Strategy Thread - for quick strategy questions and answers

[Dhalphir]

Hi guys,

I have repurposed this thread to serve as a central hub for any and all quick strategy questions that may come up - ones where you'd feel weird making a whole thread but which you don't really have anywhere else to ask. Best questions to ask are those with simple answers that don't have a lot of subjective opinion answers, but if you want to know something, here might be a good place to ask!

For example

Good questions to ask
-how exactly does the Apostolic Palace calculate votes?
-what are "wasted worker turns" ()

Original OP quoted below

I'm a bit confused by something Sullla has been mentioning a few times on his Civ LP videos on Youtube.

He mentions avoiding wasting worker turns while moving workers around in the early game. While moving a worker from one city to another, he put one turn into a road on every tile on the way to the city, apparently to avoid the wastage.

What I'm confused about - workers have two movement points. If you move a worker onto an adjacent tile and build one turn into a road, that uses up all his movement points, so he only moves one tile per turn.

if you move him two tiles, instead of building the road, he ends up moving two tiles per turn.

So if you make the road each turn, he does productive work on the way to his destination, but only moves one tile per turn towards that destination - and if you don't, he makes it to his destination faster and can start doing the work there.

At first I thought this was done because completing a road underneath the worker will enable him to move quicker the following turn, but he seems to do this road building even when it wouldn't complete the road, so I ruled that out.
It seems to be an exercise in futility, spending time putting turns into roads when it doesn't affect how much stuff workers can get done per turn, but maybe there is something totally obviouss I am missing.

[SevenSpirits]

It seems to be an exercise in futility, spending time putting turns into roads when it doesn't affect how much stuff workers can get done per turn, but maybe there is something totally obviouss I am missing.

I think you're missing that those roads count as things that you're getting done.

You can take this too far - it might not be worth delaying an improvement you want now for a turn into a road that you'll only finish in 30 turns. But it's extremely common that if you plan things out well, you can put a bit of effort into improvements you'll finish later, at minimal or no present cost.

[Dhalphir]

but that's my point. minimal cost? You're moving one tile instead of two, delaying the journey to your worker's destination. If you need to move a worker four tiles to improve a resource, whether you spend four movement points and get there in two turns or spread out the movement across four turns and build one turn into a road each turn, you're still having to spend the same four movement points.

[SevenSpirits]

If you're moving 1 tile instead of 2 for multiple turns (and didn't plan ahead so that this puts you right on schedule), that's bad, sure. That's typically not the case though. What are you trying to argue?

[NobleHelium]

What I'm getting out of this is that Sulla wasted worker turns.

[TheHumanHydra]

What your looking for is situations where it takes the same number of turns to reach the destination either way, so you can put a turn into an improvement along the way "for free". For example, a corn tile I need to improve at a new city is four tiles away with every tile except the corn roaded. I can move straight onto the corn, using all my movement, and start improving it next turn, or I can move three tiles, put a turn into a cottage on the last roaded tile using my last half-point of movement, and next turn move onto the corn and start improving it with my second movement point. The second way I lose no turns on the corn improvement, but have an extra turn put into an improvement on another tile as well. Stuff like that; hopefully the example was clear.

[Molach]

If you are travelling an even number of tiles over flat land, you can use one turn to move one space & put a turn into a road yet still arrive ready for work just as quick. Gain = 1 turn of roading. (or even farming or whatever)

If you need to move 4 tiles as you said, you move first two, next turn move 1 and put a turn into a road. NExt turn you move one and immediately start working on your whatever you wanted.

On the other hand, if you need to move over flat land but end up in a 2-move tile it would be the other way around, as the optimal move last turn is 2 tiles (onto the 2-move tile last move). So if you are an odd number of tiles away, you can use one turn to move only one tile and put a turn into something with no loss.

Just remember to cancel worker action.

And crosspost etc.

[Dhalphir]

Hydra - what you say makes sense - so in situations where you can use your worker's last movement point to begin an improvement, rather than his first movement point, that is a source of efficiency.

[Dhalphir]

@Molach - you're saying roughly the same thing as Hydra if I read you correctly - essentially, you want to time your arrival at improvements so that you begin working an improvement with your last movement point, because starting an improvement with your first movement point wastes your second point for that turn?

[SevenSpirits]

Not quite - it's perfectly efficient to not move a worker and improve. What's undesirable is spending a turn not improving.

Think of workers as producing 1 useful action per turn (improving a tile). That is the entire purpose of having the worker. They also move 1 tile (or up to 3 along roads) per turn. Moving a worker generates no value, but it helps you realize the value of your 1 action per turn, by putting it in a useful location.

The game gives you the option to spend your worker turn on a second movement point. This option is undesirable because now you're getting fewer actions out of your worker. Sometimes the situation warrants using this option. But people often use it wastefully, too.