How many workers do you build?

[Stalker0]

I'm curious in terms of how many workers people generally go in a game, at least for the bulk of the early game.

So lets assume a

• 6 city Tradition

or a

• 8 city Progress

How many workers do you generally make?

 

[tommytoxen]

as a rule of thumb i try having 2 per city early on, once i settle my third city i'll +1 per city for roads then once they're finished with roads they can go help out the other two on any remaining tiles. if i need anymore i'll steal them from other civs/barbs holding other civs' workers hostage.

once my cities are going and i can afford to simply buy them it doesn't matter at that point i can get as many as i like whenever the need arises or if a city has a lot of good tiles that need improving quickly.

tbf i could probably make do with just 1 per city and just +1 overall for roads but i play on marathon so 2 per city lets me have one focus on luxuries/farms and the other focus on resources/mines as i really need those hammers quickly.

in my current game i'm in modern era and i have way too many workers, like each city has 3-4 of them camped inside. i was going to disband some but china has gone nuclear warfare on me so i keep them around for that.

 

[CrazyG]

Number of cities +1 is a my rule of thumb. Go +2 if there is a lot to build, like if you need to chop jungle.

I usually delete a couple around industrial era, you save 3 gold per turn in maintenance.

 

[greenfieldpark]

Put me down as another number of cities +1.

Another question id be curious to know is how quickly do yall get your preffered worker count?

Playing on quick speed im often getting to 5 cities and only having a couple workers. Then i rush to get to my proffered worker amount.

I wonder if i should be getting these workers up quicker.

 

[Stalker0]

Another question id be curious to know is how quickly do yall get your preffered worker count?

This is part of the purpose of my questions, as I've been trying to tune build orders lately. Workers help to combat unhappiness, as growing cities to work unimproved tiles will just lead to unhappy cities. So I've been considering trying to up my worker count faster to see how much that helps.

 

[Rosete]

0, I never build workers because that would slow down getting my infrastructure up and slow down my settlers. I prefer to steal workers from CS or camp a small group of units near my neighbours and nap their settlers.
I do start buying workers in Medieval when I get a nice surplus of cash.

 

[greenfieldpark]

0, I never build workers because that would slow down getting my infrastructure up and slow down my settlers. I prefer to steal workers from CS or camp a small group of units near my neighbours and nap their settlers.

I do start buying workers in Medieval when I get a nice surplus of cash.

But stolen workers get such a penalty to improvement speed.

Plus the penalty to city states i find it no longer worth it.

 

[azum4roll]

I find all those early war worker/settler steals cheese, so I never use it.

I try to have the right amount of workers so they can never rest, but still finish all resource improvements relatively fast. More workers if the civ has a unique improvement.

 

[Fluffball]

This is part of the purpose of my questions, as I've been trying to tune build orders lately. Workers help to combat unhappiness, as growing cities to work unimproved tiles will just lead to unhappy cities. So I've been considering trying to up my worker count faster to see how much that helps.

As a general rule i will build my first worker as soon as i have tech to exploit the tiles around me. I don't focus on farms too early on and that is why i don't tend to bother until i get further techs but instead aim to work/settle near tiles that are good unimproved to get the city going although will go for a worker early if i have a gap in my production queue or maybe start on a worker to part build it until another building becomes available.
I only tend to do really early farms if i manage to capture a worker in an early war (i don't CS war 'exploit' although i may DoW an AI to take a worker to slow it down as well as generally knock it about a bit) or obviously if i happened to build one through a gap in production.

After that i virtually always buy workers, usually saving gold and as soon as i settle a new city i buy a worker there then it is general rule of thumb of one worker per city.

Only when i have my core cities established do i then tend to start working farms as happiness starts to settled down and then build up so i have excess happiness to grow into without it affecting my ability to settle/capture new cities.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

As Progress, I usually have the same number of workers as I have cities, with two spikes: early on for building roads and later on for building railroads.

