Worker Management Discovery - Build Roads Sooner

[T-hawk]

The "Build Road To" worker command (Ctrl-R) works a bit differently than other worker commands. It processes the worker labor during the unit's regular rotation, rather than at the end of the turn.

If you have one worker in a tile and tell it "Build Road To" (Ctrl-R) to a neighboring tile, it will finish the road DURING the third turn instead of at the END. Keep hitting Wait for all the units until that worker gets triggered. Then, you can move troops through using the road or make use of that resource on that same turn.

Furthermore, suppose you have two workers in a tile that lacks a road. A road takes three turns to build, so if you command both workers to build the road, you waste a turn of worker labor. BUT, suppose you give Worker #1 a Ctrl-R order to build a road to a neighboring tile that already has a road. Worker #1 will apply its labor DURING the second turn instead of at the end. Then, Worker #2 will wake up and can use the road to exit that tile on the same turn. No wasted labor!

(Note that a worker under a Ctrl-R command will automatically move to the destination tile of the Ctrl-R when it can, so make sure it's somewhere you want the worker to go, or manually activate the worker before it moves on the next turn.)

Ctrl-Shift-R to build railroads has the same properties, although is less useful. The most common use is probably if you have a stack of workers on a mountain which will take two turns to build a railroad, and you will want to be able to use the railroad on the second turn to move troops.

Was this known? I hadn't ever heard of it.

 

[alexman]

Good discovery, T-hawk!
Thanks!

This is the second post of yours that teaches me something about game mechanics today (the 20-60-120-200 pop-rushing effects being the other).

 

[Meisier]

I believe that this effect happens when ever the worker controlled by the AI in some fashion. Of course most ways are not as controlable as using cntrl-r...

 

[anarres]

Brutally simple and a very useful discovery! This will definitly save the odd worker turn or two.

Because worker actions are normally applied at the end of the turn I never even thought to consider when ctrl-r would be performed.

 

[cavemanf16]

I wonder if the AI uses this strat. for all of its workers? Does the enemy AI get this bonus for all of its workers regardless, simply because it's technically all "automated" by the AI? I mean, that would explain why the AI seems to get some things accomplished faster than when we manually are moving our workers and assigning tasks.

Consider this scenario: AI moves worker into a tile that has a road and sets the worker to irrigate that tile. Now does the AI complete that irrigation task before the next turn (considering the AI has the ability to have workers that can irrigate in one turn), whereas if I did the same task as a manual move, it would take me until the NEXT turn to see the benefit of the irrigation? (all things being considered equal between my worker and the AI's worker)

 

[zerksees]

There are several other ways to address this problem. For instance, if you know if takes two turns to build a road, put two workers into a tile and instruct them to build road and the road appears immedicately. It is only if you do not have enough labor in the tile to complete it that it waits until the end of the turn.

I often have the workers work in "gangs" to speed up availability of an improvement. This is particularly effective when building your initial railroad network, as three gangs can complete three tiles in a turn. Gang 1 builds the RR, then gang 2 uses it to get to next tile, builds RR, then gang 3 uses the two newly built RR to get to a third tile and build RR. I always address these builds as soon as possible in the turn so my other war units can benefit from the RR in the turn.

I have also had situations where one worker is busy with a mine, and will be done in one turn. If the tile already had road, a second worker can walk up and work on the mine, it will finish, and the second worker is then free to move. This is helpful since the worker who was already on the tile has all his movement, and can get a jump start on going to the next improvement.