Assigning Specialists

[Yxklyx]

Is there an easier way to assign Specialists other than clicking on each worker? I'm in a game where my bases are switching back and forth between building and using Thinkers. I don't have Hab Domes so food is worthless at the moment and I want to maximise Labs (playing Miriam) when I'm not building anything.

[Darius]

You can click on a square on the map in the base control screen. If there is no worker there, the program will turn a specialist into a worker and put it there. (If there are no specialists, it will move another worker to that square.) If there is a worker there, the program will turn that worker into a specialist (the type it thinks is "best").

[Yxklyx]

Well yes, but that means I have to click on 50 or so workers every few turns. Also, the AI always chooses Empath but I want Thinker. Is there a keyboard shortcut - I seem to recall Civ 2 having one?

[Darius]

Not that I know of.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

You can change worker/specialsit allocations at the F4 screen but IIRC the methodolgy is somewhat suspect.

me I go by the tried and true method of scrolling through base by base and setting populations as I see fit. I'm somewhat confused tho as to why the need to do this every turn. Unless you are gaining population points (i.e. pop booming at the time) the allocation remains the same. Anytime the base gains or loses a pop point the AI sets its population allocation. (I don't quite understand the rationale for how the AI establishes which squares are worked first other than it seems to weight nutrients heavily i.e. if I have surplus 4 + nutrients available and an available borehole and condensor farm square to work the AI normally assigns my next worker to work the condensor/farm preferrentially over the borehole. What a PIA. I want the borehole worked allowing +2 nutrient surplus and the next worker will go towards the condensor farm.)

Unfortunately population management is a form of micromanagement that doesn't appear to have an easy fix/short cut.

[Yxklyx]

Not every turn but every few turns. I'd like to switch between maximum energy or labs and maximum mineral production. I'll try out all the keys one by one - maybe there's a hidden shortcut...

[vitamin j]

Let us know if you find anything. It does get to be a pain when you have a lot of bases. One idea I just thought of (probably not a good one ) would be to see what effect using the governor with the various priorities (build, discover, etc.) has. I think there's an option that lets the governor assign specialists. It might give you a little head start, anyway. I'll look into this myself, as in the SP game I'm running right now I'm using the same specialist/minerals switch you described.

And by the way, lose the thinkers - use engineers instead! :P

[Yxklyx]

Are Specialists effected by facilities like Energy Bank, etc...?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Icks Clicks,

Absotively,

This is the main reason why they are so extremely powereful in mid to late game.

Specialist in general offer the following benefits.

1) Higher equivalent energy return per square verses working it. Consider the grand Daddy of all workable squares the borehole.
total of 12 FOP. Consider a trawlered kelp farm in SMAX this can yield 4 nuts supporting 2 specialists (without considering sky farms). Transcendi yield equivalent energy of 6/transcendi (4 labs/2 econ), Engineers yield 5 (3 econ/2 labs), all others yield either 3 or 2/specialist neglecting psych contributions( Which unless you are attempting to achieve a golden age for purposes of +2 econ or +6 growth pop booming generally is wasted.)

Note: With sky farms the effect becomes much more pronouned as a kelp farm with enuff sky farms then yields 4 specialists meaning Engineers = 20 equivalent energy and Transcendi = 24 equivalent energy.

2) Specialists Do have their lab, econ and psych contributions multiplied by facilities and SP's.

3) Specialist contributions are unnaffected by efficiency losses. Therefore use of otherwise poor SE choices such as Police/Planned with -4 efficiency is a non issue for the specialist contributions. You'll lose all energy from worked, crawlered squares in the above case but none fromteh specialists.

4) The game calculates drones from workers used. So if you have facilities, police, SP's that keep your base riot free say at size 7 and you have growth (read surplus nuts) to size 11. Specializing 4 pop points as Engineers allows the base to be riot free. To the extreme if you specialize the entire base as engineers (i.e. crawler in all nuts required) the base can never riot. Similarly if you can specialize so that you have but a handful of worker say 3ish and hologram(or VW and Net node) and rec commons your pretty much guaranteed no drone issues. Whats more if you make those 3ish workers on boreholes or similarly high FOP squares you have a very nice productive trouble free base.
And more often than not can afford a zero global allocation to psych the entire game if you are on top of the base by base allocation of specialists.

Og

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I felt it important to at least give the flip side to specialists as well.


Cons:

1) Specialists need lots of food. So... Generally this means high degrees of tralwer/crawlers to support burgeoning populations. You then have a degree of risk as air raids from noodles and choppers can take out you food collecting trawler/crawlers.

note: this is not the end of the world. Temporary interruptions to food supply may mean you simply are living off the fat in your food tanks until food production can resume. Even if starvation ensues you lose a pop point (specialist per turn) and whats more the specialists still contribute even under starvation conditions which is why they come in so handy to quell far off captured bases.

2) It takes time to implement via crawler/trawler builds and normaly high t-forming activity. Kelp farms are easiest in terms of t-forming but don't yield as much food as condensor/farm/soil enrichers.

3) Energy from trade is based upon energy harvested by workers only. No specialist contribution or trawler/crawler contributions are consdiered. What this means is if the your faction has a number of submissives and/or relies heavily on trade income (read Morgan) then you'll forfeit some trade income in favor of specialist income.

Og

[Sikander]

One reason I've gone over to a completely land based production rather than using trawlers (a trawler is a crawler on a sea-going chassis) is that the land eventually produces more nuts (farm / condensor / soil enricher = 6 vs kelp and kelp farm = 4).

I have also limited my production to squares within my base radius for crawlers by the mid game. This means that even if I lose a crawler, I can just place a worker from the affected base on the square if I wish. Some may wonder what use there is in using a crawler in the base radius, where you could easily use a worker. The benefit is that by building a crawler I can capture a majority of the output of the square and I can free the worker to become a productive specialist. Building crawlers is like pop-booming with your mins instead of your nuts.

[vitamin j]

I'd just add that I give highest base location and terraforming priority to nut specials. Very early game they get forest. But asap I'll put a farm and consdensor on, which will usually give 7 nuts. This will become 10 (!) when you add a soil enricher, but I've had great results with this even pre-fusion, using technicians and librarians.

Like Sikander said, keep it in a base radius so even if the crawler is taken out you can work it - it's still a good deal. It's usually not until mid-game for me that I begin crawling many squares outside a base radius.

One thing that Ogie implied but didn't mention is that you really have to remember to spend some former time on mins, either crawled mines or boreholes. I'll leave it to someone else to say which is better... Specialist bases can be pretty weak mineral-wise if you're really keeping up with nutrient forming.

And I'd also echo the commerce point Ogie mentioned. If you have several treaties and/or pacts, you'll often be better off working your high-energy squares, with just a few specialists to round things out.

[Lucy In The Sky]

"Some may wonder what use there is in using a crawler in the base radius, where you could easily use a worker. The benefit is that by building a crawler I can capture a majority of the output of the square and I can free the worker to become a productive specialist. Building crawlers is like pop-booming with your mins instead of your nuts."

Tracking parallel.