The Worker Dance

[NiceSpike]

Hi folks--I'm a complete newbie to the whole gaming scene and I hope someone can advise me on what I've come to call "the worker dance." Seems about halfway through a game I've got something developed on every tile with roads connecting everything but I end up having to direct my workers back and forth while waiting for other things to complete. The AI keeps suggesting replacing cottages with workshops, workshops with mines, and mines with cottages, round and round. Is there any advantage to this? I sometimes kill some workers because it gets boring, but I know I have to keep some around to build railroads later in the game. Anyone have some ideas?

-- NiceSpike

 

[xanadux]

You generally don't want the AI running your workers.

Just starting out with civ4, here's a couple guidelines to use until you know when to do something else ...

Resources get whatever improvement needed to hook them up (get the benefit of the resource). Grains get farms, animals get pastures or camps, metals and gems get mines, sea resources need workboats, and the rest need plantations.

After that, hills get mines, grasslands and floodplains cottages unless you desperately need more food, then a farm or 2. Generally work the food tiles you need to get your city growing before working on production (mines).

Replacing cottages is very bad unless you have a very good reason. Cottages grow as they are worked for more and more commerce. One example of when you would replace a cottage is in the end game going for a space victory and you don't need research anymore, and so build workshops everywhere to increase production for spaceship parts. Usually, you should have a plan for a city and will rarely if ever change an improvement. A lot of improvement changing usually means poor planning.

Of course, if you had read the manual, you would know most of this already.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I just shed a tear for your Workers ... killing Workers is about the worst thing you can ever do. They are arguably the most valuable unit in the game.

Most early wars are started over ... you guessed it: taking Workers!

Workers don't always have to be doing something. At the very least, just put 'em to sleep in your capital or automate them to build a trade network.

Of course, if you had read the manual, you would know most of this already.

This is very true. I've been playing Civ since DOS, and I still found the CivIV manual to be very enlightening (in fact, I still reference it sometimes during play).

Just in case you lost your manual or hate reading words on paper, check out these articles:

A Comprehensive Guide to Terrain, Improvements, Resources, and City Placement

Guide to City Specialization and Land Improvements

Workers: To automate or not to automate?​

 

[Cam_H]

Welcome to CivFanatics NiceSpike!

While one could probably write a book about the issues you raise, I'd point out a couple of things to bear in mind;

(1.) Changes via Technologies

As you secure new technologies and new Civic choices, the relative attractiveness of some worker improvements improve - for instance, watermills get considerable bonuses if you've got Electicity and Replaceable Parts and running State Property ...

... Further to OTAKUjbski's highly recommended reading list, I'd also point to VoiceOfUnreason's Vocum Sineratio: evaluating production on this point.

The acquisition of the Calendar technology is another example where for instance you could convert irrigated Banana tiles to Banana Plantations.

In a nutshell, be mindful of opportunities as technologies that affect tile improvements come to hand.

(2.) City Specialisation

Specialisation and needs may dictate changes to your strategy. You might find that your commerce-city or production-city ratios are out of balance given your particular needs at a certain point in the game. An example might be when you've captured a city from the AI that you can see would be more valuable as a unit pump than a hybrid city. The AI does not understand how you would prefer to speciaise your cities, and instead strives to create a balanced 'Jack-of-all-trades' city. xanadux outlines the issue of Spaceship part production as another example. Your game will be in a constant state of metamophosis - so will be the roles of your cities.

Sisiutil does a good job at addressing city specialisation in Sisiutil's Strategy Guide for Beginners if you've yet to read it.

 

[azaris]

I do find that I occasionally need to alter the cities improvements as time passes. For example, I haven't got enough food to grow due to unhealthiness, so need to make a few cottages into farms. Or turn a mine into a windmill. Or if I have an unworked cottage I will swap it for a workshop to allow the city to run an accelerated production plan: first I let it grow to full possible size, then swap the worked tiles to maximum production (workshops, mines), then whip the final hammers, and finally swap the worked tiles to pop growth to get it back again.

Keep hold of those workers. There's always room for improvements. One of the easiest mistakes to make is not improving your land sufficiently, thinking that the original choice of farm/cottage is enough.

 

[OctavianFlu]

As you get higher in the difficulty levels automating your workers could cost you the game. I say that because they will cut down trees for farms, where your cities have already maxed out their health benefit. The Automated worker is really stupid.

After reading the above useful guides I am sure you'll know what is a smart suggestion from Syd, and what is not. Generally, if I have everything I need out of my land, and I have very little use out of my workers, I automate road building, if that's all done I sleep them in my city.

In a lot of my games as I am either growing via settlers, or taking AI cities, I bring a stack of workers with my army, so I can get that city online asap. I would never kill a worker unless I have captured like 4 from an AI city, where I have 20 already

 

[DaveMcW]

Find the "Workers keep existing improvements" option and check it.

