Difficulty versus automated workers

Apparently I'm still a NOOB after playing this game for five years because I only ever automate my workers. After doing some reading on this site, I see now that manual control of them seems to be the main tactic that I haven't been taking advantage of.

So I'm curious as to how high is reasonable on the difficulty tree to go with keeping automated workers? Obviously this changes with the skill level... just looking for generalities. I'm presuming there is a cap on how high you can expect to go and keeping things automated...

TIA

blasto

 

I know of a player that uses automated workers and plays Immortal/Deity But for pulling that you really need to know how automated workers act, and that is probably one of the skills that less players have.

 

Depends on the details.
Controlling the workers yourself is most important in the beginning of the game; and for some special tactics.

If you really automate all of your workers from turn 1 for the entire game, I think it will really make the game harder.
[Although there certainly are players who could still win deity with this handicap.]

If you controll all of them yourself until ~ turn 100, and sometimes a few of them after that, it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

 

Cool. Thanks man. Its good to know at least that its possible to go that high and be automated. I would be embarrassed to say what the highest level I played and won. But I would like the think that I'm getting better.

Actually, scratch that, I lie. And cheat. I'm a cheating bastard and I can't help it. That damn "+" key is too darn tempting to use.

 

If you insist on automating workers, use the emphasize commerce/food/hammers buttons to guide what improvements they build for each city, otherwise they are god awful.

 

Learn about specialising your cities and you wont really need to automate them.

 

TheMeInTeam?

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll have to look further into city specialization.

 

Yea, you should definitely check this guy's (TMIT) guide.
And in his signature are links for Youtube videos, just jaw-dropping.

 

@Yared

Who else ?

But anyway, for use automated workers and not being biten in the back you need to have some concerns :

-Activate the governors and emphatize . Workers will make improvements in the BFC of the cities according to that.

-"leave old improvements" on. This one is crucial most of the times, since there is a logic quirk in the automated workers logic that makes them to cycle between some improvements if they don't have nothing else to do.

- Some workers in build trade network duties. Caution: unless you take care ( or tick the leave old improvements option ), this kind of automated workers will tore apart old improvements in top of resources to connect them. Particularly irritating in case of newly discovered resources , like oil or uranium.

- "Leave forests" on after you chopped all that you want to. Not only makes the workers focus more in actually make improvements, but also will give you chances of having a decent NP city.

This should avoid most of the nonsenses that automated workers can do ( ok, there is no way of avoiding them of lumberjacking jungle like mad people, but , unless you want a jungle NP, that is a minor issue )

 

I seem to remember him microing his workers at the start of Let's Play Tokugawa. Probably turned them off after that.

Controlling workers is probably a big time waster for me. I mostly do my workers manually until railroads come up, at which point I feel safe automating them. If I'm controlling a big empire after conquest I might feel safe automating workers as well.

 

@Rolo:


@Ergo sum:
I can't remember the Tokugawa game, but my tip is that before the OP tries to use the Automated-function, he needs to learn to specialise his cities.

 

I will usually control them in the early turns, yes. Sometimes below deity I will auto them from turn 0 when I am bored however. The trick is using a combination of governor options to get them to build the right improvement, but unfortunately early in the game where workshops are really bad they think cottages = production rather than farms = production, or that they should waste turns building cottages in hammer cities, so they are definitely not optimal, I can just get away with it.

I do not go full frontal auto on deity. I need every advantage I can get there.

 

I've seen a game or maybe two where Obsolete flaunted his Deity skills and automated workers from the beginning and won nicely. We really aren't talking about the same game at that level though.

I'm lazy enough to automate my workers very early, usually after I've spawn busted barbs enough that I'm comfortable with my workers safety. I'm not the best at REXing but this is typically around the time I've settled my third or fourth city.

 

I usually start automating my workers around the time i hit replacable parts. Not much they can do wrong from this point on since most cities are set up already (although they sometimes build preserves instead of lumber mills). i always keep a pair of workers on manual though to correct this (and those farms they build that cant be chain irrigated).

What i really dislike about automated workers: they seem to not care to get captured during war, they love to work near the borders. i remember a game where i started the war with 15 workers and ended it with 5
those jungle tiles at the borders need roads!

 

I appreciate all the tips... thanks guys.

I found myself a happy medium I think. I'm leaving most of my workers automated still, but I did set the "leave old enhancements" option. The happy medium being that I now check to see what they are doing every other move or so to make sure they're not doing something stupid. This seems to be a whole lot less work than full manual control. For the most part, they seem pretty good, making roads and improvements. But the one stupid thing I kept seeing them do was starting to build forts. There were doing this with absolutely no method or cause. Even if I wasn't at war, they would sometimes start building forts... and the spots they chose seemed totally at random. Usually in the middle of my cultural area, where at least a boundary would make more sense.

And like Zink pointed out, I'll have to move them when they're at risk.

 

Forts in BtS link resources as well and are more resistent to spy sabotage than regular improvements. So it is not as stupid as that to build them on resources that can't be worked by any city

The automated workers will also consider a good idea to build some forts in the borders of your civ, but that is simply for military concerns.

There is third situation where they will build forts, that is to allow movement of sea units between 2 water masses. But that happens very rarely and almost only in 1 tile isthmus situations.

In resume, the automated workers fort build is not as stupid as it seems at first glance

 

Doh! Nothing like being humbled by being out strategied by your automated workers.

But thanks, I did not consider that. I'll have to watch closer to see if resources were the common denominator to their fort building...