How many workers should you have?

[The diplomat]

What is the consensus on the ideal worker/city ratio?
This would obviously differ between industrious and non-industrious civs. It would also depend on the pop growth of the particular city.

Also, is it better to build as many workers as possible so as to finish improving all your city tiles as quickly as possible then have the workers rejoin their cities when they are all done?

Or is it better to keep the smallest amount of workers such that they are improving tiles at about the same rate as the pop is growing?

The first strategy would guarantee that you completely improve the tiles in all your empire as quickly as possible. However, you would have so many workers that your cities would not have as high a pop as they could have until the workers rejoin them.

The second strategy seems to be more efficient, because it seeks to match the number of improved tiles to the pop size. Keeping the number of workers as small as possible allows your cities to have the highest pop possible while still improving tiles at a good rate.

I would suggest that the trick is to try to keep the number of improved tiles equal to your pop. If you have more improved tiles than pop then you have improved tiles that are not being used yet. You probably have too many workers and could have a couple rejoin the city so as to use those extra improved tiles.

On the other hand, if you have more pop than improved tiles, then you have pop n tiles that are not improved yet, thus you are not getting the max of ressources that you would be getting if the tiles were improved.

So it seems to me that the most efficient method is somewhere in between where you have approximately the same number of worked tiles as number of pop, and your workers improve tiles at about the rate of pop growth.

Am I right? Thoughts?

[Catt]

Originally posted by The diplomat
How many workers should you have?

17.




(Just kidding)

I would suggest that the trick is to try to keep the number of improved tiles equal to your pop. If you have more improved tiles than pop then you have improved tiles that are not being used yet. You probably have too many workers and could have a couple rejoin the city so as to use those extra improved tiles.

On the other hand, if you have more pop than improved tiles, then you have pop n tiles that are not improved yet, thus you are not getting the max of ressources that you would be getting if the tiles were improved.

So it seems to me that the most efficient method is somewhere in between where you have approximately the same number of worked tiles as number of pop, and your workers improve tiles at about the rate of pop growth.

Am I right? Thoughts?

I agree with this wholeheartedly. More workers than needed equals less population and more upkeep. Fewer workers than needed equals citizens working unimproved tiles.

But I also think that other tactical and strategic imperatives influence the worker army -- I may have a detail of workers building "strategic roads," i.e., roads on tiles that aren't being worked, but that will ferry offensive or defensive troops to key present or future battlegrounds. So I may have more workers than needed for pure tile upkeep, but not "too many" workers by my own estimate because the work they are doing is worth the pop loss and 1 gpt upkeep while they're at it.

I will also have a bunch of extra workers towards the end of the Middle Ages -- they loaf while they can, but upon discovery of Steam Power they will all be very busy laying rail lines until they have a chance to retire to a nice city (growing into a metropolis).

Catt

[The diplomat]

thanks for the reply. Like you said, with steam power, one needs to build lots of railroads. So it is probably good to keep a couple of workers per city handy so that as soon as you get steam power, they can immediately start working. That way you don't waste the turns building more workers before you can start building railroads.

Once pollution starts popping up, I also like to keep about 2-3 workers per city set on "automate clean pollution". That way, they wait and automatically head for a pollution square and clean it up. By then I usually have a strong network of railroads, so my workers will reach any tile in my empire in 1 turn. Pollution is cleaned up real fast!

[The diplomat]

As a rule of thumb though, I would probably estimate a worker per city ratio of 2-3 for industrious, and 3-4 for non-industrious.

[vmxa1]

I tend to get one for each city in the first 6 cities. After that as best I can without taking a hit until I can capture some. Once I get to the rzing part, I will pile them up. No real ROT.

[Theseus]

2-3 Workers per city for pollution control is too many. Don;t forget, with RR they are speedy little devils.

Workers are so cheap, I have started to disband and rebuild them with abandon.

[alva]

I try only to use captured workers and rejoin the rest, if I need more , I do as Theseus and rebuild some in a maxed out city .

But 3-4 per town is way to many IMO, don't forget, they cost upkeep to.

[The diplomat]

3-4 was way too much, you are all right. To test my theory, I started a game as my fav Egyptians. With the industrious ability, I was acually able to get by with 1-1.5 per city. So my 2-3 estimate was way off.

[Inverse Icarus]

i usually have 1 or 2 workers per each major city, and then theres the swarm of captured ones.

