Just a question, want to see how many people support each side... ;)

As you know, Trip, I support the idea of BUILDING workers, just not moving them around!! In my preferred model, cities would build workers AND they would cost population, but they would go into a central 'labour pool'. Then, when you spend PW points to do infrastructure projects, you can also assign the number of workers you want on the project-which shortens the length of time needed to do the job. The infrastructure project would show up on the map with an 'appropriate' worker icon-and said squares can STILL be overrun by enemy units to obtain slaves.
Lastly, for projects like roads and rail, you would be able to stretch the cursor across the map, to join two points, assign your workers from the pool, and then each square along the way will be finished in turn.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

C'mon, you HAVE to have workers!!! It adds more suspence during wartime (oh no! the vikings are gonna enslave my workers!).

Ahhh, but Jack, my model allows all of the BEST elements of workers to be retained, whilst eliminating all of the Micromanagement BS associated with them!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I want workers, with all the automation options made avaliable in Conquests.

Looks like the poor anti-Worker folks are in the vast minory... ;)

No workers, no way. And they don't provide additional suspense during war at all. The vikings are gotta capture my workers? so what I ask!

Workers need to be in!! Everything else is boring..

I think most people on this board are anti-change. They want to be able to add new features without taking away. In fact, I bet there's a lot of support for caravan and spy units in addition to what exists now, simply because people believe "more is more".

Be that as it may, I never wanted to eliminate building the units themselves. So I was kind of caught between a rock and a hard place on this poll. I leaned towards no, although I don't think it quite explains that there's a middle ground.

Well, I was quite explicit in my language.

If you vote for "Worker" you essentially want things as they are now: as I said, you build them, you move them and they're on the map like they exist in Civ 3.

I could go either way with reguard to workers working around cities. But workers must always be able to be built so that armies can take them with them to build improvement for them away from the cities. Either that or allow military units to build stuff roads, forts, etc.

Although the MM benefits to a public works type of system are clearly tangible, I don't think people would like it very much.

People complain as it is now that railroads are "too fast" well how much are they going to complain when you can teleport workers instantly into the middle of a range of mountains where there are no roads?

Plus, there perhaps isn't anything more uniquely "civ" than terrain improvement through the use of units on the map. It's such a huge part of the legacy.

I think it would be more productive at this point, to talk about improving the use of workers somehow, because I really don't see the essential nature of workers changing, no matter how you work out a new system.

At this point energies would be better spent thinking about how to improve the automation system to something more streamlined, or changing how tile improvement works. One thought that I had was that the two major problems are rails and pollution - its not that bad building roads and mines and irrigation in the early part of the game, it is the railroads and pollution in the later game that are tedious. And the big stacks of extra workers.

Although the MM benefits to a public works type of system are clearly tangible, I don't think people would like it very much.

People complain as it is now that railroads are "too fast" well how much are they going to complain when you can teleport workers instantly into the middle of a range of mountains where there are no roads?


what if in order to build improvements beyond city radius would need road connections?

I my self support (modified) CtP I/II style tile improvement system where you could predesign your empire's entire infrastructure (if you wanted) and it would gradually auto build itself acording to set priorites and workforce/resources assigned/available.

To prevent instant roads of CtP, in order to designed pieces of road to be build they would need to be connected to allready build road or city (so 2 cities separated by 10 squares would require minimium of 5 turns to be connected by road). Similiar restrictions should be aplied to most(all?) other terrain improvements.

I want to build workers, and stick them in a worker pool. There's no option for that - either you want them as they are or get rid of them completely. I bet you'd see the balance swing a bit if the option was in there. At the moment it's giving a false impression of scale of the 'keep things the same' movement.

People aren't reading the options.

The first says to keep things as they are now.

The second says to change them.

Is it really that hard?

The first option is 'Yes, I want tangible units that I build, move and are on the map like any other unit'. That means 'don't change anything'.

The second option is 'No, I want Worker units replaced SOMEHOW'. This means 'I don't want to have to build workers at all'.

Now tell me where in that is the option 'I want to build workers that stay in the city (and are captured when the city falls), and then stick them in a "worker pool" so I don't have to keep moving them around'?

Option 2 refers to Worker units in their current incarnation.

No, option 2 is screaming out 'Get rid of workers!' If it was really just a 'change it' option then it would have been better to put it down as such and not in its present ambiguity.

Spatula: Your idea sounds more like an improvement that a unit anyway.

