Someone gimme a guide to using Workers in a non-retarded fashion.

[Forrester]

FYI, playing on a Temperate/Continental/Small world (any larger and my computer, she go boom).

I've recently been experimenting with the choprush strategy with Ghandi, and had some good success in the earlygoing. Actually I've been going warrior/warrior (while researching Polytheism), then bronze working and going worker/settler/settler. This allows me to get a quick religion (I found I'm helpless without one) with all of the benefits one gets then and later, get some warriors to explore the landscape/visit some huts, and still get a big settler boost. My techs after bronzeworking are those to help out the workers (agriculture, wheel, etc.) after which I grab another religion if I can, if not, on to ironworking or whatnot.

Anyway . . . the point is that I was doing fine on Noble difficulty (where I did not need to choprush) completely automating the workers. I can't do that if I'm going to choprush, though, especially if (given the lower health bonus I get on Prince) I want to hold on to some forests for later.

This means I need to manage my workers myself . . . and given my results on Prince (I jump out to an early lead, then end up losing), I don't know what I'm doing.

Any tips? After making the obvious improvements, I tend to build mostly cottages early, as they provide tasty tasty commerce, and mine all the hills . . . maybe farm some high-food zones, of course . . . but then what? What tiles should I be re-working as I get new techs?

[ghen]

I usually improve as to what the city needs, while keeping forests around as long as possible for the 'free' hammer. Chopping alot early can be really tiring for your workers and they won't get much else done. You shouldn't need cottages early before your 4th city I think, but be sure to pick out some spots for them to be placed later. make sure you get roads to rivers and coasts for the easy trade routes. Thats about it for vanilla that I can think up.

[Forrester]

For instance -- watermills, yes or no? Replace what with them? Lumbermills, worth it? Windmills, yes or no? Workshops, worth it at any point? I just did mines/farms/cottages, railroads when I could, lumbermills in the forests when I could . . . and clearly it didn't work for me the way automated workers did. I don't want to just switch back on automation, I want to know what I'm missing (yes, I could switch it back on for a game or two and follow what they're doing, I suppose, but every time they went for a forest I'd have to slap them down, and who is to say what they're doing is optimal? Just because it's better than what I'm doing ain't saying much.)

[Quillan]

All those improvements are in the game to give you options, primarily for specialization of cities. For example, watermills add production providing you've got a river to place them. Suppose you have a hypothetical city on a completely flat area of grassland/jungle. You clear all the jungle leaving nothing but flat grassland. That city will forever have only a single hammer of production, maybe two if you put a forge/factory/powerplant there. If you need more production in that city, how do you get it? If you have a river, you can build watermills. If you don't, you can build workshops. Say you have some forest instead, you can build lumbermills there. Windmills are there to increase food production, so you use those either to support a city in terrain that's almost all hills or increase food production in a city you're trying to make VERY large. You need to decide what you're trying to do with each city, and then use that to decide what improvements to put there.

Great person factory? You want lots and lots of food, so farm all squares that can be farmed, put windmills on the hills, and perhaps leave a forest or two with lumbermills just to have a little production and add health.

Military production center? You want lots of production. Put mines on all hills. Farm just enough squares to provide enough food to work all the tiles that can be worked, and the rest need to add hammers, so build lumbermills in forest, watermills on river, and workshops in the rest of the flatland.

Financial city? You want commerce. Use windmills on the hills for commerce. Farm enough to work the workable tiles, and put cottages on the other flat lands. Use lumber and water mills if you need some more production to be able to build improvements in the city.

[Hauptman]

Generally I upgrade in a rather set fashion, all hills get mined, all plains get irrigated, all grassland gets cottaged, all forests (except on hills) get woodshopped (who woulda thunk it; Im'ma conservationist).

I vary this then to meet the needs of a particular city... too much flatland then toss a workshop or 2 into the mix. Forests on a river, chop chop chop you trade killing trees!

The ai tends to ultimatly farm everything and windmill all the hills it seems towards the end of the game. I hate windmills, I just love hearing that "pop" sound of a random gems or gold popping in my capitals radius.

[ghen]

Too many grasslands and I might plop down a workshop or watermill, just one per city though normally. I almost never replace any tile improvements, mainly because my workers are too busy to fill the fat cross before windmills anyway.

I played a game on the highlands map where I had to build a good number of windmills, like 2-4 per city.. They just weren't getting very good food. Otherwise, if a city needs some food I might throw one down for fun.

I love lumbermills too of course.

[Crossfire]

I never rebuild on a tile either. For the most part I only build cottages on 3 food tiles (I don't farm them, I do build cottages elsewhere is what I meant). I farm on 2 food tiles (unless I am desparate for food). Just make sure you are supplying enough food for your city to grow (until you run out of health/happiness) then you can switch over to hammers or gold.

You need to start optimizing your tech research so that you can trade with the AIs. This means you need to beeline to a couple techs at different times in the game and then backfill by selling your advantage (see Aeson's Civil Service beeline). You also need to start accumulating Great Persons (preferably Pophets and Scientists) in order to generate enough revenue and vials to keep ahead of the AIs. Read Vel's Strategy threads and read the Great Profits thread to get a good handle on these issues.

In the late game, if you think you are falling behind, build some spies and partake in lots of espionage! You can stop another civ in their tracks if you have the money.

[Forrester]

Originally posted by Quillan

Great person factory? You want lots and lots of food, so farm all squares that can be farmed, put windmills on the hills, and perhaps leave a forest or two with lumbermills just to have a little production and add health.

Military production center? You want lots of production. Put mines on all hills. Farm just enough squares to provide enough food to work all the tiles that can be worked, and the rest need to add hammers, so build lumbermills in forest, watermills on river, and workshops in the rest of the flatland.

Financial city? You want commerce. Use windmills on the hills for commerce. Farm enough to work the workable tiles, and put cottages on the other flat lands. Use lumber and water mills if you need some more production to be able to build improvements in the city.

I guess my problem is I haven't figured out city specialization yet. What's the advantage of having a financial city + mil production center + great person factory over having three cities that are as big and productive as you could make, that will automatically generate great people, have a good amount of production, and make some decent cash? I can see the advantage of having a super-massive-production city for wonder building but it seems like it would be shooting yourself in the foot to make a financial city that couldn't grow to the max because of food shortages, or a great person factory that couldn't build enough city improvements because of production shortages, etc.

[Quillan]

The real difference comes into play with the national wonders. There are a lot, and (unless you're playing a One City Challenge) you can only build two in each city, so you have to plan what goes where. Wall Street, for example, doubles the gold produced by a city. You can put it anywhere, but it will do you the most good in a city that already generates a lot of gold. Oxford does a similar job on scientific research, so put that in a city that generates a LOT of commerce to take advantage of it. National Epic doubles the number of great person points generated in a city, so put that in a high population city and run a lot of specialists there. Thus, the specialists give a lot of GPP and you double the total. You'll build a lot more great people that way.

In the long run, I like to build everything everywhere. If I can, eventually every city will have a barracks, library, university, observatory, granary, aquaduct, grocer, market, bank, factory, power plant, and a temple to every religion in the city. But those take time to build, so build the ones you need in the city first, and fill in the others later as the situation permits. Take a look at the thread titled Great Profits (Prophets) for some ideas, and there are a couple of others floating around this forum.