Kelpkeeper's Deity Strategy Part 1: 1 turn worker town

[kelpkeeper]

As everyone must have figured out, the rate of growth of population under Depotism can now be translated into immense power via rush build.

If we can build a pop point per turn, it can be sacrificed for construction purposes and troops building.

I think this truly makes depotism powerful as a government mode (until they fix corruption).

With the objective of maximizing pop growth and thus power increase, I invariably always turn my capital into a worker factory when playing at the Deity level. And later in the game, I always maintain a ratio of 1 worker factory to 2 genuine towns. (I also maintain a ratio of 1 horseman factory to 4 genuine town. But I shall defer the discussion of horseman facotry to later.)

What exactly is a worker factory? It is a town that is capable of producing 1 worker per turn, EVERY turn. The beauty of the worker factory is that it is self-sustaining and easy to set up.

Here's what you need: a town by a river and which possess a granary.

Just grow your town till it is size 7. Make sure it has a granary prior to being size 7. Then, set it to make worker. At this point, you should have improved the land around the town so that it can produce 10 shields per turn with 6 workers and there should be no deficit of food.

When the town makes a worker on the next turn, you will notice that the pop drops to 6. But, that's okay. If you look in the granary, you will notice that it is full. Which means that it will grow by 1 pop on the next turn. But, if you leave it in the worker mode, the 7th pop will not appear but a worker will appear instead on the next turn. And amazingly, the granary will remain full. The cycle is sustainable!

This steady stream of worker can be transported to another town for rush building purposes.

A second elegant point of this worker town is that because you never exploit rush building in the town. There is no oppression misery, so you can easily transform it into a big city later.

This strategy can also be implemented as a way to grow big city. Just make a worker town and crank out all the workers. In 6 turns, you will have enough workers in the bank to instantly transform the town into a size 12 city. Whichever way you look at it, it sure beats growing towns the old fashion way.

[Fistleaf]

The problem is you must pay for worker maintenance. A cheaper way may be to churn out troops with population, invade the nearest enemy, raze their cities. You can get a lot of free workers and you still have some troops to defend yourself.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Fistleaf
The problem is you must pay for worker maintenance. A cheaper way may be to churn out troops with population, invade the nearest enemy, raze their cities. You can get a lot of free workers and you still have some troops to defend yourself.

In his examples the workers were being re-added to population in other cities. If the other cities are only a couple of turns away from the worker factory, or you are under the free unit cap for your government, then maintanence becomes a moot point. For workers that actually improve the land, captured or purchased workers are always preferable of course. Although on Diety, there aren't as many "cheap" wars you can fight. The cost of going to war just for workers would probably be more than the support for your own workers.

[DK36]

Damned lagg.. sorry..

[DK36]

Yes, I've been doing this too except with 6 to 5, back up to 6. You can maximize the growth of other cities easily, as well as building tremendous colonial territory, if you're into that. Know that place in the jungles that has like 4 spices that you want but don't wanna build a crappy city? Start pumping workers and the tide of the game can turn to your favor as you amass tremendous resources and become the world supplier.. for a price of course.

[War4ever]

yes although the onset of these luxuries will make your people happy i have noticed that they are either happy or unhappy... not many content faces in my nation

its a good strat especially if your pumping them into neighboring cities to upgrade the town....or to add to the rush.... a couple of cities doing this and a town or two rushing troops can be lethal

[MisterMuppet]

This is a great tip, I shall be trying it tonight.