Quick guide to irrigation versus mining

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Theseus
But you guys are definitely right... both the mine / irrigate algorithms and the AI civ's willingness to sell workers are critical problems.

How about making the price of a worker depend on the fraction of the total population it represents?

Price of worker = 20+(1/total pop) *400

E.g. Rome is a size 2 city, the Romans have two workers

Pop 4: 20+(1/4)*300 = 120

and:

Pop 3: 20+(1/3)*400 = 154
Pop 5: 20+(1/5)*400 = 100
Pop 6: 20+(1/6)*400 = 87
Pop 7: 20+(1/7)*400 = 77
Pop 30: 20+(1/30)*400 = 33

This shouldn't be too hard to implement for Soren (or does somebody see a way to do this in the editor??)

Edited: Calculating with small numbers can be difficult...

[Theseus]

Smart... unfortunately, not gonna happen anytime soon.

Arrian'll hate me for this, but I'm starting to think buying very early workers might be *gasp* an exploit.

[Arrian]

:glares at Theseus:

:sigh:

Yeah, maybe it is. It doesn't feel like one, because you *are* paying for them, but I guess they are too cheap.

Still, if it gets patched somehow, I'm gonna feel like a kid whose candy just got stolen.

-Arrian, who seeks to create vibrant, multicultural societies at the earliest possible opportunity by actively encouraging immigration in the ancient era.

[Theseus]

[laissez-faire]

Often, at first at least, this is being done with slaves.

Theseus, can you explain what you mean here? How does the work of slaves differ from citizens?

Also, from the sound of your discussion here, it looks like you don't ever turn the worker on full-auto. Is there true?

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by laissez-faire
Theseus, can you explain what you mean here? How does the work of slaves differ from citizens?

Slaves cost no support but also work only at half speed, compared to your own workers. Furthermore the civ whose citizens those slaves are wont like that at all. They'll be angry at you, which you can use e.g. if you want *them* to declare war.

Also, from the sound of your discussion here, it looks like you don't ever turn the worker on full-auto. Is there true?

Most people here will manage all of their workers themselves until at least the medieval age, since the AI worker rountines are ... - let's say we are having a discussion in this thread how to improve them When you do automate them, at least make sure to use shift+A since then they wont destroy any of the improvements *you* thought were important.

For lots of useful advice on strategy check here

[Tiberius]

Re: Quick guide to irrigation versus mining

Originally posted by Theseus
Mine everything except plains, floodplains, wheat, cattle, and wines

I respectfully disagree with that. I always mine cattle, because it has a +2 food bonus and a +1 production bonus, so if you mine them you'll have plenty of food plus production, too.

Mined Cattle on planes: 3 food, 3 production
Mined Cattle on grassland: 4 food, 2 production (on shielded grassland 3 production).
edited: without rairoad, of course.

Some people do the same thing with wheat, too. I don't, because wheat has only food bonus, so minig it is not a big difference in terms of production.

Obviously, all of this applies to "regular" cities. If the only irrigable land near my city is a cattle, naturally I won't mine it!

IMHO cattle is the best bonus resource, maybe except for whales, but you can't work that

[Theseus]

Having just captured a number of towns / cities, I will have also captured enemy workers (slaves), as well, and they are obviously first on the scene to re-work the land.

Slaves work at half the rate of your own workers.

I do turn workers on full-auto, but usually not until I have 1) irrigated or mined all tiles, 2) cleared all or most forest and jungle, and 3) built my RR connections.

[vmxa1]

Captured workers work at half speed compared to your workers. Auto is to be avoided at least until you get your RR built. Even after that it can be a problem as workers are poorly implemented and will undo some of your work if you do not tell them not to. They will build in areas that will nevr be worked and that cost you money, they will put themselves in harms way and probably even more bad things. I do let them go very late in the game when I do not care about all those issues, but still get annoyed to see them send 40 workers to a tile next to an enemies forces or tile or any tile for that matter.

[Theseus]

As an exception to the rule (and there are ALWAYS exceptions), I was looking at Cracker's Opening Plays thread on CFC, and in an example from their GOTM 8, there is a Russian starting position that is so strong from a food perspective (two wheat on floodplains tiles), that Cracker advises mining plains:

http://www.civfanatics.com/doc/civ3/cracker/civ3_starts/gotm8_russ_start.htm

I think he's right... the important thing is to remember to balance shield and food production at both the tile level and overall.