Too Many Workers

[Angel Gonzalez]

Friends, once the games are advanced the number of workers increase to several hundred expending a lot of money in maintaneance of them; It is necesary all this workers once roads are finished? After a time I cannot get them in the field working only into the city stand by. What happen is AI produced them without any instruction by myself. I must kill them? I appreciate any orientation about. Thanks Angel

[Dominae]

Angel, it appears you're using Governors to automatically select build orders in your cities. The Governor "AI" does produce Workers unecessarily in the later stages of the game. Simply turn off the Governors, and you'll never get extraneous Workers again (unless you order them yourself of course).

Still, there is a lot you can do with "extra" Workers. First, make sure all your workable tiles have been improved. Check if you're producing too much food in some cities, and, if so, order your Workers to pull up irrigation and build mines instead. Second, wait until after you've got a railroads covering your entire empire before ever getting rid of any Workers; railroads are so powerful in Civ3 that you want them down ASAP. Third, keep some Workers around to clean up pollution later on in the game (especially if you've built Hospitals). You can't work tiles that have pollution in them, so it's best if it is cleaned up immediately. Finally, if you really have no jobs for a majority of your Workers, you can always join them to your cities to make your cities bigger, faster. Consider joining your own Workers before foreign (captured) ones, because foreign Workers require no upkeep.

And here's a dirty little trick: you can use spare Workers on your front lines to lure away enemy troops from important positions, or remove a couple of units for especially large stacks. The way the AI is coded, defenseless Workers are always the most appealing target for attack (other than defenseless Settlers, I suppose), so, with some extra Workers, you can engage in a little sub-game of chess!

Hope this helps.


Dominae

[JohnMK]

Is it common procedure here to exploit the AI's programming weaknesses? I always thought one should play as realistically as possible.

[zulu9812]

I imagine it's quite realistoic for particularly bloodthirst rulers to use civilians as bait, decoys or a human shield (Saddam Hussein, for example).

[JohnMK]

That's a different issue altogether.

Let me get back my point: humans have the ability to realize a pattern and act upon it. If the AI is programmed badly enough that you can predict its behavior with perfect accuracy and lure it into a trap the same way, every time, and it's not catching on . . . then I'd avoid the exploit altogether.

[zulu9812]

Well, I've never encounterd this before but, on Deity, you need every advantage you can get!

Besides, when I'm invading I try and capture enemy workers 'in the field'. The city'll always be there: the workers won't, and they're very useful.

[Boris Godunov]

This is another worker question: Under what circumstances can you trade workers back to a civ? I have a bunch of workers from Japan. They're in my capital, but during peace negotiations, I can't offer them to Japan. Why not? I could do it with other civs...

[zulu9812]

I think workers only become available for trade if they're not doing anything.

[Boris Godunov]

They're not, they're just sitting in my capital. No actions.

[Dominae]

JohnMK, I understand your point, but I also think it is very difficult not to "exploit" some of the AIs more predictable behaviour.

For example, in the early stages of the game, you can pretty much guarantee that any enemy city (other than the capital) will have at least 1 and at most 2 good defenders (usually Spearmen). This means that you can always send an attack force of just the right size to conquer the city (6-8 Horsemen is a good bet). Realistically, you would have to conduct some espionage to determine the strength of the enemy forces. If the AI were slightly smarter, it would reinforce cities that are under imminent attack.

The same goes for tech priorities and diplomacy (to name only two). Personally, I find it very difficult to play realistically, for two reasons: 1) on the higher levels, you need any advantage you can get, and 2) the AI doesn't play "realistically" at all. This goes for non-exploitative issues as well, such as mining all grasslands (as if this were even remotely realistic).

As players learn what the Civ3 AI is like, they will get better and better, because it is easier to learn what the AI does repetitively (which is a bad idea), rather than strategies that work in the general case. This is why players are crying out of MP: eventually you get tired of guessing what the AI is going to do...you want another person to try and outthink you.


Dominae

[Lucilla]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
They're not, they're just sitting in my capital. No actions.

Boris, maybe Japan has also workers to offer and AFAIK trade can only take place if one civ has something the other civ doesn't.

[JohnMK]

Dominae is an asset to this forum.

[SpencerH]

Give the workers back as gifts. At worst you'll be rid of them if you dont need them. At best it will improve your relations with the Japanese.

[Angel Gonzalez]

TOO MANY WORKERS

Thanks, Dominae, your explanation was very complete only as newbie I am not sure as turn off the Governor AI. Only read in the game manual ways to customize his behaviour, really not very well obtained. Angel

[Ethelred]

I set the governors to NOT build

Great Wonders
Small Wonders
Settlers
Workers

Sometimes I turn off building military units as well. What happens in this case is that the governors are down to producing improvements and wealth, and its easy to spot cities producing wealth and change that to what you want at the moment.