Fast workers!?

[D4everman]

Please tell me that Ghandi is a powerhouse in the endgame. Someone tell me that if left unhindered his empire will dominate the latter half of the game.

Why? because I was starting a new game last night, really just to see how my memory upgrades were working, so I decided to play India. Remembering their UU in CivIII was the war elephant I looked to see if they had the same in CIV. What did I see? Fast worker.

FAST WORKER?!!?

I almost busted a gut laughing! I mean, other civs usually get some kind of warfare unit and poor ghandi gets a guy in a turban with a caffeine addiction?

I'm actually going to play the indians though because of it. My guess is that if Ghandi can get his act together in the early game his "Fast Workers" can have farms, mines and roads and cottages together before the others know what hit them!

By the way...anyone know exactly how fast these workers are?

[CerberusIV]

Don't get too excited. They don't build tile improvements faster than anyone else's workers, they just have an extra movement point.

That's actually not as feeble as it sounds as that extra movement point can often get them to a new tile and working a turn quicker than ordinary workers. Over enough workers and turns it does add up. It's more of an advantage over the ordinary unit than most of the UU's and it lasts all game as they don't go obsolete.

[Adagio]

Fast workers are only fast at running, they get 1 extra movement rate

[djpsychonaut]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
That's actually not as feeble as it sounds as that extra movement point can often get them to a new tile and working a turn quicker than ordinary workers. Over enough workers and turns it does add up. It's more of an advantage over the ordinary unit than most of the UU's and it lasts all game as they don't go obsolete.

Agreed, I would go so far as to say that it's the most powerful UU in the game! The turn advantage adds up almost immediately. Being able to scale a hill and start building a mine in the same turn will reap benefits. This game is all about turn advantage -- don't underestimate the Fast Worker!

[proviisori]

They are ideal for chop rushing. They can go to forest tile and start on chopping immediately. (If the worker needs to move only one tile)

[eris]

If your question is strictly about the end game, then there some different answers depending on your end game. If you are doing a peaceful sapce race or diplomacy push, then you won't have any tiles to develop. If so, fast workers will be the same non-help as regular workers. If you are doing a military conquest, they help to develop any tiles that weren't fully developed or were pillaged. This does help incorporate this new territory your economy as a productive city faster than otherwise. Combined with Serfdom and Steam, you have some busy little workers! It is also very cool that any captured workers immediately become fast workers. Let's see you do that with any other UU!!

[Older than Dirt]

Fast Workers are indeed the Super Unit. Once you play with them you'll hate going back to the slow lazy ones. They even put some blitz into a blitzkrieg once you get armor units. Think about it: in one turn 3 of them move into a woods and build rails and in the same turn 3 more move into the next hill or woods and build rails. How many turns will it take with normal lazy workers? Even before rails the fast worker can move up to 9 bunny hops in one turn! (I think they are so fast because they carry their lunch in their turbans.)

[gdijedi7]

I had a game where I was on the same continent as Ghandi, and the endgame came down to Ghandi and Me. I narrowly launched my space ship before him, and that was only because I was Washington (Had LOTS AND LOTS of money) and had spies to sabatoge his space ship construction.

[tijuanacowboy]

It's funny when you capture some fast workers they all of a sudden slow down, must be my decadent lifestyle that makes them lazy.

[LordShiva]

Fast Workers... bah! Give me Praetorians any day

[Older than Dirt]

Praetorians are excellent. Can you imagine having Praetorians and Fast Workers. I bet one could usually win a domination or elimination victory by 1200 A.D., if the map were not too large and you played on Epic or Marathon. Come to think of it, shouldn't the Romans have fast workers! They had cement and slaves. If they hadn't started eating off of lead plates we'd probably all be speaking Latin to this day.

[Amarsir]

Plus they're good whether you want a peaceable or warlike strategy. And not resource-dependent. I've had games where I couldn't get horses until after Immortals were practically obsolete, for example.

[samspock]

I think Praetorians should be able to build roads and forts. The Roman legions could do this in history. I modded my legions in civ3 to build roads, build fortifications and bombard (weakly) to simulate the Roman pila. So what if I could kick the snot out of everyone way early.....

[MasterDave]

I think fast workers are the best UU simply because they never go obsolete and you get to use them from start to finish during the game. Every other UU provides a small advantage in combat for a fairly limited amount of time (unless you are playing marathon). The fast workers along with Spiritual, Mysticism, and Mining makes the Indians one of the fastest starting races, and getting a good start is paramount to having a strong finish.