stealing workers strategy

[backthief]

Hello,

i am having trouble with the stealing workers strategy. I send 3 or 4 warriors out there and i either can't find the workers or the enemy's border expand before i can catch the unit.

First i was circling the enemy borders looking for a worker. Now i am also camping a resource (farm/mine/camp improves) that are yet to me worked on. I am paying more attention to Civs that already start with Agri/Hunt/Mine.

The results have been varied, but mostly dissapointing. It is taking too much time to scout, capture and move to my border. Any suggestions?

 

[Xzylvador]

Try getting some XP from animals (or barbs depending on the settings), woodsman II promotion is great to steal workers.

 

[joanne]

Worker stealing is a very risky gambit, even more so as you go up difficulties. The 90 food+hammers you save on not building the worker yourself at the cost of messing up diplo that early in the game can snowball to you spending more hammers on units fighting a future war vs. the target or his/her friends, or some other could-be-unpleasant consequence.

When you wrote you are paying attention to civs that start with Agri/Hunting/Mining, do you mean you target AI civs that start with those techs for worker stealing? Some better criteria for picking worker steal targets would be:

• check for other AIs - make sure you've met other AI's the target has had contact with before DoWing.
• check other AI's attitude towards target. The less other AI's that are at pleased with the target the lesser the diplomatic repercussions
• pick closest target - this lowers the risk of your precious stolen worker being destroyed by barbs, and makes rushing simpler, if necessary.
• rushable targets - depending on their personality, your target will be furious or annoyed towards you for a long time afterwards; if you've choked him successfully he might not recover enough to be either useful or a threat to your civ, but if he does recover he might declare back on you. Worker stealing works best if you plan to quickly eliminate the target anyway
• check the land - oftentimes when you've choked one AI the neighboring AIs will just settle on what would have been his land, benefiting freely from your efforts. So again it's better to crush him completely and capture/resettle his cities; you'll have your stolen worker, and his land and less complicated diplo later in the game

 

[chopster]

Stealing workers can actually save you hammers in units if you can successfully keep an AI from hooking up resources. If all they can work is unimproved tiles, then they will have low food, low production and will be much easier to steamroll early if you decide to do so.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Difficulty level plays a role... on lower difficulty levels, AIs do not start with a Worker, so it is a lot harder to steal their Workers early in the game.


Regardless of difficulty level, when you pull off a successful Worker theft, you almost always want to have built your own Worker first anyway, since the gain from waiting for a stolen Worker to arrive is rarely going to give your empire a better boost than building a Worker first. So, I would definitely aim to build my own Worker before spamming Warriors.


Also, techs play a role... you can camp a Sheep or a Cow Resource for a long time and still not see an AI Worker appear if that AI has not learned Animal Husbandry.


Try to avoid stealing Workers from a Civ that starts with The Wheel... they are far more likely to have mobile Archers that will kill your Warrior and will recapture their Worker, leaving you with a messy situation and an angry AI breathing down your neck.


Alternatively, watch for a Settler and aim to steal a Worker around the time that a second City is founded. In many cases, you can "snipe" a Worker that is building a Road between the two Cities--often in territory that falls outside of the AI's Cultural borders, where the Workers tend to be less-well defended.

 

[plasmacannon]

It is Much easier when playing "Always War", because, you can always enter an AI's territory whenever you like and diplo is basically irrelevant. Get woods2, as suggested earlier, on your melee, Guerilla2 if using archers. The AI still sees the unit as a speed 1 unit, but, you can move2 through your appropiate terrain.

 

[Nares]

I wrote this guide almost five years ago. It's rudimentary in that it does not correlate the XML values which dictate each AI leader's behavior, but it should still be relevant in BTS.

Also keep in mind that I wrote it when I was relatively new to CIV. It's far from perfect, but it's a good (enough) introduction to worker stealing.

 

[ben-jammin]

Difficulty level plays a role... on lower difficulty levels, AIs do not start with a Worker, so it is a lot harder to steal their Workers early in the game.


Regardless of difficulty level, when you pull off a successful Worker theft, you almost always want to have built your own Worker first anyway, since the gain from waiting for a stolen Worker to arrive is rarely going to give your empire a better boost than building a Worker first. So, I would definitely aim to build my own Worker before spamming Warriors.


Also, techs play a role... you can camp a Sheep or a Cow Resource for a long time and still not see an AI Worker appear if that AI has not learned Animal Husbandry.


Try to avoid stealing Workers from a Civ that starts with The Wheel... they are far more likely to have mobile Archers that will kill your Warrior and will recapture their Worker, leaving you with a messy situation and an angry AI breathing down your neck.


Alternatively, watch for a Settler and aim to steal a Worker around the time that a second City is founded. In many cases, you can "snipe" a Worker that is building a Road between the two Cities--often in territory that falls outside of the AI's Cultural borders, where the Workers tend to be less-well defended.

Probably not possible at Deity but maybe up to Immortal. You can really cripple a nearby civ with a strong early unique unit (particularly persia's) by poaching workers and especially by taking out a settler or two if you're in a position to do so. Probably also possible but much riskier even without a strong unit like the immortal if you're charismatic or aggressive and manage to get yourself a number of warriors and axes with combat 1 and cover. If your target is weak enough that lost production on dead units is made up with more easily captured cities which are hopefully well placed.

I think everything i just said is way too obvious

 

[backthief]

I think i improved my steal worker strat:

1) Choosing 1, max 2 nearby, soon to be attacked Civs as target.
2) Scout them while i build 1 worker, 2-3 Warriors.
3) Camp the borders till i can grab one worker (or more). Leave 1-2 warrior inside the enemy border pillaging resources or just fortifying, unabling him to improve more lands (warrior fortified in Forest, or Forest+Hill can D archers).

While scouting, sometimes i am able to go Woodsman II, which works wonders with the Worker Steal Strat.


Conclusions: I believe stealing workers must be used everytime you can, it weakens significantly the enemy, making the expanding a cup cake in the next turns.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Difficulty level plays a role... on lower difficulty levels, AIs do not start with a Worker, so it is a lot harder to steal their Workers early in the game.

Yes. Also, on some levels (not sure which ones), the AI has Archery but no free Scouts to explore. Then they explore with Archers that may happen to wander around your capital the time you DoW.
In which case stealing a worker may result in a quick loss.


@OP :
You do not need an "army" of Warriors to steal a worker. Your first warrior can do just fine if there are resources on the border.
If you intend to choke the AI, you'll have time to send additionnal warriors/whatever later on.

 

[Mec AntiKythera]

As far as I am concerned it is a tactic based on opportunity. If the chance presents itself I consider it, but I don't go out hunting for a worker to steal.