do workers cost upkeep money like troops do

[Revenant27]

I recently blocked in Mansa Musa and axe rushed him leaving me alone on my continent, so i spammed workers to get my economy back on track, but things just kept getting worse and worse. Do all those workers cost upkeep?

 

[Johan^^]

pretty sure worker does not cost upkeep. Though if you have trouble commerce, build a few cottages...

 

[ParadigmShifter]

They DO cost upkeep. And more again if they are outside cultural borders.

EDIT: You do get some "free" units I think though, more on lower levels.

 

[Refar]

They do.

Well... Kind of... There is no way to say exactly which unit costs what - it's the total number that counts and Workers do count towards that total... However the part of the cost caused by workers is usually negligible compared with the military....

Here is a more detailed explanation http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=141475 by Roland Johansen

 

[UncleJJ]

This is easy to test if you have to pay to upkeep troops (i.e. have more than the amount of free troops). Just look at the total upkeep cost and then delete a few workers and you'll see the costs reduce. Obviously save the game first and reload after your test

 

[A_Hamster]

They DO cost upkeep. And more again if they are outside cultural borders.

EDIT: You do get some "free" units I think though, more on lower levels.

That's correct. You can see how many free units you get by using F2. Anything over that limit pays upkeep.

 

[Revenant27]

that makes sense, I was stupid and rushed out a crapload of workers to get my economy back on track, but a mix of to many units (workers included) and no happiness resources really killed me

 

[lordqarlyn]

Took me a while to realize that, but I had armies of workers and could not figure out where my money was going...

 

[LlamaCat]

They do.

Well... Kind of... There is no way to say exactly which unit costs what - it's the total number that counts and Workers do count towards that total... However the part of the cost caused by workers is usually negligible compared with the military....

Here is a more detailed explanation http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=141475 by Roland Johansen

?? isn't the financial advisor screen in the game pretty self-explanatory? there are military units and there are regular units (everthing else, including workers).
I'm surprised that some of you think this is a mystery and don't check that screen - I look at it all the time to see what's costing me money, otherwise how else to keep track of the economy

 

[lovetramy]

funny . once i overexpand and I lost money even at 0% science . So my units were on strike . My worker keep dissapear when building cottages so I stay like that for ever lolz

 

[krille]

Hmm, don't you think workers should be free from upkeep under slavery? Or maybe just cost half?

 

[cabert]

Hmm, don't you think workers should be free from upkeep under slavery? Or maybe just cost half?

slavery already got nerfed because it was too powerful.
Just learn to use your workers better (= cottage sooner).
I'm usually a bit light on workers, but I use every single worker turn towards improving my economy. I guess I could use a bit more too, but it gets tiresome to micromanage those guys.

 

[Perugia]

Slavery actually costs you more on unit upkeep....

....The unit upkeep thread by Roland Johansen stated that the free unit support increases with your total population. The formula has a factor of 0.24 eg if your total population is 50 citizens, your free unit support increases by 12.

So if you whip a population point such that there are only 49 citizens then unit maintenance will increase.

Of course city maintenance reduction will offset this.


Another problem is you might be incurring Supply costs. For instance you might be roading neutral territory to connect your cities to get trade routes up or chopping outside borders.

If the economy is struggling, make sure you have no more than 5 units of all types outside of your borders - there are no supply costs for 5 units as 4 are free and the costs are rounded down so the fifth unit is also free.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

slavery already got nerfed because it was too powerful.
Just learn to use your workers better (= cottage sooner).
I'm usually a bit light on workers, but I use every single worker turn towards improving my economy. I guess I could use a bit more too, but it gets tiresome to micromanage those guys.

Just auto them after your core cities . They just spam food and cottages anyway if you do that, and the lost worker turns matter much less after you have the core cities set...especially since taking enemy cities yields more workers and land that is typically improved already.

I find I HAVE to micro them early though. Automated workers utterly suck at improving cities for production, and are even WORSE for setting up a GP farm. Other than that they're servicible though.

 

[Ibian]

Whats this thing abut cottages paying for upkeep people keep talking about? I have been running my games at 100% science for a long time.

 

[oyzar]

Then you are not expanding fast enough.. Or possibly you are playing at a difficulty level where there is very low maintenance or more probably both..

 

[Ibian]

Im not convinced that prince has what could be qualified as "low upkeep". Some of my newly conquered cities had up to 11 gold upkeep before courthouses, much more than what i saw on noble.

 

[cabert]

Im not convinced that prince has what could be qualified as "low upkeep". Some of my newly conquered cities had up to 11 gold upkeep before courthouses, much more than what i saw on noble.

right
but if you can stay at 100% science it's either because :
a) you don't expand fast = you get stuck with 4 cities for a long time
b) you manage to pillage, extort gold, vuild gold sell techs to cover the expenses

 

[Ibian]

a) would be true if it caused me to lose. This not being the case, im expanding exactly as fast as i want to.

There is no b)

c) Settled prophets and merchants. A GP farm makes a most excellent gold city. So does a wonder spamming capital.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Ibian, do you caste system to spam merchants in your GP farm city? That's an interesting idea if you can get the mids up to run rep early especially...

I still will never be running at 100% long in my games though...I love warring too much. 100% means it's time to leverage a tech lead and money into the deaths of my opponents in my book .