Automating workers! (help needed)

[JamesPurcell]

Im sure i read somewhere i could automate my workers ONLY to clean polution, can anyone tell me if this is possible and how?

thanks

 

[bro1ncos]

Shift + P

 

[Superevie]

Don't automate your workers. It will only cause you heartache. They don't move nearly as efficiently than if you controlled them directly. Yes, I know, it's tedious, but even if you set them for just pollution, they are still inefficient.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by JamesPurcell
Im sure i read somewhere i could automate my workers ONLY to clean polution, can anyone tell me if this is possible and how?

Once everything are railroaded and all tiles within your territory are either irrigate or mine, just use Shift+A for about 30 workers (that should be enough to clean up all polution within the same turn).

 

[Bamspeedy]

Originally posted by Superevie
Don't automate your workers. It will only cause you heartache.

Do you want a heartache or a headache? when you have too many workers I'll take the heartache.

Yes, I know, it's tedious, but even if you set them for just pollution, they are still inefficient

If everything is railroaded and improved, there is absolutely no inefficiency in using automation to clean pollution, if you have enough workers.

 

[Padma]

Originally posted by Superevie
Don't automate your workers. It will only cause you heartache. They don't move nearly as efficiently than if you controlled them directly. Yes, I know, it's tedious, but even if you set them for just pollution, they are still inefficient.

Wow! We're turning you hardcore, Evie!

I agree with Bamspeedy, here. At this stage of the game, some automation is certainly acceptable.

 

[Superevie]

Originally posted by Padma
Wow! We're turning you hardcore, Evie!

I agree with Bamspeedy, here. At this stage of the game, some automation is certainly acceptable.

I guess so! I just found it to work better. I guess some automation wouldn't be bad at the later stages of the game. I did that once and I had the automated workers destroy some of my mines in favor of irrigation, but the city was supposed to be mainly for shield production. Grr. I didn't trust em after that.

 

[Nazgul]

Evie just use the Shift P command, I leave all my "aquired" workers where they are and once those " Blank has pollution" notices sart popping up, I Automate the A-workers to tyhe spot. since it is almost always on a RR spot, they get there no problem and you don't have to remember where the heck the pollution hit.
After the clean up they go back to normal

 

[zurichuk]

i get very lazy after railroads, sometimes before in an agressive game and hate spending time each turn with the workers so I assign 1 worker to each city apart from the shield producing cities, put so many on pollution, keep about 5 spare and then add the rest to my cities (last game I probably had 30 native workers and 200 acquired, I'm not controlling those manually)

 

[Padma]

Evie: if they are destroying your exisiting improvements, you aren't automating them "correctly".

NEVER, EVER use "A"!

If you are going to do a general "Automate", use SHIFT-A! (automates, but does not change existing improvements. )

 

[Bamspeedy]

Originally posted by Superevie


I guess so! I just found it to work better. I guess some automation wouldn't be bad at the later stages of the game. I did that once and I had the automated workers destroy some of my mines in favor of irrigation, but the city was supposed to be mainly for shield production. Grr. I didn't trust em after that.

That is from just using 'a' key (or the button on the screen). Use shift-A and the workers don't change any previous terrain improvements.

Manually controlling workers in the late stages of the game is far less important than in the early game. In the late game the effiency is just not worth the TIME, but some would have you to believe differently. Now, there may be sometimes where you don't want any of them on manual, like if you are still sharing a continent with someone and you are at war with them (workers going right up to the border leaving them open for attack). But if you own the whole continent that late in the game, then I use automation. When everything is done, then I have them do some last minute details (mining any tiles that don't need to be irrigated) then get rid of some if I have too many (leave some around for pollution).

 

[zurichuk]

does shift-a work on Vanilla? if so never knew that

 

[Padma]

Yes indeed! Works like a charm in ALL versions of the game.

