Manually control ALL worker??? Really?

Frank Grimes

Chieftain
Joined
Jul 25, 2003
Messages
23
I usually have about 20-30 workers in my games (rough estimate). Many if the skilled players here say that they control all of their workers. That just seems insanely tedious to me. Is this really recommended?

I usually just control 1 or 2 groups of 4 workers and have them mine hills and mountains (which is usually neglected by the automated ones) or clear jungles. Everyone else is automated. For the record, I play on Regent. So...should I really begin manually controlling ALL of my workers?
 
It helps ALOT. If you watch your cities closely.

I normally have only 15 workers... all of which I control myself.
 
Manually controlling 20-30 workers isn't too hard. When you get over 50 (and definitely when you have over 100) like on the larger maps, then it may help your sanity by automating some of them.

I guess it seems more tedious if you are industrious, in democracy, etc. where the workers complete the jobs faster so that you have to tell them what to do so often.

Manually controlling workers does help alot (if you know what you are doing) in the early game. Automated workers irrigate too much. In the late game you get diminishing returns on your time investment, so it's up to you and how much you need/want that extra efficiency. Sure, everybody wants to move up in difficulty levels, but some don't want to if that requires them to be anal-retentive.

For me, on levels deity and below, I manually control workers until I get too many or at some point in the middle ages. Then let them loose on shift-A. When they start getting everything done and they go to sleep in cities then I wake them and have them start doing little details to get cities to their best potential (changing a few irrigation to mines or vice versa). Then I let them sleep in cities, perform an 'island blockade', or have them join cities (depends on situation) until I get railroads, then let them loose on shift-A, because there will be nothing left to do but put rails down. (I almost always have all land improved before I get rails).
 
I always manually control all workers until late in the game. The automated workers don't do what I want them to do (no, I wanted a mine there not irrigation etc) and they waste too much time moving back and forth for no apparent reason.

Late in the game after I have irrigated, mined and railroaded virtually everything I will set some to "automate no changes to improvements". This relieves me of the tedium of pollution management and I don't have to peer all over my map on the off chance I forgot to irrigate some desert square, they will automatically improve any overlooked squares.

Another big downside of automation is the workers really don't mind going into a war zone and getting captured. I have to be at the stage where the risk of throwing away a few workers is outweighed by the convenience of leaving them to their own devices. :D
 
I never automate.

OK, that's strong. Any time I do automate - when getting to a LOT of workers - I immediately regret it as the dumb idiots run around doing almost the opposite of what I want. Then I waste more time de-automating them than I saved.

Even when there is no work, automation sucks. Suddenly 4 pollutions hit on mountains, and the workers spread out to deal with all 4, rather than the one in the city in a wonder race. And there's no way to get them de-automated and still free to move.

The mental strain of watching the game sabotage my play is too much for me to take.
 
I never automate them really. I like moving them around. Perfecting every square. In my last game I must have had like 200 or so in groups of 8 usually to rail, mine, and so forth. Eventually All my cites were perfect so I just joined them to cities. I never let the computer do anything. It seems a waste. I like getting that square cleared now with all 24 slaves working at once rather than several dozen squares taking multiple turns. It just looks better.
 
Now that I think about it, they DO tend to irrigate more than I would prefer. I think I'll try and ease my way into it, maybe automate half of them at first (Shift-A, of course, bc you know those little buggers will turn all of my well-placed mines into irrigation in a size-12 city before hospitals are available). Anyways, thanks for the advice.
 
I have never automated workers, as I like to control them myself for the sake of efficiency. I probably do not have as many workers as recommended, ie probably only 2/3 of squares are improved by the railway age instead of all as recommended, although at that stage I will often build an additional 10 workers or so, so that railroading occurs more rapidly. As on average each city has about 15 squares available for use because of some overlap, and only 12 are needed pre railroad/hospital days, full improvement until later in game is not really needed anyway.

I know some people recommend 2 or 3 workers per city, I find only 1 per city is enough for much of the game with a temporary increase during railroading to about 1.5 per city. I play and win about 50% of games at emperor level
 
I agree with MadScot. I always regret turning on shift-A late in the game and end up re-doing what they start to do. I always micromange and I usually get about 3 workers per 4 cities - prabably not enough but it doesnt feel right spending up to half of my military budget on workers. I can play and win most games on Emporer. But lately I have been playing on Monarch just to test some self imposed variant restrictions. Right now I am playing a game as Russia and keeping despotism until I replaceable parts/refining. I didnt dare do that on Emporer level.
 
