Using Your Workers

[emoe]

I use the governor all the time, but then I never really use it. I use it to quickly switch between max food (growth) and max hammers. It never does either quite right though. It will never take away the last hill or the last food to have truly maximum production (without starvation) or maximum growth (1 hammer). But then you only have to switch one instead of up to 8. I never let the governor go and be stupid, making great people instead of working tiles. (even with governor off the auto assigned distribution will sometimes select great people) I, the ultimate micromanager, will usually go through every city every couple turns and assign the tiles to be worked. Even if you have food on the governor, you still have to go into the city to switch from the grassland hill mine tile to the coast tile. And that one food sometimes saves 10 turns for growth. Then you can switch back to max prod, (or commerce- but commerce cities I usually end up taking off the food resources and plopping great people/prod squares- exception being cottages on plains, as they arent self sufficient.) I always keep my cities at the maximum happiness allowed population, and do the max growth spurt every time i get a happiness increase (resource, tech from building, etc).

as for workers, i only trust them with working the squares out of my cities range, and railroading everything.

micromanaging for the win. lazy people lose

 

[Stormreaver]

I'm also way too picky about my improvements to let the workers go automated. Or use the governor for selecting tiles, for that matter. Never play larger maps than standard though, as I usually find the late game slow enough on that size.

However, I do use the emphasis buttons (with governor off) and hope the tiles added after pop growth will be chosen with that in mind. Usually I leave it on max food, and then correct any erroneously chosen new tiles on the check-ups I do every now and then. Not 100% certain however if emphasis buttons make any difference when gov is off, can anyone confirm?

 

[emoe]

buttons have no effect when governor is off. when it is off the city will go for a bit of everything, including specialists. its lame that you cant specifically edit the governor and you only have so few options. and the production automation is just a joke, remember the ultimate governor management of civ 3? ah... memories

 

[Shillen]

I think people are too opposed to the governor based on how it was in civ3. It's not the evil thing that will hurt your game like it was then. For instance I don't agree with any of emoe's post. If you want to absolutely max production at the expense of city growth then you click the avoid growth + hammer button. It will assign every hill tile it can and will max hammers. I would say 80-90% of the time through some combination of emphasis buttons I can make the governor choose exactly what tiles I want it to.

 

[Dairuka]

70% for me Shillen. Because I hate the Commerce Button. I really really do.

 

[Shillen]

Hehe I have no problem with that button, but I usually have to use it in conjunction with the hammer button. The button I never use is the beaker button. It rarely maxes your science that way. It tends to assign a bunch of scientists at the expense of 6 commerce tiles, lowering your beakers per turn. I guess it thinks the GPP's make up for that somehow?

 

[Dairuka]

Commerce in the early game, means your cottages won't be built up to Towns. Instead they'll put it on the Coast or Ocean squares.

Thats a HUGE annoyance.

Unless you build cottages on plains, even the production button won't help any.

 

[Shillen]

Not true at all. The game definitely picks cottages before coastal tiles even if the cottage only produces 1 commerce. I could dig up a screenshot of the game doing just that if you'd like.

 

[emoe]

Not true at all. The game definitely picks cottages before coastal tiles even if the cottage only produces 1 commerce. I could dig up a screenshot of the game doing just that if you'd like.

wrong. the stupid city governor is an idiot. and shillen you are also wrong. the avoid growth button does not change how the tiles are worked it only avoids growth, as in : it prevents the city from growing when it should (the city bar in main screen does not turn white, it simply truncates the turns required screen). the governor is crap. period

in civ 3 you could customize if you wanted the governor to build units or wonders, and to focus on what buildings. thiswas the best for the game post democracy, when you were rushing every building in newly conquered/built cities everyu other turn. didnt really matter if it built library or granary first, saved you clicking 5000 times on each of the 50 cities.

 

[jdotmi]

wrong. the stupid city governor is an idiot. and shillen you are also wrong. the avoid growth button does not change how the tiles are worked it only avoids growth, as in : it prevents the city from growing when it should (the city bar in main screen does not turn white, it simply truncates the turns required screen). the governor is crap. period

I must be reading this wrong, because it looks like you're saying that "Avoid Growth" means that when your food bar fills up, your city won't grow in size. This is flat out untrue. It just means that the Governor will put Citizens on low-food tiles or, if possible, put enough food tiles into work to keep you out of starvation and turn everyone else into Specialists. Want me to post some before and after screenshots for ya? Or, rather, someone else cuz I'm at work and can't do it right now.

