Other uses for workers

[Shaitan]

I've figured out some very interesting ways to manage population with workers. I'm starting this thread because I hope some others have equally interesting things to do with our industrious helpers that I haven't thought of yet.



Esentially what I do is build a worker any time a city is at it's maximum population (6 before aqueduct if not on a river or lake, 12 before hospitals) and the city growth time is close to the worker build time. I end up with a lot of workers and very quickly developed territory.

Now, the reason to do this is to avoid wasting your citys' population growth. You 'store' the population growth in workers. The vey nice side benefit is an incredibly well developed nation.

When you are finally able to build an aqeduct you have pop units ready to be stuck in there to instantly bring it up to a 12 pop. Instant and huge increase in production, revenue and research!

Then you do it again. Any city at pop 12 with a city growth time close to the time to build a worker will build a worker. The number of workers that come out during this period is much bigger than the first run.

Now, when you build a Hospital, you will be able to instantly bring your production centers to max pop.

You WILL win wonder races after this.

Some downsides are a massive military budget to support the workers and somewhat slower city development during the ancient ages. After your cities are size 12, building a worker only takes a turn or two so there's no huge production loss there to build a worker instead of an improvement. The perfectly developed countryside helps to counteract the budget concerns.

I've been using this as part of my overall strategy for my past several games (two regent and one deity) and it has performed absolutely wonderfully in every instance.

Any thoughts? Questions?

Side note: Always, always, always but workers from other civs if they are available. Foreign workers have no upkeep cost and the AI severely undervalues them in the trade.

 

[cat98]

I have considered using that strategy before, but I just dont like micro managing that many workers, though I could simply store them in the citys for future use...

Are you pondering what Im pondering?

I think so Brain, but how would we get it to look like a monkey?

*THWAK*

If you have an allie you dont like but have right of passage with:

Send in the workers! Mess up his improvements! Starve his size 12+ cities! Lower his production rates! DEATH TO THE NON-INDUSTRIOS CIVS! They wont be able to fix it fast enough! MUAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!
I recently did that to the Russians. They were ripe for the picking after that... (They couldent build many military units and their citiey were starving.)

It took a LOT of workers though.

 

[zebomba]

Workers are good spies and cannon fodder. Scatter bunches of them and the enemy army will hunt them instead of counterattacking you. The AI is dumb and by sacrificing some workers you can have the cavalry to arrive and save your city. They can also prevent landings if you fill your shores with them.

 

[6october]

One idea crossed my mind while reading this thread . If forign workers do not cost upkeep can you swap workers with allies?
But then they only work half as fast as your workers .
Ok .. I think its a dumb idea
disregard it

 

[Shaitan]

This tactic just came in very handy. In my current game (Brit Isles mod) I share borders with the Picts, Essex and Normans. Picts are long standing allies. Essex is the most powerful civ. Essex decides to pick on the Picts. I didn't want to go to war but wanted to help the Picts. I coated my borders with every available unit, including workers. Essex couldn't move through my territory to get prime Pict cities.

That worked for a while until the Normans joined in with the Picts. Then Essex started working through Normandy and Pict cities started falling. I made a Right of Passage agreement with Essex (my borders are coated so he can't use my territory anyway) then moved workers into his territory to make a no-pass zone between his big cities and the war front. He can now only get troops there by boat and the combined Pict and Norman forces have taken back their captured cities and are threatening the Essex cities that are in the cut-off area.

Here's the rich part - The Essex love me even though I'm totally sabotaging their war effort.

6october: You could swap workers but I wouldn't recommend it. After all, those little guys each represent a unit of city pop that you'll want eventually. It's true that foreign workers only work half as fast but they're free for maintenance. In my current game I have 18 foreign nationals working for me (some purchased, some captured during wars). That's the equivalent of 9 of mine at no upkeep cost.

Note that you can only purchase workers (or sell your own if you want) if they are in the AI's (or your) capital. In the beginning of the game I'll make an absolute nuisance of myself checking in with the AI leaders each turn to see if they've got workers available for sale.

Cat98: I agree that managing that many workers can get tedious. Once I have the basic improvements that I want for a city, I'll automate them. Use shift-A and they won't undo any of the improvements that you've already built.

 

[Kev]

I've been able to use similar tactics as Shaitan and zebomba.

It's kinda evil :vampire: but once in a while I may use workers as human shields. If the AI is within my territory and poised to start attacking, I've been able to place workers in front of them (usually right in front of my cities). The AI, as mentioned, is a sucker for going after workers, and by capturing a worker of mine it counts as their attack for that round. Now, their attack units are sitting right outside of my city with nothing to do but get slaughtered my my counter attack. I can then just go and recapture my workers as they will only move one square per turn until they get out of my territory.

