To automate, or not?

[pmoney]

that is the question!

Toward the end of the Civ3 days I began automating all my workers, and when I crossed over to Civ4 I just continued automating them all. But now I'm noticing I typically have city maintenance problems (problems making money) because I have to drop my research rates down a lot, and I can't build military because I'm too focused on city improvements to keep up. this could either be from expanding too fast or automating all my workers, two things I am notorious for. I used to expand like mad in civ3, but it looks like that is no longer viable. so should I continue to automate or not? also, what are some strategies for building cottages? (like when, where, why, etc.) btw I typically play on Noble

Thanks and Merry Christmas!

 

[vlar]

1) I like my workers to autobuild my trade network once I've established my 3rd or 4th city.

2) I think cottages are best on grassland away from freshwater. That way you can work the terrain during the early game without slowing your cities growth.

 

[xGBox]

At the beginning of the game, get your workers to do the essential stuff FIRST, such as connecting resources to your city, build farms, and especially cottages. Then you can have it automate meaningless tasks like build roads.

 

[MyOtherName]

2) I think cottages are best on grassland away from freshwater. That way you can work the terrain during the early game without slowing your cities growth.

Of course, it means when you turn the city over to commerce, you're making less money than if your cottages are on the river.

Then you can have it automate meaningless tasks like build roads.

Actually, I manually build my roads for a long while, to ensure that I have efficient transportation in case I need to defend my territory, or to bring newly produced units to the front lines.

 

[Lord Sankra]

I never automate, unless the game is allready won/lost. If you don't care for the 'micro', at least build the essentials manually, then automate.

If fin., build cottages near rivers for that extra gold. If not, build on all grassland tiles not ajecent to water and supplement with farms if nessecary.

 

[vlar]

Of course, it means when you turn the city over to commerce, you're making less money than if your cottages are on the river.

Question: If every river tile is worked, does it matter which improvement is on them? I think a river just provides one extra commerce, regardless of the improvement. Water mills being an exception ...

 

[DangerousMonkey]

You certainly can automate your workers. The problem is that the AI has no understanding your your stratiegic goals, though it isn't horrible at building the right improvements for a city. Basicly the rule of thumb is that if you can beat the game pretty easily on Noble you are smarter than the AI and you should probably micromanage your workers as much as possible, through most of the game if you can. If you're not able to beat the game on Noble then you should probably just automate those workers, except for building important roads and deciding which trees to chop, because the AI will probably do a better job than you.

 

[Byrath]

I have no use for automating workers in this game. You don't need very many of them compared to Civ3, they move 2 tiles per turn, and there is no nasty pollution to clean up, so managing them myself is not the headache it used to be.

Question: If every river tile is worked, does it matter which improvement is on them? I think a river just provides one extra commerce, regardless of the improvement. Water mills being an exception ...

Not really, it just means you want to clear forests away from the riverbanks, and have citizens working all of those tiles.

 

[RX2000]

On my last game I was playing multiplayer with a friend, and he automated all his workers, while I was manually controlling mine and having them build mostly cottages. His automated workers built mostly FARMS!!

Somewhere around the middle ages, he was getting like -30 gold a turn with science on 0%, and I was getting around +100 gold per turn with science on 60% or 70%. He had more population, but that was about it. I was stomping him in research and money. We were about tied in production.

I say DONT automate. The AI wants to build waaaay too many farms. Cottages are more important.

 

[sandman_civ]

IMO the only time to automate is late game when you are in a winning position anyway and it becomes ridiculously time consuming to order each worker. Automating workers to target a city, or build railroad routes is fine at this point. Some people swear by the city automation buttons but I have not tried them yet.

Otherwise you HAVE to control your workers, not only for the above reasons, but in wartime they take funny routes and tend to get captured. I even control the path workers take as sometimes they hop too close to borders for my own liking.

And yes I always build cottages on grassland, even better if there is river, unless of course the city is going to stop growing. However this is very rare as later on things like windmills and even workshops give you food.

I've seen on higher levels (emperor+) the AI even building cottages on plains and it seemed to work very well. Who knows what the optimum is except that you need a whole lot of cottages to keep your economy going after midgame.

 

[MyOtherName]

If every river tile is worked, does it matter which improvement is on them? I think a river just provides one extra commerce, regardless of the improvement. Water mills being an exception ...

Nope. But for this to occur, it means you want to work every improvement on the river. If I put all farms along the river, that's often too much food and not enough production/commerce, so I would wind up leaving some river squares unworked. (Especially in the very early game) I would prefer to build as many farms as I would want to work (often zero), and line the rest of the river with cottages.

 

[kb2tvl]

that is the question!

Toward the end of the Civ3 days I began automating all my workers, and when I crossed over to Civ4 I just continued automating them all. But now I'm noticing I typically have city maintenance problems (problems making money) because I have to drop my research rates down a lot, and I can't build military because I'm too focused on city improvements to keep up.

I do not automate. That is a habit that I started during civ 3.

