AI Autoworkers: Too Many Farms!

[Arkanin]

I was just going to create a thread suggesting players try to avoid letting their workers automanage. Right now, they make too many farms. Cottages are good. They are your friend. Especially in situations where you have plenty of surplus food, in the long run, they make economic powerhouses.

So, just a heads up-- your men will irrigate the heck out of your land when it isn't appropriate if you leave them to their own ends. Civ 4 strategists be warned!

 

[migo]

True. At my last game I was wandering why mine commerce started crippling, and noticed that my automated workers had transferred all cottages i had made manually at early game to farms.

I solved the problem by checking "Workers do not modify existing improvements" at options, and redid manually the cottages I had lost due my overenergic workers. After that I could again assign all workers to automatic and be sure that mine cottages, hamlets and towns would stay as they were.

Eventually won the game with space race (neglected the diplomacy victory i probably could have gained because wanted to try spaceship victory this time).

 

[Dairuka]

Farm every tile near a fresh water resource. Cottage every tile without a fresh water resource. Mine every hill, then when you get Machinery, put a Windmill in it's place. I also like to throw roads/railroads everywhere to make pillaging annoying for the pillager.

 

[NKVD]

Farm every tile near a fresh water resource. Cottage every tile without a fresh water resource. Mine every hill, then when you get Machinery, put a Windmill in it's place. I also like to throw roads/railroads everywhere to make pillaging annoying for the pillager.

thanks thats a nice hint...I never knew what would be best to construct...I guess I was not building enough cottage...

what about forest? replace it by cottage or lumber mill ?

 

[Harry Haller]

I actually have the opposite problem right now... my workers build cottages on every available space, and no farms.

 

[Lord_Helmet]

Is it even worth waiting for the Sawmill? Or should I go ahead and create cottages.

 

[mrjepson]

I actually have the opposite problem right now... my workers build cottages on every available space, and no farms.

I have noticed the same thing, its like they hate farming!

 

[Rameau's Nephew]

Farm every tile near a fresh water resource. Cottage every tile without a fresh water resource. Mine every hill, then when you get Machinery, put a Windmill in it's place. I also like to throw roads/railroads everywhere to make pillaging annoying for the pillager.

I'd second that, but add that floodplains are an exception. I prefer to cottage them, since they already produce 3 food, unworked. A floodplain-heavy city isn't going to need the extra food.

In a recent game I was playing as Elizabeth (phi/fin) with a floodplain start. London was making insane amounts of cash from the towns that had grown up in my cottaged floodplains.

 

[DaveShack]

I don't know for sure if this will help but it might be worth a try.

Sorry I don't have a screenshot available, but if you look at the bottom edge of the city screen, about 2/3 of the way towards the right side, there are a bunch of icons like a square with bread, a square with hammer, etc. These are the auto governor / auto worker preferences threads. You can mouse over them for tooltips on what they do. If you want lots of farms choose the "prefer growth" button, and if you want cottages then choose the "prefer production" button or maybe there is a "prefer commerce" button, or whatever they are called.

 

[Kolson]

I'd second that, but add that floodplains are an exception. I prefer to cottage them, since they already produce 3 food, unworked. A floodplain-heavy city isn't going to need the extra food.

Another reason why I put cottages on floodplains is because they are generally being worked by citizens early on. When my cities are at 1 and 2 population I am generally working all available floodplains so I know those cottages will grow.

 

[khumak]

Is it even worth waiting for the Sawmill? Or should I go ahead and create cottages.

Actually it depends on what stage of the game you're in. Early in the game forests are your only real source of production in flat terrain. Mines are good for hills but not all of your cities are going to be near hills. Towns eventually produce a huge amount of commerce and a shield but not enough food to grow very fast. This is especially important if you use slavery to rush things early in the game.

Basically you want just enough food to have every city square being worked and have your city's total population equal to or slightly less than it's total number of unhappy people. I like to pick about 3 cities to maximize production in so I can use them to crank out units fast when I need them or build wonders that I think are likely to be highly contested. All the rest are mostly a mix of farms and towns.

Another thing you can do to give your specialists a massive boost is to combine Representation (+3 beakers per specialist) with Pacifism (+100% GP birthrate). Try setting your cities to focus on specialists and you'll fly through the tech tree and crank out a ton of GPs.