Ideal number of workers?

[gremlins0]

I typically go tradition with 3 built cities. I usually make 2 or so workers, then just whatever I accumulate by conquering cities. When I decide to play a peaceful game, I usually build 3-4 workers, but sometimes forget.
In a game with 4 cities around mid game, how many workers do people typically have when going tradition?

 

[anthropophage]

4 or 5.

 

[ventrue2]

Min one per city. I hate working unimproved tiles. If I do,I don't have enough workers. I rarely build more than 2 though. Usually steal one from a CS and buy the rest. Sometimes I grab an extra one or two when I stay connecting cities.

 

[Lunco]

An experienced player in some other thread said 1.5 Workers per city.

 

[red_doctor]

I would say 1.5-2 per city with Tradition.

And 1 per city with Liberty, as the Social Policy that makes them faster (Citizenship iirc) combined with The Pyramids which you can get easily as hardly any AI goes Liberty, makes them super fast.

It's important to delete them as the game progresses though as you want the GPT for other things. I keep enough for fast Railroad connections and after that I only keep 1-2 for the late game Strategical Resources. But for Warmongers this changes as they have to manage the Puppets so they need more even late game.

 

[glory7]

if your citizen is working unimproved tiles, you need more. Usually 1.2-1.5 per city.

 

[livsbrand]

I want two more workers than I have cities unless it's OCC, where a total of two should suffice. Maybe three more than # of cities when empire starts getting real big, but that's usually through conquests, so that usually takes care of itself.

 

[Tabarnak]

Depends of land and how much free workers and how fast can you get them in the beginning.

If i get 3 workers before the turn 30(can happen at high levels) you don't need a 4th one since a long time. If you do the opposite the 4th worker should appear faster.

Jungles/lot of grass/plains should be aimed toward 1.5-2 workers per city. If it's a mix bag of some cities with few tiles to improve then 1.5 max is ok. And i played games where lot of ocean tiles can be worked and few land tiles and 1 worker per city was enough(small continents and archipelagos mostly).

 

[Resipsa]

x+1
x equals your number of cities

 

[Buccaneer]

There should no set formula. You only need as many workers as you have the growth and techs that would make them useful. For example, if you only have calendar techs, you can't improve those tiles until you have the tech. Until then, you should only improve those tiles that your city is working. Workers are costly to maintain and they can be a drain if you have too many.

 

[Catan_Settler]

Yeah there's definitely no set formula. Usually in the early game you got the most tiles to improve but the fewest amount of workers. I certainly would rather in that part of the game have more archers and fewer workers to drain my GPT though. Unlike many here, I tend to feel 1 per city is overkill. I mean, by the time you're popping out cities past the 4th, aren't the first 4 fully improved by now? So what do you need more workers for? I think efficient use of 2-3 workers is ideal and won't put a drag on your economy. I do usually disband free workers I come across during conquest, *after* I've used them as labor to build a road back to my territory and repair pillaged tiles. But yeah, there is no point in having a crapton of workers milling about. After what, like turn 100 if you're slacking, literally all your tiles are improved, so what do you need workers for? You need one or two stored away to repair war damage and improve oil in another 100 turns.. so yeah, delete all but the last couple.

 

[Matthew.]

if your citizen is working unimproved tiles, you need more. Usually 1.2-1.5 per city.

Pretty much sums up thread. Improving tiles should keep pace with population growth.

Tall games tend to have faster and continual growth, so you will want over 1 per city.

Wider games with Liberty can get by with much less since most cities will take much longer to add on population per city, and policy increases improvement speed.

I usually spend most of the game with about 5-6 workers, both with 3-4 city Tradition games and 9+ wide Liberty games.

 

[Theruss]

I usually have 1 per city. It's interesting if you go Liberty and then build the Pyramids, and get the 2 free workers. Usually in that case, your workers will run out of tiles to improve and I usually end up disbanding workers instead of them being idle and costing maintenance.

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

Huh. I agreed with the consensus of Civ4's 1.5 workers/city, but I have to disagree here. I find that I can usually have all cities working only improved tiles with less than 1 worker per city, I'd say 3 workers/4cities, or 0.75 workers per city. Even getting jungle trading posts up, I'll usually just send a second worker into that city until it gets ahead and then move the worker back. And I'll build one early and steal one from a CS, but that's usually it. If I don't DoW someone by the time my 4th city is out, someone will DoW me, and either way I'm going to get more than enough workers from themas the AI makes way more workers than necessary.

 

[renton555]

cities + 1 until like turn 100 after which i wouldn't build new ones for new cities after that until railroads.

 

[dragonxxx]

If you have fast growing cities, one per city is definitely not enough. On my last game around turn 260 I had 4 cities - 2x 20-21 and 2x close to 30 pop and altrough I was running absolutely all specialist slots one of em was working 2-3 unimproved tiles and had nothing to build railroads with, as all of em were busy ...

And that was with 4 workers, because I didn't bother to make 5th, after I planted the 4th city around turn 140.

Thats with tradition tho, if u take the liberty path, its different, because they just need less time to improve stuff.