the nearest city and won't come out again until the danger is gone.

If they improve tiles within your city radius first, I don't see that you have much to complain about. Its either improve tiles you may use later or sit and twiddle thumbs. A potential benefit is better than nothing.

If there's nothing left to improve that's useful, I again don't see why them 'twiddling their thumbs' is a bad idea. There should at least be an option that workers auto inside city radii and building road networks only, in addition to them spamming the landscape with improvements. I miss many of the auto options in Civ3 (one of the few things).

Plus did it occur to you to unautomate them once the city tiles are improved?

I shouldn't have to is my point. That involves me having to keep track of what they are doing, waiting until that point where all the city tiles are improved and then manually hunting them all down and de-automating them. That somewhat defeats the point of automating them in the first place, IMO.