Another Succession Game?

[Daddy-O]

Now I'm confused. So, adding Workers to an already started chopping project is of no use?

So far the only criticism is about workers. Maybe you guys are just being kind. I thought I'd hear more about the Temple in Salamanca since Lmtoops changed to Settlers. But, I like to get some culture and help with the happiness as my civ grows.

I did have some problems though - that flooding/disease in Salamanca - I just couldn't stop it. I have seen this with jungles and swamp, but that can be fixed with workers. Any way to fix the flood plain problem?

Then I could not get Niagara Falls to grow. It was just stuck at that size. Ideas?

[Modo44]

Tiles need to be improved. First - flat land, then hills and mountains. Then you should have no problems growing cities. Just don't let the governors "take care", because they often stop growth when you need it, or maximize food output, when the city can't grow anymore.

Considering tile improvenemts: If a worker needs to enter a tile and stop for the turn (for example there is no road, or the tile was too far), then he wastes time. Sure, 2 workers will chop the forest in 2 turns instead of 4, but they wil lose 2 turns to enter the tile. A single worker will lose only one turn. Whenever possible, use only one worker turn to chop and road that tile. Over the whole game, this makes a huge difference. If there is a road, then you can bring more workers to do the job, because you won't waste a turn to ge to the tile - this is especially useful for building mines.

I'm afraid I can't help with the flood plains. Only Sanitation stops the plague - nothing you could have done about that. And it always hits two turns in a row, no matter what.

[snoopy369]

Also realize, skrobism, that Modo is essentially the acknowledged Worker Taskmaster of Poly... and a little extreme in his beliefs here, albeit not wrong. I would often use 2 workers to do a job, depending on what job they might otherwise be doing.

For example, if I have a size 3 city with no roaded or improved squares, and 2 workers, they're going to work on seperate roads. They will finish in 3 turns, plus one to move onto the square, 4 turns, 2 roads, each of which give me 1 trade. Otherwise, they'd finish ONE road in 2.5 turns (one would take 3 one would take 2) and the second road in the same 2.5 turns, for 5 turns total for 2 roads if they work 'together'. (You get an extra turn of road, so in that sense working together is better, but it pays off to work separately because of the second road.)

*However*, both when talking about non-road items (irrigation/mining) that have substantial short term effects, and when talking about improvements that may not be immediately effective compared to ones that are, it's different.

For example, if I'm worker-flush and I have a 6 sized city with 5 fully improved tiles and no city that can better use the workers and growth in >6 turns, I'd be better off to send 2 (or 3, better) workers to build 1 road. I could use it right away, and building a second (or third) road would cost several turns building useless roads.

Admittedly early in the game you don't usually have this situation - but in mid-game you often do have that situation if you have plenty of workers built early on. Cities start to reach max capacity - 6 or 12, or less if food limited.

More commonly, I'll send several workers to road a mountain, for example, if it means I get a resource much faster; or to mine a hill if I need to shave a turn or two off of a wonder; or to irrigate a square if I need to quickly grow and/or avoid starving (or to bring irrigation from afar). These sorts of situations are "best-use" scenarios when you have a valid short-term reason to be slightly hurt in the long-term.

Even better, you have the "Silk Road" phenomenon. In one of my PBEM games i'm building a long road along plains to a far away resource (Iron, of course ) - say 18 squares. I have 6 workers to allocate. How fast can I get this road built and is it faster to build one worker per square (each worker does 3 squares) or to mass work them? (Answer at bottom - do the math! Assume it's a civ that does 3 worker-turns per road tile, ie either one worker takes 3 turns or 3 workers take 1 turn.)

Basically, figure out 1) the usefulness of a second
improvement compared to the first improvement finished sooner, and 2) the turn-cost of moving onto the square plus the turn-cost of building, when deciding how many workers to use. Optimal use, as Modo states, is seperate roads/etc. when on non-roaded territory (so you use an extra move point moving onto the square) and combined work when on a road and able to move onto the territory and start the action during the same turn (so you get immediate use out of the square and you get the same overall build duration).

