So, Builders or Workers

[mzprox]

I wonder which one do you like more.
For me builders are definately much more strategic, however the micromanagement they require is just too much.. I don't think it's worth it.
Also when the builder cost get too high, I just end up many many unimproved tiles and since it's not intuitive to see which tiles are worked in the city I might not even notice that building improvements become necessary.

So, what do you think pros and cons?

 

[Magil]

I think for one-unit-per-tile builders are a slam-dunk for most things. I wish military engineers functioned like workers and didn't have limited charges for road-building, but whatever (they have a very high upkeep/production costs and everything, I think they're a little weak). For non-road, non-fort/etc. tile improvements I think builders were a good change.

The primary advantage of workers was in older Civs where you would stack multiple workers on the same tile and have them work together to build stuff faster. In Civ V workers couldn't stack and just caused stupid civilian traffic jams building roads and crap. That happens less often with builders.

If anything I found myself micromanaging Civ V's workers -more- just because of how they would block each other when I was trying to make a road from one city to another.

 

[The_Quasar]

I've found builders are less work than workers, and agree with Magil about workers getting in the way of themselves, and other things.

Personally, I think builders are a step forward.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

Workers.

Builders are an obvious concession to the limitations of 1upt that work out to be rather poorly balanced and bring an unwelcome level of micromanagement. (And this is from someone who never automated their civ 4 workers!)

You know what a better solution would be? No 1upt!

On a related note, the changes to road building and movement rules work against 1upt, significantly slowing worker movement and increasing bottlenecking.

 

[Staal]

Builders without a doubt. They are more 'time consuming' since you can't automate BUT importantly the decisions that you make are more interesting because terrain, districts, Wonders etc are far more interesting. Previously you did not care about workers. For me after the early game it was always an irritation when a worker required direction. It was completely uninteresting. Add to that that you only have builders when you need to actual do something I have no sense of useless, time-consuming micro management.

It is a great leap forward from workers.

 

[Gorbles]

Workers.

Builders are an obvious concession to the limitations of 1upt that work out to be rather poorly balanced and bring an unwelcome level of micromanagement. (And this is from someone who never automated their civ 4 workers!)

You know what a better solution would be? No 1upt!

On a related note, the changes to road building and movement rules work against 1upt, significantly slowing worker movement and increasing bottlenecking.

Weird, I thought they were more a design choice between waiting X turns for a potential payout vs. an instant reflection of strategic improvement choices. I think you're projecting your own personal dislike of 1UPT onto an unrelated decision, here.

 

[skyclad]

I like builders but not their escalating cost.

 

[Staal]

Workers.

Builders are an obvious concession to the limitations of 1upt that work out to be rather poorly balanced and bring an unwelcome level of micromanagement. (And this is from someone who never automated their civ 4 workers!)

You know what a better solution would be? No 1upt!

On a related note, the changes to road building and movement rules work against 1upt, significantly slowing worker movement and increasing bottlenecking.

Builders are NOT a concession to 1 UPT. Ed Beach clearly stated the primary reason was because worker management was uninteresting, hence automation in previous versions. That and the enjoyment of instant improvement is the only reason for the design of builders, it has nothing to do with 'balance'. I myself did not use automation and builders are not an increase in micro-management. The instant build has had a major positive impact on the underlying experience/feel of terrain improvement. It was a change of genius.

There is no overall 'balance' issue with 1 UPT. The only issue is AI. Unit management for the player with 1 UPT is far more tactical and therefore interesting. Clamouring for a return to the Dark Age of Unit Management in Civilization is ridiculously shortsighted. In the short term you avoid some AI pitfalls but you lose the benefits of 1 UPT. Rather spend your energy pushing for AI improvement which is 100% technically possible.

 

[Haggbart]

Workers.

Builders are an obvious concession to the limitations of 1upt that work out to be rather poorly balanced and bring an unwelcome level of micromanagement. (And this is from someone who never automated their civ 4 workers!)

You know what a better solution would be? No 1upt!

On a related note, the changes to road building and movement rules work against 1upt, significantly slowing worker movement and increasing bottlenecking.

Do you know what else is caused by 1UPT? The civil war in Syria.
You know what a better solution would be? No 1upt!

 

[Mustakrakish]

"Micromanaging they require is too much", "bring unwelcome level of micromanagement"... What? Just... What?

 

[mzprox]

"Micromanaging they require is too much", "bring unwelcome level of micromanagement"... What? Just... What?

