Workers

oman19 · Oct 16, 2012

As some of my previous threads have stated I'm fairly new to Civ but diving right in. My next question is about workers.

Before now I have always automated them while I learned the other aspects of the game. I feel as I'm now far enough along to start considering to control them myself.

What should I take into consideration when I'm deciding what improvement to put on each tile?

shaglio · Oct 16, 2012

Here's a handy-dandy chart that I use:

Resource tiles: Build appropriate improvement to utilize the resource.

Puppet tiles: Trading Post
Jungles: Trading Post

Riverside flatlands: Farm
Riverside hills: Farm or Mine depending on whether city is more limited in food or production

Non-riverside forested flatlands: Lumber Mill
Non-riverside non-forest plains: Farm
Non-riverside non-forest grasslands: Trading Post
Non-riverside hills: Mine

All other terrain: Build Great Person buildings

mintcandy · Oct 16, 2012

oman19 said:
As some of my previous threads have stated I'm fairly new to Civ but diving right in. My next question is about workers.

Before now I have always automated them while I learned the other aspects of the game. I feel as I'm now far enough along to start considering to control them myself.

Rules:

1. Keep roads/rails to the absolute minimum necessary to connect all cities to the capital. Concessions can be made for redundant roads near hostile borders to facilitate the movement of your own military.

1a. Spam roads/rails in the territory of Friendly and Allied City States, because you don't get charged for those roads/rails.

1b. If you are the Inca, spam roads/rails on all hill tiles not inside of hostile territory.

2. Eliminate food producing improvements for the tiles of puppet cities. Replace with Trading Posts or Mines.

3. Emphasize food producing improvements and luxuries around your own cities until the Medieval era.

4. When enemies pillage improvements, repairing roads/rails takes higher priority than repairing other improvements, because repairing the roads/rails allows your military to drive off the pillagers.

oman19 said:
What should I take into consideration when I'm deciding what improvement to put on each tile?

Deciding which tile improvements you want is largely a determination of more food or more something else.

Thus, do you want the city to grow faster, or do you want more hammers/culture/gold/science?

In the early game (Ancient era until at least the Medieval era) growth is more important. It gets harder to predict what is more desirable as the game progresses.

Browd · Oct 16, 2012

shaglio said:
Here's a handy-dandy chart that I use:

Resource tiles: Build appropriate improvement to utilize the resource.

Puppet tiles: Trading Post
Jungles: Trading Post

Riverside flatlands: Farm
Riverside hills: Farm or Mine depending on whether city is more limited in food or production

Non-riverside forested flatlands: Lumber Mill
Non-riverside non-forest plains: Farm
Non-riverside non-forest grasslands: Trading Post
Non-riverside hills: Mine

All other terrain: Build Great Person buildings

Generally agree, although there are always exceptions. For example, if jungle is covering a luxury resource, you are best off removing the jumgle and developing the luxury. This may be implied by the ordering of your rules (develop resources is first), but it should be emphasized.

If you are food starved, developing even non-riverside grassland tiles can be helpful (and they become 4-food tiles after Fertilizer is researched). Also, I almost always farm riverside forest tiles -- the food is usually critical and cutting the forest provides helpful early game hammers.

Finally, I would not relegate great person tile improvements only to other terrain. The best tile for a great person is a tile that both contributes some food (self-sustaning in food is best) and is otherwise a tile that you might develop at some point in the game. So, raw desert and tundra is not preferred (other than perhaps for holy sites, which you may want to work only intermittently), since you need a citizen working a 4-food tile to support both themselves and the citizen working the barren tile improvement. Dropping a GP on some cattle or sheep, or a non-riverside grasslands tile is better -- even a non-riverside plains tile is OK, since you get one food and one hammer, in addition to the GP tile benefits. My favorite is marsh tiles, since the GP removes the marsh and makes it a grassland tile.

NewOne · Oct 16, 2012

mintcandy said:
Rules:
...
1a. Spam roads/rails in the territory of Friendly and Allied City States, because you don't get charged for those roads/rails.
...

Wait, can someone confirm this? I know people used to think roads outside your territory didn't cost maintenance, which was proven wrong, but this just says friendly and allied city states; not everything outside your territory.

So do roads in friendly and allied city states really cost no maintenance?

Click to expand...

9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4 · Oct 16, 2012

I think only roads in your borders cost maintenance.