Manually controlling them is a pain in the butt, but I have noticed that I socre higher and do better when I control them all. Sometimes I just get lazy and let the AI do it...
 
I never let the AI control the workers. they irrigate everything, even tiles that I mined before :( I found out it is more tedious, but less anoying to control them all.
 
If the ai irrigates everything, then it may mean that the ai strategy emphasis population growth over production. Which, by and large, the experts agree on as well. It just seems the ai does not do a very efficeint job of managing workers. I wonder if, after everything is irrigated, and pop is maxxed out, does the ai go back and builds mines. In the back of my mind, I have been thinking about playing a game where I concentrate on population first and porduction second. But I might try a regent game where I let the AI run the workers. I'll just need to focus on happiness a bit more, I think.
 
I wonder if, after everything is irrigated, and pop is maxxed out, does the ai go back and builds mines

No, they don't. The citizens (when using governors) will switch to higher shield tiles when the city reaches a population barrier and the food box is full, but the workers won't change the irrigation to mines. Therefore, a common AI city that is size 12 will produce only about 10 shields/turn with 3 entertainers.

I have been thinking about playing a game where I concentrate on population first and porduction second.

Great idea if happiness isn't a problem (lots of luxuries and/or playing chieftain/warlord). But, in the majority of cases you will need some production to build your temples and cathedrals so that you won't have to hire entertainers or use the luxury tax too much. So you need a balance of mines/irrigation. It all depends on terrain.
 
I usually manually control some of my workers, then set a few to build a trade net/clear jungle/etc. Automate (no change) this city only works somewhat well, though you either have to change some of the improvements manually, or make those improvements first and then have the worker start auto-improving. It's also great for adding railroads to your city radius when you go back to places you've already finished.

I just wish you could tell it to build a mine/irrigation first and THEN build the road and railroads. Building railroads to all resources/cities would be nice too. Then it'd be perfect.
 
Originally posted by Bamspeedy

For me, on levels deity and below...

No one seemed to catch this great line :rotfl:

Shift-A is a great boone, NEVER use A, only shift-A. Also, Shift-K is useful to turn your workers onto pollution cleanup if you want to reserve some for strictly pollution. This is useful when your cities are growing in the industrial era and are both pumping out pollution and you are trying to build RR. If you find that your automated workers are constantly walking onto unworked terrain, only to have the automation AI pull them back before finishing their mods, setting some workers to clean pollution only is a good idea.

If you like having lots of specialists, then automating your workers fully is okay, because it will balance shield production with growth. In some situations, if you have lots of luxury resources, good wonders, good city improvements and extra entertaining specialists you can make that last unhappy worker happy and trigger a WLTK day and thus increasing production (usually).
 
Bamspeedy@ It sounds like a job for the Arabs on a large Pangea, or I would try the Happy Iroquois on a large continents. I would have many cities with many people and cheap kick but UUs. I would get many luxuries, cheap temples, cheap catherdrals during GA and have many UUs to take much land. Then I would coast to culture or conquest victory.
 
Sinapus has a good idea. Just automate the forest and jungle clearers and the road builders.
 
I've never automated. I find the only way to get the workers to do what I want is to TELL them, in no uncertain terms, what to do.
 
I wait till everything is the way I want it. Later stage of game usually, after railroads...

But always use the shift+A so they dont go on changing everything. In case of pollution I always have some workers going in team an cleaning upp pollution as quickly as possibly.

Once my game "crashed" because a worker couldnt get past some AI units. My territory was surrounding som AI civs and the worker was on his way to clean up pollution and got stuck beacause of AI's guerillas in the hills surrounding a city. He kept going up and down searching for a path. Left it like that for 10min before I just "crtl alt del" the game. Annoying!!
 
That's what I usually do...

Edit: PTW makes it a lot easier, you can automate the workers to just build roads & stuff. But I'm not sure what the Automate without change or whatever. Could someone help me here?
 
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