Help with workers

[podraza]

Hey gang,

I'm a relative novice at Civ, and by that I mean I've won a couple of Regent games on Civ 3, but nothing higher than that. The guy who introduced me to Civ taught me to automate my workers and I've been doing it ever since. I've never really played a game where I micromanaged the workers. I've tried a couple of times, but usually end up automating them again anyway, because there is just too many decisions to make about what to do with what square, I never know what to do, and the computer seems to do a decent job.

My question is about that, how decent a job DOES the computer do? Everybody here seems to micromanage their workers, so I take it the experts agree automate is a giant waste? Or do you guys just do it for fun?

If worker automate is a giant waste, I'd like to start learning to manually control them, and I figured Civ 4 would be a good time to finally learn. This leads to a couple of questions

1. do improved tiles need to be connected by roads? I'm not talking about a resource, but something like a farm, mine, or cottage? My automate workers usually build a road on every single tile. (this has been true for Civ 4 as well) I don't know why they do this, or if it is necessary.

2. once you make a certain improvement on a tile, are there times when you need to replace it with a different improvement? I think my automated workers used to swap mines with irrigation (in Civ 3) as they saw fit. If I'm going to be controlling this, how do I know when to make a change?

3. Are ANY of the automate functions useful? "Route to" is clearly useful, but what about things like automate one city only or build trade route?

Anyone want to help me out?

 

[Gargantutron]

in civ 3 automating your workers = death. really.

in civ 4 however the AI does a fine job. and building roads, well why not? it's quick to build and on roads all units gets a movement bonus.
AI workes will sometimes change improvements if the city need should change. You can stop that if you want by turning it off in the options.

 

[podraza]

Well, I honestly prefer to automate them because I feel like I have enough things on my plate to worry about as it is. Do you think its better to employ the special automate functions like "build trade route" or just hit the standard automate and let them do as they will?

 

[TreeFoot]

Civ3= NEVER AUTOMATE WORKERS, YOU CAN DO BETTER!!!!!
Civ4= AUTOMATE WORKERS, YOU CAN'T DO BETTER!!!!

 

[Gargantutron]

meh just hit automate, it works. i keep some workers under my control to build road network, and run to build improvement on newly discovered resources, but that's it. (auto workers will also hurry to improve new resources btw)

 

[Pinstar]

I micro-manage my first worker. Any workers after that, I tell "Build road to..." a new city, then tell it to "automate...improve around local city" Works just fine.

 

[Trogg]

Usually I dont automate but i dont have civ4 yet, and in civ3 automate really sucks but i do make micromanagement easier y using advanced comands, liek road to

 

[Dragon67]

How many workers totally fore each city, do you recommend too use in the game? More or less compare to civ3?

 

[Shillen]

I can do way better than automated civ4 workers. First of all building a road on every tile in the early game is a huge waste. Usually by the end of the game I have roads all over, but not early on, those are turns better spent elsewhere. Another thing the automated civ4 worker does that sucks is it chops down every forest right at the start of the game. This kills the production in your cities for the rest of the game since you can't mine grasslands anymore like you could in civ3. The automated worker also goes crazy with cottages when you really don't need them all over the place. And lastly after it spends the entire early game building cottages all over the place and your city actually works them up to the town. Later on when your city reaches max size it will start turning every one of those towns into farms to let your city grow even more, when your city doesn't need to grow more.

Bottom line is learning to use your workers properly will still improve your play drastically just like it did in civ3.

 

[snepp]

How many workers totally fore each city, do you recommend too use in the game? More or less compare to civ3?

Much, much less. My last game (time win) I played the entire thing with 2 workers, and they still spent the last hundred or so years doing basically nothing.

 

[Shillen]

Yeah much less than civ3. That combined with the two movement points makes managing workers a lot easier than it was. Also, if you control them yourself you need even less workers because you won't be chopping down all the forests. Forests are a great tile for your city to work, even without improvements. But they really rock once you get lumbermills.

 

[Phyr_Negator]

If you set them to automate and forgot then local barbarians will be quite happy to rid you of that pesky expensive guys.

 

[Yaype]

I can do way better than automated civ4 workers. First of all building a road on every tile in the early game is a huge waste. Usually by the end of the game I have roads all over, but not early on, those are turns better spent elsewhere. Another thing the automated civ4 worker does that sucks is it chops down every forest right at the start of the game. This kills the production in your cities for the rest of the game since you can't mine grasslands anymore like you could in civ3. The automated worker also goes crazy with cottages when you really don't need them all over the place. And lastly after it spends the entire early game building cottages all over the place and your city actually works them up to the town. Later on when your city reaches max size it will start turning every one of those towns into farms to let your city grow even more, when your city doesn't need to grow more.

Bottom line is learning to use your workers properly will still improve your play drastically just like it did in civ3.

These are exactly my observations as well. Those grassland forests are great for a long time during the game, and I don't want my workers chopping them down just to get a little bit of trade with a cottage. Roads everywhere become something for your workers to do when there aren't improvements to make, but they are also not very useful.

Keep control of your workers!

 

[Wlauzon]

If you set them to automate and forgot then local barbarians will be quite happy to rid you of that pesky expensive guys.

That is the only real problem I have seen with total automation. But it can be a severe one, since - esp on larger maps - this game seems to churn out barbarians faster than it does civs. In one game, I lost over 10 workers to barbs.

The barbs really need to be toned down, but that is a different issue.

 

[Phyr_Negator]

The barbs really need to be toned down, but that is a different issue.

No way) Now they are reallly a threat, as they were in real. They raided to capture slaves and wealth - so they are now)). I'm just coincidering lost workers as taken slaves) In fact I just love CIvIV barbs - no one even counted them as a threat in CivIII-_-

 

[Kevinicus]

I micro-manage my first worker. Any workers after that, I tell "Build road to..." a new city, then tell it to "automate...improve around local city" Works just fine.

I also use the "build road to" alot, be it to resources or to another city, but even then when the worker is done I continue doing the work myself. I like to have control.

 

[Marquis Mark]

I never use worker automation. I feel it's worth the extra time to customize your production to your specific city needs, and as said above, auto-workers are too quick to clear forests.