Free Specialists or Weird Specialists

[gmsh1964]

Below the + and - Specialists on the City Screen are some Specialists with stars next to them. I thought I knew what they were - they were FREE or something like that.

But here is my real question. Some of the regular specialists up top (the ones with the + and -), some of them act weird in some of my cities. Sometimes you can add one and it has no impact on Bread or Hammers, sometimes I can click off a few scientists, but there picture stays there, but it is not highlighted.., like they are FREE but they are not at the bottom FREE with a star on them. Sometimes if I remove all scientists, the + sign disappears and I have to add other specialists to make the + sign reappear for the scientists.., weird stuff like that.

Is my game a little buggy, or am I missing something here? ARE FREE SPECIALIST ONLY THE ONES AT THE BOTTOM WITH A STAR?

Thanks

[Volstag]

Off the top of my head:

The specialists with the stars next to them are Great People that have been added to the general population as a "super specialist" (I believe that's the term).

You're not able to add or subtract specialists when the "manage specialists" option is enabled in the city screen. It appears that this is automatically turned on for some reason... but it can be disabled quite easily.

"Free specialists", the ones granted by various buildings, wonders, etc, will appear on the bottom like super specialists, but they won't have a star next to them (IIRC).

[Firecrak]

As far as I could tell, 1 Free specialist per city (Sistine?) means you can add 1 specialist without affecting population currently working the land, tho I may be wrong. It just seems that way at least in my games. The ones down the bottom with stars are Great People.

[khumak]

Re: Free Specialists or Weird Specialists

Originally posted by gmsh1964
Below the + and - Specialists on the City Screen are some Specialists with stars next to them. I thought I knew what they were - they were FREE or something like that.

But here is my real question. Some of the regular specialists up top (the ones with the + and -), some of them act weird in some of my cities.

Keep in mind that if you have the auto city management thing turned on where the AI decides which tiles to work, the AI will also decide when to use specialists instead of working tiles. You can force certain specialists to be used but even if you scale that back the AI might agree with you and just keep them there. In that case you can either manage your city manually or tell it to focus on growth or something.

If the specialist has a yellow box around it that means you are forcing him. If not then the AI decided to put him there. There are also some wonders and 1 civic that gives free specialists. The ones with the stars are the great specialists and you can't reassign those. They rock anyway so you wouldn't want to.

[gmsh1964]

Thanks for the Great People (star) answer. That helps a lot. I forgot I made some of those.

Fircrak, I think you are onto something. If you make the Sistine Chapel, or whatever, and you get a free specialist, the game lets you remove it without alerting you with a message like "do not do this, this is a Free Specialist" you know what I mean? No reason to make us memorize every single building/wonder we have.

I am not sure, but something is wrong there. I think, something is wrong. I really do not know.

Thanks, Glenn

[xalien]

The free specialist is given by the Statue of Liberty and you can't remove it. By default it's an engineer and if you click the "-" button it'll become a Citizen specialist, you can't convert a freebie specialist into a tile worker.

[gmsh1964]

Mercantilism give you a free specialist too..,its just weird. I am not explaining everything well. But you have to goof around with them sometimes.., I do not know.

Thanks for the info.

[Firecrak]

I noticed something funny last night. While using Mercantilism, I couldn't actually recieve any free specialists, even though I had every tile worked and extra population, the AI just wouldn't let me pick specific specialists, I believe it is because I didn't have any wonders in that city that allowed me a (+1 X, where X is equal to Artists, Merchant, Scientist).