Workers build strange improvements

[burlicconi]

Last night I played on some kind of new map- oval with peaks in the middle. Tonight I choose another "new" map, some kind of random map with lot of lakes and very "short" land.
I saw that workers build very strange improvements- they often go outside my borders and build roads and they still have some improvements to build inside culture borders. Then, I saw them go around some lakes, making about 10 tiles of road and go to another part of my country, totally unsettled. I saw they go for iron- OK, I said to myself, they go for another source of iron (since I already have one). But they build fort Then I recall situation from yesterday, when I also had some "unexpected" forts.
Maybe this has some connection with those maps, I don't know. Once I played on Realm_Fantasy map I had four tiles wide black sharp and I couldn't see through it.
Similar things are never happening when I play normal, fractal or continents map...
To me, this is very like bug. Do somebody have rational explanation for this

 

[Enigma256]

a fort connects resources outside your cultural border.

so they are smarter than you

 

[Fjordson]

a fort connects resources outside your cultural border.

so they are smarter than you

Lol, Ive also found that my workers can build forts over my allies towns while we have open borders.. sabotage via worker

 

[burlicconi]

a fort connects resources outside your cultural border.

so they are smarter than you

Heh, they are really smarter that me
Really, all of that game I was struggling to occupy metal... But I still can not solve why they build roads to nowhere and why iron when I have it

 

[Jedoc]

In the tiny digital mind of an automated worker, hooking up strategic resources to your trade network is their top priority, on the assumption that you're going to want access to iron and horses before worrying about cottages. If this resource is inside your city radius, they're going to build a mine or a pasture, for the tile bonuses this will provide. If it's outside a city radius, they're going to use a fort, since if you're never going to work a tile the defensive bonus outweighs any tile bonuses. However, they don't draw distinctions between strategic resources you already have and those you don't. To them, the tenth iron tile is just as important as the first.

As you have discovered, they don't deal well with lakes and large mountain ranges because they're programmed to build the shortest link between a resource and the nearest city. If that means swinging wide outside your cultural borders and spending thirty extra turns building new roads to eventually save 1/3 of a movement point, so be it.

This sort of thing is the reason you should wean yourself away from automating your workers as soon as possible. I know it can be a pain in the neck to manually control all your workers, but once you start to get deeper into the game, it becomes essential. Your empire will be much more powerful if your workers are building useful improvements instead of long-haul roads to nowhere to link up redundant resources.

Of course, the point of any game is to have fun, so if manually controlling workers for the sake of efficiency is going to suck the enjoyment out of conquering the world, feel free to ignore any or all of my advice and keep on keepin' on.

 

[burlicconi]

This sounds reasonable.
I usually play manually workers until middle of the game, but this time I just explore different kinds of maps. That's why I never saw this before and it was strange for me

In the tiny digital mind of an automated worker

Very nice said

 

[KrikkitTwo]

a fort connects resources outside your cultural border.

No they don't, Forts can only connect resources inside your cultural borders.

 

[Lurking Liu]

If it's outside your city's fat cross, the AI will build a fort. It doesn't matter that a Farm takes half as long to build, they want a fort dammit =P

But, really, so long as you're building up your fat crosses yourself, you don't necessarily need to micromanage the workers the rest of the way.