Using Your Workers

[Zaius]

I would like to get everyone's feedback on how they use their workers, and how they feel about their various behavior when automated.

I have been playing multiple games on Noble, with the mindset that specialization (playing on your strengths) both at the level of how you play your civ and at the level of how you build improvements around your cities is how to go about maximing your strengths. The problems I have found are:

1) Despite the fact that I give myself clear strategies on a city's evolution (ie This will be a research city, I will begin with a balanced food(farms)/hammer(mines)/commerce(cottages) improvement plan and then lay down cottages as often as possible) I find that my cities actually are more productive when I set my workers on automation. What gives? What am I missing? If I set them on automation after I have improved a city, I'll see them take a cottage out and farm it up, or take a farm out and cottage it up. Whenever they see a hill, they windmill it instead of mining it. I understand that this is good for commerce, but I mean they do this in every city, even those not specializing in commerce, and those that already have plenty of farms and cottages.

2) What am I missing about workshops? My strategy is to make sure my cities have at least 2 hills around them for hammers because I find that -1 food +1 hammer feels, overall, like a waste. Considering the fact that your city makes most of its improvements early and will need to put something on those tiles that adds something (rather than trade a food for a hammer), and given the fact that all other improvements are also upgraded with later techs -not just the workshops, I just don't see its usefulness in any other setting than an emergency, for an unplanned city location that doesnt have hills.

3) How often do you guys leave off the city governor? Do you ever actually ask it to specialize in something, and do you ever manually change which tiles are used? When you do, do you remember later on as the city grows to tweak your allocation?

Any general tips about what tendencies you guys have regarding improvements would be appreciated.

 

[Marquis Mark]

That's funny -- I've found automating my workers destroys my economy. My research and production become too slow to push for anything meaningful.

I trypically specialize as well, but I try to make sure every city has at least a decent level of production. To specialize properly, you'll need several buildings and some wonders...those require more than a few hammers

 

[wilwil]

they just ignore the emphasize and do farming/windmilling ...
so i would like to make them not able to overwrite previous improvements

 

[Duelingground]

so i would like to make them not able to overwrite previous improvements

You can do that by accessing the Options>Gameplay menu.

 

[Gufnork]

Workshops gets +1 hammer after you discover Guilds (I think) and another +1 after you discover Chemistry (I think). If you're also running State Property they produce +1 food making them a total of +3 hammers. Sometimes your cities have no squares with hammers, so workshops is your only option.

 

[mrjepson]

Once I have guilds I build a couple workshops in the cities with little to no hammers naturally occuring, usually costal cities.

Lately I've been really getting into watermills, once they get upgraded they are very nice! They are a very good build near the end of the game when growing a town might not be possible and you want improvements now (of course i always use communism so this makes watermills even better)

 

[Shillen]

1) Despite the fact that I give myself clear strategies on a city's evolution (ie This will be a research city, I will begin with a balanced food(farms)/hammer(mines)/commerce(cottages) improvement plan and then lay down cottages as often as possible) I find that my cities actually are more productive when I set my workers on automation. What gives? What am I missing? If I set them on automation after I have improved a city, I'll see them take a cottage out and farm it up, or take a farm out and cottage it up. Whenever they see a hill, they windmill it instead of mining it. I understand that this is good for commerce, but I mean they do this in every city, even those not specializing in commerce, and those that already have plenty of farms and cottages.

In the options is a choice to make it so workers will never remove old improvements. This way they won't be taking your cottages and stuff out. But I would advise against automating workers unless it's at the very end of the game with little for them to do.

2) What am I missing about workshops? My strategy is to make sure my cities have at least 2 hills around them for hammers because I find that -1 food +1 hammer feels, overall, like a waste. Considering the fact that your city makes most of its improvements early and will need to put something on those tiles that adds something (rather than trade a food for a hammer), and given the fact that all other improvements are also upgraded with later techs -not just the workshops, I just don't see its usefulness in any other setting than an emergency, for an unplanned city location that doesnt have hills.

Workshops suck. Leave some forests up and you'll be good. After chemistry (ie late in the game) you can think about adding a workshop, especially if you choose to go with state property.