Got it? Anyhow, I do suggest you follow the general outline of what Modo describes, but understand that he's telling you the calculus version of things, and nobody's going to be particularly upset if you do things how you feel best.

Answer to Question: The answer is to mass work roads (3 per square), because of the transportation effect. It might be more efficient for the civ as a whole to use less workers, but given 6 workers it's faster to do it this way.

Calculations:
Each square, 3 workers finish a road that turn, and 3 workers move onto the next square. So, 3 workers finish square 1 (3 worker-turns) and 3 workers move to square 1 (3 worker turns), for 6 turns, 3 of which were "wasted". Next turn, the front 3 workers will road square #2, and the back workers move to square #3 - same 6 turns, 3 wasted. This continues down the line; 17x6 turns = 102 worker-turns, road done in 17 turns, 51 wasted.

As opposed to individual workers - first turn 1 worker roads, 5 move to square 2; second turn 2 workers are roading, 4 move to square 3; third turn 3 workers are roading, 3 move to square 4; fourth, worker 1 moves to square 3 over 2's road, etc. You end up finishing a much later road and wasting many move points, taking 8 turns to build 6 roads for 24 turns total. (This mostly proves that it's always better to build a road to where you're going if you can, and have multiple workers to do it, as it takes 17 turns to make an 18 square road, which is the same as moving would take, as you keep leapfrogging.)

[Modo44]

Also realize, skrobism, that Modo is essentially the acknowledged Worker Taskmaster of Poly...

I did the math, now I keep repeating the results. Believe me, all good players did the same math, and they use it. I'm just louder about it.


Yep, the road outside your territory would go terribly slow if you try to move workers, then build the road. For the very reason that you would be losing turns on every single tile you cross, which was probably quite many...

But if your workers move inside your territory, make them road on their own.

Sometimes it seems necessary to lose the efficieny for a higher goal. For example when a wonder city needs improvements now, not in 6 or 10 turns, when they would be done using the optimal eficiency. A valid point? Hell, no! It just means that someone was too sloppy to have enough workers to do it before the tiles were used!

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Modo44
Sometimes it seems necessary to lose the efficieny for a higher goal. For example when a wonder city needs improvements now, not in 6 or 10 turns, when they would be done using the optimal eficiency. A valid point? Hell, no! It just means that someone was too sloppy to have enough workers to do it before the tiles were used!

Not true. It's not (always) optimal to have enough workers to improve squares not typically used - if you have a city that's producing +2 food and +11 shields, say, but has an unused hill, 120 shields (12 turns) from Leo's, and your spy reports 11 turns to Leos in Spain ... you send six workers to quickly mine the hill, save 2 turns, and don't grow for a while - but build the wonder first.

Efficiency is good, but it's not an end in and of itself. Don't forget the big picture. The ultimate goal is the highest possible trade/food/shield production (or the building of a wonder, or the growing of a city, or a positive trade balance, or ...) and if "wasting" a few turns of a worker means you get a net higher whatever - then it's worth it.

Besides, if you have as many extra workers as you claim- enough to road/etc. more squares than you need - then you even more so would benefit from "worker rushes". After all, if you're 2-3 squares ahead of where your city is, and it takes 10 turns to grow 1, then you might as well go elsewhere and rushroad/irrigate a square or two - get immediate results and improve a citizens' square rather than an empty one.

[Modo44]

Snoopy, I usually have enough workers to improve that hill before it is needed. By the medieval age my core cities have all tiles improved, so no worker-rushes are required - it's that simple.

And if you are talking about joining workers to a city, to make it size 12 for a wonder, then here's the advice: Each worker improves his tile before he joins the city.

The big picture is, those early trade points in one city (by using 3 workers for a road) mean less early trade points in two other cities. Granted that corruption can make it 1.5, but it's still a loss, and it shows in the long run.

Yes, I will add workers back to cities, but only after I'm sure that no improvement will be too late for a citizen to use.

