Specialists

[AzNtoccata]

can you control what GP you get by switching all your specialists to desired types (scientists for Great Scientist for exp) when your city is near its GP? After the GP spawns, just switch back to your normal desired allocation.

[alva]

If you only use one set of specialists you will get your desired GP.

Unless you have a wonder producing a GP of an other kind, once it's mixed it's a percentage game, so you can still increase the odds of getting the one you desire.
After the GP spawns, all percentager are reset.

[AzNtoccata]

What do u mean by "all percentager are reset."? do u mean i can reallocate the specialists to my desired one after the GP spawns?

[alva]

Once a GP has been born, all numbers are reset, no percentages towards any of them.

You can reallocate them whenever you want.

[AzNtoccata]

oh i think there is some bad wording on my part.

WHat i mean is, say I have 1 scientist, 1 artist in for the whole period of producing the GP. So 50% of Great Scientist, 50% Great Artist. But say i switch that artist to a scientist right before the GP is produced, will it be 100% Great Scientist?

I guess i'm asking do artists specifically produce "Great Artist points"

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Galumphus
So here's a followup: where's the sweet spot, where you have just enough specialists to get the good stuff, but enough regular citizens to keep growin' smoothly? Or, since the sweet spot is likely to vary dramatically in games, what's the best way to find it?

In my style of play, the sweetspot is not somewhere in between. It's on one of the extremities. Tkae a look at the below screenshot.

This is from my current game (I just bought the retail version). Monarch, large map, and I'm not doing very well. My capital has been set aside a long time ago for GP duty.

I'm not doing well as a whole (never ending war where I can't strike decisevily, and no chance for peace. At least I slowly take cities instead of losing them). I'm also not doing very well on GPs: Madrid lost out on the Parthenon by 2 turns, and lost out on the great lib by 6 turns. I am running representation (+3bpt per specialist), and have the national epic built (+100% GPppt).

You can see that I put all emphasis on food and specialists, except for one tile: I'm using a hill plain for 4 hpt which could have given me another specialist. I do not need to build stuff too, though . If I can grow in the city because of the health/happy situation, I will transform all specalists so I will grow asap. I I can't grow, everything goes to food. Before the national epic, I did run 1 specialist in here simply because there are not enough good tiles available outside the floodplains and because I needed the shrine (need a prophet for that), but the focus was on growing and getting infrastructure up.

Also, Madrid served as a settler pump in between wonder builds, which did not let me run into health/happy limits. I did not use specialists to 'eat up the extra food' as would have been the civ3 style. None of my other cities ever ran a specialist (but note that on certain maps you do need them for maximum efficiency, and they also can be the most productive thing if they transform e.g. a desert to a priest.). I do not have the cities to have another GP pump, so I focus all wonders and specialists into one city.

For the past few hundred years, Madrid has been spawning GPs every 10-15 turns. That's the kind of efficiency I'm looking for. Early on, I have the patience to wait for 30 turns between GPs, but not for long. For me, that's kind of a rule of thumb: every city that can't reach a GP every 30 turns is not worthy of being a GP pump.

Also, in the screenshot, see how I try to maximise profits from those specialists: for the moment I'm running as many merchants as I can, and I have the market built. Also, anything that will increase the research modifiers on all those beakers specialists bring in is a good thing. An academy is a must.

In combination with wonders present, you can't fully decide which GP you want to generate. For the moment I'm still running merchants as I need money for upgrades. After I get a great merchant (hopefully the next one, last one was an engineer), I will switch to artists. I conquered a spearpoint city from the greens a while back, and I need a GW there to add with defense.

DeepO

[alva]

But say i switch that artist to a scientist right before the GP is produced, will it be 100% Great Scientist?

No, the chances will probably be in the area of:
Artist : 48%
Scientist: 52%

I guess i'm asking do artists specifically produce "Great Artist points"

Yes

If you have any further questions on this (or anything else) I suggest you create a thread for it in the general forum. We're somewhat cluttering and threadjacking this one.

Sorry for that btw guys.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by alva
If you have any further questions on this (or anything else) I suggest you create a thread for it in the general forum. We're somewhat cluttering and threadjacking this one.

This is at least somewhat related to the OP, I prefer it that all things regarding e.g. specialists end up in one thread. Too many questions are already asked a couple of times in a row simply because people are overwhelmed by the number of threads, don't look, but simply post. It can't be avoided at launch time, but it also spreads out the answers a bit thinner.

DeepO

[AzNtoccata]

If I can grow in the city because of the health/happy situation, I will transform all specalists so I will grow asap. I I can't grow, everything goes to food. Before the national epic, I did run 1 specialist in here simply because there are not enough good tiles available outside the floodplains and because I needed the shrine (need a prophet for that), but the focus was on growing and getting infrastructure up.

can you explain this a bit? If you transform all your guys into specialists, then you can't grow?

Are you saying that if health/happiness permits then you will have no specialists and try to max food surplus, but if it doesn't permit then you will only have specialists and no surplus?

[DeepO]

BTW, something that is not so apparant at first: there is one key resource to fast GPP production from specialists: marble. GLib, Nat Epic, Parthenon... they all require it. In my game, I only had stone, which lead to the early Pyramids.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by AzNtoccata
Are you saying that if health/happiness permits then you will have no specialists and try to max food surplus, but if it doesn't permit then you will only have specialists and no surplus?

That would be a lit oversimplified, but it's the general idea, yes. If I build something, or get another resource, and I can enlarge my city I will micromanage to grow fast. After that, I'll go back to full-out GP production.

Of course, if you hook up one more resource, maybe you don't need to put everything to food to get there in 1 or 2 turns. And if you're building wonders you might want to change everything to hammers instead of food or specialists too.

DeepO

[AzNtoccata]

oh yeah a side note, do free specialists require food?

[alva]

No