Can captured workers join cities?

[Captain]

Is it possible to force captured workers to join one of your cities? I've been trying without success.

I really don't need or want extra slave labourers who work less efficiently. I'd like to have them join my civ, becomes productive members of an integrated society. Offer them citizenship under my benign and munificent rule...

[Skanky Burns]

Yes.

Put the worker in a city you own, and press the join city button (or b). Perhaps you can't in your cities as they are at the maximum population at the moment, either 6 (before aqueduct) or 12 (before hospitals).

[JeffH]

Note: the population added is of the same civ as the worker.

Not handy if your trying to avoid city revolts.

[adamb]

JeffH, ive played you at mulitplayer at civ on the web and your vicious, id take your workers and then line them up outside one of your cities and kill them off one bye one, I owe you for many defeats..

anyone heard any news about civ3 multiplayer?

[Captain]

thanks! much appreciated.

[Skanky Burns]

Personally I would keep the free enemy workers rather than my 1 gold/turn workers, and also keep my cities full of pure people.

The captured workers won't work as fast as native workers, but two enemy workers do as much work as your native worker. Three enemy workers do more work than one native worker and also cost less .

One 'cost' to be aware of is that other civilizations are not happy when you have their people captive and working in your land. On the other hand, if you have captured lots of their people, they are probably already upset at you for other things.

[Captain]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Personally I would keep the free enemy workers rather than my 1 gold/turn workers, and also keep my cities full of pure people.

The captured workers won't work as fast as native workers, but two enemy workers do as much work as your native worker. Three enemy workers do more work than one native worker and also cost less .

One 'cost' to be aware of is that other civilizations are not happy when you have their people captive and working in your land. On the other hand, if you have captured lots of their people, they are probably already upset at you for other things.

Good point. For gameplay reasons it seems not joining cities is more useful. Still, I find it personally distasteful to have "slave" workers and I like the idea of having multi-ethnic cities. I think there should be some extra bonus for having those - like a culture bonus or if you have a large population of foreigners, then newly conquered cities won't revolt as much (since there is already a large number of their fellow nationals living happily in your empire they'll feel more at home). It's like the difference between a cosmopolitan city like New York or Montreal, versus Aryan Nations or "Redneck" Central.

Right now, with this whole assimilation&genocide thing, it's kindof eerie what methods and end results the developers were aiming for.


*Yes, I know it's a game. Still...

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Captain
Still, I find it personally distasteful to have "slave" workers and I like the idea of having multi-ethnic cities. I think there should be some extra bonus for having those - . . . Right now, with this whole assimilation&genocide thing, it's kindof eerie what methods and end results the developers were aiming for.

I share your distain for razing and slaving. I liberate cities, never raze them. I honor my treaties, though others will betray me. I have even defended other Civs which were being razed. Sometimes those same Civs have betrayed me later. But that is sometimes the price of righteousness. If being good was easy, then everybody would be good. If being evil was always bad strategy, then no one would do evil things.

(In the game, it is not cheating to raze or slave. They are legitimate strategies. The good guys just have to be very, very careful and very, very smart to win. In the long run, good will prevail.)

[Captain]

Originally posted by Zachriel

But that is sometimes the price of righteousness. If being good was easy, then everybody would be good. If being evil was always bad strategy, then no one would do evil things.

True, true.
There should still be some kind of "reward", not a concrete game bonus, but just something that maybe acknowledges you at the end for having played the game most honourably .

You don't win but you get an end game acknowledgement that says something like "Your civilization failed to achieve dominance but was the most honourable. " You know how in the game of Worms, there's all kinds of awards for each worm (most useless worm, MVP, most beat up on, best aim, dealt most damage in a single round) - they could redo the end game so each civ gets a rating like this instead of just a straight WIN/LOSE screen. But I'm not holding my breath for it...

In the long run, good will prevail.)

I'm not so sure about that one... but I sure hope so!

[DrFell]

Captured workers are very useful as pop-rush material. Simply add them to a size 1 pop-rush city (with one shield in the shield box) and hurry out whatever you need. Make sure you only have one citizen left and turn him into a taxman. Using this, you can turn one 10 shield worker into 40 shields pop-rush material, an excellent deal.

[Willem]

According to Soren in his chat here, the other civs will look more favourably on you if add the captured workers to one of your cities, rather than use them as slave labour. And the pop rushing doesn't work to eliminate foreign unhappiness. They will carry that memory of their "oppression" if you creat a new city with them. And pop rushing of any kind now has some serious implications on the happiness of a city.

[DrFell]

Not if you only do it in a size 1 city with a taxman as the remaining population.

[Willem]

No you're wrong there. Unhappiness can now go into the negative, meaning that if you pop rush in a size 1 city 3 times, it will be 3 times harder to make that last person happy. This is how Soren explained it at any rate.

