Automate workers or not?

[Lord Bog]

Do you automate workers? In Civ3 they did a pretty good job managing everything, do they also work well in Civ4?

[ghen]

oh heck no.

I never automated them in civ3 either.. There's just no way to program good worker AI in this game.. it would take wayyy longer than improving the war unit AI I think.

With the new patch keeping their filthy hands off my forests its a little better, but if you want a good quick way to better your game then just start micro-managing your workers.

[byrath]

I never automate, deciding what to build where and when is a fun part of the game for me. Truthfully, the AI does not do a *bad* job with its workers. Of course, a human player can improve greatly on this with a little practice.
If you really hate managing the workers yourself, and are happy to play on low-medium difficulty levels, then by all means automate them. Its your game, whatever makes it fun for you.

[Lord Bog]

I played Civ1 and Civ2 without automated workers, but Civ3 that was a great feature that allowed me to just play the game without worrying about micromanaging the 50-100 workers I usually had running around. And I usually played a the higher levels of the game and it worked out okay.

[TheArsenal]

The automated workers are much better, IMO, but still run about a little too willy nilly to actually use effectively.

[afrodius]

i never automate my workers. i just dont trust the computer enough. plus i usually have a specific plan for maximizing each city's best traits. i have noticed that in the later game my workers may run out of useful tings to do other than build a vast rail network which makes me miss the plant then chop in one turn a stack of workers could accomplish in civ 3. however since they nerfed the production crash of far flung cities its not really that neccessary, but it would at least give em somethin to do. the new pollution system also makes the workers much less important, so lets just start a war instead and get my army some promotions muwahahaha.

[Stageon]

If you must automate for some reason, at least check the option to leave your forests alone (new to the 1.52 patch).

Personally I never automate. How could the AI know what I want to do around each different town? The AI will make your empire look like those of the other cpu players...average at best. You need to distinguish yourself from them by specializing and maximizing your terrain for each function.

[byrath]

Originally posted by Lord Bog
I played Civ1 and Civ2 without automated workers, but Civ3 that was a great feature that allowed me to just play the game without worrying about micromanaging the 50-100 workers I usually had running around. And I usually played a the higher levels of the game and it worked out okay.

Rarely will you need more than 10-15 workers in Civ4, so it is far less tedious to manage them youself.

[joncnunn]

I don't automate workers, but I do click the leave existing improvements alone + the leave forests alone just so the sugested improvements are a closer match to what I'm thinking.

By contract, I automate the city workforce, but use the switches.

[wuffles]

If I have done most of the improvements I want then I may set them to auto build the trade network, since they cant really ruin anything by doing that, but otherwise its one of the main things I control in the game.

[bonscott]

I've never understood why anyone would automate their workers. It's really not that hard to manage them. And in Civ 4 you have a fraction the number of workers you did in Civ 3. In 4 by the industrial era I might have 4 stacks of 3 each and that's it. In 3 I'd have probably 30-40 workers. It's not hard managing 4 stacks.

[gentle]

Re: Automate workers or not?

Originally posted by Lord Bog
Do you automate workers?

Never ever even dared to think about it.

[Odin]

I have a few workers set to hook up my resources, I directly control the rest. I don't want my workers puting production improvements around a Great Person city that needs farms and windmills to maximize food to feed the specialists.

[Stageon]

Originally posted by bonscott
I've never understood why anyone would automate their workers. It's really not that hard to manage them.

I've only played MP in this version of the game with a few friends, who don't care how long our turns take, but in other MP situations I can see automating workers to stay within the time limit. Esp if you're fighting some massive war.

[Blake]

Yeah, in single player it's utterly impossible for automated workers to compare with manual workers. The reason for this is automated workers don't understand any part of your grand strategy, they don't know which city is going to have which National Wonder, and even when they do, they don't care (like building cottages around the city with Heroic Epic). part of this is bad worker AI (like the cottaged heroic epic city), but part of it is simply inherint, the automation can't read your mind.

Of course in MP it's sometimes nessecary, but wow I've got to avoid looking at my terrain too closely because they make a royal mess of it. Not enough hammers, not enough food, too much food, not enough commerce... they always manage to get it wrong. They almost manage to create enough commerce, but often do dumb stuff like having too many cottages and not enough food to work them. The other favorite dumb trick is heaps of food and no actual hammers or commerce.

It could be improved, if you could give cities a meta-strategy designation, like HAMMERS, SCIENCE, COINS, GREAT PEOPLE. The external orker AI and internal govoner AI could then be combined for a coherent city and terraforming strategy, this would especially help the AI.