3) How often do you guys leave off the city governor? Do you ever actually ask it to specialize in something, and do you ever manually change which tiles are used? When you do, do you remember later on as the city grows to tweak your allocation?

I use the specialization buttons all the time. If I want a city to grow at all costs I select the food icon. If I want it to grow and produce I select food and hammers. If I want it to produce science but also have hammers to build infrastructure then I pick commerce and hammers. Yes I will sometimes turn off the governor and assign a couple tiles differently. But overall the governor does a decent job.

 

[Willburn]

Workshops are for special cases where you need the production and cant get it by other means. (Forrest hills etc)

 

[Me_]

On the city governor, they do a good job in general, but will never accept starvation to get that wonder out or rush a tech, or get a wave of new units out for war. Often it's a good idea to let a city starve so you can win the race, and you have to do that manually. I turn governor back on afterward.

 

[jafink]

i know that it is not as good as manually controling your workers, but i almost always put my workers on automate after i have about three or four cities, the only time i'll manually control them is at the beggining of the game when i do a forest chop, and for connecting cetain resources. It's true, they don't obey what you have your city governer set for, but i still automate them.

I haven't tried any of the harder difficulty levels, but at prince i can still win using automated workers.

50th post!!!!

 

[Ralph-x]

I always automate my workers, running them all around indvidually is just too much work, I would rather spend my time invading people.

100th post!!!!

 

[Aldor]

3) How often do you guys leave off the city governor? Do you ever actually ask it to specialize in something, and do you ever manually change which tiles are used? When you do, do you remember later on as the city grows to tweak your allocation?

I often use the governor. Usually I pick the combination production/commerce, to prevent growing too quickly (while at the same time producing as much as possible). For that reason I rarely pick the growth (food) option...it just leads to ill cities.

The only time I turn off the governor is when he keeps assigning specialists differently than I want, which happens usually later in the game.

 

[Shillen]

I often use the governor. Usually I pick the combination production/commerce, to prevent growing too quickly (while at the same time producing as much as possible). For that reason I rarely pick the growth (food) option...it just leads to ill cities.

Growth is something you turn on only for so many turns and then turn it off when the city is of sufficient size. Another use is to turn it on after you build the UN to give yourself extra votes if you're coming up a little short.

 

[anton_z1]

I do not automate workers (Since i play mostly on standart maps). Also on higher difficulty, automated workers are your death. You need to micromanage everything yourself.

 

[Zaius]

So you guys have been able to use a combination of the emphasis buttons on the governor's section with success? If so, I'll try that, too.

I noticed that I was able to emphasize more than one thing, but didn't know how well the AI would go about doing that.

 

[Shillen]

The final decision is always yours to make. If you don't like how the computer assigned it then change it to the way you like it. I basically use the computer assigned tiles as a starting point. If that starting point is also the ending point then great. But even if the computer screws it up I usually only have to change 1 or 2 tiles to make it the way I want it. Just remember to check on your cities every few turns at the least to make sure they're doing what you want them to.

 

[gakkun]

One thing I've found with the governor's automation is that say if you're emphasizing hammers only the game will sometimes sacrifice potential growth and convert citizens working on the fields to become specialists.

This is really annoying because the governor takes my command as if hammer is the only important thing and my cities stop growing and I have to take those specialists off manually.

 

[wilwil]

I often use the governor. Usually I pick the combination production/commerce, to prevent growing too quickly (while at the same time producing as much as possible). For that reason I rarely pick the growth (food) option...it just leads to ill cities.

The only time I turn off the governor is when he keeps assigning specialists differently than I want, which happens usually later in the game.

i would pick the growth and production emphaziz on new starting cities
after certain extend of growing i would switch them to production only
seldom use commerce

 

[Tactician Zhao]

I don't know how others do it, or maybe I am just too picky, but I can not allow the automation by the govenor or the workers, I just get too obsessed usually, otherwise I will start the ordering of beheadings of all governors and workers when they make the less intelligent choices

I have a friend who uses the automations, however, and he seems pleased with the usual results, so I can at least say that some have great results

 

[Zaius]

The final decision is always yours to make.

Obviously. I'm just asking for your feedback.

One more question: If you have governor off for a city and your city grows by one, what factors will determine which tile will automatically be used?