NiceSpike
Chieftain
Wow! I got my question answered plus much more! Thanks to everybody for the valuable information!
The Worker Dance
- Thread starter NiceSpike
- Start date
DrewBledsoe
Veteran QB
Ok, I have a slightly different take on workers, and it's that the ai and many players build far too many. There is absolutely no point in having all 20 tiles in the fat cross of a city developed, when the city is only size 7, but you see this all the time. Workers cost money too. The perfect amount of workers, is to just stay ahead of the actual worked tiles of your cities.
At the start of the game, you obviously have far too few workers, but you will soon find that you don't actually need anything like the amount the advisor wants to build. Until Monarchy, you're cities will only grow to a certain size anyway, giving workers a chance to "catch up" from the initial setting phase.
Later, you probably have a short phase pre replaceable parts, where there's nothing practical to improve....well just give the little guys a rest somewhere suitable, and use alt-wake when there's something new to do. You might want a few more when railroads come around, to build the railroads faster, but most cities will build a worker in a turn or 2 by then, so no worries there.
Just my 2 cents.....
At the start of the game, you obviously have far too few workers, but you will soon find that you don't actually need anything like the amount the advisor wants to build. Until Monarchy, you're cities will only grow to a certain size anyway, giving workers a chance to "catch up" from the initial setting phase.
Later, you probably have a short phase pre replaceable parts, where there's nothing practical to improve....well just give the little guys a rest somewhere suitable, and use alt-wake when there's something new to do. You might want a few more when railroads come around, to build the railroads faster, but most cities will build a worker in a turn or 2 by then, so no worries there.
Just my 2 cents.....
I would like to say that I agree with some that it often can be very strategic to change improvements on tiles later in the game, there are several reasons as has been mentioned. I found my game improving a lot when I started doing this after thinking about the long-term needs of a city and the workers had nothing better to do. If anything, you could automate one or two to build a trade network, that's usually not too harmful except if you're at war you don't want to lose track where they are and have them picked off
that's not true -- you will eventually need many of those tiles later when the city does grow, so if the worker has no immediate jobs, why not build on them now? it's better to have them ready to go immediately when the city grows.
but I do agree with your point that you can have too many workers - that is another issue.
also, it's important in the earlier parts of the game to sometimes build improvements on resource tiles that do NOT provide the resource. why? because if you desperately need a few extra hammers or food or commerce, and you might not have the technology discovered yet to use that resource. so why ignore the tile altogether and leave it totally unimproved? you can always replace the improvement later for the one that provides the resource.
this is the kind of strategic thinking you have to use to beat the game at higher levels. I've seen the best players do this kind of thing and use all sorts of creative ideas to win. it's the old "think outside the box" cliche...
DrewBledsoe
Veteran QB
Agreed I've always done this, especially things like farming wine, and mining pigs / hills right at the start of the game
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