 

[emoe]

like you're saying that "Avoid Growth" means that when your food bar fills up, your city won't grow in size

thats exactly what it does. i just loaded up my game, and a city with growth in 1 turn doesnt grow when you click avoid growth. AND IT DOESNT CHANGE THE TILES WORKED. avoid growth actually works without the governor being "on".

 

[Thalassicus]

The governor works great, I've never had any problems with it. The only time I override the governor's selections is when I absolutely want to maximize production, at the expense of population, by taking food-producers off the break even point and putting them on hammers for a number of turns.

Workers, however, are horrible to put on automation for one simple reason: they build roads EVERYWHERE! The only purposes of roads are moving troops quickly or connecting resources, you don't need roads in every tile around cities when you can be making other improvements, it's a huge time-waster for workers.

Late in the game though, when I've won and might be missing a few tiles' improvement here and there, I put my workers on automate so I can concentrate on the armed forces. Use the "automatic build trade routes" first; it'll connect up any cities or resources that you've missed with railroads, and add railroads to all your mines.

 

[Shillen]

Sorry emoe, you're wrong. Here are two screenshots to prove it:

Notice how it moves the tiles and makes the city stagnant?

edit: Of course it doesn't move tiles when the governor isn't on.

 

[Draetor24]

I find the governor options to be very good, a lot better than civ3. Of course, if you micromanage every city EVERY turn, you could probably push 10-20% more production margins at the end of the game for what you choose to do with the city. That's a hell of a lot of micromanagement though, and I'd rather have the governor do its thing when my cities grow.

I'll still occasionally monitor my cities though. Also, I've noticed the Avoid Growth button simply moves your workers to tiles with the least amount of food without going into starvation. For instance, if you havea 20 pop and require 40 food, the governor will try to get a minimum of 40 food, but sometiems it might still be 41 of 40 food due to the terrain and improvements having a square with 3 food instead of 2, but it will not use the 1 food square because it would go into starvation. So sometimes with Avoid Growth, the city will still grow, but very slowly.

 

[emoe]

edit: Of course it doesn't move tiles when the governor isn't on.

but it prevents growth. it prevents growth of a city regardless of what tiles are being worked, making its usefulness much greater. see pic here for what im talking about

 

[angelickitty]

depends on my mood honestly... generally i automate the city managers and am not displeased... or with them in general.. workers ive started keeping unautomated because they like chopping down the forests at inconvienent times. they also loved building cottages everywhere.. loved the commerce it gave me, but thats all i got pretty much.. that.. and instead of working on cities haphazardly once i have about 10 or so, i group them together and blitze the entire terrain of a city so i know what im doing with that city and dont get it confused or forget while working on 2 or 3 at a time...

 

[Astax]

AUTOMATED WORKERS.. Work like they woudl for AI. If you notice AI plants its cities far apart with no common tiles unless it has to. It goes for growth because AI usualyl gets production and science bonuses. This doesnt work well with my play style since I keep my cities closer together, I dont get science or production bonunses. So I micro all of em.

I usually dont build any farms in the beginign of the game unless maybe on a resource. I spend most of the start selectively chopping and placing mines/cottages.

If I am rushing I wont do anything but chop till I have 3 workers. Than 2 keep choppign while one places mines, roads, and connects strategic resources. Sometimes I pull all my workers to connect horses or bronze to time it well, then back to chopping. Chop everywhere, declare war and chop my enemies forests too. But that's just rushing.

Ok as I said you wont see a cottage till you have like 5 farms built by AI, that just doesnt fly for a player. If you hate directing your workers, build 3-5 cottages and then automate.

 

[rabottens]

My automated workers have brain damage. I have had them uproot cities and plant farms. AARGH! I baby sit my workers as they are not smart enough to function on their own. Early game I make mine chop chop. Then if I am a financial civ I love seeding cottages for a gold rush. Ching Ching! I only farm the rice wheat corn fields.

 

[Tactician Zhao]

I can definitely confirm that emoe is correct, I never play with city govenor on, but "Avoid Growth" works to stop a city from expanding like a charm, without moving any citizens to other tiles for me.. once the growth bar fills up, it will stick at "growth in 1 turn" indefinitely, until I remove the "avoid growth", even if I have a large surplus of food

it is quite useful, in my experience

 

[Astax]

Turn off worker automation and turn on avoid growth, the governor wont move your citizens around.