New patch notes look good and/or interesting; excited to see how it plays. The free Pottery tech on Deity is a bit clunky but figured that's a quick fix to patch a problem and feedback (informed, constructive) would help guide a more elegant long term fix in a future patch.
A couple things on the current debate I would emphasize:
If I understand correctly, the captured worker change is largely due to the AI not being able to use the strategy the same way a player can (i.e. stealing a CS worker or declaring war specifically to steal a civilian unit). The change is therefore not removing a clever strategy option from the player's hand but a clever exploit.
Based on observation that seems to be one of G's design philosophies: if the AI can't do it then it's not a clever strategy but an exploit and will be removed if possible, minimized if not. If you depended on that exploit to stay competitive, well, time to find a new strategy or drop down a level to retrain.
Also, 1/2 a worker is still valuable; if you believe 2
=1
then that captured worker is worth about 39 3/4
(1). That's still valuable in the early game, on par with a production ruin; it's just 1/2 as valuable as it used to be for you (still just as detrimental to the AI), and that may be enough to turn it from the no brainer it used to be for min-maxing your play. If 1/2 speed workers are not worth the trouble you've already got two decent options: let a barbarian capture them then repatriate them to the original owner for influence (exploitation lives on!) or delete them for a bit of gold. Either of G's suggestions are solid as well.
Regarding the Deity Design Decisions Deference Dust-up (or "D to the 5th" as none of the cool kids are calling it) I'll only add that there's a difference between knowing how to best play the game by the rules as they are and understanding how changes will effect future game play. Deity players have a strong grasp of the game mechanics and can provide valuable input on current game play but those abilities are not exclusive to Deity players. Neither is the ability to anticipate how changes to the game will play out.
I like the current system: the ones who appear to be heeded the most are the ones that routinely provide sensible, well-reasoned solutions. There's no shortage of that on these forums but if anyone needs a role model it's hard to beat CrazyG right now(2).
Footnotes:
(1): Captured Worker cost equation: A regular Worker is 80
; so a half speed captured worker would be worth 40
. But that worker costs the same 1
maintenance; therefore he represents a 1/2
loss which correlates to 1/4
loss. But how do you factor in that maintenance is a per turn cost? That's your homework for tonight.
(2): But isn't CrazyG a Deity player himself, thus invalidating my entire premise? No. CrazyG has solid suggestions AND is a Deity player, not BECAUSE he's a Deity player.