What do you turn extra citizens into?

[SpencerH]

Chickens. But only when the voodoo is workin!

[Jonny]

So far, bananas is leading the poll with almost half of the vote. Seems that not many care about the issue.

[asleepathewheel]

It's not that people don't care about the issue, but the specialists producing +1 in whatever is not much to get excited about. I think there maybe mods out there that change that, hopefully firaxis will add another level when the xp comes out that woudl make that level of micromanagement more attractive, I just don't feel compelled to check every city to squeeze out that extra 1 lightbulb or whatever, you know?

[Worthingtons]

people are just nuts about Bananas , thats all.

[Ethelred]

I try to have no specialists by balancing out the mines and irrigation.

However I have a found a real use for Scientists under special conditions. If you are in anarchy your Scientists STILL produce flasks. I have discovered new tech this way several times even while still in anarchy. In fact I now turn one pop into a scientist every time I go into anarchy.

[Provost Harrison]

Scientists for me!

[Jethro83]

I won't use scientists, as their 1 beaker of science output is very dismal. Once I reach the modern age, there's no need once computers is researched, as research labs and the SETI program seem to give your civ a huge science boost anyway.

Generally, I'll have enough entertainers to keep the city in 'We Love the King' mode indefinitely with the rest being tax collectors.

[Capt Dizle]

All of the extra citizens in my civilization are working on patch version 1.18..we are looking to close some loopholes and exploits that the player uses versus the AI...tentative readme:

*razing cities now transfers all unhappiness to conquerors HQ, this lasts for 40 turns
*leaders now can only be used to create armies
*optimized code to speed up turn times on huge maps for 16 civs for games started on Thursdays

[ZigZac]

I don't really worry about what to do with my extra citizens, but they usually end up turning into tax collectors.

[notyoueither]

Is it possible that the relatively small contributions of specialists reflects an overall desire by the designers for balance. You know, there should be no one single *killer* way to play. Instead, each aspect of the game adds to the sum of the whole. There are many factors contributing to the wealth of nations. Ditto research.

Along those lines, examine corruption. What does it do? It prevents a power from producing 100 Tanks per turn by ensuring that no one will ever have that many productive cities. In a word, balance.

1 gpt, or 1 bpt both limit the usefulness of specialists. You can still get a large bang for the specialist buck when you look across an entire empire, but specialists by themselves are not going to be a deciding factor in the game, unlike some of Civ3's predecessors.

Makes sense to me. Especially since hunting bananas is never an entirely profitable venture. They're tricky, those bananas. Many a tax collector has been lost in their pursuit.

Salve