How do you manage your workforce?

[MadDogTrebonius]

I've done some searching, so I can't find any common knowledge on this, but ...

How many workers do you usually build? One per city? More? Fewer?

How do you manage the number of captured/bought vs. "native" workers? Do you prefer to keep an "outsourced" workforce? Or do you add them to your cities and build your own?

How does your ideal number of workers change from REX to "building" to industrial age to endgame?

How do you best lay off workers when you do decide to downsize? Which cities do you prefer to get the pop bump?

Thanks in advance,
mdt

[UnOrthOdOx]

Well, the food nazi's will tell you 2/city.

Personally, I generally shoot for 1/city myself unless poor terrain or jungle, or some such. I generally fall short of that though, more fun building archers or horsies...

2 captured workers = 1 native worker (assuming non industrial). I'ld rather have more slaves myself, just to free up unit support.

Later in the game I'll add them in as need for improvements diminish or if going for a wonder and needing a city at max size. Usually I add them in mid medieval sometime, having done all improvements on the homeland, and build more to do RR later. This can change according to demands of the game at hand, though.

Cities that will get the best improvement from the extra citizen get the workers first. This differs game to game. I've been known to add some in just to pop rush an improvement before too... In general, I try to get a few cities that can handle it to the max pop they can support rather than adding a few citizens to many cities.

[Dominae]

Re: How do you manage your workforce?

Originally posted by MadDogTrebonius
How many workers do you usually build? One per city? More? Fewer?

I never really count, unfortunately. If my cities are working unimproved tiles, I consider this a bad thing and focus on Workers until I feel the situation has rectified itself.

Workers come from two main sources: core "pump" cities that produce Workers every 2 or 3 turns (with a bonus Food resource and a Granary), and corrupt border towns that have nothing more productive to do and typically do not have (m)any improved tiles to work. The pump cities I rarely "turn off" because I use the additional Workers to grow my cities; the border towns, once they have enough improved tiles to work, I let grow by switching production from Workers to some improvement (Harbor, Temple, Barracks).

How do you manage the number of captured/bought vs. "native" workers? Do you prefer to keep an "outsourced" workforce?

I try to buy as many slaves as I can with techs and Gold, but not gpt. Captured Workers are great spoils of war but I will not attack another civ just to get some more slaves.

Or do you add them to your cities and build your own?

I never do this. The foreign nationals are likely to be unhappy because of past/current/future transgressions against their home country. More importantly, slave Workers do not cost upkeep and so are very efficient in large numbers.

How does your ideal number of workers change from REX to "building" to industrial age to endgame?

I can identify four phases to Worker mass:

1. Early-game, as described above (pump and border towns). Here, every Worker counts because every tile improved does.

2. Mid-game, where most tiles are improved and native Workers are being joined to cities in large numbers.

3. Pre-Industrial, where large numbers of Workers are bled off large cities in preparation for Railroad construction. It may seem counter-productive to join a bunch of Workers in step 2 only to call them back to work in step 3, but in fact it's not; big cities sooner, lower unit upkeep, and insta-Railroads are all good things.

4. Industrial, where Workers are frantically laying down rails, followed by post-Industrial where these Workers are once again joined to major cities. It's at this point that I will usually turn off pump cities.

How do you best lay off workers when you do decide to downsize? Which cities do you prefer to get the pop bump?

Workers are joined to core cities that have a highly developed infrastructure (Libraries, Roads, etc.). I will spread the Workers around in such cities as much as possible in order to keep the Luxury spending down, unless I'm gunning for a Wonder in which case one city will jump from size 7 to size 12 in the blink of an eye.

Thanks in advance.

You're welcome. Hope this helps.

[cousLee]

Just started playing, and still have most of my original workforce. In looking for a city to join the nationals, I am keeping in mind the size of the food box too. Makes more food sence to add a worker to a size 13 city than a size 5 one. I can build 3 workers for the food price of one citizen.

[Solomwi]

I work along the same lines as Dom posted, basically, but because I play huge maps, you can eliminate phase 2. There's always plenty for my workers to be doing right up to railroads. Even with that in mind, several turns before I get steam power, I'll start moving workers back toward my core. They'll stay fortified on my highest priority rail corridor for a few turns until I get SP, then lay it down as far as they can reach in that first turn.

I typically have 150-200 workers at this point, so as soon as my core is railroaded and I have at least one continuous line linking the core and any frontiers, borders or, if I already control my entire continent, coasts, I'll start adding workers to cities. Because of the time it takes, even with that many, to RR a huge continent, most of my core cities are already at full size. For that reason, I wind up adding them to unproductive cities more often than not. If I'm under the unit support level, I won't get into any hurry to add them, and save them for airfields once I get flight.

[Jon Shafer]

To put things generally - it's very hard to have too many Workers.

[Aqualung71]

And to put things back in terms of numbers....I lke to have at least 1.5 Workers per city if I am non-Industrious. As Dom says though, the important thing to watch is whether your cities are working any unimproved tiles...if so, then you need more Workers. And as Trip said, more is better

[Dimitrius]

has many has needed...usually 1.5 per town. Just what you need to keep workable tiles improved(no sense in mining or irrigating something not being used yet).
BTW food is the true power as it will lead to population which will lead to workable tiles which will lead to Armies.
So even if your goal is to fight fight fight..my suggestion is first learn how to grow grow grow
ps-UnOrThoDoX- with proper sentries from defensive point of view, they will see you coming and you will not be able to "capture" your work force. Best to make own workers especially on turn where population is due to grow. Besides lose too much time walking slaves back home...

[joncnunn]

Re: How do you manage your workforce?

In an Epic game:

Best Practices is 1 worker per city if Industrious. 1 1/2 workers per city if Non-Industrious.

2 slaves = 1 native worker if non-industrious.
3 slaves = 1 native worker if industrious.

During REX settlers is more important than workers. I usually have the new city responsible for it's own worker.

slaves aquired during REX usually get added to core cities building settlers to speed up the settlers. (Growth is usually more of an issue in my games, there's usually no suitable settler pump locations andI have to settle for alternating imporvments with settlers to maintaign population except when the other civs contribute some.)

Join the workers in cities that are low growth that's allowed to grow much bigger than it is where they will be productive. This generaly means a city that just built an Aquaduct or Hospital.

Originally posted by MadDogTrebonius
I've done some searching, so I can't find any common knowledge on this, but ...

How many workers do you usually build? One per city? More? Fewer?

How do you manage the number of captured/bought vs. "native" workers? Do you prefer to keep an "outsourced" workforce? Or do you add them to your cities and build your own?

How does your ideal number of workers change from REX to "building" to industrial age to endgame?

How do you best lay off workers when you do decide to downsize? Which cities do you prefer to get the pop bump?

Thanks in advance,
mdt

[Swissy]

Once you are post-industrial and fully improved, it is wise to keep a dozen workers around set to automatic/no changes. They will usually sit in the capitol until pollution pops up. A dozen is sufficient to handle 2-3 pollution strikes a turn.

[Civ3Junkie]

I usually have more than I need. The game im playing right now, I think I have over 100. But I have several newley conquered, undeveloped conitinents to work on.

Also, I like having plenty lying around to take care of pollution.

Another reason I have alot is because this particular map was very, very wet, so I had about 4 or 5 tiles that werent jungle on my continent when I started.