Automate Worker - Clean pollution??

[Smitty258]

I've heard a few people mention on here about automating workers to only clean pollution. How do you do this? I can't find any mention of it anywhere in the game?

Thanks

[shrift]

smitty, i can't remember the buttons exactly but it may b ctrl-P(that's probably rong). But more importantly u can find out bi going to the civilopedia and looking up "hotkeys" in the index. it has a whole lot of useful shortcuts that u cant do bi pressing a button [on the main interface].

Shrift

[vmxa1]

Shift P

[Smitty258]

Thanks guys. This is gonna make stuff A LOT easier!

[Ethelred]

SHIFT-P will make the worker go after pollution untill there is no pollution left. Then they will need new orders.

SHIFT-A will make the worker automatically improve tiles without changing tiles PLUS they have high priority on pollution.

When pollution starts up I like to have a lot of units on SHIFT-A and if pollution gets a bit out of hand I will have my manual workers take care of it with SHIFT-P. I never use the A hotkey or the button to automate because the workers then go around tearing up mines and replacing them with Irrittation. Automated workers are WAY too fond of irrigation.

[Dis]

what's wrong with irrigation?

P.S. do you guys irrigate desert or mine them?

[Ethelred]

what's wrong with irrigation?

Its not a mine. Mines produce shields. Irrigation increases your population, often faster than you can improve a cities happiness which means a citizen wasted on entertaining instead of production. If the city isn't suffering from a lot of corruption thus needing WLTKD to get some work out of it I don't like my citizens being specialists of any kind.

Also at six and at twelve your population stops for a bit till you have the right tech. There is no sense in having extra food from irrigation then. What you want is the maximum shield production you can get from a city. In most instances that means only having as much irrigation as is needed to get the most shields you can. Often that means no irrigation at all but the AIs automated workers will irrigate half the grasslands anyway.

If you are looking to milk the game for a high score then by all means irrigate the heck out of the place as more population equals a higher score. If you just want to win its a waste to irrigate one more tile than needed.

P.S. do you guys irrigate desert or mine them?

Depends on the city. If there are enough flood plain or food bonus tiles to bring the city up to a population of twenty then I mine them. Otherwise I irrigate them. The idea is to work all the tiles. Desert tiles come last in the order of tiles I want my citizens working on. Mountains second to last because they require some other tile to be irrigated if there is more than one mountain tile. A city that is completely desert is never going to be worth much even after railroads.

[alva]

they is nothing wrong with irrigation, but you just don't need every city tile to be irrigated.

about desert: to give you an example. I've got a city with about 5 ! flood plains and the rest desert, no hospital, so in this case I mined all the dessert.

But this is a 'depend on situation' case.

[Dis]

also it seems some of my cities grew larger than 6. Maybe because they were on rivers?

And that is a good point about wasted enterainers. Esp. on the higher levels with greater unhappiness. I will look into that.

about desert I usually irrigate desert unless I don't have any hills or other means of production near my city. Then I mine it all.

[vmxa1]

Listen to Ethelred, he knows what he is saying on this subject. Irrigated tiles are a waste unless you need the food to keep growing. You get extra pop if you are on a river. What you get from a tile depends on the type of government you have at the time. Cracker has a very nice write up on the whole subject of terrain on CFC, well worth reading. watch those lame auto workers, they can really hurt you at high levels. At the lowest levels, you are free to do anything you want and still win, but the margins shrink at each step up.

[Jaybe]

Automated Workers???
In almost every game I try automating 2-5 workers, and end up regretting it.
NEVERMORE...

Workers on Manual. Micromanagement Rules (though it DOES get a bit tedious towards the end)!

EDIT: Except for Shift-P. I use that as necessary and then, if there is no more pollution I'll "Fortify All" (in 1.29) until they are needed for pollution duty again.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Dissident
also it seems some of my cities grew larger than 6. Maybe because they were on rivers?

Yes. A lake will do as well. The city must have the river or freshwater lake RIGHT beside it. Simply being on one of the city tiles is good enough for a hydro plant but it must be alongside the city tile to make an aquaduct uneeded.

[vmxa1]

Jaybe, you can let them run amok after the RR is up and running or nearly so. You may want to have a small gang to do critical task such as connecting new lands. I some times will plop a few in the capitol so I know where to find them.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Jaybe, you can let them run amok after the RR is up and running or nearly so. You may want to have a small gang to do critical task such as connecting new lands. I some times will plop a few in the capitol so I know where to find them.

After my RR is up and running is when I have tried the "run amoks."
Doesn't work for me as they will go off and improve something I do NOT want their time wasted on. I do NOT want every tile in my real estate improved and 1-4 workers clearing jungle out in the boonies makes them N/A for pollution duties if the need arises.

... Especially now as my current (untested) mod classifies Tanks/MI/MA as Wheeled (need roads for jungle/mtns.)

I usually plop my "stand-by" workers in stacks of 6-8 in the vicinity (not inside) of either or both of my palaces so I can potentially "Wake All" and "J" them as necessary.

In my last game some nukes were tossed about, and some polluted/unroaded tiles came within my borders. "Shift-P'd" workers were going off into the frontier ("Hey! There's ruthless enemy units out there!") or wilderness mountains when I wanted them to clean up messes in my core city areas. I had to "J" and "Shift-C" them to keep them safe and useful.