What do you with workers when the work seems done?

[DarthSheldonPhD]

DON'T put your workers to sleep!!!

Workers cost unit maintenance, in the early game that's a critical 1 GPT and in the late game it can be 3 or more GPT PER WORKER! if you had 6 workers you put to sleep that's as much GPT as having an extra 3 luxury resources and trading them to non-friends. Penny saved and earned, people.

Also for tall/ VERY narrow empires, especially Venice, workers count towards your unit supply.

The stage of the game in which there seems to be no more work to do coincides with the stage of the game in which you're making several hundred GPT. Disband them* and when you discover uranium or need to make railroads, buy one-work it-disband.

* before disbanding, check the fourth and fifth rings or cities to see if there's some luxury or strategic resources that you can improve and use/sell.

Other uses: have one or two tag along with your CoD. they can repair enemy tiles that you've pillaged to allow for multiple healings and extra gold. Also upon conquering a city, can remove unnecessary roads that you acquire the maintenance cost for.

 

[reddishrecue]

DON'T put your workers to sleep!!!

Workers cost unit maintenance, in the early game that's a critical 1 GPT and in the late game it can be 3 or more GPT PER WORKER! if you had 6 workers you put to sleep that's as much GPT as having an extra 3 luxury resources and trading them to non-friends. Penny saved and earned, people.

Also for tall/ VERY narrow empires, especially Venice, workers count towards your unit supply.

The stage of the game in which there seems to be no more work to do coincides with the stage of the game in which you're making several hundred GPT. Disband them* and when you discover uranium or need to make railroads, buy one-work it-disband.

* before disbanding, check the fourth and fifth rings or cities to see if there's some luxury or strategic resources that you can improve and use/sell.

Other uses: have one or two tag along with your CoD. they can repair enemy tiles that you've pillaged to allow for multiple healings and extra gold. Also upon conquering a city, can remove unnecessary roads that you acquire the maintenance cost for.

Yeah i guess you could sell them and buy them later to save a few maintenance gold to buy them later. Besides, it's not like you get free maintenance for a garrisoned worker from oligarchy.

 

[Asklepios]

For a tall empire, delete some, until you have fewer than your number of cities. Maybe even half.

For a wide empire, have them join your army and use them as meat shields. They're great for baiting and controlling enemy movement.

I agree with this.

I have to say, I've very rarely come across workers with nothing that needs doing.

If its in the early game, and my workers have somehow outpaced my border expansion (which can happen, especially if you're surrounded by jungles and waiting for trading posts, or working a lot of sea tiles) I buy-expand my borders just to keep them busy.

If its the mid game, then they're normally working the city tiles I just captured. If I'm playing unexpectedly tall and peacefully, I normally won't have many workers anyway, so they're kept busy by low numbers.

In the endgame, where tile improvement has become irrelevant, I have them doing pillage-repair loops on the ground of razed cities, or I use them to bait enemy movement.

If there really is nothing they can be doing, then sure, I disband them rather than sleep them. But it very rarely comes up, to be honest.

 

[Laurwin]

do you get cash gold back, when you delete worker inside borders?

Honestly I put them to sleep

I can't bother to handle the worker micro in late game modern wars. (with massive number of units and world wide warfare, continents game)

 

[Sturmgewher88mm]

do you get cash gold back, when you delete worker inside borders?

Honestly I put them to sleep

I can't bother to handle the worker micro in late game modern wars. (with massive number of units and world wide warfare, continents game)

Yes, you get gold for disbanding inside your borders.

 

[reddishrecue]

Yes, you get gold for disbanding inside your borders.

You get gold from disbanding most units except for missionaries.

 

[brewgod]

I usually build many workers when I discover Rail Road. I usually play big with 15 cities on huge maps. A lot of people talk about the 4 city games. Will try this on next game.

Brew God

 

[LincolnofAmeric]

The land is all maxed out, the tiles are all improved, the workers are marked as sleep. What do you do with them at this point? Keep them in around in case? Destroy them?

I keep them around on sleep mode in case I capture new land or my improvements are destroyed. But I'm never done since I'm always taking over new land or buying tiles.

 

[darden]

I'll keep them around until I discover uranium and railroads.

once I've mined any uranium and connected all my cities via RR (if applicable and I'm not playing a coastal game), I'll destroy them and simply buy more if necessary to scrub fallout.

 

[Asklepios]

You get gold from disbanding most units except for missionaries.

And Great People. Only noticed that after capturing opponent's Great Prophets, and having no interest in keeping them around.

 

[rschissler]

I've used them as scouts, if there still is area undiscovered.

 

[MarkJohnson]

For a tall empire, delete some, until you have fewer than your number of cities. Maybe even half.

For a wide empire, have them join your army and use them as meat shields. They're great for baiting and controlling enemy movement.

I was starting to think I was the only one using them for bait. Just run a few to the rear, declare war and rush in the workers and watch the enemy retreat to the rear, then you get a open attack.

But typically I just kill them all to save a few gold on their upkeep. They are cheap to rebuild/buy.

 

[danaphanous]

oh man, I HATE this conundrum. You're all rush-rush with a good force of workers bc the quicker you improve the better your cities can begin to be and the faster they grow. Then you are trade-posting every desert and tundra and optimizing every last drop. Suddenly the hammers grow silent. I honestly like civ IV better because better improvements came along and I needed workers to upgrade. Now in Civ V the improvements just automatically scale with the science. I usually keep 2-3 for railroad, aluminum, oil, coal, uranium as they come up and disband the rest unless I'm actively at war or am planning grabbing new land soon.

 

[milk steak]

I plant them on uncovered antiquity sites and put them to sleep so the other civs can't dig them up.

 

[Asklepios]

I plant them on uncovered antiquity sites and put them to sleep so the other civs can't dig them up.

Ha, never even thought of that one. Will remember that.

 

[Civilmyzation]

really if you look at the turns between that point when you aren't using them as much, and say uranium, the cost of keeping one around is less than paying the cost of a worker.

I always keep 1-2 of them because of this.

 

[TeriXeri]

Playing at higher difficulties (5 & 6) lately, without Liberty/Pyramids, they take longer to work and always have something to do, if I get too many via wars or barb camps I return them to their owner or disband some if I don't plan to expand/rebuild captured grounds.

If I DID have lib/pyramids I used to put them to sleep, as easier diffs had no gold issues whatsoever, but now with steeper gold costs i'll consider otherwise.

I only recently discovered that unit maintainance counts every unit including prophets/workers/great people so I am more careful of keeping things around too long, unless saving them for specific goals or optimized use in terms of great people. I used to think it only mattered for combat units

 

[Asklepios]

really if you look at the turns between that point when you aren't using them as much, and say uranium, the cost of keeping one around is less than paying the cost of a worker.

I always keep 1-2 of them because of this.

Maybe, though you should factor into this the money you get from disbanding them, and the fact that money has a higher value strategically the earlier in the turn count you are.

As I said, I tend to find I can always find a use for my workers, but if it really was down to "sleep for later" vs disband, I'd always pick disband.