Workers and Granaries

I

itripinchairs

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I don't believe they have anything to do with each other of course ( :D ) but just a couple quick questions.

Workers - Everyone has workers, but what are you supposed to do with them? Is it more to your advantage if you automate them? OR if you work all of them manually. What I think is that It may be more profitable in the early stages in the game when there are only say 10-20, but after that does it become tedious beyond the level where it's worth it to manually control all of them? so the question stands, Manual, or auto?

Granary - Whats the point? and is it a smart build? Is it something that should be built in EVERY city, or only a few that show symptoms of needing one? Is it worth it for the maintenance cost?

Thanks for reading, and your time answering. :)
 
As far as Granaries are concerned, they're probably the single most important building in the early game (at least, that's what I've gathered from listening to people on this site).

I'm just as clueless as you about workers, though.
 
Granaries are extremely important in the early game for quickly pumping out settlers and workers. You only really need them in your core cities, or if you want to be really stingy, in only your cities that produce workers and settlers.

As for workers, they are the single most important part of the game! Micromanaging your workers gives you the biggest advantage over the AI. All their workers are 'automated' while you get to manage all of yours intelligently. (and not irrigate grasslands in despotism ;))
 
itripinchairs said:
haha so does that mean that I should be micromanaging every single one of my workers? >.<
Click to expand...

for the best results, yes. But it does get tedious. For you it is even harder since you are playing on vanilla. On Conquests, you are able to move entire stacks of workers around with the press of a key.
 
With some Civs/Governments/Ages worker efficiency improves. Get to know the multiples of how many workers it takes to do the various tasks in one turn, and the micromanaging will be reduced and the output maximized. I get tired of micromanaging workers I go to war, I get tired of war, and what do you know, I've gotten to enjoy micromanaging workers.
 
I find that after a while, even with 'micromanaging' my workers, I finish everything I need to and I have a ton of workers with nothing to do. I end up roading every single tile in my civilization, and putting random mines and irrigation places, but it seems like a waste of time, to be honest.
 
Towards the end of the game, when my empire is fully improved including rails, then I keep maybe 20 or so workers for pollution duty, the others I join back into newly formed cities or move into enemy territory for railing for my military advance (depending on how developed the AI territory is).
 
This is one of those areas that I need to improve and is probably part of my build-aholic behavior. Once I have created a worker, I almost never merge them back into a city, even when I have 100 slaves. I am trying to figure out how to balance things. If you merge them and you need another worker, then you have to waste production to get them back out. If they cost 10 shields, when does that outweigh the 1gp/turn you may be paying to upkeep them? I am usually in Monarchy until Democracy is available and sometimes even longer. So upkeep isn't a problem a lot of the time. Then I just keep them because . . . why not?

There seems to be a time in the MA, before the IA brings rails that the workers are doing nothing truly productive. But merging them for 10-20 turns while finishing the MA doesn't seem to make sense? Or is there a time to consider this? I do occasionally merge a worker or two to a city to kick start it, but not as a general rule. I am talking about on a larger scale, a planned reduction of the workforce until rails?
 
I build enough workers to stay ahead of my settlers for connectivity(or at least close) and a small group to develop tiles for my core cities so that when they reach 12 pop(I don't bother going to 20+ anymore, some exceptions) they are all working fully develped tiles. A few turns before getting Steam Power(coal/railroad) every city builds a worker and some build extras to top off stacks for building railroads in one turn. So my total number will vary on my civ's size. I can usually get everything railroaded for connectivity inside of 15 turns(I've never counted but I would bet it is close)

With limited population and I don't build factories(some exceptions) I have few pollution problems, but I like my games to go long and the AI loves bombing. Enough workers can easily keep up with any kind of bombing even nukes, many times I have cleaned up a nuked city in 2 turns. I like radar towers also, but I usually use slaves for those. I also like to clean up rubble between wars, 3 or 4 stacks that can get the job done in a turn/tile I find enjoyable, more I find get irritating.
 
I don't usually join workers unless I need to do so for some reason for the city. Otherwise I keep them until my entire empire is railroaded and all the used tiles are improved :D Then after that I might join 20 or 30 to get some big ass cities, and make my capital size 30, and save the rest for pollution duty.
 
Raliuven said:
This is one of those areas that I need to improve and is probably part of my build-aholic behavior. Once I have created a worker, I almost never merge them back into a city, even when I have 100 slaves. I am trying to figure out how to balance things. If you merge them and you need another worker, then you have to waste production to get them back out. If they cost 10 shields, when does that outweigh the 1gp/turn you may be paying to upkeep them? I am usually in Monarchy until Democracy is available and sometimes even longer. So upkeep isn't a problem a lot of the time. Then I just keep them because . . . why not?
Click to expand...
Ah, slaves you use for making radar towers or air fields.:thumbsup:
 
Actually, you're better off using slaves for regular improvements and homegrown workers for radar towers and air fields. Why?

Slaves are zero upkeep! Why spend the 1gp/turn on the worker when you could spend 0 on the slave? Either one will make an air field just as well.
 
I prefer the efficiency of workers to slaves, and by the time I am using slaves for Radar Towers and Airfields I have enough income to support my workers and an ever growing excess of slaves.
 
Elephantium said:
Actually, you're better off using slaves for regular improvements and homegrown workers for radar towers and air fields. Why?

Slaves are zero upkeep! Why spend the 1gp/turn on the worker when you could spend 0 on the slave? Either one will make an air field just as well.
Click to expand...
Oh, I see. Well, I prefer the better efficiency of the workers.
 
My particular malfunction, in this case (I have a lot of malfunctions) is that I almost never merge workers, even when there is nothing left to do with them. I fortifiy them in the middle of my empire 'just in case' I need them. And even if a slave costs nothing, they are not making anything either if they are laying around sipping beers at their mountain villa retreats. If I merge them to cities, even corrupt cities, they can make gpt or bpt. I rationally know this, yet I cannot part with them. I am sure this will require some sort of intervention eventually. I just love those pretty stacks of workers! Maybe a SG could cure me.
 
You will have more effective improvements if you manually work your workers, because the AI doesn't always make the same decisions as you would.

Now, you can certainly play the game with automated workers and win, particularly at lower levels. it gets tough at the levels where the AI gets production advantages.

I don't know how easy it is to create a settler factory with automated workers, for instance - I'm not sure it can be done, cause the AI tends to mine cows and wheats, not irrigate them.
 
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