Does anyone use automated workers or think that it's a big disadvantage to do so? I find the automated workers are more efficient and all-knowing better than myself and they seem to know which improvements need to be built and in which order. When I control my workers, I can't seem to know if a town or farm would be best in the long run. Automated, the workers seem to know exactly which space should have a farm or cottage.
Automated Workers?
- Thread starter Draetor24
- Start date
I'm thinking advanced players manually control them, but for what purpose? Only thing I can think of is to specifically make more of one resource for a certain city, but then you always run the risk of not having enough of another resource, etc.
Romanichine
Samurai
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2001
- Messages
- 605
The AI does what it thinks best but that does not mean he knows better than a human. It will usually build the same way, following no strategy at all. It will build cottages, a lot of them, and it's not always the best option.
For example, if you want a city to become a specialist powerhouse, you might build a lot of farm to get a large population and support as many specialist as you can. Or you might plan to build Wall Street in one city and cottage the whole area. You may want to mine every hills so your city will pop one military unit every two turns (but the AI generally prefer windmills to mines after Machinery)
You have to plan your imporvements depending on what you want to do with a city. The AI has no plan, it will create commerce-strong & production-lacking cities.
You're much better moving your own workers and learn how to improve your land. You will need these skills to beat the game at higher levels.
For example, if you want a city to become a specialist powerhouse, you might build a lot of farm to get a large population and support as many specialist as you can. Or you might plan to build Wall Street in one city and cottage the whole area. You may want to mine every hills so your city will pop one military unit every two turns (but the AI generally prefer windmills to mines after Machinery)
You have to plan your imporvements depending on what you want to do with a city. The AI has no plan, it will create commerce-strong & production-lacking cities.
You're much better moving your own workers and learn how to improve your land. You will need these skills to beat the game at higher levels.
Harry Haller
Warlord
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2005
- Messages
- 123
I usually automate them, but I turn on the option that makes them leave existing modifcations alone. That way I can build a mine or a farm if necessary and know that they are not going to come along and build over it with a windmill or a cottage. The downside to that is that if you find something that needs to be mined and there is another improvement already on that spot, the workers won't mine it unless you order them manually.
So, Roman...what are some strategies on which improvements to build depending on your strategy besides the obvious ones you pointed out?
What about general cities that are not going to be GP cities, but just a regular old city making improvements and if it comes down to war, units. I usually never have specified cities, I like to treat them all the same and make improvements depending on what they'd benefit from the most, and military units when needed.
What about general cities that are not going to be GP cities, but just a regular old city making improvements and if it comes down to war, units. I usually never have specified cities, I like to treat them all the same and make improvements depending on what they'd benefit from the most, and military units when needed.
Romanichine
Samurai
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2001
- Messages
- 605
Draetor24 said:
To me there is no such thing as "general cities". Every cities I have is part of my Big Plan to dominate the world and have to be developed accordingly
That said, most of my cities will be commercial powerhouses, so I guess we can call them "general".For commercial cities, I need 40 food to work all the 20 tiles in the radius. I will plan which tile to improve so I get this 40 food (using farms, fishing boats, herding, camps, etc..). Every other tile will have a cottage or a mine, unless there's a special resource of course.
If a city can hardly get to 40 food because it's lacking 2-food tiles, I will try to turn it into a production city instead. I will try to support as much production as I can and make sure there is support to work these tiles. Having 5 mined plain/hill tiles is nice for production (it generates 20 hammers) but you need 10 food to work all these tiles, otherwise they're all useless. I will plan to reach this +10 (each town starts at +2 from the free central tile.. each farmed grassland is +1 before Biology and +2 after, each flood plain is +1, +2 farmed and +3 after Biology). If I can't get to +10, I will not mine all five plain/hill. I may wait to be able to create windmills and mine only those I can support.
Supporting a food-low square is very important in fact. An extreme example, let's say you have a city with FIVE gold mines but every other square is tundra! Each tundra produce 1 food only, and your gold mines produce zero. Your city is complete crap because you can only support one gold mine. The only way you can produce +2 food to support a gold mine is at pop 1 with your only citizen working that mine (and your city will never grow).