Your problem is not automating but over expanding. The term "over expanding" is fairly relative though. Your first ring of cities should have a corruption around 25%. Your second ring may have 50% or greater corruption. You need to have an income greater than the maintanence, modified by corruption...

You need cities to grow to your happiness and shift to cottages. You can build structures but that takes more time...

 

[Huxley Hobbes]

I start of by telling the workers exactly what to do, building a trade/movement network, and getting a hold of important resources. Then I move on to sorting out my cities to make the most of their locations (Eg getting some mines, farms, and cottages down.), after which I generally switch to automation and let them clean up the remaining squares.

Remember there's more than one automation button though. If I'm not in the mood for micro, I'll put my workers on 'Build trade network', which sorts things out reasonably well. And confining them to one particular city is nice too, it means you can delegate a couple to work the mundane squares there while you attend to more pressing matter, then come back later and nab the workers for elsewhere if needed.

 

[Saint_Saturn]

When I started playing Civ4, I had all my workers automated, because I could never remember all the little buildings and improvements I saw on the screen (I was really overwhelmed and discouraged when I saw all those choices when I started!). Now though, after seeing what a worker does build on automation, I decided to start playing games where workers aren't automated. After playing a few games like this, I've found that non-auto workers are much more efficient at the cost of turns taking longer and having to remember more things. I like this way much more though as now my workers chop when I want; build more efficiently; make fewer roadways leading off to nowhere; and (early on) don't try running into roaming barbs just so they can make their 15th farm.

The automated workers infatuation with farms has got to be the biggest downfall to making them automated. If they were a bit more sensible as to choosing between a farm/cottage/windmill, I think they would be much more usable automated.

However, late in the game when I tend to have large amounts of workers and few actual necessary reasons for having them around, I do turn them onto automated, just to give them something to do and to potentially grab anything I may've missed. I still have to keep an eye out for them, so they don't end up destroying a town to create their 589262th farm.

 

[pmoney]

When I started playing Civ4, I had all my workers automated, because I could never remember all the little buildings and improvements I saw on the screen (I was really overwhelmed and discouraged when I saw all those choices when I started!)

haha same here


thanks for the feedback guys, its helped a lot. I started a new game today too, on noble, where I'm owning and in first place. I slowed my expansion, built workers before settlers, and chose not to automate my workers. In the early life of my cities, I created maybe 1-2 farms for growth before making cottages and maybe another 1 or 2 farms later, but I typically don't have more than 3-4 farms in a given city radius. I didn't automate any workers until at least mid/late game where I had resources secure and finished placing cottages and farms

I have some more questions though, like the ideal places to put farms/cottages (on rivers, grassland, plains). I've typically built cottages away from rivers, while putting farms on grassland rivers, and sometimes a cottage on plains/grassland rivers

does anyone use watermills or workshops? I haven't really found either a necessity, what are good strategies for those?

 

[Blazer6]

I really hate automating, especially that governor being such a specialist lover. I can't end turns without having two specialists draining growth each turn. I really want "no specialist" to be a city option, which is ironic.

 

[Yooka]

I say DONT automate. The AI wants to build waaaay too many farms. Cottages are more important.

Well think about it. Farms mean making food, and stimulate population growth. Cottages mean working and generating money.

If left on your own with all things being equal, would you prefer to eat and get laid or get a job?

I am FAR from a good Civ player, but I think much of my improvement is coming from the fact that I no longer automate workers. One of the main reasons is that I'm more keen on using some forest and jungle to (1) give a city more health and (2) to slow down advancing armies. Oh and (3) because they like that sorta thing once I get environmentalism. That means being strategic with what forest is chopped, and which stays. Automated workers don't think like this.

This also forces me to pay more attention to how many hammers, commerce, and food each city is generating. So yeah, it forces me to micromanage, which I don't really wanna do. But it seems like I'm starting to hold my own, so I guess it's worth it.

Oh, about the farms. Having a billion farms is good if you're trying to outculture someone, or make a city into a great person factory (not literaly).

 

[Pragmatic]

That means being strategic with what forest is chopped, and which stays. Automated workers don't think like this.

In patch 1.52, there's an option to tell automated workers to not chop down forests. So your forests are safe.

As for building too many farms, I say, let them build them. The extra food is good for growth, and after it reaches a large enough size, go back and rip out a few of those farms and put in cottages (when the cottages will actually get used; and with the "do not replace existing improvements" option selected, of course).

Of course, I'm just a Warlord-level. So ignore me if I make no sense...

 

[DraconisRex]

I don't automate workers until there's nothing left to do but build pointless routes, and even then most of the time I just stick them in a city waiting for the railroad tech to come along.

 

[Pragmatic]

I don't automate workers until there's nothing left to do but build pointless routes, and even then most of the time I just stick them in a city waiting for the railroad tech to come along.

Set a few on "Build Trade Network." They'll proceed to hook up every resource, as well as put roads and railroads everywhere.

Every fifty or so turns, check out your cities, and if you find idle workers (ones that can't currently upgrade resources or transportation), set them to improving (manually) your cities.

That way, you can ignore (more or less) all resource-connections and all road-building, and concentrate on building those farms, mines, and cottages.