worker tip, get more production out of your workers

[Levgre]

Here's tip #1. You can partially build improvements, then leave them behind. How to use this to your advantage, say you have to move 2 spaces to start building a pasture.

Instead, stop after the 1st space and start a road then cancel. Then next turn move 1 space and start building the pasture, and you'll have a free extra half road than you wouldn't have had otherwise.

You can also use this to your advantage with chopping. Workers have nothing to do, but you might need to chop to hurry a wonder later? Chop all the forest down to 1, and cancel. Then you can have your workers whip through those forests later at a much faster pace.

Another tip, if you are on a 2 movement tile, i.e. hill or forest, consider building a road if you are going to travel there again. Since it will save you some movement on the return trip, you are ultimately only wasting 1 round to build the road.

Have any other tips?

 

[Jet]

There may be some in Zombie69's "Extreme Micromanagement" article.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Those last couple are common knowledge here, but I've never thought of or seen the first one. That's pretty good.

 

[oyzar]

All of those are common knowldge and i use them all the time. Another reason the worker AI sucks so much is that it almost never uses the first one which is like +20% extra effectiveness from workers which is allot considering it is completely free. If your going to improve a hill resource for mostly hooking up reasons with 2 workers it is better to have one build a road next to it and one build a road on top of it then start mining it as it saves 1 worker turn(instead of 2 lost from movement on top of the resource you only lose 1 turn). This comes up at least a couple times every other game or so.

Another thing that isn't as much micromanagement as it is empire management is to build mines on animal resources on hills if you don't have AH and don't think you'll get it soon, obviously this is best for sheep(+2 hammers is sometimes better than +2 food +1 commerce) but i have also done it for pigs several times. Just to think outside the box. Of course it might be viable to do this even if you do have AH to get up the production of a city in the early game when you have loads of other food resources.

 

[Brian Boru]

Chop all the forest down to 1, and cancel

I find it easier on the nerves to only chop to 2 before cancelling.

Been caught too often with the worker completing the chop if there's no other 'event' to give you the opportunity to redeploy him. In slightly plainer English: unless something else needs your attention, the game won't give you the chance to cancel in time. An early game problem, when there isn't much going on.

 

[vicawoo]

Early on, I hotkey all my workers and always cancel forests chops after I order them (2 backspace 3 backspace etc). I use the moving trick a lot: if my worker has nothing to do, he'll be partial building roads towards his next destination.

 

[oyzar]

If i am doing partial jobs(either moving trick or prechopping or waiting for a settler to get to the proper destination or something) i always cancle the order right after i give it so i don't forget it.

 

[alpaca]

I find it easier on the nerves to only chop to 2 before cancelling.

Been caught too often with the worker completing the chop if there's no other 'event' to give you the opportunity to redeploy him. In slightly plainer English: unless something else needs your attention, the game won't give you the chance to cancel in time. An early game problem, when there isn't much going on.

Just cancel it at the end of the last turn (assuming you have "wait at the end of turns" checked which everybody should)

I think you find most of these worker tricks pretty quickly. Another important thing to know is that first chopping a forest/junge and then building an improvement on it doesn't take longer than immediately building the improvement and letting the chopping happen by itself, but turns out the additional hammers earlier and adds the benefit of being able to cheaply move other workers onto the tile (if it's plains or grass).
For example: You chop a jungle and build a cottage. You have two options: Either directly build cottage for 8 turns, or 4 turns to chop and 4 turns to build. The second is obviously slightly better (or in some cases, a lot).

 

[oyzar]

alpaca this is not true if you are under serfdom or hagasophia or past steampowder(that it doesn't take longer to chop + build than to do it all in once). Also not sure about all gamespeeds.

 

[alpaca]

alpaca this is not true if you are under serfdom or hagasophia or past steampowder(that it doesn't take longer to chop + build than to do it all in once). Also not sure about all gamespeeds.

Yes you're right, it can differ because of rounding errors. However I very rarely have Hagia Sophia and when Steam Power comes around this stuff is really not that important anymore
And I don't even talk about serfdom, it's just way too inferior if you're not Spi.

If you have 50% faster workers however the result for the jungle/cottage scenario will still be the same. Does the game round up for worker turns? In that case, a jungle/farm or a forest/cottage scenario would cause problems.

 

[lilnev]

There are also some reasons not to chop, then build. If you do it as a combined action, (1) You have the option of working the forested tile right up until the new improvement is ready. This comes up a lot when mining a forested hill. (2) If you get Mathematics in the meantime, it postpones the chop until it yields 30 hammers instead of 20. Likewise if you want the hammers to go towards a Wonder that you don't yet have the tech for, you can stall the hammers this way. (3) You keep the health bonus for the forest longer. (4) If you're pre-chopping, and you can spare the extra worker-turns now but might want them later, pre-build instead. Instead of being one turn away from chop hammers and a bare plot, you'll be one turn away from chop hammers and an improved tile.

peace,
lilnev

peace,
lilnev

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Another aspect of the chop then build is a city stuck in jungle with riverside rice or sugar chop first that let's you have a 3 food tile then build the farm or plantation.

And if i've got a team of workers burning down jungle and cottaging I have 1 worker moving ahead roading jungle so when the chop crew has finished they can move straight to the next tile

 

[alpaca]

Well good brainstorming here I'd say, there's definitely some points I didn't heed yet. Thanks guys.