As Tradition/Authority, I usually have around 20% more workers than I have cities, to compensate for the fact they're slower than Progress workers. The exception is if I have Terracota, then it's the same as if I took Progess. The same two spikes apply here as with progress.

 

[Stalker0]

After that i virtually always buy workers, usually saving gold and as soon as i settle a new city i buy a worker there then it is general rule of thumb of one worker per city.

Yeah normally I invest in my first building for a satellite (with occasional worker purchase)...but I may try just focusing all my early money on workers instead, and see if that gives a better overall experience.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Forgot to add: Late in the game (after Railroads) I'll usually have only about 2-4 workers in my empire because by then most of the tiles will have already been improved, and very late only 1 or even zero (just to improve late-game resources or pillaged tiles).

 

[greenfieldpark]

Yeah normally I invest in my first building for a satellite (with occasional worker purchase)...but I may try just focusing all my early money on workers instead, and see if that gives a better overall experience.

So i usually spend early money on wells. But i too am now considering buying workers.

A well is same price as worker. Would say worker is better investment.

 

[stii]

Number of cities plus 2 generally.

 

[Fluffball]

Yeah normally I invest in my first building for a satellite (with occasional worker purchase)...but I may try just focusing all my early money on workers instead, and see if that gives a better overall experience.

The age old "it depends on the situation" is applied liberally obviously but as a rule of thumb early game i build buildings and buy units (inc workers) as before barracks you just get an instant unit with no downside and i usually want all my land units created in one city to get the morale buff from heroic epic national wonder.

If i am pushing for a religion for example or a wonder i may purchase the shrine/wonder to help it along and that may mean i get a worker or unit a bit later (depends on the situation).

After barracks are built, as a rule of thumb i tend to build military units for the added xp and spend my gold to purchase buildings although i still almost always tend to buy workers unless i have something better to spend gold on but the cost of a worker is extremely minor for the most part and even if i can't afford a worker this turn it usually isn't that time critical so i would usually rather wait a few turns and be building something else while i wait to buy the worker.

That is all rule of thumb with obvious exceptions where i am under threat and need military units ASAP i may build units in other cities or buy them still after barracks or if i have run out of things to build i may build units in other cities or build workers to fill the time.

 

[looorg]

Depends, it's a gradual build up. It's also very depending on map, civ, luxuries/resources around etc. But there could be as many as 2-3 per city for some time but then about mid-to-late game I start to sell them off. After the last rail-road push there could be a little as 1-2 serving multiple cities and then eventually it's even less. After all the large infrastructure is done they are not needed anymore, there are few around to fix things, repair things and build war-roads. There is mostly a surge at Oil again but for Alu and Uranium there is not the same need.

But at the same time if some are needed for some reason I can just push them out in a turn or so or just buy them with gold. But I don't keep them standing around in droves since they have a significant late-game GPT cost so it's better in some regard to just sell them back and then buy another one as needed.

 

[andersw]

But stolen workers get such a penalty to improvement speed.

Plus the penalty to city states i find it no longer worth it.

Stealing workers are still strong but there is a big delay until they get real value.
There is a huge benefit of really early agression to steal 2-3 workers from an AI and sometimes in combo with a cs that they have early ally with.
Because you obviously also set back the AI by removing his workers.

For CS, yes can be worth taking from one cs, declaring on 2 or more can be detrimental.
I guess that declaring also can create the "Declare war on you" quest from that CS , anyone know if this is the case?

 

[CrazyG]

For CS, yes can be worth taking from one cs, declaring on 2 or more can be detrimental.
I guess that declaring also can create the "Declare war on you" quest from that CS , anyone know if this is the case?

I believe tributing a CS creates the "Declare war on you" quest. Don't know if war does too.

 

[andersw]

I believe tributing a CS creates the "Declare war on you" quest. Don't know if war does too.

This could explain some of my frustration in recent patches.