Browd · Oct 16, 2012

I think roads in no-man's land (not inside anyone's borders) cost the builder of the road.

kaspergm · Oct 17, 2012

NewOne said:
mintcandy said:

Rules:
...
1a. Spam roads/rails in the territory of Friendly and Allied City States, because you don't get charged for those roads/rails.
...

Click to expand...

Wait, can someone confirm this? I know people used to think roads outside your territory didn't cost maintenance, which was proven wrong, but this just says friendly and allied city states; not everything outside your territory.

So do roads in friendly and allied city states really cost no maintenance?

I also wondered about this, I've been unsure about this when playing, and never got to test it systematically, so if someone can confirm beyond doubt that'd be nice.

Dentalfury · Oct 17, 2012

I've read that only roads within one's borders actually costs money. But I haven't tested building out in no man's land.

Also, if/when you end up conquering another Civ be aware of what tile improvements they decided to build. I couldn't tell you how many times I seen random forts or farms in places where mines and lumber mills probably would have been a better call in the long run. Also, if you puppet them, swap out as much as you want with trade posts. After the mid-game I sometimes put my workers on auto because once the critical stuff and roads are build the rest is just reasonable filler. Players should focus on other matter (Like eyeballing the next Civ down the line).

And, be sure to integrate your road networks either during or after a war is over and delete extra roads to nowhere.

oman19 · Oct 18, 2012

shaglio said:
Here's a handy-dandy chart that I use:

Resource tiles: Build appropriate improvement to utilize the resource.

Puppet tiles: Trading Post
Jungles: Trading Post

Riverside flatlands: Farm
Riverside hills: Farm or Mine depending on whether city is more limited in food or production

Non-riverside forested flatlands: Lumber Mill
Non-riverside non-forest plains: Farm
Non-riverside non-forest grasslands: Trading Post
Non-riverside hills: Mine

All other terrain: Build Great Person buildings

You know I kind of figured that is what you do on all those except for Grasslands. I was putting farms on grasslands. Any big reason that Trading post are better?

OmniPotent42 · Oct 18, 2012

oman19 said:
You know I kind of figured that is what you do on all those except for Grasslands. I was putting farms on grasslands. Any big reason that Trading post are better?

If grasslands are next to a river, I always put farms on them. However, if they're not next to rivers trading posts are better, especially once you research economics or unlock Rationalism policy. GP improvements are also good on normal grasslands.

oman19 · Oct 18, 2012

GP improvements on grasslands. I like that idea. I've been putting them on Dessert, Marsh, or Tundra.

Browd · Oct 18, 2012

Since fertilizer comes sooooo late in the tech tree, farmed non-river grasslands only give 3 food, so it takes two such tiles to support a single specialist or citizen working a non-food tile. That said, depending on my food situation I may farm those tiles initially and later replace the farms with TPs after researching guilds, or just leave a few as farms, but not prioritize working them until after fertilizer.

Browd · Oct 18, 2012

oman19 said:
GP improvements on grasslands. I like that idea. I've been putting them on Dessert, Marsh, or Tundra.

The problem with desert and tundra is that that are not food self-sufficient. With a grassland tile, you only need one citizen to work the tile. Similar problem for hill tiles.

The GP tile improvement should remove the marsh, turning it into a grassland tile, so that should still be OK. Similarly, the tile improvement on a grassland forest tile will remove the forest (giving the city the hammers for chopping the forest) and leave a grassland tile.

Crafty Bison · Oct 18, 2012

Roads - They cost you in your own territory but also if it's in no-ones territory and you built it (or controlled it last, I forget for razed cities). So CS's is foreign territory (even if not allied) so will not cost you. Incas should spam roads on hills outside territory not because it is free by default, but because their UAmakes it free.

Trade Posts. They're generally considered strong even in proper territory because
1) The extra science from rationalism
2) For tiles with no gold, golden ages will give +1 gold on that tile. So it's +1 gold, +1 gold with economics and +1 gold for golden age, wheras farm would be +1 food, +1 food with fertiliser and nothing else for golden age. (As civil service is much earlier than fertiliser or economics. and river tiles already have 1 gold for GA boost, farms are better there).
3) The building modifiers for gold (and science) are much stronger than the modifiers for food (in general, though it's concievable that you could reverse this if you planned your game specifically). Gold production is also less affected by times of unhapiness.