No, option 2 is screaming out 'Get rid of workers!' If it was really just a 'change it' option then it would have been better to put it down as such and not in its present ambiguity.
Option 1 asks if people want to keep them like they are now, as units on the map.

What you're suggesting is changing that system, where they are no longer actual units (like they exist now) any more.

What you're suggesting is changing that system, where they are no longer actual units (like they exist now) any more.

Well we're finally agreeing on something, but you've got me wrong. They're not units as normal, but there are still units that I can build. The poll says either have units as they are or get rid of units, not have units but make them special.

Well, the second option is meant to be a counter to the first - that's why I made a point of adding that the units were able to move and were on the map in the first option.

What I love is that EVERYBODY complains about end-game boredom, and their key complaint refers to Micromanagnement. Yet, the minute you suggest a way of reducing or even ELIMINATING some of that MM, those VERY SAME people go 'NO, NO, you can't do that, you would DESTROY THE LEGACY OF CIV' :cry: !!
But the fact is that these things HAVE to evolve if they are to get any better. I mean, really, if you want to be anal about it, getting rid of spies and caravans-or seperating settlers out into settlers and workers, destroyed the legacy of civ! Hell, reducing 'Infinite City Sleaze' and introducing War Weariness and Culture did that too. It all improved the game too, though, and I think that was worth upsetting a few die-hard civ2 fans! I feel the same way about turning workers into a 'semi-mobile' labour pool that I don't have to either automate or move manually every time I want a new infrastructure project done!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Oh, as for Frekks concerns, I think that the easiest solution is that your Labour Pool would NOT be usable outside your borders OR those of a nation you had an RoP with! For all other infrastructure projects, you would either need a combat engineer unit or accept the FULL turn cost of the new project!

Oh, that said though, I would simply be happy if the modding options for Civ4 LET me adjust the infrastructure development model more to my liking ;)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Maybe you should have made the survey actually

"Leave workers the same"
versus
"Overhaul workers"

Especially when the name of this thread is "workers or not", there's a serious leading question. Not like these polls are scientific or carry a lot of weight, but this thread kind of mismanaged the whole thing.

What I love is that EVERYBODY complains about end-game boredom, and their key complaint refers to Micromanagnement. Yet, the minute you suggest a way of reducing or even ELIMINATING some of that MM, those VERY SAME people go 'NO, NO, you can't do that, you would DESTROY THE LEGACY OF CIV' :cry: !!
My complaint isn't about MM per se, but of the repetitive way you have to go about it. Getting a Worker stack to clean to road, railroad and mine a mountain in one turn takes dozens and dozens of key strokes in the present model; there's no reason it shouldn't be doable with a handful.

Oh, that said though, I would simply be happy if the modding options for Civ4 LET me adjust the infrastructure development model more to my liking ;)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Which is great for those who can mod.....

One of the best ideas from call to power was the public wokers/tax dollar pool
Like sim city, you had to budget for building and upkeep. Building was easy
point and click.

I think I would like a system that combines the above with civ 3 workers and a few tweaks.

Work gangs, as in a army of workers; it could be kept very simple, as you advance in tech, you can add more workers to the army and it could be really spiffy, lets say when you make a army of workers they work 50% faster then the x number of units worker gang (or maybe the can move faster like the current army"s) so you put some workers in a gang and.......

Now you get a pop up saying a road gang b miners c farmer d loggers

I guess confineing these team yo onely one job is a bad idea, but having them do the primary job fast (speed bonus for road gang to build road)
and all other workers task are slower.

I have manya game with around a hundred and fifty workers
If I could chop that down (build it up?) I think it would have about
(work gangs with five workers) twenty road gangs , two or three loggers, and the rest 5 each miners and farmers.

Now if any of you have suggestion for how to make this more complicate
just let me know

I'm not entirely sure about the idea, so if I write anything that you already have then it's because I didn't realise you had written it.

I group workers in certain 'teams'. I get 3 and send them to build roads, 4 for irrigation and minings, 6 for rails and so on (adjusting for democracy and industrious). Stacked movement would help movement a lot I think, but I still have to keep pressing the buttons 3/4/6/whatever times. I'd like a worker army where all the workers do the same thing you tell them to (so you only need to press the button once). Speed bonus is definately better than trying to build everything at once.

Of course, this is if we kept the current worker system - a worker pool would be even simple to use.