Question on workers

jordie · October 10, 2003, 02:54

Do captured workers perform at a lesser rate than normal workers? Because it always seems it takes longer for my captured, celtic, chinese and mongolian workers to perform a fucntion....

Tiberius · October 10, 2003, 03:01

Yes, they work at half speed.

marcuspeddle · October 10, 2003, 03:02

I think they work at 50% efficiency. Trade them for something with other civs.

marcuspeddle · October 10, 2003, 03:02

Oh, bugger; I was a little too slow on the trigger.

Tiberius · October 10, 2003, 03:08

jordie · October 10, 2003, 03:08

AH ok thanks. I never knew that... that kinda sucks, most are my workers are captured. lol

jordie · October 10, 2003, 03:10

i'm guessing there isn't a way to make them work at 100% ?

Tiberius · October 10, 2003, 03:15

Note: they work at 50% efficiency compared to your workers, regardless of their original status (industrious or non-ind workers)

Tiberius · October 10, 2003, 03:23

Quote:

Originally posted by jordie
AH ok thanks. I never knew that... that kinda sucks, most are my workers are captured. lol

They indeed are slower, but free of maintenance. So don't count them as "lazy" workers, but free, extra workers. It's a question of perspective

Seriously now, use them in pairs and Bingo!, you have full-speed, upkeep-free worker-pairs (assuming that you micromanage them). At the point where there are too many workers to micromanage the pairs, it doesn't really matters anymore, does it ?

Also, use your own workers for important, urgent tasks and the slaves for the rest of the jobs.

Quote:

i'm guessing there isn't a way to make them work at 100% ?

Honestly I've never tried this and I have no idea whether this is possible or not. Look in the editor. If it is possible, you should find the option there.

Edit: using (keeping) slaves worsens the relations with their civ of origin. If you don't like them (the slaves) at all, sell/gift them to a third civ; thus both of them will look more favorable at you and in the same time you will ruin the diplomatic relations between two of your rivals.

jordie · October 10, 2003, 03:42

ah alright. Ive got 116 workers with probably about 50-70 of them being from other countries (I've defeated 9 others and on the way of another 2). So a lot of my workers are running at 50% hmm.. interesting. I guess I'll continue to use them, but I'll also make some more of my own.

Thanks for the help!

Solomwi · October 10, 2003, 04:14

Definitely worth keeping. I usually try to get an obscene number of captured workers up through the Industrial Age, then once I've got everything railroaded, my native workers start looking for cities to optimize (which in the case of captured metros usually results in building even more workers to get pop down as I mine what was irrigated). Once I have it all railroaded, I keep all my natives fortified together in a central spot. When I notice that I'm consistently having some left over, I add them to cities, a process that really starts once my hospitals get built, but only in a trickle for a while. Get rid of them as fast as you can without sacrificing jobs that need to get done. In my current game I had 150+ native workers at the height of railroad fury. I'm down to 35 now and have about 100 captured workers automated for pollution control, and more in reserve. So I'm thinking this will be a game I can get an entirely non-native workforce at some point.

Jaybe · October 10, 2003, 11:37

Quote:

Edit: using (keeping) slaves worsens the relations with their civ of origin. If you don't like them (the slaves) at all, sell/gift them to a third civ; thus both of them will look more favorable at you and in the same time you will ruin the diplomatic relations between two of your rivals.

Selling "guest" workers (of any nationality) supposedly worsens relations also, though perhaps not on such a sustained basis as keeping them. The worst thing you can do with guest workers is disband (kill) them. Best to add them to your cities, relations-wise, but then those cities may become more corrupt; and if you get into a war with the same civ again -- instant war weariness!

Personally, I keep using them usually. I might establish radar towers, airfields, etc. with them.

EDIT: Per Bamspeedy's AI Attitude article at CFC and the associated forum discussion, using guest workers does NOT affect relations.

Willem · October 10, 2003, 16:03

Quote:

Originally posted by jordie
i'm guessing there isn't a way to make them work at 100% ?

Yes there is, play an Industrious Civ. They get double the Worker speed of other civ types.

Rasputin · October 10, 2003, 19:37

but still oonly 50% of your own native workers....

the captured ones never are as good as your own.

I personally keep them as they usually amoun to a large workforce eventually and i usually stick the foriengers on auto and allow them to do the non urgetn stuff, keeping my natives to do the stuff i need immediatly .

jordie · October 10, 2003, 20:51

Quote:

Originally posted by Jaybe
[q]The worst thing you can do with guest workers is disband (kill) them.

ohhh... damn. lol

Quote:

Originally posted by Jaybe
[q]Personally, I keep using them usually. I might establish radar towers, airfields, etc. with them.

Hmm not a bad idea, i never considered that before.

Quote:

Originally posted by Rasputin
[q]but still oonly 50% of your own native workers....

the captured ones never are as good as your own.

