Confusion about People Management

[Huck the Dog]

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I need to micromanage my specialists to succeed at this game at higher levels, but there are still some basic things I am confused about.

1. What does it mean when it says a specialist is "forced?"

2. Is a "free" specialist benefit one that actually gives me a specialist to assign, or just a free slot for me to allocate a person to if I want to take him off a working tile? If the former, then how do I tell which ones are free so I don't try to put them out into the fields. (I thought this was what forced meant, but I was getting people described as "forced" long before I had any free specialists).

3. If I turn off the people manager in my city, the game still has to make a choice about where to put new people until I go to that city and micromanage them. Will it just choose the most productive tile without regard to what the city is doing? Will it ever create specialists with new people if I have the people manager off?

I know I'm just missing something, but it does not seem well documented to me.

[Diadem]

Well, a city can have as many people doing something as it has population. Those people can all work in the field, or some of them can be specialists.

At most 20 can work on the field. So a city with > 20 will always have some specialists.

If those free specialists are of a specific kind (for example the two free scientists the Great Library gives) they'll be shown at the very bottom of the specialists screen, next to any GPs you might have as superspecialists.

If they are of a general kind, they will appear among the normal specialists you have, and you can just select which ones you want, just like you can with normal specialists. Depending on the buildings you have there are limits on how many of each type you can have. Just try a configuration out to see if it's allowed.

[Huck the Dog]

Thanks. That sort of answers part of #2. But I thought the free specialists (whether a general kind or a specific kind like from the GL) and any superspecialists you had did NOT eat food and were NOT reflected in the city population total.

And I still don't know what "forced" refers to.

[Arrian]

I think "forced" would be the one you get from Mercantalism or the Statue of Liberty... and they should not eat any food...

-Arrian

[Son of David]

As for number 3), yes - I always have the city managers off but they still sometimes generate specialists.

The only solution I've seen is to closely monitor all of one's most valuable cities to make sure that workers are being assigned where I want them to be ....

[SonofDogbreath]

I won on prince via cultural a few nights ago playing Arabs. (Phil trait) I had about 12 cities of varying size and got parthanon and Staute of Liberty. I used Merc and set up as many artists as possible, even in my smallest cities. I specialized as many as I could while keeping the city growing about every 12-18 turns. The effect was incredible. I think I got 19 great people and 17 were artists. I do not think they eat food and I'm not sure what forced means, but it didn't matter.

Bottom line, if you use mercantilism of SoL, make sure to go to every city and set the specialists to what you want. Focus on food and pump up the money spend on culture. I had mine at 50% for a long time. My computer defaulted to engineer most of the time.

Also, remember the winning condition: Only the three high cultual cities matter. After my first city went Legendary, people got ticked at me and started cutting treaties and attacking from a pleased status. I gave up a city to get a peace treaty and won by culture 3 rounds later. Interestingly, the score was only so-so (12k or so).

[Fosse]

Originally posted by Arrian
I think "forced" would be the one you get from Mercantalism or the Statue of Liberty... and they should not eat any food...

-Arrian

I understand that this is incorrect.

A "Forced" specialist is simply a specialist that the player assigns. It means that even if the AI is managing production for the city it will never remove that specialist. You -- not the AI, a civic, or a wonder -- are the one doing the "forcing."

You can see this if you dig through your cities until you find one where the AI has assigned a specialist. It won't have a yellow box around it. Now, click the plus sign, and instead of getting another specialist you'll see the yellow box appear around the one you already had. Now it's forced.. Click again to add another forced specialist.

The free, nonspecific specialists of Mercantilism and Statue of Liberty will mean, effectivly, that all of your cities get +1 population, 1 pop point can only be a specialist, even if it's only a Citizen specialist. When you switch to Merc or build the SoL, the AI will add one worker to the tiles being worked by every city with specialists up and running (while leaving the number of specialists the same), or add whichever specialist it thinks is best to every city that does not have one without removing a worker from the tiles.