Workers Farming Tiles Outside of Fat Cross?

[Aethios]

So, my wife and I played a fairly standard game last night. She's still learning so the difficulties were turned down a bit, I was teaching her about the differences between Cottage Economy and Specialist Economy. I noticed, however, that when I had my workers automated, they had a tendency to build farms on freshly acquired tiles that were outside (sometimes extremely far, like 5+ tiles) of a fat cross.

I also noticed her automated workers doing something similar, and at one point they even build a farm and replaced an existing improvement that was allowing her access to a critical military resource (I can't remember which one, possibly Aluminum) and she was unable to build military units for several turns while she manually rebuilt the improvement.

What's up with that?

 

[phungus420]

Worker logic is very bad. This is particularly aparent if you play with automated workers, or spectate a game. The reason why workers irrigate outside of a cities cross isn't a bad one, it does that to chain irrigate after you research civil service.

 

[Aethios]

That would make sense, but I don't think that applies in this particular case since the entire fat cross had already been covered with (fully irrigated) farms.

I should also mention that this was late-game (hence the comment about Aluminum up above) and a large part of why this is so confusing.

I wish I had had the presence of mind at the time to save the game or, at the very least, take some screenshots.

 

[jdog5000]

It's possible that the AI was chaining farms to another city but that's unlikely in the late game. I've also thought before that in the late game the AI was upgrading squares outside its city radii just cause it had nothing else to do. Maybe it's being smart and building near a potential city site

EDIT: Oh yeah, and welcome to CFC! Or at least out of lurking anyway ...

 

[travathian]

I've also thought before that in the late game the AI was upgrading squares outside its city radii just cause it had nothing else to do. Maybe it's being smart and building near a potential city site

This is what I assume as well. Non-special squares outside the fat cross have the lowest priority but will eventually be worked. Most players have minimal city overlap, but the AI players will ICS still within its cultural borders. So yes, I think it does assume you're eventually going to plop down another city and use those tiles.

I don't consider this a bug, so long as these tiles really are worked very last, which is what I have seen so far.

 

[Aethios]

This is what I assume as well. Non-special squares outside the fat cross have the lowest priority but will eventually be worked. Most players have minimal city overlap, but the AI players will ICS still within its cultural borders. So yes, I think it does assume you're eventually going to plop down another city and use those tiles.

I don't consider this a bug, so long as these tiles really are worked very last, which is what I have seen so far.

Fair enough, that makes sense, especially since I was attempting to Culture-flip a nearby opponent's city, and the farms they were building happened to be directly adjacent to it.

However, what about the case of the workers specifically going out of their way to destroy a critical resource improvement? I would think that would decidedly qualify as a bug. What steps can we take to fix that, if any?

 

[PieceOfMind]

If workers were replacing a mine with a farm on a strategic resource, I would suspect that is a bug in the automation code. Workers should never build the wrong improvement on a tile - they should always build the resource-specific improvement or a fort if outside BFCs.

 

[jdog5000]

Yeah, it would have to be a bug ... especially for a strategic resource. Hmmm ... might be hard to find. If anyone sees something like this happening, please post a save!