Addicted to Workers Improving Tiles

[CharlieM]

I am a semi-newie, trying to work my way up to Noble level.

As I play more, read the forums and start to 'get it' a bit, I see that I am very, very into building workers and improving my tiles with farms, mines and cottages (and, of course, grabbing resources as available) as soon as possible.

I often have 2 workers/city by about 1500-1000 BC. Sometimes more.

But as I start to 'get' the concepts of City Growth in this game, I realize that I may be making sub-optimal use of resources early in the game. This is because the cities are still growing, so there are limits to how many spaces can be worked. I run around with my workers improving every space in every city, but if the cities are only size 3 or size 4, then only that number of spaces are actually generating money, production or food for the city.

Is this making any sense? It just seems like maybe I need to stop being so obsessed with improving cities so quickly, and concentrate my resources on .... what?.... playing to my leader's strengths, and building the stuff that will optimize each city (for example, Harbors for coastal cities)?

I did a search for "worker addiction" but found nothing!

 

[Belisar]

I often have 2 workers/city by about 1500-1000 BC. Sometimes more.

The number of workers you need depends on the terrain. Sometimes 1/city is enough, sometime (for example lots of jungle) even 2 won't do it.
Generally speaking, you should only work improved tiles and later it is nice to switch between tiles (farms for growth, mines/cottages at happy/health cap)

but if the cities are only size 3 or size 4, then only that number of spaces are actually generating money, production or food for the city.

I see you problem is the happy cap of your cities, it should be raised as soon as possible. If there are very few ressources, no religion... Monarchy is a very important tech (sometimes pyramids is an option for early Rep.)

 

[CharlieM]

Right now, by the way, I am playing as Gandhi on Warlord, with normal settings. I am leading in points at about 500 A.D. My military is a little weaker than the other civs (BUG shows .9 for most of them). I am leading in techs and income.

The thing I'm noticing ... is I've run out of things for my multitudes of workers to do. I have five cities. They have connected them all, connected to foreign cities, chopped jungles and some forests, and basically put an improvement on every usable city space.

It occurs to me that, if I have workers standing around with nothing to do, that 'value' may have been better served elsewhere. That's the point I'm making.

 

[Belisar]

The thing I'm noticing ... is I've run out of things for my multitudes of workers to do. I have five cities. They have connected them all, connected to foreign cities, chopped jungles and some forests, and basically put an improvement on every usable city space.

More cities.

 

[JBossch]

I think your problem will be far easier to solve than the opposite, much more typical, issue: lack of workers. As Belisar said, everything is situational so it is hard to say exactly how many workers you need per city. The main thing is that you minimize the number of unimproved tiles you are working but it sounds like you have no problem with that. Try investing in some military and expanding - that will give those idle workers something to do. You might even try bringing a couple along with your stack to build roads right away. I recommend against deleting idle workers as the maintenance cost is usually low and things will come up for them to do (eg. railroads, change improvements after biology, etc.)

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

It occurs to me that, if I have workers standing around with nothing to do, that 'value' may have been better served elsewhere. That's the point I'm making.

Yup. As a general rule, if you are playing at the appropriate difficulty level, you should feel like your workers are a little bit behind.

There are a couple tricks to this. The first is recognizing that all of your cities, and therefore all of your improvements, are not of equal value. Generally speaking, improving the capital is going to be more important than improving your newer settlements.

You do want the newer settlements to be productive, of course (especially in the BC years, when you are trying to collect the nearby resources). In my games, this usually means that I hook up the food, and the strategic resource in my new cities, then take advantage of the whip to create specialist slots, and run specialists, while my worker crews (in many circumstances there's an appreciable advantage to stacking your workers together) concentrate on my core cities. Eventually, you'll improve the entire fat cross, but you many find that you are more effective if you improve just enough at any one time.

Training two workers per city seems a bit much. With practice, you'll likely find that you can get by with training one per. Eventually, you'll start a war, and capture more workers.

So what, instead of workers? Well, if you save yourself a worker per city, that's another 60 hammers each (normal speed). I'd suggest military in most cases as your alternative (among other things, military plus hereditary rule means that your cities will need more improvements).

 

[eewallace]

What I do when my workers have finished improving my first few cities is have them build roads (escorted by a warrior) to where my next city will be so that by the time the settler arrives the city starts connected to resources.

 

[LordWeazelNobil]

I am a semi-newie, trying to work my way up to Noble level.

As I play more, read the forums and start to 'get it' a bit, I see that I am very, very into building workers and improving my tiles with farms, mines and cottages (and, of course, grabbing resources as available) as soon as possible.

I often have 2 workers/city by about 1500-1000 BC. Sometimes more.

But as I start to 'get' the concepts of City Growth in this game, I realize that I may be making sub-optimal use of resources early in the game. This is because the cities are still growing, so there are limits to how many spaces can be worked. I run around with my workers improving every space in every city, but if the cities are only size 3 or size 4, then only that number of spaces are actually generating money, production or food for the city.

Is this making any sense? It just seems like maybe I need to stop being so obsessed with improving cities so quickly, and concentrate my resources on .... what?.... playing to my leader's strengths, and building the stuff that will optimize each city (for example, Harbors for coastal cities)?

I did a search for "worker addiction" but found nothing!

Having learned what you claimed in the last half of paragraph #4 above, consider now, having the resources to protect and nurture your civilization's attributes of healty and nutritious goods as well as precious metals & endowments of luxuries.

I make a habit of checking my status in various way by clicking on the "Info Screen" (top exteme right button) -if, under "soldiers" my rank is not a 1 ,I risk all the ambitions for my empire to come to nought.

Have always the most might and you can proceed as you like without guilt or fear, but oppression can always be mine should other civs wish, foolishly, to test my patience & good will.

On the diplomatic table, should they have nothing we can agree on, I usually offer 20 or 30 credits as a gift: making sure to leave on a good note usually.

It would honor me if any of the above may prove some worth or value to you in your noble quest. Adieu!