The correct employment of workers

[Alexander's Horse]

Someone got some newbie advice on this? Currently I'm automating them for the most part. I read some comments that wood chopping is a good use. I'm not sure when they should start improving farmland or doing other stuff. I'm most interested inthe sequencing of task with eras in the game and setting priorities. Does automation work well? (I suspect not although I have seen them do some clever things).

[Quillan]

Everyone is different. Personally, I never automate workers. I usually let the city governors take care of what tiles are being worked, but I decide what's going to be built myself. I always take in the layout of the entire city, look at the resources there, and decide what's important. From my point of view, the most important thing is hooking up the resources. After that, I like roads linking my cities (trade and defense). Once that is done, I try to improve the city a bit. I want to increase the growth rate, production, and commerce of the city. But every city is different, and you have to decide what you need to build there in order to do that.

[sovietwaffle]

It'll vary between person and strategy. I focus on getting a cottage or two up early to get towns up sooner (I play financial), and then focus on resources (Certain resources matter to me more, and I'll build before Cottages). Usually though, I don't connect right off the bat, as there is no need for happiness and health really early on in the game (However, I will connect stone or marble)

[gentle]

au...to...ma...ted...wor....kers...*faint*

[snafuc4]

The main problem with automated workers AFAICS is their preference for farming rather than cottaging (or anything else) on flat land

[Crossfire]

They will never chop that early settler for you either. I would suggest that you learn to control your own workers. Besides, if you don't do that, what are you working on the whole time? I imagine the game goes pretty quickly if you automate workers.

Basically, you need to provide the necessary resource at the right time. Early on this is also determined by what techs you have available. If you could do anything at all, I would alternate between a farm, a mine and a cottage in the beginning. You want just enough food to keep growing at a decent rate while also providing enough hammers to build stuff and enough commerce to keep your research high. When there is nothing urgently needed, build roads. If you are going to want to build a wonder, plan on having the quarry built in time to start. It's not hard and it makes running your empire a more personnal experience. If you need something built quickly, then chop a forest.

[wardhali]

you'll want to chop a settler early and use cottages alot. Unless you want to make a great people factory only farm enough to keep your pop at a reasonable level. otherwise cottage and mine hills

btw one of the best ways to make $$$$ is to spam cottages early.
big bonus w/ financial trait.

[Alexander's Horse]

thanks that's good advice - this game I managed my workers myself and it worked well

How many workers should you have per city?

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
How many workers should you have per city?

It depends. Early on, try for 1.5 to 1.2 workers per city, especially if you want to chop or switch citizens a lot. Later on, that can go down to about 1 per city.

Once you've got a better feeling for doing it yourself, you can drop to 1 per city early on, up to 1 for every two cities later in game.

One of the main things where you can improve over the AI, is to spot which tiles need instant improvement, and which better wait for another 20 turns for some tech to be discovered. This is especially true for the 3 mills (water, wind, lumber).

Sometimes, it's better to leave a forest near a river intact, and improve an unrivered cottage site (which will lose 1 gpt). Sometimes, it's not. The same with roads: you don't need them everywhere if you build them smartly, and with future use in mind.

DeepO

[ghen]

1.5 per city seems a little insane.. I might have one per city for the first 5 cities, and then go to 1 per 1.5 cities. They always seem to keep ahead of the city growth anyway, so I see no need to improve every possible tile before my city grows beyond size 6.

How I manage my early workers:

first worker out builds a farm or three, or maybe a mine/pasture.. whatever is available. Once the first city is fully improved (hopefully at least 2 farms, a cottage or two, a mine, and whatever resources are in the area) the second worker should be out improving my other city and the first can go chop outside the fat cross or extra forests inside it.

Precidence: Gold mines, farmed resources, pastured resources, regular farms, every other resource, cottages, mines.
I like gold mines earliest for the tech boost I can manually get in the city. Auto-citizens don't work them though this early in the game.

The second worker builds 1 farm on the second city, whatever resources, and then builds roads. At this time I should have a third worker and third city. If not, I'm going for war and don't have time for either.

Once the first worker chops maybe 4-8 forests depending on location he returns to improve more on the capital.

