are fast workers worth it?

[obsolete]

The Fast Worker's utility is actually a function of game speed. On faster speeds, improvements take fewer turns to build so saving a turn here and there on moving is relatively more valuable. Once you start looking at Epic and Marathon speeds, though, improvements take long enough to build that the speed doesn't make very much difference.

I think we are gonig to end up comparing apples and oranges here.

Marathon = 1500 turns vs 500 for normal.


The Marathon player, will be getting 3x the benefit of the IW than the guy at normal speed, because that's 3x the bonus in the same time-line.

If he wants to move the worker from point A, to point B, he gets 3 extra movements where the normal guy only gets 1.

Test this for yourself by running a race around your kingdom, or from one end to the other.

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

I gotta say the most powerful UU's, IMHO

1) Indian Fast worker
2) Churchhill Redcoats
3) Prats
4) Panzers
5) Impi

Yeah, lot's of controversy there.

I'd be interested to hear your reasoning for Panzers. I can understand the other three and maybe Impis, but first of all the German UU is useless if you're ahead in tech, and secondly Gunships/Anti Tank chew up any armored units anyway.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Indeed.

Panzers are easily BOTTOM 5 to me.

 

[Defiant47]

I think we are gonig to end up comparing apples and oranges here.

Marathon = 1500 turns vs 500 for normal.


The Marathon player, will be getting 3x the benefit of the IW than the guy at normal speed, because that's 3x the bonus in the same time-line.

If he wants to move the worker from point A, to point B, he gets 3 extra movements where the normal guy only gets 1.

Test this for yourself by running a race around your kingdom, or from one end to the other.

The problem is that the Marathon player will not be receiving 3x the benefit since improvements take 3x as much to build.

Since there are 3 times as many marathon turns as there are normal turns, we'll consider expending 1 normal worker turn equivalent to 3 marathon worker turns.

Scenario: 5 adjacent forests in which it takes 3 turns to upgrade on Normal speed, 9 turns to upgrade on Marathon speed (no, it's not anything specific)

Worker:
Normal speed - 5 turns from moving into the forest and doing nothing else, plus 5*3 turns to upgrade = total of 20 turns
Marathon speed - 5 turns from moving into the forest and doing nothing else, plus 5*9 turns to upgrade = total of 50 turns

Fast Worker:
Normal Speed - NO turns wasted moving into the forest, plus 5*3 turns to upgrade = total of 15 turns
Marathon Speed - NO turns wasted moving into the forest, plus 5*9 turns to upgrade = total of 45 turns

How much you've saved:
Normal Speed - The Fast Worker made you save 5 worker turns (20-15)
Marathon Speed - The Fast Worker made you save 5 worker turns (50-45)

However, note that 1 normal speed turn is equivalent to 3 marathon speed turns. Converting it (so you're comparing apples to apples, so to say), you get that the Normal Speed Fast Worker saved 15 marathon worker turns, while the Marathon Speed Fast Worker saved 5 marathon worker turns. Therefore, the Fast Worker is more effective with quicker speed.

Taking your data that normal speed is 500 turns and marathon speed is 1500 turns, we observe that the only way the fast worker is better than the regular worker is when moving into forest (or hills) tiles. On normal speed, you save 1 turn, which is equal to 1/500th of the game. On marathon speed, you save 1 turn, which is equal to 1/1500th of the game. Therefore, the Fast Worker is more effective with quicker speed.

Need I say more?

 

[Levgre]

If you want to you can also use them as war-time scouts, as they have the most movement of any land unit in the game. You can move forward onto a hill to scout the enemy, and still pull back.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

True, another great early rush unit. Yeah I consider any unit before gunpowder to be early.. I haven't tried out cataphracts yet so I don't know how good 12s is compared to 10s, immunity to first strikes. Also requires two resources and come rather late as beelining that path is usually suboptimal imo.

Oh, trust me, Cataphracts are ridiculous. I won my earliest domination because of them. Most of the time, their strength outways any first strikes, once in awhile you'll lose one to them but not enough to make a difference. Combine that with Justinians Imperalistc trait and you can have a fair number of GG Cataphrats with Morale and Blitz.

 

[Dan Quale]

Fast workers are absolutely worthless. They dont make improvements any faster. Maybe on quick speed the speed boost would be helpful , but on marathon it accomplishes less than nothing. 1 turn to get to the mine 20 to build it.

 

[obsolete]

Are you the guy that voted the FastWorker as the worst UU in the voting thread?

 

[Artichoker]

If you're focusing on military, I'd say no. Otherwise, focusing on peace allows you to get improvements done faster because the worker doesn't need to spend as much time moving to each site.

If you're Romans, having Praetorians in your stack allows you to ramp up an effective assault force much quicker than normal.

With Samurai, you can do the same a little further down the timeline.

With Chinese Chu-Ko-Nu's, you have the combined firepower of both Longbowmen and Crossbowmen...and more.

 

[LlamaCat]

I'm not a big fan of the fast worker myself. I won't try to make a list of the top units, but I am really digging the Cho-Ko-Nu.... it causes collateral damage so when attacking cities with Macemen this is a huge plus.

 

[JustinianVII]

What about the Quechua, War Chariot and Vulture? I'd say all of them beats panzers, impi and redcoats..