 

[Tatran]

I agree with most speakers here.
I only handle workers manual in the
beginning,let's say the despotism phase,
after that I keep a few (4-6) workers manual,
all others shift-A.
The good side is gamespeed and they don't
forget a spot (I do) and it's annoying to move
around cleaning pollution.
The bad side is cleaning up pollution seems to
have a higher priority than mining/irrigation/building
roads.

 

[DS_Legionary]

Never EVER automate workers until you got a railroad system conecting all your cities. After that it won't really matter that much, and I don't have to usually do anything that would require automation. Eexcept pollution, and the occasional cleanup after a successful bombardment.

 

[Padma]

Originally posted by Tatran
The bad side is cleaning up pollution seems to
have a higher priority than mining/irrigation/building
roads.

That's a BAD side?!?!

 

[Tatran]

Originally posted by Padma
That's a BAD side?!?!

I think it is.By the time I get Steam Power,
I research almost directly to Sanitation (I like large cities),so
a lot of new tiles need to be worked.
In one my latest games I had created a bufferzone to be
a battlefield.I destroyed all roads so both enemies on the
continent I was could not march on fast to my cities and I
could plan a counterattack when the time was right.
By the time I had an army large enough to face both
enemies I couldn't go for a blitzkrieg because the
infrastructure was destroyed.
I have to agree a lot of polluted tiles are also a big
pain in the butt/ass.

 

[Grille]

Until steam power, I usually don't automate. Sometimes I use shift-j (autoclear jungle in vanilla) before rr, though.
Often I have roads, irrigation (or mines) on *at least* every grassland, plain or desert tile built when I discover steam. Then a good portion, say 30-50%, of my workers go on shift-a. They can't botch anything, theoretically.
Some get a control-shift-r command to create a trans-emperial rr connection. The rest stays under manual control for a while. These build rr on core tiles with high priority, eventually I build rr near wonder (pebuild) cities first. By the time the first factories are ready, the rr network is often good enough to travel to polluted tiles in one turn. So some manual workers get a shift-p command from time to time, just to help the shift-a workers.

Btw, once the left shift key decided to not work properly anymore (seemed to have been a loose contact) - during civ!!
I got a mental breakdown when I discovered the mal-function...
:slay:

Luckily it was before steam power and "just" a standart sized map, but I had already some totally automatted workers.
Then I saved the game, disbanded every hand-operated worker as soon as they got active, searched for those nasty chaps and took some notes. That was VERY tedious, since I had to reload a couple of times to keep track on those totally automatted workers.

SMAC has a nice feature that lets you recognize automatted units easily. Would be also a nice civ3 feature IMHO. Maybe even add the number of turns needed for task completion. When right-clicking a worker(stack), this could look like:
-worker: irigate2
-worker: irrigate2(shift-a)
-worker: road1(a)
-worker: pollution4(shift-p)

Actually (in vanilla), I have to activate every single worker to get to know turns to completion 8from the pop-up). And I would not now if they're automatted.

 

[stevenx]

AI dun always clear their pollution as efficiently as human, and they dun build railroad everywhere... so when i juz conquer a civ city, there are bound to be pollution square within a city with no road connect to it... and when i automate (lets say 30 workers), most of them will move to the pollution square and stuck there for 1 turn...

unfortunately, if i don't automate workers... sometime, i cannot find the pollution square cause i always play huge pangea map... very difficult to look through every squares...

 

[Beanzy]

Though I completely agree that under no circumstances is it good to completely automate workers, I must say that the first Monarch game I played with manually controlled workers, my head came close to bursting. It is amazing how much more thought process goes into the game if you have to control every worker. Now, of course, I cannot imagine how anyone could survive with automated workers, but it still does get tedious at times. That's why the second I find that any and all possible infrastructure I'll need is up, I breath a sigh of relief and hit Shift-A.

And of course, I always let my workers deal with cleaning up pollution, I'm too busy commanding my Tanks at that point!