worker to city ratio

[jguy100]

What worker:city ratio do you shoot for?

In my first game, I built 1 worker per city. I spent the entire game being woefully underdeveloped. Definitely doesn't seem like high enough of a ratio.

In my second game, I built 3 workers per city. It was a OCC that I eventually lost due to having no heir . I had a little idle time near the beginning of the game, but once I started unlocking wonders/urban improvements, it seemed like a pretty good ratio.

I'm thinking for a normal game, I should shoot for 2-2.5 workers per city?

 

[Heathcliff]

It depends often settlers and military units are more important. But at least one worker per city.
With too many workers you will run out of orders.

 

[Dale]

I will have 1.5 workers per city. The extra worker between two cities will build roads first, then join in improving terrain.

 

[jguy100]

While playing sim-city style (trying to cover every tile in my border with an improvement), one worker a city definitely did keep up (not including roads). From a "trying to win" standpoint, I'm assuming this is a very inefficient way of playing.

 

[jguy100]

I'm playing a game with more aggression, and I'm struggling to have enough orders to keep workers busy, even with a 1:1 ratio. So the answer to my original question is "it depends". More peaceful games should have more workers per city, more aggressive games you can't afford as many.

 

[Velociryx]

There's not really a "one size fits all" answer here. Ultimately, letting the number of orders you've got at your disposal be your guide is the best approach (at least as far as I've found). If you find yourself with "leftover" orders at the end of most of your turns, and you're struggling to find uses for them, build moar workers till that problem goes away. It is a rare thing that your economy will be so constrained that you cannot afford the upkeep to have a few idle workers milling about for when you need them.

Broadly speaking, I have found that building two workers for each of my first four cities gives me enough "padding" to keep all my orders spent the vast majority of the time and if I reach a point where I judge that more workers are beginning to offer diminishing returns, I'll add +1 scout to the roster and use him to soak up additional orders by harvesting or exploring.

More workers = faster economic growth and that's something everyone needs, even if you're playing a fairly aggressive game. Can't support those six gazillion axemen (or slingers, or archers, or whatever) without a firm economic base, so you'll seldom go wrong by adding more workers but as with everything, there is a point at which you'll begin to see diminishing returns. Overall though, I've found that the "one per city, plus four" approach works pretty consistently.

 

[Stalker0]

I ultimately shoot for 1-2 workers per city but I may take my time getting there. On higher difficulties your orders are really at a premium, so sometimes I need the orders for good scouting to know where the best spots are to hit and take.

 

[Taefin]

I’m usually north of 2/city, laying down tons of quarries. But when fighting I am quick to let them idle to get as many orders as possible freed up. Agree that the worker upkeep is pretty minimal compared to what an extra worker can produce, but I do try not to keep a city spending too many turns making workers, and later on new cities will struggle to even make one.