What are you thoughts regarding to automating workers? I generally manually setup improvements around my first three cities, after that it becomes somewhat cumbersome when dealing with other aspects of the game. How good of a job do the automated workers do compared to ideal improvements? Its seems like they always lean towards commerce...

Your decision making skills are exactly the reason that the AI is given advantages at higher levels. Letting the AI make decisions for you is shooting yourself in the foot.

I've never automated something, without regretting it soon after.

Learning how to micromanage workers was probably one of the most rewarding experiences I got from Civ III, and much of it carries over to IV. If you're competent at using workers you'll reap huge benefits, and all other aspects of the game (economy, science, culture etc.) will come naturally. Also, workers are by far the most versatile unit, so even two years from now you can expect to still be refining your strategy with them.

One tip I can give you: pretty much ignore what the AI does 90% of the time. Do what you think is right, and learn from your mistakes.

Do not automate, unless they put some real automatizacion options like: maximize food or commerce or production in nearest city, improve city tiles and resources only (so they do not lose turns placing farms in every empty square when they are more important things to do), automatization AI must consider getting new resources high priority. I think with SDK we might be able to change this.

I don't automate. Even when playing on a huge map.

Workers tend to chop down every single Forest when automated, which is bad. So I do it manually as much as I can, especially when I need health.

After you've built all required improvements and primary roads, you can set workers on 'build trade network'. They're pretty good at building roads on their own. When you discover something that allows you to make new improvements you can always cancel worker's orders. I wouldn't trust AI to build improvements though...

Lately I've been manually controlling workers for every city I settle in the start of a game. Once there is no more land to settle, and I have everything set the way I like, I let them go automated, but select to not override improvements. I just keep a couple workers pinned in a city for when I discover new resources, I go and make sure they have the correct improvement.

Also, If I warmonger, and capture lots of new territory, I just let me workers automate them, since they already have most of their improvements, the workers don't touch those, and just fill in gaps when my culture expands.

The only way I will ever automate is to have the computer automate building my trade network. Even then, I will only set them to do that when they have absolutely nothing else to do.

I automate workers with the "build trade network" command after I discover railroads. The workers then replace your existing road network with railroads without me having to worry about it.

I am sorry to tell that i can't live without auto... Maybe I am just a newbie who don't know how to develop the tiles correctly. Actually, I don't know how to take a balance between FOOD and PRODUCT. My game started with warlord only and i can hardly win without auto. I guess there is sth wrong with my placement on tiles...

Maybe i give some more elboration... um... I just cannot recognize which tiles for windmills and which for mines. In the mid-game, both can be built but then i dont know which should be right.... Also, even in the commence of the game, I cannot decide which tiles for farm and which for mine... that mess me up!!! My city growth stagnate due to not enough FOOD? bah...

Its just a matter of learning what is necessary. I don't specialize my cities like a lot around here (ie, miliary city, GP city, etc). I try and keep all my cities balanced and useful. One of my stradegies for improving tiles is to keep the city flexible. Say it is a size 7 with balanced happy/unhappy ( 7 :( = 7 :) ). At this point, I want some tiles developed specifically for food (corn, flood plains, etc) so that I can work the fewest tiles and keep my city stagnant (as growing will make unhappy people who don't work). The rest of my people can then do other stuff. Work improved hills for production, or improved gold for commerce. If I don't need anything produced at this point, then make 2 scienists for plus to research and GP points. So it comes down to making a small number of workers (maintenance) and only having them do what needs to be done.

I think that people who automate their workers find they need more of them. You will find that you can develop successful cities with relatively few workers if done right. On the harder levels, this makes a significant difference as maintenance costs seem higher per unit produced. If I can get by with 3 workers instead of 8, that lets me build 5 more military units.

I play with auto on ALWAYS. If it works for deity, I don't see why anyone should have problems with auto on anything easier.

I play with auto on ALWAYS. If it works for deity, I don't see why anyone should have problems with auto on anything easier.

What does that mean? You play with it on auto and you have won on deity?

A useful thing to turn on is "automated Workers leave old improvements" and "automated workers leave forests." With these two, after I've built up my cities the way I generally want them, I can automate my workers (mainly to build trade routes).

I am sorry to tell that i can't live without auto... Maybe I am just a newbie who don't know how to develop the tiles correctly. Actually, I don't know how to take a balance between FOOD and PRODUCT. My game started with warlord only and i can hardly win without auto. I guess there is sth wrong with my placement on tiles...

Maybe i give some more elboration... um... I just cannot recognize which tiles for windmills and which for mines. In the mid-game, both can be built but then i dont know which should be right.... Also, even in the commence of the game, I cannot decide which tiles for farm and which for mine... that mess me up!!! My city growth stagnate due to not enough FOOD? bah...
The best way to learn is by doing. You'll never figure out how to manage your improvements if you leave it to the AI.

Generally, automated workers do real well in regards to what the city needs. The main problem with automated workers is the inefficiency in which improvements should go first, and sometimes I've seen them making a farm in a tile that won't be worked instead of a workable tile in city radius. Other than that, automated workers make each city balanced in a way that they will produce enough hammers to continually make units and buildings, and commerce where needed.

I find having a couple cities producing solely commerce is more beneficial for increasing in rapid techs because your +25%, +50%, +100% research buildings offer a lot more. I still think every city needs production though, and in the case of cities with all cottages/towns, you need universal suffrage.

As Mathemagician has said (and he stole my suggestions, you bugger! :) ), I'll repeat the following:

1) There are three automation options. General improvements, improve nearest city, and build trade network. Put every third or fourth worker on "build trade network," and they'll rush to hook up all resources in your cultural borders, and when they don't have anything better to do, they'll cover every tile with roads and railroads. And, even better, they'll leave you to decide what to do with the other tiles.

