Thread Tools
Old May 5, 2002, 10:52   #1
Angel Gonzalez
Settler
 
Local Time: 00:10
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Costa Rica
Posts: 13
Too Many Workers
Friends, once the games are advanced the number of workers increase to several hundred expending a lot of money in maintaneance of them; It is necesary all this workers once roads are finished? After a time I cannot get them in the field working only into the city stand by. What happen is AI produced them without any instruction by myself. I must kill them? I appreciate any orientation about. Thanks Angel
Angel Gonzalez is offline  
Old May 5, 2002, 11:23   #2
Dominae
BtS Tri-LeaguePtWDG Gathering StormC4DG Gathering StormApolytoners Hall of Fame
Emperor
 
Dominae's Avatar
 
Local Time: 20:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 7,017
Angel, it appears you're using Governors to automatically select build orders in your cities. The Governor "AI" does produce Workers unecessarily in the later stages of the game. Simply turn off the Governors, and you'll never get extraneous Workers again (unless you order them yourself of course).

Still, there is a lot you can do with "extra" Workers. First, make sure all your workable tiles have been improved. Check if you're producing too much food in some cities, and, if so, order your Workers to pull up irrigation and build mines instead. Second, wait until after you've got a railroads covering your entire empire before ever getting rid of any Workers; railroads are so powerful in Civ3 that you want them down ASAP. Third, keep some Workers around to clean up pollution later on in the game (especially if you've built Hospitals). You can't work tiles that have pollution in them, so it's best if it is cleaned up immediately. Finally, if you really have no jobs for a majority of your Workers, you can always join them to your cities to make your cities bigger, faster. Consider joining your own Workers before foreign (captured) ones, because foreign Workers require no upkeep.

And here's a dirty little trick: you can use spare Workers on your front lines to lure away enemy troops from important positions, or remove a couple of units for especially large stacks. The way the AI is coded, defenseless Workers are always the most appealing target for attack (other than defenseless Settlers, I suppose), so, with some extra Workers, you can engage in a little sub-game of chess!

Hope this helps.


Dominae
Dominae is offline  
Old May 5, 2002, 11:35   #3
JohnMK
Settler
 
Local Time: 16:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Seattle
Posts: 7
Is it common procedure here to exploit the AI's programming weaknesses? I always thought one should play as realistically as possible.
JohnMK is offline  
Old May 5, 2002, 11:56   #4
zulu9812
King
 
zulu9812's Avatar
 
Local Time: 00:10
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: of Scotland
Posts: 1,383
I imagine it's quite realistoic for particularly bloodthirst rulers to use civilians as bait, decoys or a human shield (Saddam Hussein, for example).
__________________
Up the Irons!
Rogue CivIII FAQ!
Odysseus and the March of Time
I think holding hands can be more erotic than 'slamming it in the ass' - Pekka, thinking that he's messed up
zulu9812 is offline  
Old May 5, 2002, 12:06   #5
JohnMK
Settler
 
Local Time: 16:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Seattle
Posts: 7
That's a different issue altogether.

Let me get back my point: humans have the ability to realize a pattern and act upon it. If the AI is programmed badly enough that you can predict its behavior with perfect accuracy and lure it into a trap the same way, every time, and it's not catching on . . . then I'd avoid the exploit altogether.
JohnMK is offline  
Old May 5, 2002, 12:07   #6
zulu9812
King
 
zulu9812's Avatar
 
Local Time: 00:10
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: of Scotland
Posts: 1,383
Well, I've never encounterd this before but, on Deity, you need every advantage you can get!

