Automating your workers is always shunned by the most elite of Civilization players. And this is true: Automating your workers can break your civilization due to poor planning of improvements. It doesn't have the AI to know whether to connect your resources first, build farms/cottages first, or even roads first; It just builds based on what auto choice you picked.
Now, to the beginner, I would say just automate. Right now, you're trying to get a good feel of the game, and you certainly do not want to be burdened with too many choices (you have a lot of other choices to deal with anyway). "All this stuff about mines, cottages, farms, plantations, AH, TOO MANY CHOICES." So just automate. If you start your game with a low difficulty level, it certainly would not kill you to automate all your workers and you will still learn the basics.
Of course, if you want to be a better, if not the best, player in Civilization IV, eventually you will understand that your choices are the best choices to winning. Once you realize that having absolute control is the way to go, you will start to build your civilization by hand, and your civilization will be better because of it. It's not even that irritating once you get used to it, and believe me: It makes sense to do it yourself, and it pays off.
Worker AI does not know what is vital. It only knows how to build random improvements for you, which is not recommended. You need to prioritize by connecting your resources first, building cottages and farms, and maybe chop your trees within a 3x3 radius of your city if you are a tree chopper. This is where the worker AI fails and sometimes it can fail your civilization when playing at higher difficulties.
It is only once you have established an effective trade network that you should have your workers automate. This is to lessen your workload and for the most part, they will only build roads/railroads to maximize your movement speed. But I would say only start automating when you have all your resources connected and you have used up 70-80% of your land on improvements or some sort.
Eventually you will stop using your warriors to explore automatically, also. All that does is give your unit a basic sense of direction and send it aimlessly, when there could be villages with free loot about. When you manually explore the world, you will spend less turns to explore your land, and you can effective find villages along the way.
Now, to the beginner, I would say just automate. Right now, you're trying to get a good feel of the game, and you certainly do not want to be burdened with too many choices (you have a lot of other choices to deal with anyway). "All this stuff about mines, cottages, farms, plantations, AH, TOO MANY CHOICES." So just automate. If you start your game with a low difficulty level, it certainly would not kill you to automate all your workers and you will still learn the basics.
Of course, if you want to be a better, if not the best, player in Civilization IV, eventually you will understand that your choices are the best choices to winning. Once you realize that having absolute control is the way to go, you will start to build your civilization by hand, and your civilization will be better because of it. It's not even that irritating once you get used to it, and believe me: It makes sense to do it yourself, and it pays off.
Worker AI does not know what is vital. It only knows how to build random improvements for you, which is not recommended. You need to prioritize by connecting your resources first, building cottages and farms, and maybe chop your trees within a 3x3 radius of your city if you are a tree chopper. This is where the worker AI fails and sometimes it can fail your civilization when playing at higher difficulties.
It is only once you have established an effective trade network that you should have your workers automate. This is to lessen your workload and for the most part, they will only build roads/railroads to maximize your movement speed. But I would say only start automating when you have all your resources connected and you have used up 70-80% of your land on improvements or some sort.
Eventually you will stop using your warriors to explore automatically, also. All that does is give your unit a basic sense of direction and send it aimlessly, when there could be villages with free loot about. When you manually explore the world, you will spend less turns to explore your land, and you can effective find villages along the way.