[jshelr]

I've tended to follow a strat outlined by Dr Fell awhile ago that uses a different rule for workers. You want enough workers to stay ahead of your expansion so that settlers and units are travelling on roads and not losing turns, arriving at sites that already have two tiles roaded, mined, or irrigated. In addition, quick connection of lux, iron, and horses, without slowing down city improvement, is a must. Successful improvement of the city sites speeds things up so much it is difficult to explain.

So, instead of how many workers do I need per city, I use a dynamic rule: are the workers going to get the job done fast enough to be "on time." Relative to that rule, workers are very high priority in the early game. I've found that warmongers can deliver a stack of vet units to the enemy civ most rapidly if workers have improved tiles and created a road network.

After the warmongering phase there are usually so many slaves around that "domestic" workers can be considered for promotion to town jobs.

[Zachriel]

http://www.zachriel.com/gotm9/ad1260-SteamPower.htm

Every city was almost completely developed by the advent of Steam Power. The terrain was good (no jungle) and it only took about a dozen workers to improve twenty-one native cities. With Steam Power, the number of workers shot up to 60+. Once the rail system was complete, the majority were joined back into cities.

The "worker boom" should have started just a little bit sooner, but there were extenuating circumstances. For the curious, the entire game report is available here:

http://www.zachriel.com/gotm9/

[Catt]

Originally posted by jshelr
I've tended to follow a strat outlined by Dr Fell awhile ago that uses a different rule for workers. You want enough workers to stay ahead of your expansion . . . .

That's very well-said, and the concept that I was trying to get at -- I find it hard to come up with an "X workers per city" concept because circumstances vary so widely. Section 1 of the workforce ensures that no citizen laborer is working unimproved tiles. Section 2 of the workforce is building roads to future city sites, future battlegrounds, and future trading junctions. The size of each section depends upon the surrounding terrain -- i.e., Section 1 gets bigger if my cities have abundant food available; Section 2 gets bigger with lots of room to REX and or distant enemies that will need an early visit.

Catt

[bbaws]

Lots and lots. I never seem to get into problems with the upkeep, my wars tend to be as a direct result of what I think of as "worker pressure". If the workers are idle you don't have enough land. The more workers you have the more territory you can quickly improve, thus the quicker captured cities grow and the quicker the infrastructure is built.
For my style of play the ratio of workers to cities is not as significant as the ratio of workers to top grade offensive units. As the ages progress offensive units become more effective at seizing territory and so the ratio rises.
Early game I reckon I have much the same ratio as anyone, but for me one of the best things about Civ3 is not having to support pop units detached from cities with food. On the one hand workers cost gpt, on the other getting the pop out of stagnant cities gives you growing cities. I like growth and growth potential (the "worker pressure") enough to pay the gold.

[realpolitic]

I usually just get enough to get me through the first few wars. Then I capture enough. I return them to the cities near my Palace + FP when I get Sanitation (I'm in Republic its about my 5th or 6th Industrial tech) so I can build The Hoover Dam ASAP (If I have a lead I get Replaceable Parts.)
Next game with Science at 10%, early in the game, I'll buy foriegn workers early, joining them in cities if the work's done.

[JNL]

Another possible use of workers (preferably your own, to reduce risk of disorder and reduce maintainance costs) : to strenghten attacked cities so that they still get a defence bonus (size 7 or more).

[Prince]

What's the difference between captured workers and normal ones, besides halved working speed (lazy bums! ) and having a different nationality when you add them to a city? Any differences in upkeep costs? I heard that other civs get angry when you use workers from their nationality, but then why don't my own people go mad at me for using them? Or is this not true? (the AI is nearly always pissed at me, anyway )

[Inverse Icarus]

captured workers have 0 upkeep cost.

they're slaves.

[punkbass2000]

It's true that other nations dislike you for using their people as slaves. Your own people don't dislike you because you are paying the workers a legitimate wage, I imagine.

[bbaws]

Hmmm just a thought. Trade AI (a) workers to AI (b) and vice versa. They ought to get pissed at each other. At the least (a) and (b) get half efficiency workers instead of their own workers back and you aren't the villain of the piece.

[DaveMcW]

The AI never builds enough workers to keep up with pop growth. So any strategy that involves giving workers to the AI will only help them.

Conversely, buying workers will cripple the AI's infrastructure much more than a slightly annoyed neighbor.

