Workers and automation

[civ4fan87]

Ok, I've been playing civ for a few months now, and I'm always not sure what to do with the workers. Should I be doing auto-improvements? auto-city?

I usually build most things on my own, but when I have cities far off or am really busy doing other things i let a few go auto. But what really bugs me is how the computer is always wanting to build on older improvements, destroying farms for cottages, and then wanting to switch to something else later one, its annoying. Should I just ignore the computer all together or agree with it?

 

[Dida]

I always do automation after the middle ages or so. It gets really overwhelming controlling the movement of each worker unit. Firaxis really must do something about worker management, such as replacing it with some kind of public work system.

You can check "auto worker leaves improvements" to prevent workers from ripping up your farms.

 

[Buhdist Punk]

As stated above you can have the leave previous improvements option ticked on. On a similar note, what really gets me is when to build things like watermills and windmills etc.......

So I too, like many here tend to automate once my "core" tiles are improved earlier in the game.....however I am sure this is not a smart option.

 

[Bushface]

Automating workers is risky at best, and can be fairly disastrous. You could get cottages where you'd prefer farms, windmills where you'd prefer mines, and so on. Setting to "leave existing" won't put these poor choices right, though it does stop the workers on auto from messing with what you have chosen and eliminates the stupidities still possible for the AI civs, such as one worker changing a cottage into a farm while another, in the same fat cross, is changing a farm into a cottage.
Given some experience, human judgment always beats the programmed automation.

 

[Gwynnja]

Automating workers conflicts with city specialization. I usually get crews of workers to make sure every city is working an improved tile depending on what im using that city for.

 

[Leader_H]

i wish i could assign an improvement to each of my tile easily and have a worker do that automatically.


say, mines on hill, river grassland cottage, plains farm... that sort, chop down that area of forest.. currently we only have "route to" automation...

 

[Supr49er]

Don't automate them. At most, let them use the 'Route to Mode' to connect your cities with roads. Manually directing your workers might seem like micromanagement pain, but you're better off both in the short term and the long term having them build exactly what you want, where you want.

 

[Bigfoot3814]

Lots of new players, myself included, thought that automation was the way to go. It really isn't. Doing everything yourself makes for the best results.

In late game, you usually end up just parking your workers in cities to repair after random events or war.

 

[Bob-san]

I usually turn on the automated networking--it saves plenty of time when the workers buil railroads &c. I also usually automate half the workers I capture in conquest--usually working the tiles I captured.

 

[Samus_au]

Lots of new players, myself included, thought that automation was the way to go. It really isn't. Doing everything yourself makes for the best results.

In late game, you usually end up just parking your workers in cities to repair after random events or war.

Yes, I couldn't agree more. While it is a huge pain to start with you will get MUCH better city's as a result, especially when you start specializing cities or try to use a SE.

 

[sabo]

In late game, you usually end up just parking your workers in cities to repair after random events or war.

Yeah that's what I do, I manually manage my workers until every tile in every fat cross is being worked then I usually go rest them in my capitol, until RR comes around of course.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

If you have so many Workers that you don't have to micromanage their moves (typically post-Medieval Era) and have a city you don't particularly have a need for micromanaging (typically non-National Wonder cities), then automate them all to improve the same nearest city.

Some time later, just after the Workers go to sleep in that city, check the city's improvements and manually assign the Workers to replace whichever ones you don't like and on the Forests they skipped over ("Automated Workers Leave Forests" should be checked ON).

That's about the best middle ground I've found for saving time by automating Workers while still getting a decently improved city.

 

[LegionSteve]

I have to order my workers manually, even in the stages of the game where it gets a bit tedious. I just can't stand to see automated workers building all the wrong things in the wrong places...

 

[BSmith1068]

Don't automate them. At most, let them use the 'Route to Mode' to connect your cities with roads. Manually directing your workers might seem like micromanagement pain, but you're better off both in the short term and the long term having them build exactly what you want, where you want.

This is exacly what I do - never automate at all, unless I am building a long distance road or railroad somewhere.

 

[kaos429]

I use Auto-Trade-Network, in the late game after all of my core cities are built (or captured) how I want them, either as commerce or production or my GP farm. The automated workers run like this until I get Railroads, then I will resume micromanaging them, so all of my mines/quarries/lumbermills get the extra production bonus first, and then it's back to Auto-Trade-Network mode, to connect my cities with Railroads, and eventually they spam my entire empire.

 

[Dida]

Despite the inefficiency, I still automate all my works after the mid game. It becomes huge pain managing them one by one, there is gotta be a better way.