When, if ever, do you put workers on auto?

[slobberinbear]

Sometime around 1000-1500 AD (standard map size, epic speed), I just can't handle the tedious worker management. Then I put the workers on auto and they starve my cities running specialists with workshops.

I think one of the other reasons I've tried auto is to get a feel for the mid-game improvements (workshop, watermill, etc.). I figured I could learn something from the AI. I just make sure I click the "leave forests" option so they don't chop everything in sight.

On the plus side, putting them on auto means that no stone is left unturned. If I miss a resource, the auto workers won't. Other than that, I mostly feel that the fair-to-poor worker AI is a big price to pay for my laziness in not wanting to manage the workers.

I guess I'll have to get over it and manage them myself.

 

[Cam_H]

To answer your question - I have never put Workers on auto in any shape or form from the time I first played Prince level having realised what damage they were doing to my game at Noble level.

I feel that players looking for Strategies and Tips in this forum in order to improve their gameplay should be advised to steer clear of Worker automation. Automated workers make a lot of mistakes to begin with, they don't understand city specialisation, and they don't understand your grand strategy. I'm not even sure if they understand the need to set pathways for chain-irrigation (but I suspect that they don't). They also have an annoying habit of wanting to build useless roads on tiles where Barbarians roam or a war is about to be declared.

'Sure' - manually controlling Workers has its potential pitfalls - you may set some to sleep in cities when there is a war going on, and forget about them when 'the coast is clear' - or you miss a border pop that allows for a new resource tile to be worked, etc. But all this is not worth imho the dangers of the automated worker. Tedious? Perhaps a little, but if players find directing Workers around to be intolerably tedious, then Civ might not be the right game for them.

While I'm at it, I'm not a big fan of grouping Workers beyond groups of two. It's been elsewhere noted that most Worker actions take an 'even' number of turns to complete, so pairing them up is arguably a bit of a time saver, but more than twos, and you run the risk of wasted Worker turns.

 

[thorban]

While I'm at it, I'm not a big fan of grouping Workers beyond groups of two. It's been elsewhere noted that most Worker actions take an 'even' number of turns to complete, so pairing them up is arguably a bit of a time saver, but more than twos, and you run the risk of wasted Worker turns.

I used to only pair in 2 also, but then I noticed that on epic speed which I normally play on a road takes 3 turns to build... So I've learned to not group workers, but I will still run them together, I just issue orders to them seperately. So for example, if I have 2 workers build a road, on the 2nd turn 1 worker will be busy and 1 will be free to move ahead and start the next road/improvement.

 

[Cam_H]

Thorban,

OK - thanks for that! I tend to play my games on 'normal' speed, so that's good to know.

 

[AnaNg]

Cam - do you feel the same about automating trade routes? They won't build anything on an improved tile and won't touch anything without a specific resource on it (so you don't have to worry about them plowing over your farms for workshops in your GPF or poorly chaining farms and stuff). They'll just build roads and improve that random resource tile that you got from a border pop or when the tech is unlocked to improve it.

 

[Cam_H]

AnaNg,

Frankly I do, but less so!

I think that their only 'saving grace' is exactly as you suggest - they pick up the occasional fringe undeveloped resource tile where the semi-intoxicated player may not be so quick on the uptake .

Putting roads 'all over the shop' is possibly the lowest priority activity for a Worker to perform in that 'Wow!' you might pop an Oil tile somewhere in a Desert in some far flung part of your empire and at least you can get your Workers there to build a Well fairly quickly.

Conversely, my early experience with getting Railroad is that Automated 'Trade Network' Workers will not focus on Quarries, Mines and Lumbermills in your -heavy cities as manually managed Workers should. They just want to connect the cities as quickly as possible without regard for the cities' respective roles or the bonus from the Railroad improvement.

Because you've constrained their 'job specifications' - they won't make 'good' enhancements, e.g. building Workshops and Windmills in State Property. Your empire is dynamic and your use of your terrain should also be dynamic, keeping up with new technologies, specialisation balance, and civics. Constraining Workers to the 'Trade Network' option seems to me to limit their potential.

