Automated Workers?

[.Shane.]

First, hello! I was quite thrilled to find these forums as I recently reinstalled Civ3 after having not played it for a couple years or so. Anyway, I did use the search function and didn't find anything that directly answered my question. If I missed it, apologies, just point out my error and I'll shuffle along....

I'm enjoying the worker units, but I find myself wanting to automate them quite early in the game due to not wanting to micromanage all the workers that I have.

So far, they seem to do well, but I also realize I'm still learning the "feel" of the game.

What are your opinions about the automation of workers?

Also, I noticed that automated workers will react to the presence of enemy units and seek shelter, which saves me a lot of workers as I don't always notice or remember to save my non-automated workers (and sometimes it seems that the AW sense danger that I haven't "seen" yet).

Thanks!

 

[Tomoyo]

No. Automated workers don't do anything smart. Like irrigate grasslands in Despotism or go across your empire to road something that will be roaded by the time they get there.

EDIT:

I forgot to welcome you to CFC!!!

 

[Raijer]

Hi .Shane. Welcome to CFC!

Myself, I NEVER automate workers... ESPECIALLY in the beginning of the game. In all honesty, I believe that more than any other unit, it is the workers who win the game. If you leave them at the mercy of the AI, I guarantee you're asking for problems. The workers are really the key to your economic and production growth, and if you micromanage anything in the game, it should be them.

I highly reccommend cracker's opening move tutorial here. It goes into great detail concerning workers and how they should go about improving your terrain.

 

[.Shane.]

Ah, excellent! I'd read through a handful of tuts but hadn't comes across that one yet. I'll quit automating, then.

A couple follow up questions:
1. Is there ANY aspect of the game that you recommend automating?

2. As I noted, the one clear benefit of AW's is that they flee threats w/out prompting, unlike non-AWs, is there any way to mitigate this, other than just vigilant observation on my part?

side-note @ Raijer, the link in your sig to an avatar thread is a dead link. Either the thread is gone or its somewhere private that a n00b poster can't see.

side-note #2... Just call me "Shane", I had to use the bookended '.' because "Shane" was already taken, 3 years ago by someone who NEVER has posted! boo! hiss!

 

[.Shane.]

Here's another "basic" question. Does the game always default to put your initial settler on the best spot for a city, or do you often find you have to move around a turn or 2 to identify a better spot?

 

[Tomoyo]

1. I'd recommend automating "Clear Pollution" when your territory is completely railed and improved, and you're on an island by yourself, but only that.

2. There's a thing in the Preferences called "Cancel Orders on Enemy Unit" or something like that.

3. AW usually stands for Always War, just so you know.

 

[mikehunt]

the only automation I ever do is the clear pollution one

 

[Raijer]

Hey, thanks Shane. The thread is still very much alive, and available to all. It's been a long time since I posted it, and I guess it needed to be updated.

Anyhoo: I never automate anything! One of the reasons I love Civ is cuz I'm a tried and true micromanager through and through! Seriously, you could probably get away with automating a few workers to get your railroads hooked up to all of your cities, or maybe later, to do nothing but clean up pollution. Other than that, the concept of WA is alien to me!

Here's another "basic" question. Does the game always default to put your initial settler on the best spot for a city, or do you often find you have to move around a turn or 2 to identify a better spot?

The game simply picks random starting positions for all the players, including you. Finding the optimal spot to plop the settler down is up to you. The only time I'll move the initial settler is usually if I can get a costal Capitol with no more than two moves.

 

[Turner]

There's nothing wrong with automating workers when you're first learning how to play. Especially on Chieftain level. Even up to Regent you can automate and still win easily. But Regent is really the place where you should be learning how to do your own worker actions. Beyond Regent, I don't think you can automate workers and still win.

 

[onedreamer]

I won't automate ANYTHING except movements in some occasions. Even the go-to orders can cause problems.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Automating Workers sure makes life a heck of a lot easier... but it WILL severely hinder your progress. Personally, I don't use that function any more - controlling Workers yourself, though sometimes tediously time-consuming, is a vital part of the game!

 

[gunkulator]

1. I'd recommend automating "Clear Pollution" when your territory is completely railed and improved, and you're on an island by yourself, but only that.

The problem with automating pollution cleanup is that your workers wake up if there's no pollution to clean.

Instead, try Automate With No Altering (Shift-A). Assuming all your territory is railed and improved, workers will sleep in a city until pollution shows up. Then they'll scamper over to the pollution to clean it and when they're done, they'll find another city to go back to sleep in. The only downside to this is that you have to open the city window and put your citizens back to work by yourself, unless you also have enabled one of the city governors. Despite what people say about the governors, I find the happiness governor useful in some circumstances - this is one of them.

 

[PaperBeetle]

I do sometimes automate workers late in the game, as it just takes too long to order them all about, and anyway I'm not being so careful about which tiles my cities are working. They always disappoint though.
Say I hve a mountain in my territory that I haven't bothered improving at all. Off they all go and step off the rail network onto the mountain. Then some pollution pops up and they all hop back onto the rail network to go clean it up. Except I have a stack of 'elite' workers (usually natives, when the majority are slaves) which I use to play whack-a-mole with pollution. So now the pollution is gone and all the automated chumps dump themselves off the rail network again... and so it goes on

 

[Crazy Eskimo]

Most folks have said it already, but I also would recommend against automating workers. Learnin to use them efficiently is one of the big lessons you need to lern to play Civ at higher levels and will be one of your biggest advantages over the AI.

When playing with my fiance (hot seat game) for the first time, she automated some of her workers. I swear we never saw them again and I have no idea if they did anything useful or just spent their time running back and forth across her empire.

 

[.Shane.]

Thanks everyone for the interesting and near unanimous feedback.

I played some last night and already had dumped the habit of automating workers.

 

[Abaddon]

As a side note, if you are missing enemys attacking and claiming your workers, you really ought to pay more attention!

Dont forget you can cancel what they are doing and rush them to safety if you are worried about losing them

 

[Slax]

Opening move: Most players move at the very most 2 tiles at the start, but usually settle where they begin. You may get some disagreement, but I believe that the map generator does a good job of distributing resources, etc for the most part.