Mass Workers

[DragonRunner]

I'm curious as to why everyone says mass workers. I have maybe 4 or 5 total throughout the game and it works fine for me.
....Of course, I'm only playing at Warload, so that could be it.

 

[CrazyScot]

You need a ton of workers when you get to railroads.

The more workers you have, the quicker you lay rail on your entire territory.

Railroads are vital - more commerce, and instant troop movement.

Lots start by simply ringing their capital to get the immediate commerce bonus from the rails, others link their cities together then fill in the blanks - I do a combo of both.

EDIT: They don't actually "increase commerce" - rather they increase the output of mines (shields) and irrigation (food) by one per turn for every mine and irrigation tile that is railroaded.

 

[bonscott]

I try to have at least double (or more) the amount of workers as cities. 20 cities, need 40 workers. For a few reasons:

1) Early game it is so important to get all cities connected via roads, lux's roaded and connected, as well as roads to your nearby rivals. Not including mines and so on.
2) Railroads. As mentioned you need a lot of workers. I want enough to be able to lay a single rail end to end of my empire in less then 5 turns. If I can't do that I don't have enough workers.
3) "Battle" workers. Have a stack or two of workers with 1-2 defenders up in the middle of battle. Soon as you take a city you can railroad right to it to allow immediate reinforcements. Then they move forward to the new border. This also helps you get your stacks of arties up quicker to bomb the next city to dust.
4) Once you are in the modern era and just on pollution patrol, any extra workers not needed should be joined to your major cities to give you bigger cities and a production/commerce boost.

 

[CrazyScot]

Yeah, never underestimate the value of workers, they're like pawns in a game of Chess.

Gotta pump out your infrastructure as fast as you can - but still keep a balance in the early game, no need to go nuts building workers when you can be building settlers.

But 4 to 5 workers an entire game isn't enough - increase that amount significantly and you'll find you'll be off Warlord sooner rather than later!

 

[Pook]

Workers are one of the most underrated units in the game. I try to have at least as many as I have cities, twice as many would be glorious. I build roads to link cities for defense, build roads to increase commerce in tiles being worked, build roads to luxuries and resources, build mines on grassland, build irrigation on plains, etc. You'll need way more than 4-5 when you go to Monarch level.

 

[Roi du Culture]

I try to have twice as many workers as cities as well, but this is often impossible where money is an issue. I myself am a worker fiend, creating countless roads and mines throughout my empire that i will not need for 20+turns. Since most of my land is completely developed by the time construction is learned, I convert most workers into citizens to cauase fast city growth. Then, when my cities reach size 12. I will start building workers again so i have enough manpower to create a railroad early in the industrial:a definete advantage

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

Also they are good when your cities hit size 6 or 12 and are waiting for the advance (Construction or sanitation), so that presious food resources aren't wasted and when the advance is available you can throw them into the city to make it grow a lot quicker as big cities need a lot of food to grow.

 

[kokoras]

Not to mention that workers build Radars,which means that they are consumed after the action.

 

[LordKestrel]

The more workers you have, the better. Workers improve the growth of your civilization, and once they've performed their work, they can be joined back into cities to increase their size.

I tend to have a ton of workers, especially if I'm not Industrious. 4 or 5 per city is not uncommon, and I often have more workers than military for the first age or two.

This is on Monarch, so you would obviously need more military at higher levels.

 

[meltone1]

once I get cola, I make a worker out of nearly every city. I manually make a railroad between all the cities, then I put them on autopilot after that.

 

[lim26]

Yup, at lower levels, workers are not needed that much....but from monarch level and above, they are very useful....especially when u have railroad.....

I usually have average of 1.5 workers per city....

So right now i have about 35 cities, i have about 50+ workers....that is excluding captured workers.....

To illustrate the importance of workers....

imagine u can lay railroads to all the 24 tiles of your city with just 1 turn....and that is including laying railroad in the mountains.....

Usually i have about 15 cities that are highly productive and resourceful, and it just take me 15 turns to mold them into the highest efficient level (baring city improvements)

if compared to 4-5 workers..how many more turns do u need....that's the difference......

 

[kb2tvl]

I like 1.5:1 city also. This is the number of workers needed to finish up roading/improving all tiles before railroads.

 

[wakkoxc]

The rule of thumb I like to use for workers is this. Whenever a city finishes building something I check to see which tiles it's citizens are working, if one of them is working an undeveloped tile, that city builds a worker (assuming of course it will be at pop 2 before that worker completes).

Using this strategy I generally have about a 5:3 worker to city ratio. That ratio seems to work pretty well for me. Usually when I start running out of things for them to do, Steam Power is just a few turns away.

 

[marioh]

I'm dominating on Monarch level, and I don't even have anything close to that 92 workers in that screen shot, in any games I've played !

I probably average 1 worker per city (including captured workers). It takes a bit longer to railroad every available tile, so I basically just make sure every city is connected by rail once I get steam power, then I have them railroad and improve city tiles.

But I do tend to war monger early on, so building workers falls below building military units and necessary city improvements.

 

[nalves]

Originally posted by DragonRunner
I'm curious as to why everyone says mass workers. I have maybe 4 or 5 total throughout the game and it works fine for me.
....Of course, I'm only playing at Warload, so that could be it.

4 or 5 is a good number of workers if you are playing a OCC

 

[Admiral_Tarton]

60+ every game for me

 

[Commander Bello]

I am going for the 2:1 relation as well...

Especially if you are warmongering, workers pay off. They build the roads you need for quick unit distribution, they irrigate the land to let your cities grow and they mine your hills to give you more productivity.
After an enemy city has been conquered, the connect it to your mainlands.
And if you have enough of them, you will be the first to get the new ressources, which have just popped up somewhere at an isolated edge of the continent.

Of course, their importance is linked to map size. I could imagine that on smaller maps they are of less importance (but I play on huge maps only).

 

[mihoshi]

In Mesopotamia scenario with Egypt I found that great worker factory is low-industrial 6-sized city.

With 5 shields and 17 food it can pump worker per two turns without shrinking. Bigger (or less corrupt) cities takes too much to recover and just has better things to build.

Theoretically you can even make 1 worker/turn city, but you must make 22 food and 10 shields per turn with only 6 citizens, wich is possible only in great environment or with railroads.

 

[blacklic]

i make 1 worker per city, till i decide to wipe out someone else, then i jsut use thier captured workers, got to love free labor

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

In my current Emperor game, I have 150 - 200 workers, I just got steam power, and my empire is quickly being covered with rails. A lot faster than the AI giving me an edge.