 

[zebomba]

It gets even more evil . When you really want to kill a civ, raze their cities and use their workers to prevent their counter. If you raze big cities, there'll be so many workers the AI won't be able to move at all.

 

[Shaitan]

Have a threatened city of size 6 or 12? Pop a worker in there to make it a 7 or 13 to get an excellent defensive bonus.

 

[Dralix]

Originally posted by Shaitan


Esentially what I do is build a worker any time a city is at it's maximum population (6 before aqueduct if not on a river or lake, 12 before hospitals) and the city growth time is close to the worker build time

Am I correct in assuming you only do this when you don't have the tech to build the aqueduct or hospital?

 

[Shaitan]

Originally posted by Dralix


Am I correct in assuming you only do this when you don't have the tech to build the aqueduct or hospital?

Exactly right. I build a worker when the city is at it's maximum population and due to grow soon. This way the city growth is put into a worker instead of being lost.

 

[Mesopotamia]

Doesn't your population get pissed off if you're using foreign workers under a democracy?

 

[Shaitan]

Originally posted by Mesopotamia
Doesn't your population get pissed off if you're using foreign workers under a democracy?

Nope. I guess the majority of my citizens are democrats. They don't have any problem with foreign workers.

Seriously though, I look at the status of foreign workers as a progression along with my form of government. In despotism they might be considered slaves. In a monarchy they are serfs or bondsmen. In communism they are collective workers and in republic and democracy they are subsistence workers. When I 'buy' workers in my democracy it's more like a grant for work deal. They get some cash up front and my civ gets immigrants who are willing to do the jobs that my citizens just don't want to do. Eventually these immigrants can become full citizens.

 

[Sodak]

This strategy is very effective when you have a size 6 city with a production of 10. With a granary and good food production, you can make a worker every turn. Time the first one so that the food box is full upon completion. The next turn, you have a worker and a size 6 city with an almost full food box. Repeat. Also works at size 12. Spread your population around, don't let those food surpluses go to waste!

 

[cmorningstar]

Fantastic ideas, everyone! Looking forward to trying this out in my next game. . . Muahahahaha

 

[Shaitan]

One of the factors that can make a captured city flip is the ratio of foreign nationals to your civ's citizens. When you take a city, pop in some of your own loyal citizens to help the city culturally adjust.

You can also rush settlers/workers in a captured city to decrease the number of foreigners. Do this BEFORE adding your loyalists otherwise you'll just be removing the workers you just added. I like this strategy much better than the "starve out the people" method of population reduction. It's more expensive but my citizens sleep better at night.

 

[Mesopotamia]

Originally posted by Shaitan
One of the factors that can make a captured city flip is the ratio of foreign nationals to your civ's citizens. When you take a city, pop in some of your own loyal citizens to help the city culturally adjust.

So sort of like Austria, 1937? "Stimme ja, ja für die anschluss!"

 

[Thoth]

Originally posted by Sodak
This strategy is very effective when you have a size 6 city with a production of 10. With a granary and good food production, you can make a worker every turn. Time the first one so that the food box is full upon completion. The next turn, you have a worker and a size 6 city with an almost full food box. Repeat. Also works at size 12. Spread your population around, don't let those food surpluses go to waste!

This works slightly better for a size 7 city. It must have a granary before it grows past 6. With a production of 10 or more, you can build a worker a turn indefinitely. This is caused by the change in size of the food box (20 at size 6 or less, and 40 for size 7-12).
With a granary only half the food box empties which leaves 20 food in the granary when the city grows to a 7.

The process goes something like this:

City grows to a 7. There is 20 food plus 1 turn's surplus production in the food box.

City production is set to worker.

Turn 1:

City builds worker.
City shrinks to a size 6 with a full food box.

Turn 2:

City grows to a size 7. Food box empties half way (20 food left).
City builds worker.
City shrinks to a size 6 with a full food box.

Repeat as often as you wish. This can be used to simulate the effects of Civ 2's WLTKD. Once your city has grown to a size 7, put 5 workers in the queue. As each worker is produced, put it to work. One turn after the last worker is built, have them all rejoin the city to bring it up to a size 12.

Alternatively, you can have one or two feeder cities pumping up your other cities rapidly. Highly effective once you have railroad, and if you're willing to sacrifice your feeder cities for awhile longer, you can have instant size 20 cities as your Hospitals are built. (and have a good sized pollution clean up squad).

 

[zebomba]

Nice joke about democrats, and great idea for defense .
So we all agree that the most powerful unit in the game is the... worker!

 

[Jeffrey Morris]

A future patch will allow automated workers to sleep in cities when there are no improvements left to be made. It allows large pollution strike forces to be invisibly managed.

Jeff

 

[zebomba]

They do it already.