Automating Workers...

[NoAnswer]

I've been manually controlling workers since my very first game, where i had no clue what i was doing. Anyway, I've only had one game in which I decided to Automate workers, and my territory was 70% tundra, so there wasn't much they could do wrong anyway . The thing is, that game was one of the funnest i've ever played, because waging wars was much funner, no workers to control constantly.

Now, whenever I automate workers in order to give myself a break, I can't stand watching their stupidity, so i interfere and go back to manually controlling them . Now here is the dilemma, I could make my entire civ MUCH more effective and productive, which in turn means manually controlling a horde of over 40 workers on a large map. OR, i could make the game much funner to play, by automating them, and let my civilization suffer from their stupidity.

What do you guys do??

 

[TedJackson]

For a standard game: manual control until all tiles are railroaded then 80% set to auto with the other 20% for emergencies


Ted

 

[Akka]

1) I do so I have MUCH more than 40 workers

2) I manage them manually until the crucial job is done (linking cities and ressources, improving some critical tiles...).

3) I check that I have a one-piece empire (if not, the workers will stupidly try to cross from one piece to the other, without bothering with borders and ennemy units).

4) Then, I keep about 5-10 manual workers for the job that I don't want to be screwed, or that can't wait, and I automate all the rest.

 

[Padma]

And of course, just remember to automate with SHIFT-A, so the workers don't stupidly *undo* all your manually developed lands ....

 

[warpstorm]

I usually manage my workers in the early eras. BY halfway through or so, I put about 90% on an automatic task of some sort or other (building long roads, clearing jungle, pollution patrol, etc.). The rest I have doing specific high priority tasks.

Listen to Padma, Shift-A is very important.

 

[NoAnswer]

Ok, so far it seems that most of you are in favor of controlling workers early on, and then automating once most of the terrain is worked. That's what i've been thinking, so I must say I agree. It's good yo automate them once you get coal, because you can't do anything wrong with railroads either. And YES, i am aware of the advanced unit commands and worker actions.

Anyway, don't stop posting, i wanna hear what everyone has to say about automating workers.

 

[Smoked_Ham]

The Build Road and Build RR commands promote laziness, instead of working the tile inbetween, it goes around on roads(RR)...

I usually control some and auto the rest...

 

[Commander Bello]

I always manage my workers by hand... and in most games, I will have some 100+ of them (I usually play on 250*250 maps...)
I will have organized them in little teams of 4 or 8, since most actions then will be performed in just one turn (except cleansing). Sometimes I will concentrate up to appr 20 of them on one (jungle) tile. 12 are chopping the jungle, 4 are irrigating and 4 are building roads - all at once (since I modded jungle to be unpassable for mounted units except war elephants, this makes for surprise attacks across large jungle areas)
Captured workers will be transformed to outposts, airfields and radar stations in the right moments / locations...

 

[TedJackson]

Originally posted by Padma
And of course, just remember to automate with SHIFT-A, so the workers don't stupidly *undo* all your manually developed lands ....

Indeed.

Some things just become second nature when you've been playing for a while

Commander Bello mentions "Worker Gangs" which is another important concept as your workers will be more effective if you use the correct number of workers to perform a task.

I find it easiest to think in the number of turns it would take a slave to get the job done and then count each native worker as two slaves.


Ted

 

[Sinapus]

When you have workers set to auto-improve a city radius, I've noticed that it tends to pair-up workers and assign them to particular squares. I usually do that for cities with a lot of mountain and/or hill squares since all it does is build a road and a mine, though I wish it would build the mine first.

I don't tend to set my workers to auto unless it's some specific tasks, like auto-clear wetlands or build a trade net. Still use some workers for manual road-building since the trade net doesn't get everything connected quite as fast as I want it.