[bbaws]

Ummm, given that I'm going to be taking over the AIs territory it's handy if the AI builds road and RR for me in advance. Given that I am going to trade with the AI I will get better deals the stronger the AIs economy is. The point in case you missed it is that the AI will give you the same amount of money for a worker irrespective of nationality. So where possible sell the AI workers that are only half as useful to him, bearing n mind that in all probability you will be capturing them back, then selling them again.
I find the simple expedient of reading posts and thinking about them before replying helps immensely.

[Solver]

I've lately started having really few Workers. I will make it sure every city (unless those sluggish ones, maybe) builds one early on, and will continue to make them guys later a bit, but in the late Middle Ages, they won't have much to do, unless I'm on a huge territory. Then Steam Power comes, and soon I see every tile covered with railroads.

But, here it is. After I go to war, and I will often raze cities, I'll send that string of workers to my land. They cost me nothing, and that's good, and I will slowly start to add my native ones to cities. They're very cheap anyway, I can build more quickly if the need arises. If I'm Industrious, then captured workers are nice, basically working at standard rates, hence I can still get rails in place.

The above applies for cases when I'm occupying a territory that the Workers can deal with. I have had games where I was on a huge territory, so needed lots of guys to keep the work done.

[Arrian]

Hmm... I've never really kept track of how many workers I have.

If I'm industrious, each new city puts out 1 worker, and that's usually it. If I'm not industrious, I will build some more... but probably not many more. That group takes care of the homeland.

Then I start beating people with the large stick I carry, and all of a sudden, I have these neat things called "slaves." They're lazy bums, but they're free. Anyway, they usually take care of developing the AI territory I just took over. As it is probably halfway done already, their slowness isn't a very big deal. Then again, I do tend to reverse a bunch of "improvements" the AI built.

When I discover Steam Power, I typically build a worker in every city that is at size 12, since they can bounce right back to 12 in a turn (provided the food box is full). Those guys, coupled with my originals and slaves, take care of RRing the empire. Then I will often add all workers to cities and keep only slaves for pollution control.

Yeah, I know, I'm a bad man.

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

Why is that bad? It is what I do, it just makes sense, except I don't pop many out of my cities with on set of Steam as I will probably have enough to get the job done and do not want to add to my upkeep. I will if for some reasonI am short handed with not enough workers.

[Solver]

You know, Arrian, you're saying that the AI territory is partially done usually. As much as it's true early in the game, it's always never so for me in the Industrial and later.

I'm a fan of Infantry Scattering, meaning I'll scatter some Infantry over their land to pillage improvements, and if Air Power is available, I use bombing with pleasure. So it turns up for me often that his land is nearly empty.

[Arrian]

Solver,

I almost never pillage AI land, since I intend for it to become my land. I will pillage important resource connections, but rarely anything else.

Plus, the fact is that oftentimes the captured area will be near-totally corrupt, unless it becomes the center for my FP or a palace move. If it is a corrupt area, terrain development simply isn't that crucial, and thus I can take my time about it. I will often take 1-shield cities and just set them to building workers. Every 10 turns, or less if I chose to hurry it along with a few bucks, I get a new worker. My aim is to eventually have almost no 1-shield cities, of course.

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

I will only pillage if it either a resource that they need (oil/saltpeter/etc) or if I am in over my head. If they have a stronger Civ and army, I MAY then do some pillaging around a large metro or cut the access to my lands so they can not race units over rail or roads to get at me.

[Solver]

I think that pillaging the AI's land can hurt him badly, since AI workers hide in cities during wars. After the war is over, you can anyway bring a Transport full of Workers from your homeland, right?

[vmxa1]

Yes it can hurt him, but I intend to have that land and will not be able to let workers fix in until the war is over. I am not saying it is wrong, just that I would normally want to use my troops for conquering. As I said, if I am not strong enough and have some fear, I will send units to pillage. Most likely it will be calvs, when tanks and MA's are in use. I hold some calv to garrison and capture/kill stragglers. Of course these are not iron clad rules, the game may force me to behave another way.

[mrmitchell]

I usually have 1.5 per city more if hilly/forest-jungle is major terrain. (It takes more tiem IIRC to road hill/mine hill than it does road/irrigate.)

Captured workers are a godsend. Man, one time the idiot Japanese (I was playing an Huge Earth Map. I had Europe,incuding England. They had Scandinavia. ) had 10 workers in a city with 2 samurai, 1 pike, 1 spear. I easily annihlated them with my Cav, and took 10 no-pay workers. They're equal 5 pay workers, hehe)