How to automate workers correctly? Late game. SO they don't mess things up.

[Artifex]

What is best way to automate workers late game once most of your empire has railroads?

What are the commands to make sure workers don't screw up your terrain, etc?

I have a ton of workers and don't want to fool with them, but I think automation is screwed up and they start messing with already improved terrain.

What is the best way to deal with workers later industrial, modern era? I have some railroads that can be built I just don't know the different commands to best automate the workers.

One of the things I hatew the most is the tedium of endless workers and LOOOOOOONG boring late industrial.modern turns. It is a REAL downer. Please give me some suggestions..to make it more bearable.

[Catt]

Workers given the "Shift-A" command are automated but won't alter existing tile improvements.

[Compare to the "A" command which is fully automated -- under the "A" command your workers will freely decide that "this particular mine would look so much better just to the left a little bit -- I think I'll irrigate over this mine and then build the mine to the left . . . on that irrigated tile."]

Always remember the caveat though that automated workers will be less efficient than manually controled workers unless the only thing they're doing is cleaning the occasional pollution.

Catt

[Jawa Jocky]

shift+A is the key to your answer

Automate w/o changing current terrain upgrades. They also like cleaning pollution for you.

[Hagbart]

Just set half of them to clean pollution, and the rest shift-A. I agree with Catt.

[Thrawn05]

I always automate, only because I'm a keyboard user (mouse <- suckers!)

Besides, when you 100s of workers, who cares anymore.

[Hagbart]

I like the mouse.

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by Hagbart
I like the mouse.

Only for FPS games.

[Artifex]

Is there a command to specifically " build railroads"?

Also, Can you make worker armies, and group them together? It would be a good time saver mid game from having to manualy point and click each one to a spot that takes 10 mionutes to get them all thier. *SIGH* Talk about unbearable tedium.......

Yes the tedium of workers late game can be horrendous. I have an undeveloped Continent/colony that needs railroads. I was wondering if I can ship them over their and have them build railroads as a priority.

I am in late game I could have wiped every one out but I have never seen tanks or the modern age so I am dragging it along so I can just see how they look * lol*, I always win on Monarch at about the mid industrial age..before those beautiful tanks and planes.

[dac]

"Shift-R" builds railroads on squares with roads. "Ctrl-Shift-R" builds a path of railroads to the endpoint you designate.

I never thought of putting workers in an Army. That could be pretty interesting.

[Catt]

Go into the civilopedia and look at the "Hotkeys" section. There is a wide assortment of worker orders available (though I haven't used 90% of them). From memory, there is a "Build Trade Network" command that (I believe) orders your workers to build connecting roads to each of your cities (perhaps RRs in the industrial age?) but I don't know how efficient it is. There is also a "Build RR to X" command so that a worker will build a RR from its present location to a location you select.

I tend to keep my workers in little groups that will accomplish certain tasks in one turn -- for instance, playing in the industrial era in a Republic with a non-industrious civ, it takes my workers 6 turns to clean pollution from "flat lands" and 12 turns from hills (maybe 18 on mountains?). I keep stacks "6 equivalent" workers - 6 workers if they're all mine, up to 12 if they're all captured slaves and therefore work half as fast -- in any event, a stack that equates to 6 native-worker-turns. Pollution pops up? RIght click on the stack, select "Wake All." Use J command to move entire stack to polluted tile. Click "Shift-C" six times. Repeat if pollution occurs on a hill.

In your example of needing a RR net (but using my Republic, non-industrious values) I would likely keep several stacks of 5 workers - 2 turns to build a road and 3 turns to build a RR. The stacks lventure out to my new cities building the network.

If you do use the "Build Trade Network" or "Build RR to X" commands, I would appreciate hearing back from you on how efficient the commands are - do your workers behave efficiently or totally inefficiently (I would probably sacrafice some efficiency for the relief from some of the micro-management).

Catt

[Moonsinger]

In most of my game I have about 400 workers; and yes, I always move them manually. It's faster that way. When everything is railroaded, I put 32 of them in to auto-clean up pollution and the rest of them to sleep at the steps of my palace. That's it; there isn't anything left to do.

[dunk]

I usually fortify my workers somewhere and unfortify them when I need them.

[Moonsinger]

When I said "putting them to sleep at the steps of my palace", I do mean fortify them around my capital; that's way I don't forget them.

[neonext]

i don't understand why people use so many different keys on different groups of workers. i use shift-a for all of them when it is time to automate. they take care of both railraods and pollution, so why the need for seperate keys? (i understand the difference between shift-A, and just A, and that is different than what i mean)

also, i noticed that when they are done working and there is nothing else to do, they will hide in a city where it is safe until there is more work to do. sorry if this is nothing new, but i don't recall seeing this behaivor before (i only recently started playing again, and haven't played before since the first or second patch). it would be nice, however; if the workers would divide themselves among the cities instead of all just going to one, that way when pollution pops up there will always be at least a couple workers nearby.

[Ethelred]

also, i noticed that when they are done working and there is nothing else to do, they will hide in a city where it is safe until there is more work to do. sorry if this is nothing new, but i don't recall seeing this behaivor before

Its nothing new. I don't know if it would have worked that way in the original version of the game though. The SHIFT-A command wasn't working right till 1.17f.

I prefer to get those stacks out and fortify them where I can see them when I want to activate a stack.