Automating workers

[criminiminal]

i.e.-they'll send one here, one there, but then on the tile that has no road...

i try & road everything possible...even when i take over another civ's city i try to keep their roads/rails intact.

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)

i always thought they would run right over to the next tile that became polluted...no? i don't remember telling them to clean pollution more than once...then again almost all my games are between 12am-4am lol i'm lucky to know what i'm doing half the time

 

[undertoad]

I first heard of the "automate workers" feature through this forum - didn't know what all those buttons did - and what I heard was "don't do it".

I think I enjoy weighing up what's most important to do: work towards completing the strategic railway spine (always my first railway project, just one or two continuous lines linking up the corners of my continent - but taking in as many production squares such as mines, even though that takes longer, for a quick production hit) - what does city X need, city Y need? - maybe, if there's not much to do, retire and join a city? (I'm nice like that, letting e.g. Russian slaves retire to a city after maybe 10 centuries, even when there are no Russians to get annoyed about their enslavement).

It does make turns very long, especially if there's also a war on.

 

[darski]

workers should immediately go to clean up pollution if you have not hit the space bar on them in between times. The challenge is that those workers tend to get moved later in the roster so you can begin to wonder if they are going to move to it or not. Being at war increases the chances that you will just leave them to it and they will do as they should.

 

[Quilty]

workers should immediately go to clean up pollution if you have not hit the space bar on them in between times. The challenge is that those workers tend to get moved later in the roster so you can begin to wonder if they are going to move to it or not. Being at war increases the chances that you will just leave them to it and they will do as they should.

Late in games, I hold the w key down at the beginning of my moves for that turn. After 30 seconds or so, after teh military units have cycled through two or three times, the automated workers head to their pollution.

 

[Furiey]

Never intentionally

 

[Taras Bulba]

i try & road everything possible...even when i take over another civ's city i try to keep their roads/rails intact.

it makes sense.... I try to do that two, but with me, I've found pollution always has to hit the tiles that are most annoying to do (i.e.-jungle, unimproved, mountains)

 

[TheOverseer714]

Here is my problem with automating workers, even late in the game. When they run out of stuff to do, they all gather somewhere and for some reason they lose their movement points. When I want a slave for something, if he is sitting on his ass, I want it where I say it can sit and I can put him to work when I want him to work. It's a control issue for me. I voted never. You can't trust them to stay out of trouble. Toward the end of a game, I often have many slave stacks of 12 fortified near my capital so I can find them fast.

 

[againsttheflow]

I do as overseer mentioned. I designate specific spots for them once I get to the late game, usually just build a fort there, and send groups to await orders every turn. I may have automated them at this point once or twice but then, I've played a lot of civ. I voted never.

 

[Spoonwood]

The frequency of my automating workers qualifies as a fuzzy number which has degree of membership of 0 in never(1) and has degree of membership of 1 very, very near never(2) and suddenly drops to degree of membership of 0 at never(2). Why? Because I don't play games for long enough to get to never(2). In plain English NEVER NEVER NEVER.

 

[Sweetchuck]

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

What Darski said.

If there's no pollution in a turn (or less than your current squad can clean in a turn) - they stand there idle waiting to be moved. Not much of a convenience.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

I use "automate - this city only - no altering" a LOT

 

[Argetnyx]

when my empire gets too big, i cant keep track of all of them. but when i want a certain thing done, i get all the workers in the area and tell them to do whatever the job is.

 

[NickyH]

I only automate by mistake when I hit the wrong key on my keyboard. Automated workers are just as stupid as your advisers and governors.

 

[Glassfan]

I'm permanently at war, and it's easier to guard gangs of slaves. The only thing I ever automate is Bombers. I auto-bomb enemy cities to get elite bombers & stealth bombers to eventually deploy aboard carriers. I like micromanaging everything. It's the whole point of the game.

 

[Exwing17]

On a scale to 1-10; 1 being NEVER and 10 being always, I’m around 3 I’d say. I just completed a monarch game with the Mayans, and as you can imagine, they acquire a hell of a lot of workers. By the time I’d take over my continent at the start of the industrial age, I had 120 cities and around 100 workers.

There was a lot of hitting “A”. I just don’t have the time & effort to handle that sort of commitment. Especially seeing as I was fascist and the workers nail everything really fast. However, I usually Automate Remove Wetlands first, and then Remove Forest (I had no tundra really). Then Automate trade, and then fully automate.

After a couple of turns and a bit of buggy movement, I just fortified a stack of 100 workers, and when I get pollution I just move them around.

I never automate bombers though, never automate stuff with lethal bombardment. I just automate their support fleet to reline the troops in a city, and then use my bombers to kill them.

 

[Argetnyx]

The only thing I ever automate is Bombers. I auto-bomb enemy cities to get elite bombers & stealth bombers to eventually deploy aboard carriers. I like micromanaging everything. It's the whole point of the game.

i never automate bombers. they just keep bombing even after nothing can be bombed in the city

 

[Death_Machine]

i never automate bombers. they just keep bombing even after nothing can be bombed in the city

They also have a bad habit of emptying a city for another civ to claim before you can get there!

 

[capnvonbaron]

autobombing seems like the epitome of lazy. Personally I have fun with bomber strikes! That is... as long as they don't get shot down. Either way, based on how the AI uses its bombers against me, I don't know that I would trust its use of MY bombers..

 

[Argetnyx]

thats probably true.....

 

[Dezzilisk]

I automate my workers when im on a difficulty below emperor.