Questions

[hugedata]

I started 8 different games now trying to find the most efficient way to set up and play. I have a few questions that I hope you can help with.

1. If you have a building queued up to build, is it the workers that bring the needed resources or the builders? If it is the workers, does that mean that the builders do absolutely nothing until all the resources arrive? How many builders should I reasonably keep?

2. How many buildings/lots can a single assigned unit run? i.e. how many farms can 1 farmer manage; how many mines can 1 miner manage, etc. I ask this because it seems to be hit or miss. in one game I had a single miner that seemed to manage just fine with 5 mines. But at the same time, the farmer was struggling with 3 fields. I'm wondering if it depends on the production type (different types of farms vs all the same type).

Thank you for your time.

[Tantheus]

I thought it was 1 worker per building, so if you have 2 mines you need 2 miners.
I never have workers. all extra people I put as builders, but maybe I'll keep one as worker now. During harvest I dump enough people on farms to get the job done then back to what they were doing.

[Mike@SmugMarmot]

1) Both general workers and builders supply resources to construct the building. The general workers look for resources and find what is the most "efficient" way to distribute the resource. Where builders will look for what is needed for construction, and directly get it, no matter how far away. If you need a building built ASAP builders are the worker of choice.

2) For standard production buildings (mine, smelter, research lab, textile mill, etc.), 1 worker per building. Farms are different, a worker and general work 3.5 fields per season. Keep in mind that in the summer with ichi root there is both a harvest AND a planting, so they can't work as many fields as each one requires double duty.

[hugedata]

In practice, I have found this not to be totally true:

" For standard production buildings (mine, smelter, research lab, textile mill, etc.), 1 worker per building. "

If a building is capable of producing multiple items, 1 worker can run both. Examples are Mine, Smelter, Textile Mill. I am sure that 1:1 ratio would be the most effective if you are looking to produce a single resource, but 1 miner can currently harvest Stone, Ore, and Gems from up to 5 different mines producing enough resources to keep your colony supplied. Especially on mines, as it look like that there is a limit to how many resources that will build up on the ground next to the mine. If the people aren't picking up the resources fast enough, the miner will move on to a different mine. It looks like they also randomly decide which mine to work every season.

Smelter is very effective this way, also. If you have 1 smelter (assigned worker) and 2 Smelters (building), 1 producing iron and the other steel: The smelter will build iron for a while and switch to steel. If the steel smelter runs out of iron, the worker will switch back to the iron building.

I may have found a way to unintentionally exploit the way the AI works. I honestly thought that this was the intended mechanic, as early game, you never have enough people to do the jobs.

[Mike@SmugMarmot]

They will only be producing in one building at a time. If you have multiple buildings, they will produce in one until the output is overflowing, and then instead of clearing and resuming production, they will just move on to the next one. So yes, that is possible, you may find the production is not enough later in the game.