Vultures are deadly, I'll agree. Never rushed or been rushed by Quechuas, so I can't really comment on that.

War Chariots...overrated. I've stalled a War Chariot rush with just Archers, with no loss of territory, and eventually hooked up Iron to get Spears. Any advantage they had was then gone forever.

 

[duende29]

You don't play India for Fast Workers. Go Ghandi!

However they do help get your cities going faster (specially in normal+ speed) and although their usefulness wanes as times goes, I usually feel they help me a lot when I have them running around the empire chopping stuff.

 

[obsolete]

If you're focusing on military, I'd say no. Otherwise, focusing on peace allows you to get improvements done faster because the worker doesn't need to spend as much time moving to each site.

If you're Romans, having Praetorians in your stack allows you to ramp up an effective assault force much quicker than normal.

You MAY be in for a big surprise, matching your pratorians against Ghandi.

Ghandi starts off with mining, so he's one step away from metal from the start. You just are not going to find them quicker than him. He also can hook up his roads & mines faster than you do. Not to mention, double his worker as a 3-movement scout early.

Also note, he can chop a whole army of axemen much quicker than you do.

You better God damn well make sure your pratorians can hold up to being outnumberd by Ghandi, because once he pillages your iron... well, it won't be a pretty site...let's put it that way.

 

[obsolete]

On second note, since Ghandi can run at you before you even get an Iron source hooked up.... well you see what I mean.

Apples & Oranges here...

 

[Gliese 581]

What about the Quechua, War Chariot and Vulture? I'd say all of them beats panzers, impi and redcoats..

Vultures are deadly, I'll agree. Never rushed or been rushed by Quechuas, so I can't really comment on that.

War Chariots...overrated. I've stalled a War Chariot rush with just Archers, with no loss of territory, and eventually hooked up Iron to get Spears. Any advantage they had was then gone forever.

Well, if you defend you can of course counter any unit alot of the time, the AI is less competent, and I'm only talking about SP and attacking.
A War Chariot can be built after just researching one tech and hooking up horses if you're lucky and they move at twice the speed that axemen do, I've found they can be used to great effect but you need to get them early of course..

 

[Andvare]

The primary benefit of fast workers, are IMHO that they chop so much faster (1 turn, or 20% on epic, and no amount of workers can hurry this up), so that chopped worker/settler/rusher comes out that much faster. And with rushing, it becomes vitally important.
With their speed, they can also follow the axe/sword to build a road to the newly conquered cities (3 of them builds a road in one turn on any plot that is not jungle/forest+hill, at epic). It also means that with that road, that reinforcements can come to the front bloody quickly, so that you can rush just a wee bit earlier.

Like any UU, you have to use them correctly to get them working (like warchaiots are a fast rush unit, which is only effective as such, and barb control. Or like preats which is best use by beating everybody into submission.)

Sure they are worth it. Top five? Dunno. Better than elephants with siege engines on their backs.

 

[futurehermit]

Fast workers are the best uu in the game because they last the entire game and are just great in the beginning as well when every turn is at a premium. Panzers are awesome as well. Tanks are generally a great military unit and having stronger tanks is never a bad thing. If your opponent has some anti-tank units then you simply need to send along some collateral-dmg units as well like in any era.

 

[Gliese 581]

The most effective wars are most of the time the ones fought with a more technologically advanced army. This makes units with general bonuses vs older units very good.. for example Vultures and War Chariots vs archers. Redcoats and panzers are great for fighting contemporary armies, this generally lowers their value in my opinion so that while still good, they're not among the best.
The Praetorians and Quechuas are different bc they are so awesome that they can fight contemporary units and even units of a more advanced stage and still do exceptionally well.

 

[Gooblah]

I believe that the Fast Worker is one of, if not the top UUs in the game.

The Fast Worker is in play the entire game. Only UU to have that ability.
The Fast Worker is the fastest land unit in the entire game.
Here's my calculation:

Mining a Hill takes, lets say... 7 turns on normal? Let's also assume this hill has no road;

Normal Worker:
Turn 1: Lands on hill
Turn 2: Begins Mining
Turn 8: Finishes Mine
Turn 9: Begins Road
Turn 11: Finishes Road, out of movement points

Thus, it takes 11 turns for a Normal Worker to Mine and hook up a Hill.

Fast Worker:
Turn 1: Lands on hill, Begins Mining
turn 7: Finishes Mine, Begins Road
Turn 9: Finishes Road, 1 movement point left- can move to any location within 2 tile radius (due to road); If 1 tile away, can start on next improvement.

Thus, the Fast Worker finishes 2 turns ahead of the normal worker, and has enough MP left to start another improvement, shaving another turn of that, and restarting the cycle. Throughout the game, these extra turns add up.

 

[Gliese 581]

Mining a hill only takes 4 turns on normal I think, it takes 6 turns on epic which is my default speed.
Thus a fast worker would mine the hill in 4 turns, 6 turns with a road? Instead of 7 turns for an ordinary worker. About 85% of the normal time.
On epic it's 9 turns for fast worker and 10 turns for regular worker, 90% of the work. I don't know the quick and marathon speeds.

While it's true that it adds up throughout the game, it's in the early game that it matters most.