Captured Workers and Industrious Civs Documented

[Libertarian]

There have been some questions and debates about the productivity of workers that are captured by industrious civs. If the Chinese capture an Indian worker, does he work like an Indian or like a Chinese? Likewise, if the French capture a Chinese worker, does he work like the French?

I just completed a battery of tests. The results? A very simple rule: all captured workers, no matter whether their civ was industrious or not, produce at exactly half as much as your own industrious workers.

Thus, to build a railroad after discovering Steam Power, you need any one of the following combinations to complete the railroad in one turn:

• 2 national workers
• 1 national worker and 2 foreign workers
• 4 foreign workers

That can be pretty helpful since, for example, if you have two foreign workers on a tile, and it shows that they will complete the railroad next turn, you'll know that another foreign worker won't help: you'll need to add either one national or two foreigns to get it done on the current turn. But if the tile has three foreign workers already, then you need only one more foreign.

Hope this helps some people.

Lib

[Allemand]

Thanks, I was wondering about this.

A related question would be what effect the foreign workers would have when they are added to a city. A little harder to figure out, I guess.

[AHO]

I have a question along these lines. In your example you note the combinations of workers required to complete a railroad tile in one turn. I've noticed these combinations and have tried to employ the same towards the cleaning up of pollution--but it doesn't appear that you can clean it up in less than 2 turns no matter what you do. Has this been your experiance as well?

[Libertarian]

Originally posted by Allemand
Thanks, I was wondering about this.

A related question would be what effect the foreign workers would have when they are added to a city. A little harder to figure out, I guess.

Actually, I did that, too. They add to a city or disband just like any other worker. But they are free (i.e., cost 0 gold), so hanging onto them seems prudent.

[Libertarian]

Originally posted by AHO
I have a question along these lines. In your example you note the combinations of workers required to complete a railroad tile in one turn. I've noticed these combinations and have tried to employ the same towards the cleaning up of pollution--but it doesn't appear that you can clean it up in less than 2 turns no matter what you do. Has this been your experiance as well?

I should have noted that the example I gave is on grassland or plains. Terrain factors apply. I got the identical results (modified by a longer work factor) with pollution cleanup. Four nationals clean it up on grassland in one turn.

Remember, this is for industrious civs.

[AHO]

Thanks Libertarian, I appreciate the information. Also, I didn't realize that captured workers cost 0 gold per turn--good info! Thanx

[Mr. Socks]

Yes, and it should be noted that captured workers add citizens of their own nationality to cities. Important to know if you're trying to build up cities along a border -- don't populate them with your neighbour's citizens, or risk revolt!

[Libertarian]

Good point, Mr. Socks.

Captured workers also help you out in those instances, like deforestation, where an odd number of base turns is required for task compeletion. Using a national worker to finish such a task might waste half his value. Use a captured worker instead for that seventh or third pile-on that finishes up a task.

[xane]

I'm not sure how this affects your investigation, but I suspect that the Tech Advance that doubles your Worker rate does not apply to foreign Workers. The name of the Tech escapes me right now but did you test this ?

[Libertarian]

Yes. It's Replaceable Parts. And the efficiency of all workers double, including captured ones. Thus, the efficiency ratio remains identical. With RP, you need 1 national or 2 foreigns to build a railroad.

[Skanky Burns]

For those interested in determining just how many workers you need to finish an improvement in one turn (rail, or mine on a hill, etc), move your worker on to the tile that needs improving, and move the mouse over the worker button (like the build fortress button)

It will tell you how many turns to complete that project. Then use this many workers to finish that project in one turn. If you use slaves (captured workers), you will need 2 to do the same work as your own workers.

If you use a slave to determine how many workers are needed, you will need that many slaves to complete it in one turn. Using your own (paid for) workers will count as 2 slave workers.

Note that not all improvement projects take an even number of turns. By using pure workers on these projects, you are loosing a worker's... erm.... work. By determining the cost of a project with a slave, you will be able to pay the absolute minimum to get an improvement completed.

From the example below, i tested using a slave (captured worker)
To complete the fortress in one turn, I could use:
6 slaves
4 slaves, 1 worker
2 slaves, 2 workers
3 workers (moving the slave off to do another job)

Hope this helps people

[sophist]

Almost right. The tooltips differ depending on whether the current unit is a native or slave worker. So if you're on a slave worker, it would have the proper duration for that worker, which would be half of what it would show if it were a native worker.

[xane]

I'm pretty certain I had a non-Industrious civilization (can't remember but it was one of German, Aztec or Roman), and I had foreign workers slower than native ones, due to Replaceable Parts.

[Libertarian]

Foreign workers are always slower than native workers. Exactly half the speed, to be exact. At all times. (Only the factors change with Democracy and Replaceable Parts.) At least that's the case for industrious civs. I have no interest in the others. Workers are so much a part of my game that I don't believe I could stand playing as a nonindustrious tribe.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Libertarian
Foreign workers are always slower than native workers. Exactly half the speed, to be exact. At all times. (Only the factors change with Democracy and Replaceable Parts.) At least that's the case for industrious civs. I have no interest in the others. Workers are so much a part of my game that I don't believe I could stand playing as a nonindustrious tribe.

Do you use your paid for workers, or a massive slave army?? I tend to go for the free massive slave army (once i actually get those slaves). Since they are free, i can have more than twice the number of workers around, and since im industrius, they still work at the same rate other civs paid-for workers are

[GhengisFarb™]

When I played as the Zulu, the capturied Egyptian workers worked at the same rate as my Zulu workers (half their normal rate as they are industrious) and twice as fast as other workers I had captured.

[Ethelred]

Wrong.

Unless there was some kind of peculiar mod anyway.

[alva]

Is this the 'revive old Libertarian threads' week ???

[Purple]

Thanks for your button tip, Skanky! I hadn't discovered that one.

It might be added that you can right-click on an engaged worker to find out how many turns remain until the work is complete.

I like using slave labor, but wish there were a way to unite the slaves into chain gangs, sort of like armies. I don't like the occasional waste of labor in mixed slave/worker groups, so I often send slaves to frontier cities and just cash them in to avoid the hassle of keeping them segregated. I usually have abundant native workers, so the loss of their labor doesn't hurt much.

[Purple]

Originally posted by sophist
Almost right. The tooltips differ depending on whether the current unit is a native or slave worker. So if you're on a slave worker, it would have the proper duration for that worker, which would be half of what it would show if it were a native worker.

Don't you mean "twice" instead of "half of"?