2) Go into the Options screen, and select "Workers leave old improvements" (so your workers won't go around countermanding your orders) and "Workers don't touch forests" (Patch 1.52; so workers don't automatically cut down forests--if they build an improvement on a resource, that can chop down the forest, but that's the only time).


I REALLY wish there was an option to go into a (to be added) Governor Options screen for each city. Have a little triangle (like in Master of Orion 1), and you tell the governor how much percentage to focus on food, hammers, or commerce (and this tells workers what to emphasize), or something...

Oh well. :)

I generally manually control the workers until I can't stand them anymore (annoying little buggers), at which point I set them on automate. I occasionally take control of a few to fix some mistakes or do something urgent, but generally let them do whatever. It works for me, even on high difficulties.

Automation rocks. I also love how you can have units automaticaly run around on patrol or to discovr things. This really slowed down my game having to do it manually in the early days of Civ III.

I never automate, I know I do a better job.

I like putting Scouts on automate in the early game--I just point them in the general direction I want to explore in, and set them off. Workers, generally I only automate trade networks, on account of I hate building roads unless needed for resource connections.

I usually manually build cities until I have them in the general way I want them, then auto. (there are 2 options I turn on, they go something like "Workers leave forests" and "Workers leave existing improvements") They usually just cottage everything they see, from what I've seen... And I've actually had one farm a wheat I overlooked.... I dunno, maybe I just don't have the attention span to micromanage

As Mathemagician has said (and he stole my suggestions, you bugger! :) )

I am sorry. I will sacrifice 50 warriors to appease you. :lol:

I REALLY wish there was an option to go into a (to be added) Governor Options screen for each city. Have a little triangle (like in Master of Orion 1), and you tell the governor how much percentage to focus on food, hammers, or commerce (and this tells workers what to emphasize), or something...

Oh well. :)

You mean, kinda like these?
http://www.mathemagician.net/CivShot/CivEmph.JPG

Auto worker does round off your cities, it does build mines and does what it thinks is best for the land, ei, mine on hill, or windmill on hill, but after a while you will start to see your workers, rebuilding on the same spot switching the tile from mine-wildmill-mine-windmile???

And it does biuding farms, on lands that can build farms, and cottages on others, but if i city is only size 2, and doesn't seem to be growning fast. why is all the land improved, for two citizens??? this is something that the AI does, it just knocks everything down it can. And thus it takes more workers to work your cities in the long run, cause you have your workers working over lands for only a 2 pop city, and then you have a 10 pop city with no land improvments!!!

I admit i used to automate workers in civ 3, cause there was only a few improvments, but now, i do not trust anything the AI does in civ 4.

The AI in Civ4 likes to build a lot of cottages, if you automate the workers, they will do the same for you putting you behind in production. I will always manually operate workers until the end of the game when I have already improved all of the tiles in my city radii, then workers will just build railroads and roads. Remember though, the option for "automated workers don't improve already improved tiles" in the option screen is extremely useful.

My personal experiences: People who manually work the land to best suit each city's specific needs will do much better than a person who lets the AI do the work for them.

Does anyone know if there is any mods that automation workers have been changed to say automate just farms or chop forest or jungle things like that.

The game allows trade routes but not specifc cottages or improve city but not improve city with farms or chop all jungles.

if they had an option to make the nearest city grow to its maximum size (put enough farms to get to max number of tiles worked *2) and then make the rest your choice (ex. grow to max, rest commerce). This way when you recieved civil service or biology, things would automatically change. Although if they did this then the AI would have this option too, making things much harder, and the game might become too simple on lower levels.

I am sorry. I will sacrifice 50 warriors to appease you. :lol:

You mean, kinda like these?
http://www.mathemagician.net/CivShot/CivEmph.JPG

I think he means something where that decision, or something like it, would affect what the automated workers did around the city. that option doesnt seem to affect them one bit :)

I'd love to see the ability to 'pretag' a tile. IE, found a new city, select what needs to be a farm, what needs to be a cottage, etc. then the automated workers would make them all as time permitted. that would let me get exactly what I need, without having to keep coming back to the buggers every third turn.

-Kyrinthic

I used to automate.

Now I don't.

It's slowly making a huge improvement. My games are also lasting twice as long ;)

I'd love to see the ability to 'pretag' a tile. IE, found a new city, select what needs to be a farm, what needs to be a cottage, etc. then the automated workers would make them all as time permitted. that would let me get exactly what I need, without having to keep coming back to the buggers every third turn.

:goodjob: Good idea! It would also be nice if they would only build improvements until you have one more improvement available than you do population, so that there's always something for a new population unit to make use of, but not more.

Sure are alot of threads about this same thing over and over. Maybe there should be a sticky for it so they can all be in one gigantic thread. :D

I'd love to see the ability to 'pretag' a tile. IE, found a new city, select what needs to be a farm, what needs to be a cottage, etc. then the automated workers would make them all as time permitted. that would let me get exactly what I need, without having to keep coming back to the buggers every third turn.

-Kyrinthic
If it helps, you can hold down the Shift key while giving a Worker orders to queue up several improvements in a row. For example, you can tell a Worker to go to Tile A, build a Farm, go to Tile B, build a Pasture, go to Tile C, build a Mine, then go to Tile D and build a Cottage, and the Worker will go off and do so without any further input from you.

It won't technically be automated (as in "controlled by the AI"), but you can get a worker out of your hair for a couple dozen turns putting up exactly the improvements you want :D