How to use specialists wisely?

[Olavi]

The most problematic aspect of the game for me are specialist citizens. I can't really handle them. In many games, I end up playing without paying any attention to these special guys.

(This is because assigning specialists is annoying micro-management I truly hate, but since specialists are an essential part of the game, I should probably change my ways).

So would you please share your thoughts about specialists?

- At which time do you start using them?

- Do you ever cancel specialists back to normal field workers (if happiness/health limits go up and allow futher city growth, for example)?

- Do you plan your research and buildings so that they allow more specialists, or are specialists just a nice by-product?

- Do you mix different kind of specialists in one city?

- How important are they, really?

[fed1943]

Specialists are not a by-product; they must be planed in advance.

There are a few posts in a thread (or two) from Aeson, about

specialists. To read them is the best way, IMHO, to begin learn about.

Best regards,

[couerdelion]

I agree. Dealing with specialists is a very tedious micro-management issue. Only yesterday I tried to delay the building of the University of Sankore so that I could get myself a Prophet before my next GS. The city producing the Prophet was temporarily assigned 3 priests so that I could build my Shrine and even after I delayed Sankore, I was forced to run one turn in the Prophet city with 4 priests and starvation so that the Prophet would emerge first.

For the record, wonders give you GP points, in the turn that they are finished, and not starting from that time

The primary functions of specialists is to generate GPs so this is the bulk of the question you will want when assigning specialists is to decide what GP you want. A very common practice is to assign two early scientist specialists to get an Academy early in the game.

If you are acquiring early GPs in this way then you will want to reassign specialists back to more productive tasks after they have generated their GP. Perhaps an exception to this would be a GP farm where you are building up the capacity to assign lots of specialists to generate a stream of GPs.

Another exception to this would be a “specialist economy”. This would describe one in which specialists are routinely assigned to cities to drive development and not solely for their ability to generate GPs. Usually, this would be a tactic that you use along with the Pyramids which allows you to generate +3 beakers per specialists. In those situations, the specialist may actually be a better allocation of city workers than the tiles available to the city.

[Swiss Pauli]

I've found one of the best ways to get a good understanding of specialists is to play for a cultural win. It requires a lot of specialists to be assigned and quite a lot of planning as well (so as not to pollute GP pools too much).

[Olavi]

It seems that specialists are mainly used to gain Great People. Is that actually THE reason to assign specialists? If Great People didn't exist, would there be any reason to assign specialists before hitting the happiness and health barrier (or even then)?

(I must admit that I have some problems with Great People, too. I do get them every now and then, but it's far from being systematic and rational strategy gaming. It's no wonder that I struggle bad whenever I try Monarch level, let alone difficulty levels above that.)

[Thedrin]

It seems that specialists are mainly used to gain Great People.

Not for me.

I always try to have at least one city generating large amounts of excess food. This city will be set to run as many specialist of one type. The specialists will play an important part in how I play.

Scientists if I don't think I'll make enough beakers through other channels or want a very fast research rate.
Artists if I'm going for a cultural victory (in which case the specialist city will be one of the three legendary culture cities).
Merchants if I think I'll be able to research fast enough but want to cover excess maintenance and army costs - if I plan on heavy warmongering.
If I'm really lucky I'll be able to run a large quantity of priest specialists which I would choose over merchants any day of the week.

The great people generated are a bonus on top of that already provided by the specialists. Great scientists and merchants get settled in the Oxford and Wall St. cities (Oxford is usually the same city and Wall St. is in the same city since the food bonuses allow for even more specialists).
Artists are used as culture bombs, predominantly in the same city since it won't have the hammer production of the other two (added bonus of freeing limited culture buildings for the other two cities).
Great Prophets may be settled in the same city if I've built Angkor Wat in which case this city may well build the Ironworks as well. If I don't get Angkor Wat I'll consider putting them in the Wall St. (probably a different city).

In each of the above cases the specialist city is already a considerably powerful generator of an important resource without the generation of great people. The addition of the great people makes for some of the most powerful cities I have yet built.

[Dominae]

Generally, working tiles is more productive than using specialists only for their output. There are stages in the game when this is not true, basically before your Cottages have matured (once improved Watermills and Windmills arrive on the scene, specialists are obsolete in this regard). It also depends to some extent on your available land: Mines and Farms beat specialists, but specialists beat coastal tiles.

What specialists are good for is: specializing (omg!), and generating Great People. The former is what Thedrin is talking about in the previous post.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Dominae
It also depends to some extent on your available land: Mines and Farms beat specialists, but specialists beat coastal tiles.

This surprises me a little. This would mean that 2f+2c<3b+3GPP (using a scientist) and often the food would be enough to sway the balance in favour of the coastal tile for me.

Of course it’s all a question of how you value the individual items and early game GPP are very useful. But not enough for me to do more than use one city or two cities to get a stream of GPs - as opposed to the systematic use of specialists slot being superior to working the tile.

As is always the case with this game, exceptions abound but on a pure formulaic approach, I would find it hard to argue against working the tile in this case.

[Diadem]

Specialists can be extremely useful and powerful if used well. I use specialist-heavy strategies in almost all my games, and it always works wonders for me. No matter what my goal is - spaceship, cultural or military dominance or whatever.

Let's look at how specialists compare to working tiles.

First of all: If you use a lot of specialists you will usually be running representation. Those three beakers per specialist can really give a huge bonus.

Now, imagine you have a city in the middle of a field of grass, without any special resources or anything (a pretty bad city, obviously, but nevermind that). It's city tile will give 2 food, 1 hammer and 2 commerce. Working an unimproved grassland gives you 2 food, giving you 2 food surplus, meaning your city will grow.

