Number of Workers

iamdanthemansta

Edward of Woodstock
Joined
Oct 27, 2005
Messages
249
Location
Changzhou, China
How many workers do you typically have per number of cities. It's been taking me way too long recently to get my economy really up and running and I'm starting to think that's due at least in some part to having too few workers. I just hate that period in the middle or late game where you have a whole bunch of workers but are done improving everything.
 
iamdanthemansta said:
How many workers do you typically have per number of cities. It's been taking me way too long recently to get my economy really up and running and I'm starting to think that's due at least in some part to having too few workers. I just hate that period in the middle or late game where you have a whole bunch of workers but are done improving everything.


Have at least one per city until they, and the roads (rails) are done. Once that is done start getting rid of them as they will hinder your intake. I always keep a few in chck to re-build pillaged resources or improvements though.
 
As a rule of thumb I would say at least 1 per city. However het kinda depends of the improvements needed (a lot of jungle to clear?) and how many I will capture from my neighbours.
 
Unless you have a lot of forests/jungle to clear, or masses of cities to hook up, I don't really see the point in having more than 1 per city.

A worker improves tiles faster than your population grows, so it seems wasteful to halt city growth while your producing a second worker.
 
It depends. In crowded games I won't build many workers but instead build an army and take the workers from my first victim. I've had game where I built 2 workers for 3 cities and then gone to war.

Another time I spent a lot of my early research on early techs and didn't have many new buildings to keep my city occupied. Wasn't that interested in the wonders either, so I built more workers than usually. I also had lots of forests that I prechopped waiting for something to use them on. When I started building my army I got all the workers to finish the chops and build roads toward my target.

The idea is, if I can build enough improvements to have good tiles for my city to work I don't need any more workers. Sometimes I'm a little behind with the tiles, so I still need to work on my strategy. Of course there are times when I switch from mine to cottage to farm depending on the current needs. In those cases I actually need more workers since I need more tile improvement.
 
usually, i build one worker and capture hordes of them

if i am in a peaceful game, i go for 2 workers for new cities (everything to do) + 2 workers for the whole pack of ancient cities (not much growth = not much new tile improvement)
 
Not too many really. Mebbe one for every 3 or so cities. I sort of find its enough for me to keep up and not have to waste time building any more after I build the first few and set them in motion.
 
I normally have one per city unless there's a lot of jungle to clear or I steal a bunch of extra ones.

If the game lasts until railroad/state property, I often dedicate a city to building additional workers when those techs are on the way to get railroads up quickly and to get one city (or maybe two) converted to watermills and workshops ASAP
 
Simple rule-of-thumb: If you have cities working unimproved tiles then you need more workers.

I don't shoot for a specific number of workers based on my city count. I just build them if I need them. Generally this means close to 1 per city, but usually it's just under that (like 4 per 5 cities or something).

It really depends on a number of factors. Lots of jungle = more workers. Fast-growing cities with high happy/health cap require more workers. When you learn railroads and you have a large empire it's probably worthwhile to build a couple more workers. If you acquire a ton of new cities you will likely need more workers (since the AI tends to do a bad job setting them up). And a number of other factors will influence this.
 
My view of workers was that 1 per city was perfect until the latter stages of the game when I needed rails and quick (build a bunch more). But my strategy is forced to change.

I just jumped from Chieftain to Noble because I was simply crushing the computer on Chieftain (scores: Me in first 6100, Ghandi second 2050) and I dominated most of the globe to win Domination. I NEEDED a challenge!

I'm used to having one of the largest if not THE largest civ in the world. In this game, Tokugawa is kickin ass with expansion and so i needed cities fast to keep up. The hit to my economy along with the need for improvements around the new AND old cities caused me to build large flux of workers. This halted growth and production in my older and larger cities. I whipped a few of them up (as well as the settlers) so my pop in those cities had already taken a hit. I'm having a hard time adjusting my strategy to the new difficulty setting. any suggestions?
 
Suggestion: go to war earlier. That's usually a good thing to do when you up the difficulty. The AIs are less and less disadvantaged so their economy will tend to keep up with yours. Simply put, more cities will give you more tiles to improve & work and so a better economy. On the other hand, don't overexpand - alternate war periods with building infrastructure periods. Anyway, compare this to settling: you'll build an army instead of settlers; your "new" cities will be bigger from the start; capitals are usually very well placed, so capturing a capital can really help; you can have buildings left in the conquered cities and also (more important) most of the tile improvements already in place. It's a win-win situation. For you. ;)
 
This sounds perfect, but i was really going for a very peaceful game this time. I just got done destroying everyone :). I became friendly with everyone on my continent including Toku and have had a lot of help from them with tech trading. it was an interesting start as Toku was Pleased with all 3 other civs but simply wouldn't trade with me at all ("We just don't like you enough"). Finally i got to trading with him and now i have great Diplo relations with everyone on my continent (plus i founded Christianity and we are ALL christians) i'm goin for a diplo/culture win. wouldn't early wars hamper my diplo status?

EDIT: Sorry to get so off topic!
 
Oh, if you have the same religion you really don't want to go to war as everyone will hate you. :) A diplo win will require a "common enemy" though, because if everyone's happy with everyone it will be hard to predict how the votes go. Clearly a better choice than "all war" in this case. I go to war in this case only if their are civs on another continent that are much more advanced and I need the land to catch up. Not much of a cultural guy, myself. ;)
 
A little off-topic but I've just started sending in 4-6 workers escorted by a couple decent units behind the main army. They build roads behind my army's advance so reinforcements can arrive sooner. I also tend to have railroads slightly before my opponents (started playing on Prince recently).

You almost have to take 2 cities to get the culture to back off of the first city, but then those roads really start coming in handy.
 
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