For me builders require more micro because:
-every decision is much more important
-It's not like you send a bored worker with your new settler, you probably have to buy one builder at site, then you have 3 charges, likely you forget about when your new city would need an other
-questions like: do keep one of them with just one charge in case you need to repair/remove an improvement to make place for a district or use it up to get the improved tile..

As i said they do increase the strategic options, make decisions more important, but I1m not sure that these are the type op decisions which I want to worry about when i have 10-20 city big empire. At that point most of my workers were idle/automated in previous civs and when i needed them for a new city they were available.

 

[Siptah]

Builders are a lot of fun and add (at least for me) some more decision making to the game. I feel like I could always build some builders (until ~ industrial).

 

[Mrdarklight]

Workers.

Builders are an obvious concession to the limitations of 1upt that work out to be rather poorly balanced and bring an unwelcome level of micromanagement. (And this is from someone who never automated their civ 4 workers!)

I don't understand what 1UPT has to do with the change to builders. Builders don't occupy tiles any differently than workers did.

I can't say I like them a lot more, but I think I do like them a little more.

 

[Heklios]

the micromanagement they require is just too much.. I don't think it's worth it.
Also when the builder cost get too high, I just end up many many unimproved tiles and since it's not intuitive to see which tiles are worked in the city I might not even notice

Really ?

With all due respect for a fellow Civ6 player, allow me to harshly disagree with your statement.

My guess is that you took bad habits in Civ5 to set your workers to auto-improve and queued all buildings in more or less random order in your one-tile-capital, "NOW ONTO CRUSH MY ENNEMIES". Is it ?
Well if you had taken control of them in Civ5 you would realize how amazing the builder system is. It shifts more power to the player, in adding more layers of decision making, prioritizing, and city planning. They actually require way LESS micro-managing than the workers of Civ5 (given that you weren't setting them to auto-inprove) and the actions they undertake are more impactful.

Furthermore, to check which tiles are worked.. Citizen management. You can manually lock tiles or let your advisor decide and give her general directions (focus on food, on prod, etc).

With the new pins system, you can lay out your city planning in a second. Pin the tiles you want to save for specific districts and remember to cut down forests/jungle on these and not improve them.
I often find myself straight up pining at least Commercial District, Housing spot for good Appeal for mid-late game, and a distant <6 tiles Factory spot that would be adjacent to other cities' factories.

My advice to you is to just dedicate a bit of time/effort to get used to this new system and I guarantee you will embrace it. I think your current opinion is just another case of "fear of change".

Have fun.

 

[Plus Ultra]

Welcome to Civ Fanatics @Heklios!

A strong first post

 

[zagosya]

I like builders much more! remember those jungle gems mines in civ5 that took what like 8 turns to make? or that newly appeared coal or oil resource which you desperately need but have to wait a lot of turns? Thank god that is gone now.
On the other hand now I tend not to build farms in the early-mid game, it's just not worth it

 

[mzprox]

My guess is that you took bad habits in Civ5 to set your workers to auto-improve and queued all buildings in more or less random order in your one-tile-capital, "NOW ONTO CRUSH MY ENNEMIES". Is it ?

Quite the contrary actually. I never automated my workers unless there was no more meaningful work for them, and I tended to only wage defensive wars. I still think that builders require more micro as you have to manage them as finite resource, but I have no problem with others disagree. Actually nice to see that this new feature is liked by the majority. I don't dislike it, but also not prefer it.

 

[Xyriach]

I actually prefer the builder mechanic, waiting X turns for a farm was always a pain, how can it seriously take 200 years to rake a bit of land or dig a hole?

But if they could repair pillaged Districts instead of having to use city build time, that would be great. Having to take a hit on science because of some muppet barbarian when you're building military to deal with said barbarian seems counterproductive.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

I think builders are good with 1UPT, and workers are good with unit stacking.

Unit stacking and workers is a good combo because there's the strategy of whether or not to stack multiple workers to finish important tile improvements faster, or to split them up all over your empire.

With 1UPT that's gone, so it kind of made sense to go an instant-build system. And you don't want excess civilian units floating around without much to do--in 1UPT, they just get in the way. So having builders disappear after a while makes sense.

Builders also can be a minor check on expansion, since you need a lot of them if you go wide and their costs escalate.

 

[ddd123]

I like builders but not their escalating cost.

Thats a general problem with escalating cost, they shojld balance them all.
And i agree it doesnt make any sense that you can build a builder in ancient era with x production while in the modern you need 3x and they do exacty the same so why on earth would they cost so much more when you ahve much better technology they should cost much less or do much more stuff.