Hello Adventurers

(Beware, wall of text!)

One of the thoughts often going through my head, is that I wished I had researched my worker empire options before throwing my CP and energy at it. One of the biggest problems I have been facing is my workers. There are a few things that need to be taken in to account before you start hiring workers. There is no one-size-fits-all!

Firstly, how active you are. Most of us are only able to check our games maybe every 4 hours during the day. And sleep for 8+ hours. This means your workers need enough energy to be working while you are unable to refill their stamina. It's also worth noting that Human workers have higher luck, and so they can get more resources from nodes. While goblins work the fastest, for things such as the new Epheria Sailboat.

Secondly, the workload of a node. Take for example, Bartali Farm. Anyone who is interest in making beer will most likely have this node.

This node has a workload of 200 and in the case of my currently selected worker, a total traveling distance of 505. The workload varies by usage of the node, on the entire server. Unpopular nodes tend to go down, while the popular ones are higher. 200 being the max.

Travel distance is the distance travelled to get to the node, and back to the lodging.

If we take both of the points above in to account, we can work out how many working hours a worker will have before needing a 'refuel'.

Now for the sake of example, I will be using Artisan workers' typical stats. Most new players wont have any yet, but with artisan being the end goal, you need to be planning ahead for what you need, and where.

Artisan Goblin Workers with 15 stamina, and a typical work speed of 140~150 will be able to complete any node in 2 work ticks. Each work tick is 10 minutes. You can find out how many ticks a job will take by taking the workload, and dividing it by your work speed. Then round it up. E.g. Workload of 200, and a goblin with 140 work speed. 200 / 140 = 1.4285..... Round up to 2, and your worker will take 2 ticks to complete the task. Then you can also see how much travel time that worker has by removing the work time.

When you take the amount of ticks needed to complete a task, you can see that having an artisan goblin with 150 work speed, is almost the same as an artisan human(max stamina 23), with 110 work speed. Both will take 2 ticks, but the goblin runs slightly faster to the node. However the human worker will have higher luck on resource returns, and can complete 8 more tasks before needing refueling. This means on any nearby node, a human worker will take about 25 minutes per task. You can get about 9.5 hours of active time before needing to refuel a human. As opposed to around 6 hours from a goblin. And it only takes ~2minutes more running to complete the task.

Lets take a 2nd example. The Ash timber node at Balenos Forest.

At the time of posting, this node had just under 150 work load. This means a fast goblin could complete it in 1 work tick. And it would also only have ~2.5 minutes of running time. That means a good goblin worker can complete it in just over 12 minutes.

That goblin worker will complete 15 tasks within 3.5 hours. More than twice as fast as a human worker with only 110 work speed. However you then have to manage that worker all throughout the day.

Over the course of 24 hours, if you sleep 8 hours, and have to consider work for 8 hours, while being able to check that worker once during work. You can get 45 tasks completed from refueling before you go to sleep, checking it in the morning, and checking it at work. Then you also have the remaining 8 hours where you can check it whenever you feel like it. That gives you another 30 work cycles. Over 24 hours in an ideal scenario that goblin can complete 75 cycles.

An artisan human will only need to be checked once at night, once before work, and once after. It can complete up to 23 cycles at a time, and would take approximately 9 hours to do so. So one can complete 60~65 cycles in a 24 hour period.

I realize I havent spoken much of Giant Workers. These are the guys that you might use for less popular nodes. My third node example, is also near Velia. All great nodes beginners can grab for a few CP.

This node has a much lower workload at this time. That means that any artisan worker could complete it in 1 tick. Giants will stop at around 90 work speed, some good ones getting 100. This means your average artisan giant can complete the node in 1 tick, and has 35 energy to use before running out. In the case of this node. If your giant has 90 work speed, and only spends 5 minutes per task running, you can complete 35 cycles in about 9 hours. And like a human, you only need to refill him 3 times a day.

What I am trying to illustrate by all this, is that there is no 'one-size-fits-all' for workers. You need to find the nodes you want, look at the stats on the node, and plan your workers accordingly. The best worker empire, is one that has been carefully planned according to the nodes used, and the intervals at which the player can check their workers.

I hope this has made the slightest bit of sense. I do tend to ramble when it comes to explanations. Leave any questions below.

Edit: TL;DR

Take into account how often you can check your workers, and how fast they complete the nodes, so that they can complete the most work cycles possible in a 24 hour period.