How many workers should you have?

[Prince]

What's the difference between captured workers and normal ones, besides halved working speed (lazy bums! ) and having a different nationality when you add them to a city? Any differences in upkeep costs? I heard that other civs get angry when you use workers from their nationality, but then why don't my own people go mad at me for using them? Or is this not true? (the AI is nearly always pissed at me, anyway )

[Inverse Icarus]

captured workers have 0 upkeep cost.

they're slaves.

[punkbass2000]

It's true that other nations dislike you for using their people as slaves. Your own people don't dislike you because you are paying the workers a legitimate wage, I imagine.

[bbaws]

Hmmm just a thought. Trade AI (a) workers to AI (b) and vice versa. They ought to get pissed at each other. At the least (a) and (b) get half efficiency workers instead of their own workers back and you aren't the villain of the piece.

[DaveMcW]

The AI never builds enough workers to keep up with pop growth. So any strategy that involves giving workers to the AI will only help them.

Conversely, buying workers will cripple the AI's infrastructure much more than a slightly annoyed neighbor.

[bbaws]

Ummm, given that I'm going to be taking over the AIs territory it's handy if the AI builds road and RR for me in advance. Given that I am going to trade with the AI I will get better deals the stronger the AIs economy is. The point in case you missed it is that the AI will give you the same amount of money for a worker irrespective of nationality. So where possible sell the AI workers that are only half as useful to him, bearing n mind that in all probability you will be capturing them back, then selling them again.
I find the simple expedient of reading posts and thinking about them before replying helps immensely.

[Solver]

I've lately started having really few Workers. I will make it sure every city (unless those sluggish ones, maybe) builds one early on, and will continue to make them guys later a bit, but in the late Middle Ages, they won't have much to do, unless I'm on a huge territory. Then Steam Power comes, and soon I see every tile covered with railroads.

But, here it is. After I go to war, and I will often raze cities, I'll send that string of workers to my land. They cost me nothing, and that's good, and I will slowly start to add my native ones to cities. They're very cheap anyway, I can build more quickly if the need arises. If I'm Industrious, then captured workers are nice, basically working at standard rates, hence I can still get rails in place.

The above applies for cases when I'm occupying a territory that the Workers can deal with. I have had games where I was on a huge territory, so needed lots of guys to keep the work done.

[Arrian]

Hmm... I've never really kept track of how many workers I have.

If I'm industrious, each new city puts out 1 worker, and that's usually it. If I'm not industrious, I will build some more... but probably not many more. That group takes care of the homeland.

Then I start beating people with the large stick I carry, and all of a sudden, I have these neat things called "slaves." They're lazy bums, but they're free. Anyway, they usually take care of developing the AI territory I just took over. As it is probably halfway done already, their slowness isn't a very big deal. Then again, I do tend to reverse a bunch of "improvements" the AI built.

When I discover Steam Power, I typically build a worker in every city that is at size 12, since they can bounce right back to 12 in a turn (provided the food box is full). Those guys, coupled with my originals and slaves, take care of RRing the empire. Then I will often add all workers to cities and keep only slaves for pollution control.

Yeah, I know, I'm a bad man.

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

Why is that bad? It is what I do, it just makes sense, except I don't pop many out of my cities with on set of Steam as I will probably have enough to get the job done and do not want to add to my upkeep. I will if for some reasonI am short handed with not enough workers.

[Solver]

You know, Arrian, you're saying that the AI territory is partially done usually. As much as it's true early in the game, it's always never so for me in the Industrial and later.

I'm a fan of Infantry Scattering, meaning I'll scatter some Infantry over their land to pillage improvements, and if Air Power is available, I use bombing with pleasure. So it turns up for me often that his land is nearly empty.

[Arrian]

Solver,

I almost never pillage AI land, since I intend for it to become my land. I will pillage important resource connections, but rarely anything else.

Plus, the fact is that oftentimes the captured area will be near-totally corrupt, unless it becomes the center for my FP or a palace move. If it is a corrupt area, terrain development simply isn't that crucial, and thus I can take my time about it. I will often take 1-shield cities and just set them to building workers. Every 10 turns, or less if I chose to hurry it along with a few bucks, I get a new worker. My aim is to eventually have almost no 1-shield cities, of course.

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

I will only pillage if it either a resource that they need (oil/saltpeter/etc) or if I am in over my head. If they have a stronger Civ and army, I MAY then do some pillaging around a large metro or cut the access to my lands so they can not race units over rail or roads to get at me.

[Solver]

I think that pillaging the AI's land can hurt him badly, since AI workers hide in cities during wars. After the war is over, you can anyway bring a Transport full of Workers from your homeland, right?

[vmxa1]

Yes it can hurt him, but I intend to have that land and will not be able to let workers fix in until the war is over. I am not saying it is wrong, just that I would normally want to use my troops for conquering. As I said, if I am not strong enough and have some fear, I will send units to pillage. Most likely it will be calvs, when tanks and MA's are in use. I hold some calv to garrison and capture/kill stragglers. Of course these are not iron clad rules, the game may force me to behave another way.

[mrmitchell]

I usually have 1.5 per city more if hilly/forest-jungle is major terrain. (It takes more tiem IIRC to road hill/mine hill than it does road/irrigate.)

Captured workers are a godsend. Man, one time the idiot Japanese (I was playing an Huge Earth Map. I had Europe,incuding England. They had Scandinavia. ) had 10 workers in a city with 2 samurai, 1 pike, 1 spear. I easily annihlated them with my Cav, and took 10 no-pay workers. They're equal 5 pay workers, hehe)