New use for _Extra_ Workers in the Late Game?

ducki · October 24, 2002, 14:28

If someone's already detailed this, I haven't seen it, so excuse me if so.

Late in the game, I find I have far more workers than I need, even when pollution strikes in 3 or 4 places at once - I'm able to get it all cleaned up on the same turn AND still have workers twiddling their thumbs...

So what do I do with them?

Here's a thought.

When you capture a city you don't really want or need, but want to mess with a rival, how about starving/reducing the native laborers and dropping in a bunch of your own nationality workers(Join City).

Then, give it away.
The city.

Especially if you can give it away to someone not "next door".

I think this would let them blow a few turns working on the city and then, since they are all citizens of your Civ, they'll flip back to you.

If you have high enough overall culture as well as some nearby.

What do you think? Worthless blathering or worth testing?

Catt · October 24, 2002, 14:56

Unfortunately, when you give a city away the citizens magically and instantaneously convert to the nationality of the civ to whom the city was gifted. And I'm not sure the "gift and recapture via culture" tactic nets you anything -- the AI in my experience is unlikely to spend its treasury rushing anything in the city, so, from the time you gift it until the time it flips back, the most likely course of events is: (1) AI collects one gold per turn (corruption); (2) some of "your" citizens may starve due to 9-tile radius and need for entertainers; (3) the AI may draft and/or pop-rush, causing lasting unhapiness; and (4) you eventually end up with a smaller, more unhappy city than when you first gifted it. In other words, I don't think the AI will do anything extraordinary to "build up" the city -- it will just rely on the city's own local abilities (1 shield per turn) to build what the city needs.

Creative idea, though.

In earlier, pre-patch versions of the game, your tactic was a powerful exploit because the AI were permitted to buy cities. Players would build a city near their capitol, hemmed in by culture; sell it for big $$$ to the AI; flip it back pretty quickly; and sell it again. Rinse, repeat. No longer possible to sell or trade cities.

Catt

ducki · October 24, 2002, 15:00

Darn. I thought I was onto something.

And I was really hoping to find something to do with all those workers aside from "Disband" - I sure don't need the population. /shudder

Datajack Franit · October 24, 2002, 15:08

Use your nukes and turn the whole world to desert, then use foreign workers to populate your cities again while the others turn into dust!

Arrian · October 24, 2002, 15:51

I add all workers of my nationality to my cities once the RRing is done. The slaves deal with pollution control. If I have more of them than I need, I'll add them to cities as well.

-Arrian

vmxa1 · October 24, 2002, 16:20

After RR is done I will keep a core of worker for cleanup and any continued improvement (mainly in newly acquired lands). The remainder can be 1) added to cities 2) disband for shields 3) sold, each makes sense at different times and I may ended up doing all three. One thing I like to do is use up my workers and keep only captured workers, they are free, you just need twice as many.

Konquest02 · October 24, 2002, 16:52

If I have slaves, I trade them to the other civs (i.e. Japanese worker traded to Iroquois...) The civs get mad when you're using someone of their nationality as slaves, so let them get mad at someone else!! This is great especially when aiming for a diplomatic victory...

--Kon--

MyOlde · October 24, 2002, 20:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
I add all workers of my nationality to my cities once the RRing is done. The slaves deal with pollution control. If I have more of them than I need, I'll add them to cities as well.

-Arrian

Arrian, why would you not do it the other way around: add the slaves to your cities and save the better workers (your own nationality) for pollution control? They'll do the job faster.

vmxa1 · October 24, 2002, 21:26

Because his workers cost him money each day, slaves cost nothing. The speed is irrelevant, you just use more of them. If the job takes 4 of mine, use 8 slaves. Adding foriegn nationals to a city could be a disruption. Yes it can be contained in established cities, but they do not workers added anyway.

Random Passerby · October 24, 2002, 21:53

If you're not dominating, you can never have too many fortresses; you can get a more powerful neighbor to waste a lot of units trying to pick off a fortified defender manning a border fortress in mountains or even hills, and they won't even bother holding it if they do take it. Moreover, if enemy air power is going to be an issue, you're gonna have to rebuild a whoooole lot of road and railroad near the border.

wilbill · October 25, 2002, 02:00

When I get tired of Global Warming effects altering my terrain - Global Warming that I didn't cause because my cities are clean - I send spare workers out to clean up the neighbors' mess. Cleaning up some of the mess the filty Babylonians leave around actually can help minimize effects of global warming.

Needless to say I don't do this if the game's close enough that the increased production might help the Babylonians catch me.

Now if there were just a way I could charge them for this service.

vmxa1 · October 25, 2002, 02:30

Quote:

Originally posted by wilbill
I send spare workers out to clean up the neighbors' mess. Cleaning up some of the mess the filty Babylonians leave around actually can help minimize effects of global warming.

AFAIK that will not affect the global warming. Pollution laying on the ground will eventually destroy improvements on that tile, but are not part of the global warming. To tell you the truth, I do not recall ever even seeing the pollution on the tile doing any damage either, but then I clean mine up ASAP.