Besides, when I'm invading I try and capture enemy workers 'in the field'. The city'll always be there: the workers won't, and they're very useful.
__________________
Up the Irons!
Rogue CivIII FAQ!
Odysseus and the March of Time
I think holding hands can be more erotic than 'slamming it in the ass' - Pekka, thinking that he's messed up
zulu9812 is offline  
Old May 5, 2002, 12:13   #7
Boris Godunov
Civilization II MultiplayerApolytoners Hall of FameCivilization IV: Multiplayer
Emperor
 
Boris Godunov's Avatar
 
Local Time: 17:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 4,412
This is another worker question: Under what circumstances can you trade workers back to a civ? I have a bunch of workers from Japan. They're in my capital, but during peace negotiations, I can't offer them to Japan. Why not? I could do it with other civs...
__________________
Tutto nel mondo č burla
Boris Godunov is offline  
Old May 5, 2002, 12:15   #8
zulu9812
King
 
zulu9812's Avatar
 
Local Time: 00:10
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: of Scotland
Posts: 1,383
I think workers only become available for trade if they're not doing anything.
__________________
Up the Irons!
Rogue CivIII FAQ!
Odysseus and the March of Time
I think holding hands can be more erotic than 'slamming it in the ass' - Pekka, thinking that he's messed up
zulu9812 is offline  
Old May 5, 2002, 12:24   #9
Boris Godunov
Civilization II MultiplayerApolytoners Hall of FameCivilization IV: Multiplayer
Emperor
 
Boris Godunov's Avatar
 
Local Time: 17:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 4,412
They're not, they're just sitting in my capital. No actions.
__________________
Tutto nel mondo č burla
Boris Godunov is offline  
Old May 5, 2002, 12:26   #10
Dominae
BtS Tri-LeaguePtWDG Gathering StormC4DG Gathering StormApolytoners Hall of Fame
Emperor
 
Dominae's Avatar
 
Local Time: 20:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 7,017
JohnMK, I understand your point, but I also think it is very difficult not to "exploit" some of the AIs more predictable behaviour.

For example, in the early stages of the game, you can pretty much guarantee that any enemy city (other than the capital) will have at least 1 and at most 2 good defenders (usually Spearmen). This means that you can always send an attack force of just the right size to conquer the city (6-8 Horsemen is a good bet). Realistically, you would have to conduct some espionage to determine the strength of the enemy forces. If the AI were slightly smarter, it would reinforce cities that are under imminent attack.

The same goes for tech priorities and diplomacy (to name only two). Personally, I find it very difficult to play realistically, for two reasons: 1) on the higher levels, you need any advantage you can get, and 2) the AI doesn't play "realistically" at all. This goes for non-exploitative issues as well, such as mining all grasslands (as if this were even remotely realistic).

As players learn what the Civ3 AI is like, they will get better and better, because it is easier to learn what the AI does repetitively (which is a bad idea), rather than strategies that work in the general case. This is why players are crying out of MP: eventually you get tired of guessing what the AI is going to do...you want another person to try and outthink you.


Dominae
Dominae is offline  
Old May 5, 2002, 12:30   #11
Lucilla
Mac
Princess
 
Lucilla's Avatar
 
Local Time: 01:10
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
Posts: 541
Quote:
Originally posted by Boris Godunov
They're not, they're just sitting in my capital. No actions.
Boris, maybe Japan has also workers to offer and AFAIK trade can only take place if one civ has something the other civ doesn't.
Lucilla is offline  
Old May 5, 2002, 12:32   #12
JohnMK
Settler
 
Local Time: 16:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Seattle
Posts: 7
Dominae is an asset to this forum.
JohnMK is offline  
Old May 5, 2002, 13:17   #13
SpencerH
Civilization III PBEMCivilization III MultiplayerBtS Tri-League
Emperor
 
SpencerH's Avatar
 
Local Time: 19:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Back in BAMA full time.
Posts: 4,502
Give the workers back as gifts. At worst you'll be rid of them if you dont need them. At best it will improve your relations with the Japanese.
__________________
We need seperate human-only games for MP/PBEM that dont include the over-simplifications required to have a good AI
If any man be thirsty, let him come unto me and drink. Vampire 7:37
Just one old soldiers opinion. E Tenebris Lux. Pax quaeritur bello.
SpencerH is offline  
Old May 5, 2002, 14:30   #14
Angel Gonzalez
Settler
 
Local Time: 00:10
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Costa Rica
Posts: 13
TOO MANY WORKERS
Thanks, Dominae, your explanation was very complete only as newbie I am not sure as turn off the Governor AI. Only read in the game manual ways to customize his behaviour, really not very well obtained. Angel
Angel Gonzalez is offline  
Old May 5, 2002, 14:46   #15
Ethelred
King
 