[korn469]

Willem

you are correct, but so is DrFell

if you have a size 2 city with a one military unit garrison on emperor and you rush something so it becomes a size 1 city then that person one person is unhappy but the garrison quells them, if you add a captured settler and rush again, that citizen will now be unhappy, but if you switch that citizen to a specialist then the unhappiness doesn't matter, so you can continue to add and rush workers as long as you like, and although massive negative happiness will build up, it won't matter because as long as the citizen is a specialist and you rush before the end of your turn then you can exploit the happiness rules so that your city won't go into disorder

[DrFell]

I was going to write a big post explaining it all, but Korn explained it pretty well already I already knew about the negative unhappiness, which is why I despot rush very rarely nowadays. The size 1 rush cities are pretty good in the right situations though (send captured workers from razed cities in, I like to think of them as some kind of concentration camp or something).

[heidlejohn]

One warning about using captured workers or rush built settlers.
I kept two enemy cities as a late game base so that I could attack and raze their bigger cities. I rush built settlers after the war ended so that I could get rid of the cities rather than see them culturally flip. I then transported the settlers to my home cities and used them to join one or two of my cities. The enemy had already used the draft and maybe pop rushing so both of these settlers carried a huge amount of unhapiness with them when they joined my cities.

Due to the poor 'cities in revolt' information in the game, it took me a while to find that my own city which was only about 10 hexes from a Forbidden Palace was so unhappy. Then it took me forever to get that city back in reasonable shape due to the carryover unhappiness from adding one or two very unhappy settlers. While every other city had a row of happy citizens, this "joined city" had a row of contented citizens with a few unhappy citizens setting up a revolt (despite having marketplace, temple, cathedral, and maybe a colliseum, with Bach & Cure wonders). So while captured workers or "rush abandon city" settlers can be added to a city, they might also add a lot of unhappiness to a city.

[Willem]

Originally posted by korn469

if you have a size 2 city with a one military unit garrison on emperor and you rush something so it becomes a size 1 city then that person one person is unhappy but the garrison quells them, if you add a captured settler and rush again, that citizen will now be unhappy, but if you switch that citizen to a specialist then the unhappiness doesn't matter, so you can continue to add and rush workers as long as you like, and although massive negative happiness will build up, it won't matter because as long as the citizen is a specialist and you rush before the end of your turn then you can exploit the happiness rules so that your city won't go into disorder

Aah yes, I see. No doubt that situation will be changed in the next patch.

[korn469]

Aah yes, I see. No doubt that situation will be changed in the next patch.

well seeing as how i have been complaining about the same basic rule exploit since 99 with alpha centauri (poor man's punishment spheres) i wouldn't count on it

[Willem]

Originally posted by korn469


well seeing as how i have been complaining about the same basic rule exploit since 99 with alpha centauri (poor man's punishment spheres) i wouldn't count on it

But that was Brian Reynold's thing. Soren has a definite track record now of plugging loopholes in the game.

[DrFell]

It's not an overly serious loophole, I'd rather it were left in, as it opens up new strategies (attacking your opponents just for the workers, razing cities and sending off the population to work in the death camps). Not wholly unrealistic.

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by Willem


But that was Brian Reynold's thing. Soren has a definite track record now of plugging loopholes in the game.

I am undecided about whether this is a loophole or not. Pop-rush was just too easy in the original version, and that has definitely been fixed. I don't want to go too far in the other direction... as long as the current strategy doesn't unbalance the game against the AI, I am not worried about it.

[korn469]

Soren,

thanks for the responce
it seems like it is a loophole to me because you can get around the unhappiness that a city of any greater size would experience without penalty, but as to whether it unbalances the game in favor of the player i'm not sure either way

but could you check out this thread

Some qusetions about game mechanic (Soren, you could help)

something strange is going on with air units, and oh yeah if air units have more than one movement point and you conduct a recon mission it uses all of their movement points up

[DrFell]

But don't forget that it's pretty much limited to unit pop-rushing, and you can only rush at a certain rate. It doesn't let you rush improvements in other cities and you need to have the workers to add to the city in the first place (from a conquest perhaps?), so it's not particularly unbalancing. It seems to me more creative use of the rules (unintentionally perhaps, slave labour camps have been created).

[korn469]

DrFell

the only thing that could be unbalancing about it is that as far as i know the AI won't do this, and when you are on the offensive this can really give the player an edge, but like you said it's nothing compared to how it was

what i wonder though, has anyone tried pop rushing under the new rules under communism in a big city? is it feasible?

[DrFell]

I personally pop rush in despo only - if I have luxuries early on, I can usually manage a temple/barracks rushed in my cities. Otherwise I don't bother rushing much (except when it's really vital).