The main thing to keep in mind is .4 health per forest, so keep 3/5/8 forests for the benefits within your fat cross. 7 forests can grow into 8 pretty easy, but I still chop them down to 5 anyway. On higher difficulties health becomes a major issue, so this really helps.

Since war is such a major factor in my early expansion, I try to steal workers from other civs as well as their cities.. I plan my attacks when the workers are around the city I want so they go inside it.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by ghen
1.5 per city seems a little insane.. I might have one per city for the first 5 cities, and then go to 1 per 1.5 cities. They always seem to keep ahead of the city growth anyway, so I see no need to improve every possible tile before my city grows beyond size 6.

Since war is such a major factor in my early expansion, I try to steal workers from other civs as well as their cities.. I plan my attacks when the workers are around the city I want so they go inside it.

His ratios look good to me even for early game. If I don't need military that much, I might build more; there's always something for them to do. I like to improve my cities equally, so I shuttle them back and forth a lot, based on precedence (proper spelling) parameters similar to ghen, but without the concentration on one city. (I don't use bureaucracy either, super-capitals at the expense of other cities don't do it for me.)

Having said all that, it's bad to get caught with too few workers. Mining (which remember usually must be researched, by the way; do it early,) can uncover unsuspected resources. Gold, stone, marble (rare), ivory (not mined, but critical after war elephants are allowed) copper, iron (if you didn't get these last two when first should have been revealed,) gotta have 'em. Rather than having workers abandon other stuff you need done, it might be better to just have a few more then the minimum.

Scouts uncover assets too and there's frequently a race to get them as the other guys have their scouts alookin' also. Build them roads and rush that settler! Building early wonders or getting the troops out to respond to an emergency really benefits from maximum possible mines. If none of the precedent resources aren consuming my boys' time, I get them on the mining early. Dig, dig!

[MadDjinn]

I haven't gotten to the point of not automating the workers...

I'll use some for specific things that are needed (chopping/etc), but for the most part, I let them go.. they tend to have plenty to do, and don't do a horrible job at it...

and early game, I like 2 workers/city up to 6 cities... then I let it drop some, depending on expansion efforts.

the faster a tile is upgraded to full the more compounded usefulness it gives.

and swarms of workers do great jobs at setting up new cities quickly.

[Cort Haus]

I don't use bureaucracy either, super-capitals at the expense of other cities don't do it for me.

:gasp:

Put an early Academy in the Bureaucracy capital, then come back here and say that!

Why do other cities suffer in Bureaucracy? Large empires in the late game may have better alternatives but a early super-capital is hard to argue against, if Civil Service is available.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Cort Haus

I don't use bureaucracy either, super-capitals at the expense of other cities don't do it for me.

:gasp:

Put an early Academy in the Bureaucracy capital, then come back here and say that!

Why do other cities suffer in Bureaucracy? Large empires in the late game may have better alternatives but a early super-capital is hard to argue against, if Civil Service is available.

When you're stuck on bureaucracy, you have to defer another civic which seems to benefit more cities. I don't have the list in front of me, but there is another civic I prefer for most of the game. I'll try your way once though, for comparison. Maybe on a map where city sites are limited. I haven't tried the real high difficulties yet, but I am still, even with the new Civ4 restrictions, by preference a founder of numerous cities and like big production in them, even at the expense of science as long as I can keep that ahead of the nabobs.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by ghen
1.5 per city seems a little insane.. I might have one per city for the first 5 cities, and then go to 1 per 1.5 cities. They always seem to keep ahead of the city growth anyway, so I see no need to improve every possible tile before my city grows beyond size 6.

Well, like I said, it depends on use. 1.5 is not so insane as it may sound: it means that your first 2 cities get 3 workers. If you want to do some chopping, and have a decent road network too, that's even a bit on the light side.

But, also like said, I tend to play with something like 1 per city at first, 0.5 per city later in my games. I'm starting to know the worker actions pretty well, though, and will only build the most crucial roads. If you first start to try it yourself, I wouldn't push it that far, or you might be better off having the AI do everything for you.

DeepO