Planting GP is quite interesting - I think most people try to plant them on bonus resources but it's kinda complicated, based on what you could lose (the opportunity cost) from planting them at a certain location, and whether you would be working that tile anyway even without the GP on top. A few general rules are - don't plant GE's on hills, don't plant people on hills when taking order. Cows are considered the best in general. Try to plant them on a tile with at least 1 gold already there. Whether e.g. sheep are better than say deer depends on the situation more. Building on river tiles depends how long there is until fertiliser, as you'd give up a lot of food in civil service that you couldn't make up elsewhere. I think bananas are generally considered rubbish for planting great people. I think MadDjinn went over this on a beyond the monument episode so he'll probably have looked into it more than me

.

edit: Oh yeah, don't plant GP on lux's or strategics, they won't be improved

.

oman19 · Oct 18, 2012

Crafty Bison said:
Roads - They cost you in your own territory but also if it's in no-ones territory and you built it (or controlled it last, I forget for razed cities). So CS's is foreign territory (even if not allied) so will not cost you. Incas should spam roads on hills outside territory not because it is free by default, but because their UAmakes it free.

Trade Posts. They're generally considered strong even in proper territory because
1) The extra science from rationalism
2) For tiles with no gold, golden ages will give +1 gold on that tile. So it's +1 gold, +1 gold with economics and +1 gold for golden age, wheras farm would be +1 food, +1 food with fertiliser and nothing else for golden age. (As civil service is much earlier than fertiliser or economics. and river tiles already have 1 gold for GA boost, farms are better there).
3) The building modifiers for gold (and science) are much stronger than the modifiers for food (in general, though it's concievable that you could reverse this if you planned your game specifically). Gold production is also less affected by times of unhapiness.

Planting GP is quite interesting - I think most people try to plant them on bonus resources but it's kinda complicated, based on what you could lose (the opportunity cost) from planting them at a certain location, and whether you would be working that tile anyway even without the GP on top. A few general rules are - don't plant GE's on hills, don't plant people on hills when taking order. Cows are considered the best in general. Try to plant them on a tile with at least 1 gold already there. Whether e.g. sheep are better than say deer depends on the situation more. Building on river tiles depends how long there is until fertiliser, as you'd give up a lot of food in civil service that you couldn't make up elsewhere. I think bananas are generally considered rubbish for planting great people. I think MadDjinn went over this on a beyond the monument episode so he'll probably have looked into it more than me .

edit: Oh yeah, don't plant GP on lux's or strategics, they won't be improved .

Hmmm didn't know about planting GP on bonus resources. I assume bonus resources are cows, sheep, and wheat?

So if I get what your saying you will get the benefit of a pasture for cows or a farm for wheat even with the GP improvement on it?

kaspergm · Oct 18, 2012

Crafty Bison said:
Trade Posts. They're generally considered strong even in proper territory because.

I always found Trade posts kind of weak - yes, you will get one extra gold from Golden Age but planting a farm will generally make your city grow faster which will give you more citizens which will give you more science and more gold (from having those citizens work tiles that provide gold or by assigning them to specialist slots) so I'm not convinced Trade posts will net you more extra gold in the long run.

RCM88x · Oct 18, 2012

Trading post with free thought and the commerce finisher bonus are pretty strong I've found, especially on jungle tiles with University's. Two food, three science and three gold Is extreamly strong late game.

bcaiko · Oct 18, 2012

In general, be aware of the strategy behind your cities. Is it meant to be production focused? Your science center? A great people factory? That will determine, in part, what decisions you make with regards to tile improvement.

Browd said:
I think roads in no-man's land (not inside anyone's borders) cost the builder of the road.

That is absolutely correct.

oman19 said:
GP improvements on grasslands. I like that idea. I've been putting them on Dessert, Marsh, or Tundra.

You should put Great People on resources like deer or sheep, which will provide food that will support the worker focused on that tile, plus a little extra bang for your buck.

Crafty Bison · Oct 18, 2012

bonus resources do not provide a resource as such, just added tile performance, which is preserved when a GP is planted. The idea is that you're pretty much guaranteed to be working them in any circumstance anyway, and you can use other tiles to flick between production or food based on hapiness or as required. If you plant the GP on standard ground then that's an otherwise weak tile you've commited to for the rest of the game. As said, I think Maddjinn's 'beyond the monument' on great people covers this in a little more detail.

kaspergm - of course, build farms, especially early. I was just pointing out that trading posts don't have to be for puppets only, especially later on with rationalism and GA's being spent on GA's more, and when your banks/SE's/uni's are up. I'm not expecting a TP spam on every single city owned, and would not advocate it.

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