For this, I will often farm flood plains to support 0-food tiles (or two 1-food tiles).
Anyway... Basically you need to plan your improvements based on what tiles you want to work (tiles that need support) and the plan you have for that city (production, commerce, great people). There's no golden rule to follow, as it depends on the terrain and the plan.
I also forgot to mention something about automating workers: they have no notion of urgency. Let's say you have a city that will gain one population in 5 turns, but will bust its happiness level when doing so. You need a road quick to connect this city to the empire so it will share the resources and you will gain a happiness bonus. The workers don't know that... If you don't control them, they won't have that road done in 5 turns and you'll have to slow the city growth until the road is done.
Other times, you might need to get that Stone linked to your empire, but the city also has two pigs in its radius. Will the AI link the stone 1st or the pigs? You can bet on the pigs!
Hope it helps a bit... I think I'm not very good at explaining this stuff.
A'AbarachAmadan
Deity
I never use them. When I want farms and specialists; or all cottages on the grassland and mines in the hills; they never do what I want. I like to specialize cities, but the automated workers never do. I also like to forest chop early, which they just don't seem to do.
I may start off manually controlling them, and often keep one or two around for special projects, but generally by the time I have built my 2nd city I put them on auto.
Make sure you click the box where it says for them to not modify previous improvements though if you manually controll some.
While you can get sometimes better results micro managing, the time it takes eats up planning time for other projects, like how to not get smooshed by Alexander.
Make sure you click the box where it says for them to not modify previous improvements though if you manually controll some.
While you can get sometimes better results micro managing, the time it takes eats up planning time for other projects, like how to not get smooshed by Alexander.
i did automate them in civ 3 but now in civ 4 i always keep them on manual. i agree with roman on all his points but in the last game i played i built all cottages around each city with only a few farms. and important thing i think is that when you get the right civs (free speach, emanicapition, and the bottom gov) then your cottages grow really fast into towns where they produce food, gold (i had each on 7), and some hammers.
one question though, what should you do when you run out of things for your workers. i dont want to just tell them to wait but otherwise i just chop forests and make roads.
one question though, what should you do when you run out of things for your workers. i dont want to just tell them to wait but otherwise i just chop forests and make roads.
It depends on a lot more than just that. It depends on what you want the city to be. It depends on all the rest of the tiles within the city radius. If you have a city with a lot of flood plains and plains then you will probably build cottages on your plains tiles. Then if you have another city with a lot of plains but no bonus food at all then you will probably irrigate most of those plains tiles. So it really depends on the entire 21 tile radius.
A good way to learn is to control the workers yourself and leave the blue circle suggestions on. For the first game or two you can just manually control your worker but always do what the computer tells you to. Pay attention to your cities. How they're doing with food/happiness/health/production/science/etc. Eventually you'll realize that the computer really isn't doing that a good of a job at all with improvements and you'll start overriding the computer's suggested actions.
Thanks, just what I wanted to hear. But Im still kinda confused with the food production, what is it good for? Be cause in civ3 food was the key for city groving isn't it now the health thing? Or em I wrong? If some one can explain the diffrence between haetlh and food. Little bit off topick...
, bancki
, bancki
Cities grow the same way as they did in civ3. Each citizen eats 2 food so if you work a tile with 3 food then you get 1 food surplus from that tile and if you work a 1 food tile then you lose 1 food surplus. Hiring a specialist you lose 2 food surplus. Of course the more food surplus you have the faster the city grows.
Health does absolutely nothing unless your unhealthiness exceeds your healthiness. When that's the case for each unhealthiness the city has above it's healthiness 1 food surplus will be lost. So healthiness is very similar to happiness in that it limits the size of your city.
Health does absolutely nothing unless your unhealthiness exceeds your healthiness. When that's the case for each unhealthiness the city has above it's healthiness 1 food surplus will be lost. So healthiness is very similar to happiness in that it limits the size of your city.
I generally automate my workers while Im not telling them what to do. What I mean is, after they get done doing what I want them to do for the time being I just automate them and let them do their own thing untill I need them for soemthing else.
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