Automating workers

[del62]

at what point in a game do you automate you workers

 

[Optional]

Somewhere between never and never.

 

[criminiminal]

never. i'd rather fortify them in a stack & move them when i see fit. i dont even like them running a stretch pf road from point A to B because they don't always choose the path i would like.

the only exception is if i am playing on a terrain w/ lots of jungle...then i'll automate clear jungle or whatever. automate clean pollution too...so maybe a little less then never.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Between never and almost never. What I do instead is that I configure the scrollwheel of my mouse to send certain commands. So, for example a nod of the scrollwheel means road, clear, stack movement, or whatever I need most. (This is not a feature of Civ, but takes additional software.)

 

[CIV D]

Also between never and never.
At least for now

 

[darski]

I find that using the automatic RR to a given point with a stack makes the best use of partial turns. When the job is done, the guys with remaining points just move forward and continue. if I am directing them manually, I lose those partial points.

 

[Bartleby]

I occasionally automate one by accident when the stupid buttons jump around on screen. Then I have to spend up to half an hour trying to find wher the little bugger ran off to.

If I remember, I try to keep an unroaded resource lying around so's they head for that, but it becomes a pain if that tile gets polluted.

 

[Taras Bulba]

I never automate workers anymore... when I first came to this site, and asked for help, lots of people told me that automating workers was a bad idea (since I automated every worker before that)
now I hand select each workers job

I occasionally automate one by accident when the stupid buttons jump around on screen. Then I have to spend up to half an hour trying to find wher the little bugger ran off to.

If I remember, I try to keep an unroaded resource lying around so's they head for that, but it becomes a pain if that tile gets polluted.

I do that on accident sometimes too, or I'll be fortifying a huge stack of units, and before its done the stack, it'll zoom over to a worker that I fortify real quick. Since I always play on the largest map, and I usually have the largest empire, it usually takes a while before I find the stupid fortified worker (since I usually have workers in stacks, defended alot of the time, just in case)

 

[Chamnix]

I admit I get lazy eventually late in almost every game. When it gets to the point where I still have unimproved tiles in captured territory, but spending 10 minutes of real time per turn moving scores of slaves probably won't improve my finish date, I'll just put most of them on Shift-A (automate don't modify).

 

[darski]

is it just me or do workers just automatically (boo, hiss, pun) run towards a fight rather than away from the war zone when you give them a clear pollution order?

 

[Aabraxan]

I don't automate them.

 

[Loki130]

I'm far too lazy too bother with workers, unless I want a road or wall built.

 

[capnvonbaron]

does shift-A only work in C3C? I love having control over my workers, but my problem is that I play on a laptop frequently, and hate having to move them around every turn. Takes for-freakin-ever...

 

[Sweetchuck]

I never, NEVER automate workers.

Not even to auto-clean the pollution.

Not even late in the game when I'm basically mopping up the rest of the cannon fodder and I have a bazillion slaves.

When I first started the game, I auto'd the workers and I found out that they all go to this one spot by a mountain away from my core cities where there's a tile with tobacco and sit around all day and hit the bong.

Plus... (yeah, I'm psycho-anal about automating workers), even late in the game when I've railed most of my tiles, the game seems to want to focus on increasing population and automating workers will cause them to irrigate everything in sight, which tanks my production after I've painstakingly balanced my cities to their proper production/population levels.

It's just bad, just say no.

 

[del62]

on civ3 complete the automated workers dont change improvements

 

[criminiminal]

Not even to auto-clean the pollution.

just out of curiosity, why not? is there a reason or you are just anal about not autoing the workers?

 

[Taras Bulba]

just out of curiosity, why not? is there a reason or you are just anal about not autoing the workers?

sometimes the computer doesn't use the workers very efficiently to auto clean the pollution... (i.e.-they'll send one here, one there, but then on the tile that has no road, they'll send them remaining 5, and they won't be able to start it until next turn, when you have two polluted tiles in your capital)

plus, sometimes its easier just to go one buy one yourself and clean up polluted tiles in one turn



not to mention that alot of the times, you'll automate your workers for auto-clean, they'll finish the job, but the turn after they finish, a butt-load of pollution will pop up, and you'll just have to automate them again (thusly defeating the point)
that happened to me ALOT.... I tried automating for just pollution, and every turn, they'd clean up all the pollution... and I could never get the right amount of workers to clean it all up

 

[darski]

I use the automate for pollution but it is annoying when you don't have any pollution for a couple of turns and they are no longer on "that duty".

 

[Death_Machine]

on civ3 complete the automated workers dont change improvements

I believe the Shift-A does not change improvements in Conquests either.

 

[Quilty]

I wait to improve all the tiles on my home continent, which takes place in the industrial or modern age. By this times I almost always have control of my home continent. Then I automate the slaves to clean up pollution, and absorb workers I've built into border cities.