(AI ISSUE) automated workers running amuck

[LedHead]

set workers to leave forest and old improvements in game options.
have them "build trade network"

They try to:
tear down my towns to build workshops
tear down my lumber mills to build workshops
chop down a forested grassland hill to build a windmill

Bug 1. these are not "trade establishing actions" (roads, farms, plantations...)
Bug 2. They aren't defaulting to the automation limits even if they were "accidentally" fully automated.

tried to automate them when I got railroads they shredded 3 cities before I noticed what they were doing.

tried to do a second game to test it didn't know the system now wipes previous auto saves... (may or may not be another bug)

Did a little world builder for you to get an idea... They shouldn't' be building anything non trade related. Didn't have time to do it better...

save http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/68101/crackheadworker.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[ainwood]

Not sure about this one - I'll note it and link it from the AI Issues thread, but it might be that you have other workers building all the trade routes you need, so it does the next best thing.

 

[eldar]

I can confirm that it's doing this, and it's annoying, and it's not the same behaviour as in Vanilla and Warlords.

Building railroads, connecting new resources, etc. is a tedious business and the 'Automate Trade Network' option was ideally suited to this purpose once your workers had nothing else to do (much the same as you'd automate workers in Civ3 once there was nothing to do but clean up pollution).

And that's what they'd do - build roads, railways, and connect resources.

The would not replace farms with cottages, mines with windmills, and all that sort of thing, screwing up your carefully balanced cities. It's a bug (in my opinion) and it needs to be looked at.

 

[Charge]

I have the same problem and I think this is definitely a bug. If I check the leave old improvements option I don't want the workers to change my towns into workshops.

In Vanilla and Warlords, in the late game it was very useful to have the workers sit in your cities and connect new resources as they appear or was conquered, or build railroads as soon as you had the technology, but now this automation is completely unuseful...

Cheers.
Charge

 

[eldar]

Update: I've found that checking the "Automated Workers Leave Existing Improvements" and "Automated Workers Leave Forests" boxes stops this miscreant behaviour. I just don't recall ever having to do this in Vanilla/Warlords, though.

 

[Onagan]

I had one game with 7 or 8 Forests in my National Park city, the Automated Trade workers destroyed three of those by chopping down.

So it's a Bug, It should only build (rail)roads and resources.
You can't using the Leave Existing Improvements on, because he wouldn't build the mine for the Aluminum.

 

[Belaam]

Having this problem as well. Checking the aforementioned boxes does seem to solve it, but I do think it's a bug that thats not the default.

"Building a trade network" should not entail leveling existing structures and forests to cover the land with workshops. Roads/Railways. Buildings to obtain resources. That should be it.

 

[Jamesds]

Yes, I have noticed this too. It is annoying. The workers, as said above, keep tearing down cottages to build workshops, and then keep replacing existing improvements. I don't like checking "Leave existing improvements" because it means they don't tear down a windmill (for example) if coal has suddenly been discovered on the hill, and I don't get the coal. In this case I get the worker myself, but sometimes I forget...

 

[Pyrion]

I've had plenty of instances where workers will concentrate on a single tile and they'll constantly build over existing improvements. Replacing cottages with farms, and then building cottages over the farms immediately after, on and on...