Ethelred's Avatar
 
Local Time: 16:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Anaheim, California
Posts: 1,083
I set the governors to NOT build

Great Wonders
Small Wonders
Settlers
Workers

Sometimes I turn off building military units as well. What happens in this case is that the governors are down to producing improvements and wealth, and its easy to spot cities producing wealth and change that to what you want at the moment.
Ethelred is offline  
Old May 5, 2002, 14:50   #16
asleepathewheel
C3C IDG: Apolyton TeamInterSite Democracy Game: Apolyton TeamPtWDG Gathering StormC4DG Gathering Storm
Emperor
 
Local Time: 19:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: listening too long to one song
Posts: 7,395
Quote:
Originally posted by Ethelred
I set the governors to NOT build

Great Wonders
Small Wonders
Settlers
Workers

Sometimes I turn off building military units as well. What happens in this case is that the governors are down to producing improvements and wealth, and its easy to spot cities producing wealth and change that to what you want at the moment.

That's exactly what I do. The last thing I want to see is a city with high corruption trying to build a wonder. I turn off everything but buildings, since I decide what units to build and when. It seems to me, that they do a halfway decent job at building what buildings I would want, when.
asleepathewheel is offline  
Old May 6, 2002, 00:45   #17
Carbon Copy
Settler
 
Carbon Copy's Avatar
 
Local Time: 19:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Indiana, USA
Posts: 27
Too many workers? This is a contradiction in terms!

If you're playing with the governor on, the best advice I can give is to turn the governors off. They don't know what they're doing.

If your problem is that you have a lot of workers sitting around doing nothing, this isn't necessarily a problem:

-If you don't have an incredibly huge army, don't rejoin workers to cities. The AI will be much less aggressive towards you if you have a high unit count, and workers are included in this assessment.

-If you don't have every single tile improved, roaded, and railroaded, you might as well do this now. I like to plant forests and erect fortresses on every unused tile, just to help me visualize what tiles are available to be worked.

-If there are tiles that haven't had forests on them before, you can lumberjack each forestable square once for the ten shields, then rebuild whatever improvement was there before.

-Pollution control. Just gather all the workers on a given continent in one spot (preferably not inside a city) and fortify them (I like to build a fortress to mark this spot). When pollution pops up, wake up and Shift-P workers from this stack until it's gone. When pollution is cleaned up, return them to the stack and fortify them.

-Combat engineer duty. Having a lot of workers on hand can enable you to take HUGE swaths of enemy civs in 1 turn by building rails in newly-captured territory, if not enabling you to conquer them outright without them being able to retaliate. Just be sure to have enough units on hand to cover these workers so you don't lose them all (though it's probably no biggie at this point to lose 5 or 6 here or there).

Maitenance, schmaitenance. By the point in the game where you start to have a lot of workers doing nothing, you are (or should be) raking in HUGE piles of money every turn. If you find yourself low, run 0% science for a turn or two to raise your treasury back up in the 1000s. If there are too many of them, just fortify them, don't join them back.
__________________
-CC
Carbon Copy is offline  
Old May 6, 2002, 08:42   #18
louiethelesbo
Settler
 
Local Time: 00:10
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Apr 2002
Posts: 22
Lazy Workers
Whenever I play the French or the Zulus..the workers are lazy. They always hide out and it takes them forever just to do routine tasks. American workers are very good....and loyal.
louiethelesbo is offline  
Old May 6, 2002, 13:40   #19
Fitz
King
 
Fitz's Avatar
 
Local Time: 16:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: & Anarchist
Posts: 1,689
Quote:
Originally posted by Carbon Copy
-If you don't have an incredibly huge army, don't rejoin workers to cities. The AI will be much less aggressive towards you if you have a high unit count, and workers are included in this assessment.
This is no longer true. They fixed it in 1.16f.

