So my city is stuck at pop12 and...

[Captain Ludd]

Here's the short version of my question...
If my city is at population 12, and well away from building any hospitals, is there any reason not to build bunches of workers and have them hang around until they can be added to smaller cities?


Longer version for the bored...
So sometime in the late middle ages I get a bunch of my big cities to pop 12 and have all the improvements available. Now the way I see it I can now build workers (it takes only one turn) every now and then. The city briefly drops to pop 11 and then is back to 12 again. And I have a worker which can till the fields or clean his pick or whatever until I capture a small/reduced enemy city. Then I have him join and reap the wonderful benifits. Basically the point is that I'm not just wasting al those bales of hay that my pop12 cities have. Instead I create a 'migrant population' or 'population-points-in-waiting'.

But like all good things I wonder if I've missed something along the way. Is there a catch which means I shouldn't do this?


"I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability." Oscar Wilde


Thanks for your time

 

[eyrei]

Workers cost one gold/turn to support, just like any other unit. You are probably putting quite a strain on your resources. Cities grow very quickly after hospitals anyway, if you have built many terrain improvements.

 

[Allemand]

No catch, it's a viable strategy. Only drawback is the maintenance you have to pay on the workers, one gold per turn per worker. As long as they're working you get some payback for those costs.

I usually build settlers when I don't need more workers. About a dozen settlers follow my troops into the war zone.

I've been thinking that cities should be allowed to grow to size 14 before needing the hospital. That's what I did in Civ II, although the aquaduct wasn't needed there until size 8 was reached and in Civ III the aquaduct is needed at size 6. Still, it seems that hospitals always come too late in Civ III, leaving you with a somewhat long period to lanquish at size 12. My solution would be to set the marker at 14 in the editor.

 

[Exile_Ian]

Obviously, building workers is a good idea if you have undeveloped areas that could benefit from their labors. Having them sit idle would probably not be cost-effective.

I agree with building more settlers - especially if there's a chance that there are unoccupied areas of the world. Pack a fleet of galleys/ caravels/ Galleons with settlers, workers and basic defensive units and send them out on speculative exploration runs. If you manage to establish a city or two, you can always use a spare settler or worker to quick-boost the population.

Also, consider taking some citizens out of food production (aiming to get the growth down to zero) - either by working on shields/commerce or by transferring them to be Tax collectors/Scientists or Entertainers.

My preferred option is to use the Draft Citizen option to convert a pop point into Infantry or Rifleman (you can never have too much defense). Obviously you need Nationalism before you can do this.

I'm sure any of those options are preferable to letting the growth potential get wasted.

 

[Captain Ludd]

Thanks to all thre of you...

I didn't realize I was paying maintainance on those little workers. I had only been using my little trick sparodically so the economic impact would have been smallish...and the treasury fluctuates so much anyway.

Drafting when at pop12 would be nice...but don't the people get upset? I've only used the draft in dire emergencies. But if the people don't get bothered then that's not such a bad idea :crazyeyes

And thanks again.

 

[RAL2000]

Drafting causes unhappy citizens and it lasts ~ 10 turns as I recall. Check the Civilopedia under game concepts for details.

I like the idea of converting them to specialists, but the micromanagement would seem to be a headache. I wonder if the governor would do that for you?

Personally I have the most fun playing at monarch and shutting off all the victory types except the military ones. The governors do a great job for that when set to 'manage citizen mood' setting. You only get revolts when you change govt and/or when you lose a luxury and your AI doesn't have time to adjust.

 

[Zachriel]

Extra workers can be taken to outlying cities to bring them up to pop 12.

Once a city reaches pop 12, use other workers to adjust the mining-food ratio so that the city is stable and is not trying to grow, but is producing the maximum number of shields possible.

Long periods of excess production have often led to war in real life. Make military units. Once built, you'll know what to do.

 

[madlagr]

You cant double-farm like in civ2 can you? My cities hover around 30 at endgame but i know they should go higher.

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by madlagr
You cant double-farm like in civ2 can you? My cities hover around 30 at endgame but i know they should go higher.

This is now accomplished by building a railroad in a tile with irrigation. The output of a mined tile is also increased by one with a railroad.

 

[Black Waltz]

The best City Size I've managed is around 37, but that was with all my tiles as iragation on Grassland. What can I say, I was a n00b.

 

[Salvor]

I once had a city producing 74 food. It was in the middle of a bunch of flood plains, with a few hills and mountains on the outskirts. I didn't let it grow all the way to 37, though. It was a perfect settler/worker farm.

In hindsight, I shouldn't have even let it grow to 20, but should have built 2 or 3 smaller cities in the same space.