If there are no buildings to be built, then there is no reason for Builders, and they (the ones you allocate) return to the Laborer workforce.
Once you start placing buildings, then the minimum number of Builders required to complete the construction in a timely manner will drop any Laborer tasks they were performing and begin building the structure.
If you place more buildings that your allocated number of Builders can construct in a year, then the AI will pull a couple of Laborers assign them to those building tasks.
This is usually limited to just a few more than you’ve allocated, but you can manipulate (raise) that number to see if even more are needed when you have the Laborers to spare.
But only if you overextend your allocated workforce.
Lowering the rightmost number allows you to throttle back the number of Builders at any given time, if you need wood or stone for example.
Raising it allows you to prepare/configure your workforce for what you have planned in construction and terraforming.
Thanks for confirming my recent discovery of how important the Professions Table is. I’m really enjoying this game and gradually becoming aware of how things work. It is only in the last 2 days that I discovered just how important it is to use this Table to have more control of events. I also find this Forum of considerable help so thanks to all contributing.
I should note here that when you manually lower the allocated number of Builders, below the number currently working, the working Builders may finish their present construction or terraforming tasks before transferring back to the Laborer pool.
Be careful though because it is buggy. I always have 200+ free workers (need about 90 to keep the text in white) I have builders set to 100. I still get buildings going abandoned due to lack of repair as well as getting the message “the builders are falling behind”
I will look at the worker pool and see 217 workers and 4 builders (set to 100 max) when I get the message they are falling behind lol the AI never moves workers over to help out. So I am forced to micro manage and set all the buildings to priority repair manually. It is the only way I can get workers to jump over to builders.
and before anyone asks if I have the materials the answer is I’m drowning in materials.
I always have 5K planks or more etc… for all the stuff needed. lol
I think everything presented in this discussion is very helpful as a workaround. It leaves me with one HUGE question.
A window appears whenever we click on a building that has a button the left that is labelled, “Mark building for immediate repairs.” My question is: What is that button for? I’ve tried to use it many times, but nothing ever happens because it doesn’t seem to ever work.