Automating Workers

[Byrath]

How well do you think the AI handles this? I would love to start automating my workers after most of my expanding is done, but I notice that while giving them orders myself, the blue circles that indicate the AI's recommendations nearly always focus on chopping down my precious forests. Why does it want to do this... does it place that much weight on the 30 hammers it gives back to the city? Are these recommendations largely correct, or do I need to keep working at it myself til I get the hang of all these new improvements? My biggest problem when trying to order the workers myself seems to be lack of income which causes me to research too slowly.

 

[Rustypipe]

Hey,

Well pretty well what I do to counter this is one of two things.

First one I try to do is build 3 specialist cities. 1 city is all food to pump out GP as fast as possibly so i usally look for a good spot with lots of access to flood planes for this and if i'm lucky 1 or 2 forest or hill spots just for some production if I need it. The second City is my commerce city. This sity just puts up only cottages around it nothing else. By the end of the game most your squares should be making something like 3 food 1 production and 5 commerce or somethign along thouse lines in this city. The last city is all production. I look for a spot with like 3-5 mines or forest area's where i can build wind mills and lumber mills. After most of my other cities are just jack of all trades where they have a decent mix of everything(See the othe option for how to setup these cities). One thing to note is if you do get a good map where this is possible, make sure your option for workers to alter tiles that have prior stuff built on them is turned off. This way if you automate them they won't tear apart your hard worked cities tiles to build massive amounts of farms or stupid things.

The second way which tends to happen more so becuase sometimes I can't find 3 good spots to setup specialist cities is just do what every tile is best at. If its near a flooded plains build a farm where you can, everywhere else cottage it up. Hill put mines or wind mills all though i would sugest wind mills even though you sacrafice some production you get food and commerce out of the deal. So most your cities will be jack of all trades with the odd few that have better spots to specialise more so towards productino, commerce, or food, kinda in a way its like jack of all trades / minor specialisted cities. I hope this helps.

Lastly if you want to automate you workers without fears of them chopping down your tree's make sure that alter option is turned off and build a lumbermill in the tree's after all the workable tiles are built with what you want automate them. They will do the minor things like railroads and clean up without your supervision. I find this works best in the long run.

But if you are still having money problems after all this just cottage the snot out of all your cities that you can and be a civ with financial. This creates massive revenue. Also the more religons you can found and spread to your empire with shrines in them = more money.

Hope this helps.

 

[Byrath]

Thanks for the reply, Rustypipe. I think that must be part of my problem, neglecting to build cottages... still too used to the mine/irrigate/road of Civ 3 I guess. Of course, it doesnt help that in my current game I have not a single floodplain in my territory, putting food at a premium, especially in the early stages (in 'classical era' atm). Also thanks for the reminder about holy city shrines.

 

[Rustypipe]

I thought i'd mension a few other tricks I have picked up off the boards.

First of all if your having money issues don't forget about court houses as well this reduces the cities mantiance costs by 50% this will save lots of money sometimes depending if your civic is a heavy upkeep one or not. Also try and keep the best civic for your current situation always in place they may save some money as well.

Also an easy way to make money is crushing cities when you take over a city or destory one for that matter it usally has some coin in it. When I take over an entire empire i usally clear anywhere from 200-1000 gold from it depending on the Civ and weather they are weathy or not . A good way to check this is talk to you civ's and see how much money they have to trade for techs and what not. If you see they are loaded and are easy to take over and your bank is running low it may be in your best intrests to take there money from em

Also this is a neat trick with forests I found on the boards that helps alot someties depending on the situation and takes some practice but is kinda nice. If you have an excess number of forest within your cities boundries in the beinging of the game chop down some on the outskirts tiles that won't get utalized till your city gets bigger for the extra hammers to rush out settlers early in the game. Not only does this help you get cities much faster or workers faster if you leave the tile unworked and its beside a forest tile the forest will regrow in a few years . Which means usally by the time that city is big enough to utalize the tiles on its outter culture boarders it will have grown back by then

Anyhow enjoy and hope your laying the hurt on the comp or your friends online.