Villager Professions Tab

[Dunford13]

The villager professions tab seems to have limited use. So I thought others might have a better understanding.

The tab has different features depending on if the autofill box is checked.

With the autofill box checked (default):

Functionally, the only actions are adding/removing builders and using the magnifying glass to locate workers.
Speaking of the magnifying glass, it moves you to the selected villager type and allows cycling through the villagers in that profession by clicking the magnifying glass repeatedly. How do players use this feature? It seems especially useless when cycling through 200 laborers…

With the autofill box unchecked:

Here things get interesting.
After playing around with this I discovered that apparently the maximum number of workers has to be set at the individual work building/location. Each value on the Villager Professions Tab shows the total number of workers assigned to specific building types, depending on how many workers you have assigned at each building.
Example, if you have two sawmills, each with six workers assigned, the value shown would be twelve. If you have two sawmills, each with four workers assigned and with two worker slots open, the value shown would be eight.

The + / - buttons will then allow you to change the number of workers for the desired building type. If you have previously reduced the number of workers using the ‘-’ button, the ‘+’ button will allow you to restore them.
Note that workers removed using the ‘-’ button are sequential and appear to remove workers from one building at a time instead of across multiple buildings.
Using the same example, using the ‘-’ button to remove two workers would remove both workers from the same building instead of one from each.
The only values I find for this feature is reducing seasonal workers such as farmers, and reducing workers for a specific profession that may be overproducing or short of raw materials.
The same function for the magnifying glass are available.

Is this analysis correct? What am I missing that will make the Villager Professions Tab more valuable?

[kendy4thestate]

I would like the +/- to work like last on, first off, and at the last of the multiple buildings in use. Sometimes in just using the panel workers in one foundry producing iron are removed whilst the one producing gold don’t, even when there is no gold available. Same for work camps, the tree cutters are removed but the stone cutters aren’t.

[Kholdy]

Magnifying glass I have used sometimes to find a specific builder. If you’re having issues with buildings being condemned, it can be useful to see why it’s taking so long to get the repair materials. Which is almost always centralised storage far away.

Other than that I use the tab to keep a track of labourer count so I have an idea of how many professions slots I can add. More of an early game thing; once population grows you just always have more than enough labourers if you’re not overproducing.

I always keep auto refill on. I manage buildings either on their indvidual pages or by having them auto turn off with resource limits. Profession tab doesn’t have the granular control I want, so it’s not something I really open that much.

[Dunford13]

Kendy4thestate:
I agree. The way the +/- buttons work now does not work well, especially for things like miners where there are different types of mines, crop fields, or buildings that have multiple production chain outputs.

Kholdy:
You are right, there is not enough granularity.
I too use the autofill setting almost exclusively.
The only time manual fill seems to be of help is in the early game when you don’t have as many villagers. Once a crop field or two is built, it helps to get additional wood and stone gatherers in winter by using the ‘-’ button to remove the idle workers from the fields and put them to work gathering materials. Once winter is over, just clicking the autofill button back on restores the farmers.