Now - this was all my experience when on Vanilla - things may have changed with Warlords and/or BtS.

 

[illram]

I find auto useful only for hooking up resources after I've done all the improvements necessary for my cities. They're great for when you are being sabotaged as they immediately go and hook up the resource. For improving your cities, not so much.

 

[Yzman]

I put mine on auto after I have developed my cities and can't really think of anything else for them to do.

 

[carl corey]

I very rarely automate my workers, even with big empires. As has been said, at first I want to improve my cities in MY order of preferences. Then the road network has a purpose, linking cities, setting up paths for future wars, etc. I might build extra roads, but only when I'm done with the rest. Next stop, railroads, are again something to be built with a plan: mines, quarries & lumbermills first, production cities first, also paths for military troops to the war-front or to loading sites. Once I'm done with all that I might consider automating them to build a road network, but only if I'm not at war. It's too risky to let the stupid worker wander around at the border.

About pairing up in groups of more than 2, there are several cases in which I do this:
- linking a strategic resource (usually a problem with Oil, or Coal under a forest) when I want it available as soon as possible
- building lumbermills in a high production city especially if it has something important to build
- changing a city's overall purpose, like building watermills and workshops when in State Property
- developing a newly conquered city after the war is over; I might pillage the resource tiles during the war, and I want to rebuild it fast in order to get the infrastructure up

That's about all the cases I can think of right now.

 

[civ4legs]

After I learn railroad, and have set up my initial network of railroads (express routes throughout my empire, and on mines/lumbermills in my ironworks and military build cities) I will often put several on 'N': so that they finish my railroading all squares. It depends a little bit on how the game is going and how obsessive I'm feeling. Sometimes I will wait a long time before doing this, other times a bit earlier.

I NEVER put them on any other sort of auto.

Rather than group my workers, I'll do the same as thorban. It's a bit of a pain, but I'm too anal retentive to give up worker turns. Civ has very poor User Interface for selecting/deselecting/grouped actions, which is unfortunate. I figure that my games take about 5 or 10% longer because of this. It's especially noticeable with workers, and bombers/siege weapons.

 

[slobberinbear]

Civ has very poor User Interface for selecting/deselecting/grouped actions, which is unfortunate. I figure that my games take about 5 or 10% longer because of this. It's especially noticeable with workers, and bombers/siege weapons.

This is worthy of its own thread ... BTS has somehow messed up the Cntrl/Alt lclick selection method, essentially so you can't deselect like you were able to in Vanilla/Warlords.

 

[madscientist]

The only time I ever put workers on any auto aspect is to build a trade route, which they did very well in warlords and vanilla. In BTS this option leads tehm to build other improvements once they are done with the routes which can be disasterous (I have caught workers building workshops ontop of towns!!). Now I make my ownt rade routes, then park the workers in thier cities until needs.

Tedious? Yes very much so especially on teh huge/marathon games I play. But worth it to me.

 

[AnaNg]

OH NO! That's terrible to hear Madscientist! That's it, I'm not getting BTS.

Cam, I agree they're largely inefficient at the whole railroad thing.

I'll often (mid-game or later when I have some to spare usually after taking that city with 4-5 workers hanging about in it) set one to auto trade route just to pick up anything that I missed.

If he wanders too close to the action, well, it's just one likely dumb worker that was lost. But usually I manage workers inside city crosses myself. That goes for improving tiles as well as laying railroads for lumbermills and such.

And like illram said, they're good for the random pillage/sabotage scenario on a resource.

 

[Arnesson]

Once I researched Railroads, I used to put them on autopilot in the Vanilla version, because there was a setting that would have them leave existing farms, towns, etc. alone so they would focus on upgrading roads and then go sleep in the cities. That option seems to have disappeared in Warlords.

 

[AnaNg]

No, it's still in warlords.

"Automated workers leave old improvements" on the Options->Game tab.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I also stopped automating my Workers a while back after noticing how inept and inefficient they are.

Most peculiar is when they build a railroad on one tile, move 12 tiles away and build another then return to their starting location to continue the link, bouncing all over the map instead of steadily building one continuous link.

