Do you ever automate your workers?

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Xiao Xiong

Prince
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Oct 15, 2009
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It's fun in the early game to micromanage citizens and workers, but in the middle of a long military campaign, especially in a domination game where you've captured lots of cities and have lots of workers, it gets a little tedious chasing after each one and trying to remember what it was supposed to be doing.

Sometimes I am sorely tempted to automate them, but I worry that they'll run over to one of my specialized cities and muck it up.

I do sometimes stick one or two on automated trade route building.
 
I never automate. I know what you mean about the later game - that it can get tedious. Once cities are fairly well established, I stack up workers in threes or fours which makes it easier and faster, of course.

I have tried using the build trade route option when i get railroads, but it doesn't work for me for some reason. The workers end up build improvements.
 
I automate them only once I've done all the improvements that need be done, or if the game is clearly won and that bad worker decisions won't do any harm.
 
I automate only to improve the trade network, and that's only after I've got enough to handle my cities. I can't be bothered to build forts on all my out of range resources.
 
i never NEVER automate my workers... yes, my games takes a millinium... i just cant trust those pesky yellowpants!
 
Xiao Xiong said:
It's fun in the early game to micromanage citizens and workers, but in the middle of a long military campaign, especially in a domination game where you've captured lots of cities and have lots of workers, it gets a little tedious chasing after each one and trying to remember what it was supposed to be doing.

Sometimes I am sorely tempted to automate them, but I worry that they'll run over to one of my specialized cities and muck it up.

I do sometimes stick one or two on automated trade route building.
Click to expand...

If you go to options screen, you can check "Automated workers leave old improvements". That way they won't make a mess of anything.
 
To tell the truth, I always automate my workers. They just seem to do pretty much everything I would (which pretty much shows why I can't win a game over Noble.)
 
I usually set a few workers to automated road building, especially once I've gotten rail roads. Other than that I don't usually automate them. A lot of times I wind up, in the late game, realizing that one or two of my cities have 3-4 workers just standing around twiddling their thumbs.
So...I will sometimes try to get an open borders agreement, if it isn't in place already, with my next target civ.....build a railroad straight to their closest cities/capital....thereby utilizing the workers for something productive. ;)
 
in "Attacko's Guide for Relaxed Play" it is suggested it is benefical to automate at times especially in multi-player. (but relevant to single players unless one reloads in which case nothing is relevant)

however- the premise is this

it is based on a settler march and early first kill. after this and possible worker capture - click automate missionaries, workers, promotions, and click auto city build as well. (all the icons can be clicked for individual cities (i e the hammer , or gold ect) and then forgotten or changed -whatever) and as suggested click no change or chop unless you want to have them change and chop.

in multi player your opponents are stressing and moving and building ect.
meanwhile you can smoke a cigarette and look at the trees and come back and check on things if you want to- saving intensity for when it matters.
and too- the automated workers will make improvements you wouldn't- and while many complain of ineffiency forts on a resource on a border are actually a better build then most would focus on.

the evidence is clear- automation- the play of masters
 
I get very nervous about automating workers, but I will use the trade network automation if I have a big empire figuring there's not much they can screw up. One advantage is that if the AI uses spies to blow up one of your tile improvements, the workers will run over lickety-split and fix it. The only thing they do that's annoying is that they will build forts on resources that are within your cultural borders but not in a BFC, when you might like to have an extra resource for trading purposes.

I suppose with the "leave old improvements" checked I could probably get more daring about automating them to improve the nearest city. You can waste a lot of time in a domination game making improvements around captured cities even though the reality is that it makes very little difference in the greater scheme of things.
 
Solon70 said:
The only thing they do that's annoying is that they will build forts on resources that are within your cultural borders but not in a BFC, when you might like to have an extra resource for trading purposes.
Click to expand...
Forts give you access to the resource.

I never automate workers to improve my BFCs, but once it's done and all is left is to build roads all around I just put them on "auto build trade network", until I discover Replaceable Parts. Then I make them build lumbermills, and back to auto trade.
 
Xiao Xiong said:
It's fun in the early game to micromanage citizens and workers, but in the middle of a long military campaign, especially in a domination game where you've captured lots of cities and have lots of workers, it gets a little tedious chasing after each one and trying to remember what it was supposed to be doing.

Sometimes I am sorely tempted to automate them, but I worry that they'll run over to one of my specialized cities and muck it up.

I do sometimes stick one or two on automated trade route building.
Click to expand...

I automate them after I've started to capture AI cities, and most of my improvements are built. But I do enable the 'workers leave old improvements' option. Some time later I'll start to select multiple cities at once when I wan't to built some things and I'll shift+right click. When the game introduces coal/oil/uranium/aluminium. I'll disable the 'workers leave old imrovements' option.
 
I never ever automate them except for "Build Trade Network", because the AI seems to think it would benefit me to build five forts over five valuable resources, no matter where these resources are located. At the very least to their credit, these locations are sometimes bordering other nations' territory---but never hostile nations.
 
I never automate workers (except to build roads in the pre lumbermill/railroad lull, to keep them busy). I have seen TMIT use them in conjunction with the city governors effectively though.
 
In Madscientist's king george RPC I automated workers while settling almost the entire new world, and won late 1800's space. If you use the governor emphasis correctly you can get them to do an OK job (you have to check leave old improvements after a while though to make sure they don't workshop or cottage over your resources). In that game's case, hammers got them spamming workshops/watermills just as I wanted.
 
I micro early, i.e. core resources, trade routes, paths into neighboring cities, as well as paths into resources I'll pop to as well as city sites I'm going to settle. Then when I have to start looking for things for them to do, I set the city preferences and then start to automate. Sometimes I get lucky an an automated worker pops something out of a mine that I wouldn't have.

At key points I'll switch back. For example, I'm a few turns from combustion, I'll move them en-masse to oil, and start the wells so I'm quickly productive with it. Similar with RR, I'll micro the initial routes that I need, usually cross content for military movement.

Finally, also back to manual if a border war is brewing. In this regard, I somewhat wish the there was a concept of worker experience. It would make me think twice about sending a guarded worker to the front lines to repair a pillaged resource.
 
trc said:
At key points I'll switch back. For example, I'm a few turns from combustion, I'll move them en-masse to oil, and start the wells so I'm quickly productive with it.
Click to expand...

You can also put a fort down before you get combustion and have it going from the moment you research it.
 
troytheface said:
in "Attacko's Guide for Relaxed Play"
in multi player your opponents are stressing and moving and building ect.
meanwhile you can smoke a cigarette and look at the trees and come back and check on things if you want to- saving intensity for when it matters.
and too- the automated workers will make improvements you wouldn't- and while many complain of ineffiency forts on a resource on a border are actually a better build then most would focus on.

the evidence is clear- automation- the play of masters
Click to expand...

:rotfl:

I have not tried multiplayer, but I could imagine micromanaging every aspect of my civilization and getting smoked while my opponent has everything automated and is afk having a :smoke:

The evidence is clear - Reading that post made my day! :rotfl:

Personally, I do not play like a master - I micromanage everything and automate nothing.

Single Player - Reload Perfectionist
 
Improving your land is a consequent part of the game, and an interesting one, asking for interesting decisions, which are supposedly the goal of this game. Why would one automate his workers all game along ? I can get it when there's no choice left and all your workers have to do is to build roads to connect your nicely developed BFCs, but automating the workers to make everything is kind of like playing chess but letting the computer play your pawns, so you can concentrate on "more interesting" pieces.
 
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