Once it grows, the citizens will eat 2 more food, but of course you get an additional tile to work. You can keep working grassland tiles until you reach size 20 (or your happiness / health runs out). None of them will be useful however. The two food each uses will be eaten by the extra population it generates. In this case, you're better off with a specialist, even at size 1.

Of course this is an unnatural example. But the point is important. Growing a city is only useful if you can actually do something with this growth. Consider a city where you're already working all useful land tiles, and you have 1 'worker' left, while breaking even with food. You can now choose to work on a coast tile, or run a specialist. The coast tile gives 2 food and 2 commerce. The food will grow your city, allowing you to work more more coast tiles, or run a specialist, for example a scientist. The scientist gives 6 science and 3 GPP. That definitely beats 2 commerce. You would have to grow your city by 3 before your coast tiles catch up to your scientist, commerce wise. That'll take a long time.

Of course you can select a specialist once your city grows from working your coast tile. Now you're making 2 more commerce than you would have made had you used a specialist straight away. But you also lost time, because it'll take a while for your city to grow.

So in this case the choice comes down to: A good income now, or a low income now and a better income later. It's not always clear what choice is best. If your city grows at a reasonable speed and those GPPs don't matter much for getting a GP then letting it grow is probably the best choice, in the above scenario.

However, in real games each additional population usually actually costs 3 food, since you need 1 additional food to compensate for your health deficit. In this case growing your cities by working a coast tile is a bad idea. Working a farmed grassland near a river still grows your city, but the 1 commerce is simply not worth the time you spend waiting for your city to grow. City growth suddenly becomes a lot less attractive.

So specialists win out over coast tiles or farms in most scenarios. Farms on floodplains and resources are an exception, they yield more food then they 'cost', and are therefore always worth it.

What about cottages? Well first of all, cottages take a looong time to mature, while specialists pay off immidiately. Furthermore even a town gives only 4 commerce, while a scientists already gives 6. Of course the tile you built your cottage on usually gives some food or hammers as well. Still, the long wait for your cottage to mature is usually not worth it. Perhaps if you run free speech and universal suffrage. But who runs those anyway?

What about mines? Well that's harder to answer. It depends on what you need. If you need a lot of production quick, then mines are obviously better. If you have enough production for the time being, use a specialist (and put him back on the mine if you need production again).


All in all, in bigger cities specialists are almost always a good choice. In small cities, where your specialist's GPP do not matter, you have some resources to work and you aren't even near your health limit, specialists are usually not worth it.

[padillah]

In short, specialists are what you do to make your city stop growing. One of the lesssons I need to learn is not everything is a good idea. It's better to stop a size 4 city from becomming a size 6 city if it's gonna blow the happy/healthy cap and cost me food and production anyway.

I suffer very much from the "Too much of a good thing" syndrome.

Tom P.

[rah]

even at the cap sometimes when I have extra (extra) food squares i'll let it grow knowing I'm about ready to get a health building or resource and want to take advantage of having the extra specialist it will let me support right away.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by couerdelion
This surprises me a little. This would mean that 2f+2c<3b+3GPP (using a scientist) and often the food would be enough to sway the balance in favour of the coastal tile for me.

Given enough Food (which I was assuming), specialists are better than coastal tiles. This is actually quite relevant in those coastal cities that access two or more seafood resources.

Note that I never mentioned GPPs since the discussion was about the non-GPP output of specialists versus working the land.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Dominae


Given enough Food (which I was assuming), specialists are better than coastal tiles. This is actually quite relevant in those coastal cities that access two or more seafood resources.

Note that I never mentioned GPPs since the discussion was about the non-GPP output of specialists versus working the land.

Well excluding the GPP, which is reasonable if you are appointing lots of specialists across your civilisation, the comparison then becomes 2f+2c < 3b. Since we can equate a broad equivalence between commerce (c) and beakers (b), this would imply c > 2f

Ignoring the effects of happiness/health limits and excluding any bonuses from Representation, there is hardly any comparison between the two. Coastal tiles win hands down for me.

[Diadem]

Yes but that is just flawed mathematics

You can ignore happiness and health limits if you want, but they will not ignore you. You have to take them into account.

Furthermore if you are using a lot of specialists, then you are running representation. It's the best civic hands down if you are using many specialists. If, on the other hand, you are not using many specialists, then the GPP of the few specialists you do have should definitely not be ignored.

You can't just ignore all the positive sides of specialists and all the negative sides of coast tiles and then conclude that coast tiles are better than specialists.

[Bobby Chicken]

You really ought to work the land. A town is 3 food/ hammers and eight commerce (assuming you are playing financial which you should always do). By the way, that grassland city, cottage it 90%, the rest farm and by the end of the game you will be generating an incredible ammount of commerce. When I choose a city site, nothing looks so good as solid grassland with one little piggy. Costal cities are the exception to the "go, towns, go" policy for the simple reason that it's relatively difficult to build towns in the ocean. Play a game on archepelagio tiny islands and you will see how important specialists are in costal cities. By choosing the tiny islands, you can take out three obectives at once: learning how to manage specialists, learning how to manage costal towns, and winning the game on deity.

But unless it's inherrently obvious that working tiles puts you at a disadvantage, then don't worry about specialts, just remember the three holy letters G,N, and P. If my GNP is number 1, I'm gonna win. I'm going to brainwash you now:

GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP ,GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP
GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP ,GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP
GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP ,GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP
GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP ,GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP
GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP ,GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP
GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP ,GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP
GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP ,GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP
GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP ,GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP
GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP ,GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP, GNP

If you can't build a cottage or it's 2000 AD, go ahead and assign a specialist. But not using them is perfectly acceptable. I'm pretty sure you can win on deity without assigning a single one. Are we agreed?