There is no such thing as "too many workers". If your workers run out of stuff to build, your problem is "not enough cities".

 

[Meanness]

Find the "Workers keep existing improvements" option and check it.

QFT. Also check the option about leaving forests. Then you can automate them safely after you've improved your cities.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Yes, modify the options and they won't replace improvements or trees on you. (Some people save trees for chopping a critical late wonder or for the health bonus... depends on your style of play.)

 

[JackRules]

Also, should you decide to go all out for a diplomatic victory, you may want to build more farms over cottages to get your population up for the next vote.

 

[Bolkonski]

The AI keeps suggesting replacing cottages with workshops, workshops with mines, and mines with cottages, round and round. Is there any advantage to this?

-- NiceSpike

There is some very useful advice in the posts above but one thing I have not seen is the following:

When the AI makes a suggestion it only does it for squares that are not being worked at that time and it does it in accordance with what you have selected as your wishes for the city, i.e. food, production or commerce. Most of the time I take note of what the AI suggests, in case I have missed something, but generally I end up ignoring it. Frequently it does not make sense especially when it suggests you replace a cottage with something else.

 

[KMadCandy]

There is some very useful advice in the posts above but one thing I have not seen is the following:

When the AI makes a suggestion it only does it for squares that are not being worked at that time and it does it in accordance with what you have selected as your wishes for the city, i.e. food, production or commerce. Most of the time I take note of what the AI suggests, in case I have missed something, but generally I end up ignoring it. Frequently it does not make sense especially when it suggests you replace a cottage with something else.

my understanding is that the automated workers don't have any communication with the city governors at all. they just do improvements based on what kind of tile it is, and have no idea whether you're emphasizing commerce or production or GPP. can you point me to where you found out that the workers know which tiles aren't being worked, and that they know what the governor is doing? if i've been passing along bad information i need to know, so that i can correct that mistake! thanks.

 

[Bolkonski]

my understanding is that the automated workers don't have any communication with the city governors at all. they just do improvements based on what kind of tile it is, and have no idea whether you're emphasizing commerce or production or GPP. can you point me to where you found out that the workers know which tiles aren't being worked, and that they know what the governor is doing? if i've been passing along bad information i need to know, so that i can correct that mistake! thanks.

My apologies if I have given misleading information. Perhaps I am wrong on the communication with city governers. It was an impression rather than reading xml. The point about recomendations for tiles not being worked seems to hold true though. It was something I wondered about for a long time before I realised that the only recomendations for tiles that had been improved were for tiles not being worked at that time.

 

[KMadCandy]

i can't read the xml or sdk either! i'm just going by what i've read on the boards. so i'm not sure that i'm right either *giggle*.

i never noticed that about the recommendations only for tiles not being worked. i turned recommendations for units off for a long time, until i realized i missed the blue city suggestions (even tho i often don't follow them). i tend to not look at them unless i have a settler selected.

 

[Welnic]

I've seen blue circles on tiles that were being worked. I have two spice squares in my capitol's bfc in my current game, one of them has a plantation but the other has a town. It puts a blue circle on the one with the town. Every tile is being worked.

 

[Onagan]

the blue circle is a suggestion which tiles should be improved. Your second spice is probably better off with a plantation, you can trade them.

 

[dr_s]

I discovered the following recently. I had thought that using the "Build Trade Network" button (or whatever it's called) only had the workers build roads. But they will also build improvements on resource tiles as well---that is apparently considered part of the "trade network" by the algorithm. In fact, I discovered this because I had a cottage built on a resource tile and the workers kept tearing it down.

 

[drkodos]

I just shed a tear for your Workers ... killing Workers is about the worst thing you can ever do. They are arguably the most valuable unit in the game.

Most early wars are started over ... you guessed it: taking Workers!

Workers don't always have to be doing something. At the very least, just put 'em to sleep in your capital or automate them to build a trade network.

They cost.


Sometimes the good of the many outweight the good of the few.


I routinely gack a bunch of them late-game.

 

[Bolkonski]

I've seen blue circles on tiles that were being worked. I have two spice squares in my capitol's bfc in my current game, one of them has a plantation but the other has a town. It puts a blue circle on the one with the town. Every tile is being worked.

Interesting... I cannot remember if I ever have put a development on a resource tile other than what was required to improve the resource so it must be the case that the AI is suggesting that you develop the resource. I wonder if anyone has seen a blue circle on a non-resource tile that was being worked? My experience has been that once all tiles are worked that there are no blue circles.

 

[Welnic]

I discovered the following recently. I had thought that using the "Build Trade Network" button (or whatever it's called) only had the workers build roads. But they will also build improvements on resource tiles as well---that is apparently considered part of the "trade network" by the algorithm. In fact, I discovered this because I had a cottage built on a resource tile and the workers kept tearing it down.

You need to go into the options and click on the "Workers keep existing improvements". Basically those guys are building roads but also hooking up resources.