I like the combat engineers idea, but I find in general that you only need 1 worker per city (native anyway) by the time you've railroaded everything to take care of pollution. That assumes you haven't gone on a razing rampage, in which case you certainly will have plenty of captured workers, which end up on Shift-A for me once I've railroaded everything. Of course, I keep about five on manual for the occasional correction of errors in improvements ("wait a sec, I mean't to put irrigation there, not mines), and take those captured ones off to auto to fix the pisspoor job the AI does of improving when I capture a new city as opposed to raze it.
__________________
Fitz. (n.) Old English
1. Child born out of wedlock.
2. Bastard.
Fitz is offline  
Old May 6, 2002, 14:13   #20
Zoid
inmate
C4DG The HordeCivilization IV PBEMCivilization IV: MultiplayerC4BtSDG Rabbits of CaerbannogC4WDG Southern Cross
 
Zoid's Avatar
 
Local Time: 01:10
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Land of teh Vikingz
Posts: 9,897
Quote:
Originally posted by JohnMK
Is it common procedure here to exploit the AI's programming weaknesses? I always thought one should play as realistically as possible.
If thereīs an exploit available I use it. Itīs stupid not to IMO
__________________
I love being beaten by women - Lorizael
Zoid is offline  
Old May 6, 2002, 17:53   #21
Cyclotron
Never Ending StoriesThe Courts of Candle'Bre
King
 
Cyclotron's Avatar
 
Local Time: 19:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Cyclo-who?
Posts: 2,995
I used to use them as bait like empty cities, but I have since reformed and now usually offer them to other civs for sums of gold or some gpt.
__________________
Lime roots and treachery!
"Eventually you're left with a bunch of unmemorable posters like Cyclotron, pretending that they actually know anything about who they're debating pointless crap with." - Drake Tungsten
Cyclotron is offline  
Old May 7, 2002, 00:14   #22
Grrr
Civilization III Multiplayer
King
 
Grrr's Avatar
 
Local Time: 13:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: of Hamilton, New-Zealand.
Posts: 1,160
Another reason why to offer them to the AI is that they are often used to build up cities, and can help with cultural reversion and wonder razing later in the game. I did this to a large English city this morning. I didn't want the wonder destroyed.
__________________
Grrr | Pieter Lootsma | Hamilton, NZ | grrr@orcon.net.nz
Waikato University, Hamilton.
Grrr is offline  
Old May 7, 2002, 08:26   #23
Skanky Burns
Alpha Centauri Democracy GameACDG The Cybernetic ConsciousnessC4DG Team Alpha CentauriansApolytoners Hall of FameACDG3 Spartans
 
Skanky Burns's Avatar
 
Local Time: 11:10
Local Date: November 1, 2010
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Skanky Father
Posts: 16,530
Quote:
Originally posted by Boris Godunov
This is another worker question: Under what circumstances can you trade workers back to a civ? I have a bunch of workers from Japan. They're in my capital, but during peace negotiations, I can't offer them to Japan. Why not? I could do it with other civs...
Not sure if you've sorted this yet. But if not:

I don't think you can trade workers as part of peace negotiations. Wait until after you are back at peace with them, and then trade as much of 'em as you want
__________________
I'm building a wagon! On some other part of the internets, obviously (but not that other site).
Skanky Burns is offline  
Old May 7, 2002, 17:22   #24
Grrr
Civilization III Multiplayer
King
 
Grrr's Avatar
 
Local Time: 13:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: of Hamilton, New-Zealand.
Posts: 1,160
You can't trade workers in peace negotiations.
__________________
Grrr | Pieter Lootsma | Hamilton, NZ | grrr@orcon.net.nz
Waikato University, Hamilton.
Grrr is offline  
Old May 7, 2002, 19:06   #25
ACooper
Prince
 
ACooper's Avatar
 
Local Time: 18:10
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Apr 1999
Location: In a dark and scary hole!
Posts: 728
As Ethelred already pointed out, you can customize your governor to do or not do anything you want. You don't need to turn them completely off, just change what they can or cannot build. Also make sure "Automatically built previous unit" is off.
__________________
Sorry....nothing to say!
ACooper is offline  
 

Bookmarks

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 20:10.


Design by Vjacheslav Trushkin, color scheme by ColorizeIt!.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2010, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Apolyton Civilization Site | Copyright Đ The Apolyton Team