Worker Automation

[Raven_Lore]

I play Noble....
Just asking is it better to put workers in automation or control them yourselves?

Cause i have at least 50 workers in each game and i don't want my game to lag....

But which one is better though?

 

[podraza]

Doing it yourself is better. Try it and see. You'll learn a ton too.

 

[Galileo44]

!!!!!!50 Workers!!!!!!

Unless you are playing on Huge maps or have more than 40 cities you should not have that many workers. Manual control is much better and is manageable with a smaller number of workers. If you are playing on that size map, expect long games. Some may take 50+ hours.

But to answer the question, automated workers can really mess things up, so it's best to do it yourself.

 

[Rast]

Don't automate your workers unless you want to build improvements like the AI.

Automated workers don't prioritze cottages, clearing jungles, hooking up cities to the trade network, love to build 10,005 farms, and don't stack to get improvements quickly, just to name a few annoying things off the top of my head.

Trust me, running your workers yourself is a thousand times better. I usually have 3 or 4 big worker stacks so they can crank out improvements in a couple of turns (I play Marathon, some improvements can take upwards of 30 turns for a lone worker...). Just make sure to guard them from barbs and hostile civs.

 

[svv]

I have had some success with hitting the "improve trade network" button. I find this works reasonably well after I've just discovered railroads, or if I've put them to work in lands formely held by the enemy which aren't railroads. Using this function, I THINK they will also build improvements necessary to access resources, though I'm not sure about this.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

I usually don't automate workers until i'm late into the tech's, and have built most of what I want, ie railroads on mines/lumbermills, and mined all my Aluminuim resources.

Group workers 2 or 4 in a group depending on number of workers and speed of jobs you want.

In the options setting for the game, Check the box "Automated workers DON'T alter/destroy improvements"....VERY IMPORTANT.

I'll usually just automate them over the whole empire when I do....I can't scan the whole continent to see if railroads are all over, etc.

By this stage I've hooked up all resources, built mines, plantations, farms on resources, cottages on areas that I want, workshops with railroads etc. So just set the GROUP of 2/4 etc workers to automation, if nothing to do they'll go sleep in a town.

VERY IMPORTANT, hot key (Control and number key, Control-1, for hot key group 1 or workers) so IF and when the computer AI's pillage, destroy with spies or bomb with a carrrier your improvements, you can send a group or workers there to build the improvement that YOU want/need.

Oh yeah, if playing continents, which I do, you can send a group to your newly conquered lands to build further improvements faster, and start new empire to further your imperial ambitions.

 

[curtadams]

I generally turn my workers loose near the end of the middle ages and they seem to do OK. They build plenty of cottages and they're particularly good with railroads and lumbermills. They do overwindmill and they don't consider a city's overall needs but 90% of what they do is OK and it saves me a lot of tedium.

 

[Wlauzon]

I do both.

Initially, for the first 2-4 workers I manually control them to make sure I get the improvements I want around my 2-4 main starting cities.

But after that I usually just automate them unless I want to do something specific, like rush-chop forests.

By 1850 I might have 30 workers, no way am I going to manually control the vast majority of them.

 

[zyphyr]

I do the 'build trade network' on about 1/3 or so of my workers, and manually control the rest. That way I don't have to worry so much about getting all of my resources and cities hooked into the network, but I still get the fine control I want over city development.

Of course, I don't end up with 30-40 workers like some others so it isn't so much of a hastle to deal with them all. I tend to play mid-sized maps, which limits how many I actually need. On a Huge map, I might well end up with that many and decide to automate to save my sanity.

 

[CrimsonEdge]

I usually only get about 5-6 workers in my games. I find that by the time I get enough of the tiles a town needs untill the next expansion hooked up, I can work on another town with that same worker. Rinse and repeat.

However, I play on archipelago's with snaky continents so I probably need less workers than on continents.

I would recommend putting 2 workers on auto-trade networking rather quickly. This can help majorly early on, especially if you get attacked. It can also prove highly valuable in getting that great artist in time to one of your cities for a last second culture bomb for the cultural win.

One turn away from him getting there and an AI wins by space race.

 

[Arlborn]

I normally get 10 workers(without counting the slaves in that are gone in mid game when I change civics..But this is for Sevomod players only ) and I normally do half-half..I always put on the options to to leave old improviments and leave forests....More in the end of the game I normally let them build railroads automatic while I take 3 or so to chop around..

 

[FuRRie]

normally NEVER automate workers.
sometimes when Railroad comes in I automate to get it hooked up quicky, but mostly I do it myself.
you can always order your workers better then the Ai can.

 

[cabert]

Is it true that automated workers won't stack?
If it's true I won't even automate them for railroads!

My usual way about railroads is to pair workers and go for a main track from my HE city to the front. This way i usually have 10 pairs of workers doing it, and so the troops coming out of the HE city don't lose a single movement points any more (10 railroaded tiles /turn for 10 moves /turn ).

If you wait for 1 worker to railroad one tile alone, you lose movement points, and that's bad!

Same for city improvements. If you stack 4 workers, you can build one cottage in 1 turn.
So after 1 turn you can work one cottage, after 2 turns you can work 2, then 3 then 4.
If you let your 4 workers build a cottage each, you can work 0, 0 ,0 then 4.
You just lost 6 cottage maturing turns

 

[mice]

When the empire gets big it's good to have at least 1 worker automated in case there is a health/happy resource that has had it's road pillaged. You can't be checking every road/resource every turn, and it could make a difference to the size of your key cities. Definitely with ctrl# and a military unit to protect.

 

[Bierp]

Is it true that automated workers won't stack?
If it's true I won't even automate them for railroads!

I'm not 100% sure they won't self-stack, but I've noticed reluctancy.

You can, however, stack first then automate.

Before I really understood specialization I'd automate all the time. I only use it in the very late game now. (and usually trade network then.)

B