Workers......AAAAAHHHHH

I'm pulling (what's left of) my hair out.

I just started, I have 4 workers.
I've been trying to get more. I've probibly spent close to 1,000 gold, every time it comes up 0.
This is killing me gold wise, has anyone else had this problem?
Any suggestion?

When I first tried to recruit some workers I spent around 200 and got 0, since funds were tight I decided I wouldn't make that mistake again. I was reading through the forums and found a post that suggested paying at least 750 gold so I gave that a shot and got 11 workers from it. I have since found that the more you spend the more you get. Save up and spend heavily, I'd suggest between 800-1000 that should yield some positive results for you.

Don't forget to train a few of your workers to be miners as well, you'll be needing a lot of gold going forward and it helps to have about 40% of your work force mining to keep the income steady. I you ever fall short on food or wood go to the market it tends to always have a good amount of both available.

Once you get some more workers recruited the game picks up rather quickly.

I have found that unless it SAYS you recruited 0 workers, that you can hit "back" and hit "recruit" again and again until you DO get workers. It has worked many times for me.

The whole process is like the Ogden Nash poem about the catsup bottle:

Shake and shake the catsup bottle,
First comes none, then a lottle.

I was having the same problem at first and decided to put in a large sum (I think it was 12,000, it may have been 20,000); then I got just over 200 workers. AAAAAACCCCCCKKKKK

Agreed it's just a matter of experimenting.

Thanks all,
I'll becareful not to hit the bottom of the bottle to hard though

I had used 260 gold and got 3 workers just before coming here, I went back and spent 1000, got 4 workers.

Getting workers is lot playing a slot machine!!

a) minimum amount you need to spend to recruit worker is (40*current number of workers)+100
This means, when you start the game with 3 workers, you need to spend AT LEAST 220 gold to have a CHANCE of recruiting more
as was mentioned, the more you spend the more you get.
c) workers are useless. Seriously. I wish I could get rid of mine. You get a lot more resources each "tick" from technology and buildings compared to what workers bring in.

By the time you hit 200 workers, it costs you around 6,000 gold to assign a worker to a task. That worker raises your hourly income by approximately TEN of whatever resource he's assigned to. (less if you're new to the game and don't have all technologies researched yet)
Do the math. Waste of money. You're much better off building another gold mine/farm/lumber camp instead of training that worker.

If someone attacks you, they can steal your workers, putting them to work in their kingdom. They cannot steal buildings.

Subhuman you really got this game figured don't you? I think it was your post under a different topic that got me to invest more gold for workers.

I must agree that buildings have really boosted the resources but from what I have seen they don't seem to do much for improving your score. I guess it is a toss up of what you want/need more, score or resourse.

So can your buildings be destroyed in battle?

Your gold mines can

Your farms and lumber camps can be completely destroyed too.. thanks Clan MacInnes haha

Why not consider 'borrowing' some from another kingdom?

Just how do you do this? Help files were no help.

Yes, indeed all kinds of buildings can be destroyed. No, they cannot be captured by the enemy.
From what I've seen, trebuchet attack guard towers. Battering rams attack other buildings in this order: gold mines, then farms and finally lumber camps.
You "borrow" workers from another kingdom by training slavers and then attacking. Factoring the cost of slavers (1,000 of each gold, food and wood) it's probably not cost-effective until you already have over 100 assigned workers. Even then I wouldn't recommend an attack solely for the purpose of gathering workers. If you're sending an attack for another reason, then by all means include slavers- but it's not worth it to send an attack for the sole purpose of gathering some workers.

Correct- buildings give you little or no score. Each assigned worker gives you 40 points. The only thing score gains you is bragging rights- a higher score doesn't make your armies more effective, it doesn't gain you more resources. So unless you're making a bid for first place bragging rights, there's not really a point to it.
If being in first is your goal, then workers are the quickest way to achieve that.

There can be another strategic reason for keeping your score low: a player cannot attack someone who has less than half their score. If you can keep your score low while still bringing in sufficient number of resources, you've limited who might potentially attack you.

WOW, good advise subhuman, Thanks.
And Thanks to everyone else in this discussion.
This has been VERY informative.

Hay, Subhuman, on a differant note,
How do you even start armies???
I'm obviously missing a technology somewhere.

Getting workers has been different every time I try it...one time I get 1 worker and the next time I get over one hundred...it's like rolling the dice...you never know what will turn up..