Most annoying is when they railroad the Town instead of the Mine right next to it.

It's tedious but well worth the extra time to ensure you don't have to play clean up crew later.

I used to only pair in 2 also, but then I noticed that on epic speed which I normally play on a road takes 3 turns to build... So I've learned to not group workers, but I will still run them together, I just issue orders to them seperately. So for example, if I have 2 workers build a road, on the 2nd turn 1 worker will be busy and 1 will be free to move ahead and start the next road/improvement.

Group your Workers based on the types of improvements they're building.

Spoiler some Worker math on Epic :

Workers building Roads should be in groups of 1 or 3.

This also applies to any other odd-valued turn calculations. Only 1 Worker or an amount of Workers equal to that of the number of turns should be used.

It takes 1 Worker 3 turns to build a Road (3 Worker turns).
It takes 2 Workers 2 turns to build a Road (4 Worker turns).
It takes 3 Workers 1 turn to build a Road (3 Worker turns).​

Workers building Mines should be in groups of 1, 2, 3 or 6.

This also applies to any other even-valued turn calculations. Any multiple of the number of turns it takes to build the improvement can be used (so in the case of a 10-turn Flood Plain Farm; 1, 2, 5 or 10 Workers should be used).

It takes 1 Worker 6 turns to build a Mine (6 Worker turns).
It takes 2 Workers 3 turns to build a Mine (6 Worker turns).
It takes 3 Workers 2 turns to build a Mine (6 Worker turns).
It takes 4 Workers 2 turns to build a Mine (8 Worker turns).
It takes 5 Workers 2 turns to build a Mine (10 Worker turns).
It takes 6 Workers 1 turn to build a Mine (6 Worker turns).​

Ideally, Workers should not be grouped when improving non-roaded tiles.

Spoiler Some more Worker math on Epic :

[On a non-roaded Forest, Jungle or Hill, adding in the Worker's movement onto the tile:]

It takes 1 Worker 4 turns to build a Road (4 Worker turns).
It takes 2 Workers 3 turns to build a Road (6 Worker turns).
It takes 3 Workers 2 turn to build a Road (6 Worker turns).​

It takes 1 Worker 6 turns to chop a forest (6 Worker turns).
It takes 2 Workers 4 turns to chop a forest (8 Worker turns).
It takes 3 Workers 3 turns to chop a forest (9 Worker turns).
It takes 4 Workers 3 turns to chop a forest (12 Worker turns).
It takes 5 Workers 2 turns to chop a forest (10 Worker turns).​

It takes 1 Worker 7 turns to chop a jungle or build a mine (7 Worker turns).
It takes 2 Workers 4 turns to chop a jungle or build a mine (8 Worker turns).
It takes 3 Workers 3 turns to chop a jungle or build a mine (9 Worker turns).
It takes 4 Workers 3 turns to chop a jungle or build a mine (12 Worker turns).
It takes 5 Workers 3 turns to chop a jungle or build a mine (15 Worker turns).
It takes 6 Workers 2 turns to chop a jungle or build a mine (12 Worker turns).​

 

[xanadux]

Only trade network, only when nothing else to do, sometimes for a short period before railroads, only for railroads after all cities are connected and mines and lumbermills railed. I may still delay it if I have a probable war front to get a railroad ring at the edge of my borders with spokes so that all possible invasion points are quickly reached. Yeah, running a lot of workers is tedious, but there really isn't a choice if you want to play the game as well as possible.

 

[tempuraki]

I ususally manually control the workers until I finished railroading the +1 hammer tiles, and have every city connected by railroad. Then I'll automate about 2/3s of them to build trade network.

I also ran into the problem mentioned by madscientist, when every square of the empire has railroad, it start to automate and destroy my old improvements. selecting the "leave old improvement" in the options menu seemed to have cured that.

 

[Silver Marmot]

Never.

There's always something useful for them to do.

 

[Nevordan]

I've never tried auto-worker, but putting a scout or warrior in "explore" mode will almost always lead to their early demise. I think the A.I. scripts for your units were purposefully created to screw you.