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A few times recently, I've found topics discussing workers. I was wondering what people thought was the most efficient number of workers, and what tricks people use to increase their effectiveness. I think that a lot of us don't use our workers very efficiently, and we therefore build to many of them.
Here's my thoughts:
* Not building a worker will give you an extra military unit or two, and will allow a city to keep growing. This is a large advantage, so we should try to minimize our number of workers.
* Building roads everywhere is a waste of workers. Sure you can justify a road in each square, but often they aren't worthy of the workers time. If a worker has nothing better to do, you should have fewer workers.
* In the mid game, if you can space out the researching of machinery, replacable parts and railroad, your workers will always have useful stuff to work on. If you don't research machinery early, you'll find that they run out of stuff to do, and if you research two of those techs close to each other, you may find you don't have enough workers to quickly make use of the new improvement.
* Switching to Serfdom can help overcome any shortage of workers. This is especially useful for a Spiritual civ who can change over for a few dozen turns and then switch back. This is especially useful for getting an initial railroad built.
* You should only improve the squares that are likely to be used before the worker can return to that city. On marathon, the cost of moving a worker between cities is small compared to the time to build improvements, so I usually only build one improvment that isn't in use before moving to another city. A fast growing city might need more, while a slow growing city may not need any extra squares improved. In particular, some cities can never grow large enough to use all of their squares, so you should never improve the extra squares.
* Using teams of workers is more efficient than individuals because you get the first improvement faster, and the second improvement in the same time. But moving teams around doubles the wasted turns. This is especially important for moving into jungle, hill, or forest squares with no roads. It's often better to send only one worker into these squares. Also, either the size of the team should be a factor of the time to do the job, or the team should not be grouped so some of them can finish earlier than others.
I think that with all of these ideas pooled together it should be possible to avoid building 2 or 3 workers in the early-middle game. The savings can be put towards a new military or a nice building.
BTW, a warmongering civ will likely capture enough workers by mid game that not having built them early will not cost anything later.
Anyway, that should be enough blabbering from my face. Any comments?
Here's my thoughts:
* Not building a worker will give you an extra military unit or two, and will allow a city to keep growing. This is a large advantage, so we should try to minimize our number of workers.
* Building roads everywhere is a waste of workers. Sure you can justify a road in each square, but often they aren't worthy of the workers time. If a worker has nothing better to do, you should have fewer workers.
* In the mid game, if you can space out the researching of machinery, replacable parts and railroad, your workers will always have useful stuff to work on. If you don't research machinery early, you'll find that they run out of stuff to do, and if you research two of those techs close to each other, you may find you don't have enough workers to quickly make use of the new improvement.
* Switching to Serfdom can help overcome any shortage of workers. This is especially useful for a Spiritual civ who can change over for a few dozen turns and then switch back. This is especially useful for getting an initial railroad built.
* You should only improve the squares that are likely to be used before the worker can return to that city. On marathon, the cost of moving a worker between cities is small compared to the time to build improvements, so I usually only build one improvment that isn't in use before moving to another city. A fast growing city might need more, while a slow growing city may not need any extra squares improved. In particular, some cities can never grow large enough to use all of their squares, so you should never improve the extra squares.
* Using teams of workers is more efficient than individuals because you get the first improvement faster, and the second improvement in the same time. But moving teams around doubles the wasted turns. This is especially important for moving into jungle, hill, or forest squares with no roads. It's often better to send only one worker into these squares. Also, either the size of the team should be a factor of the time to do the job, or the team should not be grouped so some of them can finish earlier than others.
I think that with all of these ideas pooled together it should be possible to avoid building 2 or 3 workers in the early-middle game. The savings can be put towards a new military or a nice building.
BTW, a warmongering civ will likely capture enough workers by mid game that not having built them early will not cost anything later.
Anyway, that should be enough blabbering from my face. Any comments?
), I'll generally have one worker per city, though some cities won't need a worker, and others will need two or more, especially my specializing cities. 
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