what do I do now?

[snoopy369]

If you're playing on a level where four immortals equals one city taken, then you probably should move up a level

[Arrian]

4 immortals for a city isn't so crazy, considering not every city is the enemy capital or on a hill (or guarded by PRO archers ). It all depends on how fast you get the immortals out, and whether or not you built a barracks (leaving aside whether or not that's a good use of hammers, 4 combat 1 immortals > 4 unpromoted immortals).

I'm such a Darius addict...

-Arrian

[Footie Mad]

Don't know if it's been mentioned but I always use workers in teams, basically this means that if an improvement/worker action takes 8 turns to complete two worker will do it in 4 when ordered simultaneously. If you can work that tile in 4 turns instead of two separate actions being done in 8 then that is an advantage.

This is worker teams in its simplest form, sometimes the total work time will be rounded so that some worker turns are "wasted". For example 3 workers performing an 8 turn action together will spend 3 turns doing so. Make an evaluation of how important speed of improvement is versus efficency, if it can get an important resource online the option of speed is often the preferable!

I use this method even in the early game with say my two first workers, possible exception would be chopping as the default time is 5 turn and two workers will do it in 3 thus leading to some early wasted work. Learning to use workers is definitely among the most important skills to be at a higher level than noble.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Footie Mad
This is worker teams in its simplest form, sometimes the total work time will be rounded so that some worker turns are "wasted". For example 3 workers performing an 8 turn action together will spend 3 turns doing so. Make an evaluation of how important speed of improvement is versus efficency, if it can get an important resource online the option of speed is often the preferable!

If you task the Workers seperately to do the same job you'll avoid waste of this kind. It's more micro, but I essentially never unit-group my Workers.

[Crossfire]

I only find building improvements in teams useful if I am behind in worker production. Like Blake said, you should have improvements built AHEAD of time when ever possible and then how quickly they are built isn't as important. Also, as you said, you waste lots of half turns. There are obviously some times when you want that resource built extra quickly (like a quarry when you just researched Masonry) but most of the time I would rather not need to rely on teams.

[ben04]

Originally posted by snoopy369
If you're playing on a level where four immortals equals one city taken, then you probably should move up a level

Believe me, if you have horses near your capital then it's one of the best strategies for the higher levels. Immortals aren't only just early city takers. They are also very powerful keep AI busy, small and weak units. High level AIs are only dangerous if they can use thier bonuses. If you can cut the AI of of all strategic resources then it wont be able to take your immortals out. The best AI unit is an archer and those are pretty much useless on the offensive against immortals. With Immortals you can control the land and as Blake has already explained land is what counts and not the cities.

[Footie Mad]

Originally posted by Dominae


If you task the Workers seperately to do the same job you'll avoid waste of this kind. It's more micro, but I essentially never unit-group my Workers.

In my experience it does not matter if I select several workers to perform the same job, the game will divide the turns between them regardless and will round it up instead of down. Don't know if I understand you correctly here.

When you say that the improvements should be built ahead of wanting to use them that's an idealistic view of events inside the game, in the early game you'll always be scrambling to hook up food resources, strategic resources, common terrain improvements etc. Getting that corn available in 4 rather than 8 turns, or mining gold in 3 rather than 6 turns on epic is a big difference and is a winning situation in the most important resource of all, time.

Also take into account things like pillaging of important improvements during war and by espionage, of course you don't send one worker out to fix that. You send the maximum amount possible to get it repaired in the shortest amount of time.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Footie Mad In my experience it does not matter if I select several workers to perform the same job, the game will divide the turns between them regardless and will round it up instead of down. Don't know if I understand you correctly here.

If you give a stack of 3 Workers a 5-turn job to complete, the third Worker will not "wake up" by itself on the second turn after the job is done. So that's why I almost always unstack my Workers and give them orders individually, even if on the same tile.

[ZEE]

Dominae speaks the truth. You could spend 3 turns, say, building a cottage with a few workers...

or have a mine + cottage + farm with those same few workers individually in less time that it would take to build all of them with the worker stack (including movement time to get to the said tiles.)

[snoopy369]

Aahz, you're missing the point... (and in fact this is not civ3, unless you're talking forests or hills where a mp is lost, there's no real penalty to using multiple workers).

The point is that if workers are "stacked" together, the game makes the whole stack "wait" on the final turn of the worker action, even if only one of the stack is needed to finish the worker action.

You actually can wake up the stack and move the unused workers, but they won't wake up on their own.

[Footie Mad]

That's what I usually do, move the workers marked with green. Guess it has become subconscious by now, I'm not an anti micro player even though I usually play large maps. I want to make efficient use of all units, I still think my point stands on the time factor especially in the early game.

[fed1943]

Please, when you said "stacked together" that was the stack
command or, as I usually do, to send one by one the workers to
perform th same task on the same place?

Best regards,

[Arrian]

The stack command.

If you send them one by one, there is no waste. Also, if you manually click on a stack you can wake up workers who are part of the stack but available to start a new job.

I often use groups of 2 workers, but I know which jobs aren't multiples of 2 turns (roading a desert tile, for instance) and will break them up before starting such a job.

-Arrian

[Asmodeous]

Dominae is correct.

The game doesn't "divide up" their turns.

What it does is takes that building a mine takes 8 turns.

Unit 1 takes its turn. 7 left.
Unit 2 takes its turn. 6 left.
Unit 3 takes its turn. 5 left.

So on.

If you don't run them as a stack and tell each to mine. When it comes down to the wire...

Unit 1 takes its turn, 1 left.
Unit 2 takes its turn, 0 left.
Unit 3 gets selected waiting for an order.

If you move them as a stack, though, Unit 3 will not wait for your order, it'll finish with the stack. Stacked workers are bayud, mmkay?

Me.

[Rockoon]

I stack my workers because they are also stacked with a defending unit.. usualy a unit that only has 1 movement point so there is already some waste going on.. not going to stress it