[snoopy369]

Modo- your theory is nice but I just don't believe you can use it 100% of the time in practice. Perhaps I'm not as much of a micromanager as you are - but I never do it perfectly, and I see few others do the same.

[Modo44]

My "theory" comes from game experience. If you can't use it, you are in general bad condition, or have simply too few workers. Otherwise it's simply the most efficient thing to do.

The "few others" who use the workers in the same way (and do lots of MM), usually play (and win) some ridiculously high difficulty levels. For example, read Dominae's DAR to AU 505. He said clearly that he was joining workers to cities at some point, because improvements were done.

I can tell you this. At first, it seems like the solitary workers are moving terribly slow with all those roads. But the more you have, the more roads just "happen" to be finished every turn. Of course, this allows you to use worker bands to do mines, without wasting turns. This either allows for fewer workers to do slow improving, or allows a normal number of workers (about 1,5 per city) to finish all improvements very quickly. Try a game using this - calculations won't convince you, Im afraid.

[snoopy369]

I agree that your general theory is correct. I simply refuse to admit that the theory is 100% of the time applicable in practice - in fact I have yet to find ANY theory that is always accurate in practice, of any sort, in civ. I object to your extreme language, not your general theory - it's quite accurate, and something I try to do whenever possible, although I am often guilty of not having enough workers. You are better than most of us in building workers, and that's why you can say that you generally (or always) don't have situations that bring up exceptions to this theory, and I can say that I definitely do. Would that I could learn to build more workers ...

[Modo44]

Yeeees, you can never have too many workers. (Or artillery, or bombers. )

[snoopy369]

lol

You should write an article on worker building. You seem to do it very well...

[Daddy-O]

So,

- 1.5 workers per city.
- roads are single built (mostly)
- mines can be teamed up on.

But this all depends on short term vs long long term goals.

What do I do why extra workers once the world has been improved? Add to cities? Build colonies?

Thanks for the tips.

[snoopy369]

The workers will eventually add to cities, but that's a long time coming (post-RRs usually, although you can add them as needed for short term pop boosts earlier than that).

But Modo can probably give you more info than that I usually have 1 worker/city, not 1.5

[Modo44]

Yes, if you have improvements done early in the medieval times, add most workers to cities. This can happen if you have mostly flat terrain (it get's improved faster). Later on, it's sometimes better to keep those workers around, especially if they don't hurt you economy, because you will need many once railroads come. After railroads are done, and all improvements are the right ones, you only need a couple workers to remove pollution - the rest can join cities... or join your military operations.

Don't build colonies, if you arent forced to. Whenever possible, try to build a city instead. It's easier to defend, it allows your units to heal, it can extend your borders, and it will become productive at some point. A colony is easier lost, sometimes to a stupid border expansion. It's only useful if you need a resource very fast, and can't get a city in time, or in places where you can't build cities (lots of mountains, for example).

Some players join workers to cities instead of letting them grow normally, even long before all improvements are done. This is because it takes less food for a small city (size 6 and less) to grow, than it would for the bigger one. Basically, you make a worker in that small city, and join it to the bigger one. This is very powerful, as the "growing" city desn't need a food surpulus, so it can have a bigger production. People often use this tactic to quickly grow cities that are building wonders.


[EDIT: If you are already bored to death, my condolences to your family. If you are feeling like it could happen any minute now, please stop me. A simple "shut up" will be enough. ]

[Daddy-O]

no no no bore away!

Like I said before in other threads, I recently started playing Civ3. A lot of Civ2 but still new to 3. So, any info is good.

I was just starting to play with Colonies in another game. Not sure if I understand their purpose. If I can get a worker to that spot I could just as easily get a Settler to that spot and build a city.

I do see how keeping these 'extra' workers around for the RR later in the game is a good idea. What do I do until then? Move them into the nearest city to sleep until needed?

(I asked about these extra workers cuz I'm playing a game of small map regicide right now & I have no more plans for these guys.)