Ah ok. Thanks for the answer. Would be good if there was someway to turn foreign wokrers into your own, or perhaps over time would be good.

Rasputin · October 10, 2003, 21:12

Quote:

Originally posted by jordie

Ah ok. Thanks for the answer. Would be good if there was someway to turn foreign wokrers into your own, or perhaps over time would be good.

wel lyou can add them to your own citys and then overtime they will be converted to your nationality, then you cna build a worker agian and voila , native worker !!!

georges bonbon · October 13, 2003, 04:27

[QUOTE] [SIZE=1] Originally posted by Jaybe Personally, I keep using them usually. I might establish radar towers, airfields, etc. with them.

If keeping slaves has a negative influence on attitude with the related civilization, why should using slaves to build radar towers, etc. not have the same effect?

Rasputin · October 13, 2003, 05:57

because they die making the radar tower so they cant complain anymore

georges bonbon · October 13, 2003, 06:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Rasputin
because they die making the radar tower so they cant complain anymore

According to Jaybe: "The worst thing you can do with guest workers is disband (kill) them."

So is there a difference in killing and killing by building radar towers?

georges bonbon · October 13, 2003, 06:04

Another question:

Is there a difference between having slaves and making them work?

Or is just having them enough for a bad attitude?

Rasputin · October 13, 2003, 06:28

well the ai is going to hate you anyway so stuff it , keeep the slaves at work ....

latka · October 13, 2003, 06:47

Let's talk about the other side of the coin. If you are at war with a civ and capture a 3rd civs workers from them, can one give them back to the 3rd civ to improve their relation? If yes, how significant is it improvement?

Solomwi · October 13, 2003, 14:55

Quote:

Originally posted by latka
Let's talk about the other side of the coin. If you are at war with a civ and capture a 3rd civs workers from them, can one give them back to the 3rd civ to improve their relation? If yes, how significant is it improvement?

The way I understand it, the only relation improvement you'll get from this is the gifting bonus. IOW, you'd get the same improvement by giving the AI whatever amount of gold it considers equivalent to the worker.

Quote:

Personally, I keep using them usually. I might establish radar towers, airfields, etc. with them.

I used to do this, as well, but now I reserve my native workers for the "consuming" tasks. Native workers are replenishable, where captured workers, for the most part, are not. Keep all the captured workers you get to save on maintenance costs. Remember 2 slaves = 1 native work wise, but the 2 slaves are free.

sabrewolf · October 16, 2003, 09:29

Quote:

Originally posted by georges bonbon
According to Jaybe: "The worst thing you can do with guest workers is disband (kill) them."

So is there a difference in killing and killing by building radar towers?

i wouldn't call it killing them.

"adding them to the radar tower staff" may be more appropriate

...

they'll probably do it voluntarily anyway, because operating a radar is a lot more fun than digging mines, laying RR-tracks and irrigating farmland

Shogun Gunner · October 16, 2003, 20:42

Quote:

Originally posted by sabrewolf
"adding them to the radar tower staff" may be more appropriate

...

they'll probably do it voluntarily anyway, because operating a radar is a lot more fun than digging mines, laying RR-tracks and irrigating farmland

I recently used a captured Japanese worker to build a radar tower. Do I really trust the "radar tower staff" to tell me when the Yamato and the Musashi come steaming around my territory?

or even...I guess I shouldn't add my captured Arab worker to a city...INSTANT AL QAEDA CELL. Maybe I'll add them to my island city - "Guantanamo Bay"

bongo · October 17, 2003, 05:13

Does anyone pay for the captured workers BTW? I always thought the original civ did but as I have never lost workers to the AI I never had the change to find out. But today I loaded a PBEM save where my civ had lost 1 worker to a foreign (human)civ. I carefully examined both F1 and F3 but couldn't find that I paid for him.

So, who does? If they always are free then we have a possible new PBEM exploit. Just share all your workers with an ally and you both end up with a maintance free worker-force.

sabrewolf · October 17, 2003, 07:54

it's a trade-off between price and efficiency. chopping down that jungle in 12 or 24 turns does make a big difference...

Outsider · October 17, 2003, 11:24

I use them as inefficient laborers until I wipe their original nation's last city off the map, THEN add them to my cities. No unhappiness problems then.

vmxa1 · October 17, 2003, 11:53

Quote:

Originally posted by bongo
So, who does? If they always are free then we have a possible new PBEM exploit. Just share all your workers with an ally and you both end up with a maintance free worker-force.

This would be a good idea except for two things. One is the time it takes to get them into the capitol and then out doing work.
The other is you would have to have twice as many. Yes they cost nothing to maintain, but they are expensive to build.

bongo · October 17, 2003, 17:05

You don't have to send them to the capitol, send them to the border and exchange them in a 'fake' war.