So...what do you DO with all those workers??

[Velociryx]

Having read comment after comment about people who are shuffling hundreds of workers around, it brought to mind another question. I'm really curious, cos in most of my games, I average MAYBE one worker per city (counting slaves!). My Empires are usually 30-40 cities in total size, and I've never had a problem completely terraforming the continent, and then drifting off to help my allies out, cos I have absolutely nothing left to do in my land. Most though, I simply add back into the populations of variouis cities.

So...what exactly are you guys DOING with all those workers?

Or do I wanna know?



-=Vel=-

[roadcage]

I always try to control a significant amount of desert, jungle, and tundra for resource flexibility. This is done to increase probability of saltpeter, coal, rubber, and oil being in my turf.

There is a long time period where my original pop generating cities have no choice (other than throwing away food) than producing workers adnauseum. This continues until hospitals can be built. Home grown workers are preferentially used for poptrans, but invariably, more are produced than can be consumed in this fashion. And of course there are all the captured workers gotten by razing the poorly positioned enemy cities. I end up with lots of workers.


So it is fortunate, that jungle needs clearing. Each jungle square requires:
48 slave worker turns
or
24 normal (non-industrious) worker turns
or
combinations of the above.

If you play an industrious civ, adjust per your experience.

So, in anticipation of the railroad rush , my large worker supply performs normal road, irrigate, mine, poptrans functions until about half way thru the middle ages. Then they chop and road jungle until steam power is discovered. Hopefully at this point they can lay track. If not, you need to fight a coal resource war, but that's another story.

Track laying is not as bad as jungle clearing but

grass/plains etc 12 slave worker turns or equivilant
hills/forrest etc 24 slave worker turns or equivalent
mountains are even higher but not usually on the main line.

The does not complete the full track, but simply connects the cities. Prior to Hospitals, I try to maximize the shield benefit when selecting the main line routes. After Hospitals, food benefit is added to the analysis. After the main lines are completed, some home grown workers are added to cities with the slaves continuing to develop the system. Eventually, most will be added to population.

I have looked back over a few games and my worker population tends to peak at about 6 per city in the middle industrial age and then gradually falls to about 1 per city at the end.

, I had one game in which I controlled a huge and only jungle. My worker count peaked at about 10 per city. With a near monopoly on coal, I started a middle industrial age world war which quickly ended the game by domination victory.

roadcage

[Wrong_shui]

I write my name with um

[absimiliard]

I use mining & irrigation to draw ASCII-art pornography on my continent. Helps keep me awake for those late-night games. Just when I'm about to nod off I gaze at the landscape and suddenly I'm awake.

Why? Doesn't everyone?


*removes tongue from cheek*

[Travathian]

If they are of my own civ, they eventually go back into new cities to helo growth. Other civs, the workers just keep working. Looking at the military advisor screen, it would seem other civs workers cost no upkeep, so I either end up fortifying them til I need em, or trade them away to other civs.

I usually have 1.5-2 workers per city, until I start conquering, then they get integrated back in. Sometimes in the really late game if I've been on a conquering spree and everything is terraformed I start disbanding them in remote cities for the shields. Hey, 200 workers is a lot of shields for thos cities netting 1 per turn =)

Lastly, another good use for them, walls. Build a wall of workers between you and a neighboring city to keep him out. Plus, if you go to war with em, they stop to attack the workers, giving you the chance to counter attack next turn.

[Zealot]

Duc... huh, Worker Shooting. When the season is open of course! (I respect the workers rights, you know?!)

I have to micromanage them. They are usually useful for improving conquered cities and the AI doesn't automate them very well...

[Morganstern]

I'm on a large world with a lot of cities I conquered but did not keep, because it drives me crazy when they revert! My best guess is I've got at least 100 workers (my Military Advisor doesn't appear to count them). It makes each turn verrrrryyyyy long. Some I just ignore, or use to block other civs. About 25 are needed to clean up my pollution each turn - usually 3-5 squares. Every now and then they'll join cities, but I'm concerned about using them near the Aztec territory, because they may contribute to losing the culture battle.

The others constantly plant and chop trees near the outlying cities I've conquered or grown in late game, to get improvements, due to the one shield limitation of most cities out there. This is also useful to win the "culture offensive" near the Aztec cities I've lost, and to avoid losing more cities. I think this latter use is an unintended consequence of the designers going a bit overboard on the corruption model to avoid ICS. I hope they've scaled the corruption penalty back significantly in the new release.