Workers - If not auto, then what?

[dsteve3]

I always end up running my workers on auto. I'm not sure I understand the nuances of managing workers. I know the terrain improvements, and their associated pre-requisite techs, but there seems to be some art form of how to manipulate them.

Any suggestions on how to develope this art?

[fed1943]

There is a thread in the fanatics forum with all data concerning tiles.

Read and print.

Then,pratice.

Best regards,

[MikeH]

Would be a lot more helpful with a link to the thread. I don't think I could find it from that amount of data.

[Blake]

It comes down to unified strategy. For example, you build the heroic epic in a city, that city will benefit doubly from any hammer improvements. By manually controlling the workers you can ensure the hammers are maximized at that city, and thus produce more military units. Maximize commerce at the oxfords city, food at the national epic city (for specialist-based great people pump) and so on. The automation will get all this exactly wrong.

There is also optimization, like with irrigation chaining to ensure that all cities have just the right amount of food, for working all tiles and a good rate of growth. Automation often results in too little or too much food.

Also with unified strategy and optimization is things like building the most important stuff first, for example you get Railroad, a railroad connecting your core to the front line is more valuable than rail going in other directions. It should be completed first.

There are also some effeciency gains, saving a worker turn here and there, partially completing worker tasks like pre-chopping... lots of little micro tricks.

The biggest one though is the unified strategy.

[Qwertqwert]

Originally posted by Blake
It comes down to unified strategy. For example, you build the heroic epic in a city, that city will benefit doubly from any hammer improvements. By manually controlling the workers you can ensure the hammers are maximized at that city, and thus produce more military units. Maximize commerce at the oxfords city, food at the national epic city (for specialist-based great people pump) and so on. The automation will get all this exactly wrong.

There is also optimization, like with irrigation chaining to ensure that all cities have just the right amount of food, for working all tiles and a good rate of growth. Automation often results in too little or too much food.

Also with unified strategy and optimization is things like building the most important stuff first, for example you get Railroad, a railroad connecting your core to the front line is more valuable than rail going in other directions. It should be completed first.

There are also some effeciency gains, saving a worker turn here and there, partially completing worker tasks like pre-chopping... lots of little micro tricks.

The biggest one though is the unified strategy.

I personally think that you should put the national epic in the city with 2nd most shields, for that is one where most wonders would be erected.

I personally, if a city has enough food producing tiles, build a bunch of cottages around it.

[dsteve3]

Thanks for your response! I was afraid that the AI was not optimizing my cities. Where do I find the fanatics section? I want to read up on this more, so I can move up to higher difficulty levels and gain more victory points.

[Blake]

The thread reffered to is I believe this one.
However it is not updated for 1.61 and some advice is therefore bad. It is also way too verbose IMHO. Or at least maybe 5% is genuinely insightful and the rest is a rehash of the civilopedia or can be picked up from experience.

Best way to learn to micro workers is just to well... do it.

[dsteve3]

Warmonger without debt-monger?

After trying a few games, I'm beginning to develope a real 'minimalist' approach. I usually only build where there is real advantage, and only as many squares as the city can use at the time (or maybe one extra if its growing fast).

Cottages are a problem. With only one food, its not a good square to emphasize. No city growth when there are more than one or two squares devoted to cottages. Without a river, a city with a single cottage halts growth altogether.

Trying to attack a neighbor means building armies. I am finding that building armies equals huge debt. Can't build 8 units in the early game without ruining science. Capturing enemy cities does not provide science. How do you play as a warmonger and not go broke?

[Blake]

Cottages are a problem. With only one food, its not a good square to emphasize. No city growth when there are more than one or two squares devoted to cottages. Without a river, a city with a single cottage halts growth altogether.

?
Eh? Rivers have no effect on food beyond allowing farming.
A grassland cottage will have a neutral effect on the cities growth, it feeds the worker and you get the commerce. A plains cottage has a negative effect on growth, a floodplain cottage has a positive effect. Usually grassland and floodplains are the best for cottages, but with a decent food surplus plains work good too.

Trying to attack a neighbor means building armies. I am finding that building armies equals huge debt. Can't build 8 units in the early game without ruining science. Capturing enemy cities does not provide science. How do you play as a warmonger and not go broke?

Not really on topic to the thread, but generally one of your traits will hold the key to maintaing science. For example with Alexander (philo/agg) generating mass great scientists and settling them in the capital w/ academy tends to do the trick (provided you keep science above 0% you'll make decent progress on techs). For Tokugawa (org/agg) get courthouses quickly and build them everywhere. Cities with high population result in higher upkeeps, so after capturing a city it often makes sense to pop rush something like a courthouse into it - kills 3 birds with one stone; lowers upkeeps, gets in infrastructure, kills off unhappy population.

And regardless, you still need plenty of infrastructure development as a warmonger, that means cottages, libraries, specialists, courthouses... at a minimum you do want granary, courthouse and a temple/theatre/library, probably a forge too.

Altough capturing enemy cities doesn't provide science, it does provide gold which can be used to raise your science allocation. Relying on this income is a bad idea, but it can get you to the next critical tech like Alphabet or Code of Laws.

[Metaliturtle]

Cottages grow and produce more, but are best if on a site that provides food as well, such as floodplains cottages, even luxury resources before calendar make good cottage spots.

With military I usually get 2-3 early units, then build 2-3 things, then 2-3 military, then 2-3 buildings etc.

I include workers in early units usually, otherwise workers and settlers get counted as buildings.

Want to get good at a balance? Keep playing a raging barbs game on the same map at Noble or higher difficulty until you can get the balance that keeps you alive. Once you can do that do the same map with aggressive AI or Always War. Then increase the difficulty and repeat.

When I do a warmonger start, tech is all about beelining, build units, destroy a city, make peace and get tribute, build units and demand more tribute each turn, destroy next city, etc. Sending a settler and worker along behind my warparty seems to be better than installing a new governor.

[dsteve3]

I just started a Khublai Khan game and managed to absorb my only neighbour. This was just before Optics, so it was shortly afterwards that I found the rest of the Civs. I was only about 3 techs behind. I had a huge problem with cash, but managed to float on short-Wonder dumps. I realized after contacting other civs that I didn't have religion!

Finding religion solved the cash problem! Jalepenos!

My issue with the cottages seems to be trying to predict where I'm going to farm after CS, where I can extend out from rivers. There is a real knack to laying out how a city will grow.

[fed1943]

Don't forget you can build a farm outside of city'radius just to link the farms(just takes more time).

(BTW I didn't give you the link because I don't know how).

Best regards,