OK, I have been playing for a while but have not been taking full advantage of all the games features. two of the main ones I never use are the specialists and changing city tiles. the only thing I do know is that they are somehow related.

First, the specialists: How many of you use specialists? are they pretty important? Am I missing out on something not using them at the warlord level of play? How do I use them?

Next, the city tiles in the city planning screen: how do I use them? All I see area bunch of circles with hammers and money and food. is the actual number of each item in those circles representative of that tiles actual contribution the overall city supply? Are there a certain number of citizens working each tiles or is each tile a citizen?

any help would be greatly appreciated!:crazyeye:

Specialists are not generally a good idea. Paying two food to get $3-$4 is weak tea. Instead, you should use all possible pop working the city's tiles, generally much more profitably. Even in Representation with its bonus science for specialists, they still produce just $6, which does not pay for the food they eat.

What they are useful for, is getting Great People. Generally you'll want to have one city which you optimize for specialists, to crank out Great Scientists and some Great Engineers. This city will want a forge and library for their ability to allow specialists, lots of irrigation for food, and not that much else.

As for hand-controlling pop, yes you need to learn to do that, for the higher levels of play.

Specialists are not generally a good idea. Paying two food to get $3-$4 is weak tea. Instead, you should use all possible pop working the city's tiles, generally much more profitably. Even in Representation with its bonus science for specialists, they still produce just $6, which does not pay for the food they eat.
Assuming the only reason to have a specialist is to get $, then sure I'll buy that. ;)

However, there are many other reasons. If the city is low on hammers, then an Engineer specialist is well worth it. Another way to look at it is that you are in fact paying for the Engineer to be working (not the other way around).

Anyway, the point is a good one... it's usually better for citizens to be working tiles than to be specialists.

Wodan

In your GP city/cities you want lots of specialists, perhaps as many as possible. I'll avoid the debate over whether its better to have 1 or several. In other cities you will probably get more total production(therefore more overall benefit) from working your squares(tundra & ice excluded) than from specialists. That said, if your city is all grassland, build a forge and set that engineer to work. The most powerful resource in Civ is food, forget this not.

Assuming the only reason to have a specialist is to get $, then sure I'll buy that.
I won't. :)


Suppose you have two cities. One has a grocer/market/bank, and the other has a library/observatory/academy. Your tax rate is 50%.

In this case, the "real effect" of each specialist is $4, not $3. E.G. suppose you had the option of giving up 4 commerce in each city for one of the appropriate specialist.

If you pick the specialists, the merchant nets 6 gold, and the scientist nets 6 beakers.

If you pick the commerce, one city gives 4 gold/2 beakers, and the other gives 2 beakers/4 gold.


The raw "power" is not sufficient for comparing commerce vs specialists used intelligently.


Things become more dramatic when your tax rate is lopsided. E.G. if you're running a 90% science rate, then merchants are quite likely to be useful in cities with high gold multipliers and low beaker multipliers, even if you are giving up a bunch of commerce to get them.

On one of the forums there is a 'tactic' to get an early boost of science by creating a library in your Capital as soon as it comes available. When the library is built, you should put two scientists in it to generate a GPP (it will normally be a Great Scientist) and build the academy. Then you may switch off the scientists and let the city grow again. This 'tactic' works pretty well for me.

In general, I tend to use specialists in the early game to avoid cities becoming too big. If the population is unhappy, they won't work an additional tile anyway so I might just as well temporarily limit the growth by using specialists. (it requires quite an amount of micromanagement, though)

On one of the forums there is a 'tactic' to get an early boost of science by creating a library in your Capital as soon as it comes available. When the library is built, you should put two scientists in it to generate a GPP (it will normally be a Great Scientist) and build the academy. Then you may switch off the scientists and let the city grow again. This 'tactic' works pretty well for me.

Can this work to produce more Great Merchants as well?

In general, I tend to use specialists in the early game to avoid cities becoming too big. If the population is unhappy, they won't work an additional tile anyway so I might just as well temporarily limit the growth by using specialists. (it requires quite an amount of micromanagement, though)


I agree, using specialists to control city pops can be very useful in the mid/late parts of games.

Suppose you have two cities. One has a grocer/market/bank, and the other has a library/observatory/academy. Your tax rate is 50%.

In this case, the "real effect" of each specialist is $4, not $3.


An interesting example. Of course, getting $4 isn't competitive with tile-use, either. Remember that each specialist eats $8 in food; you could support, for example, two plains with cottages-->towns for one specialist. These would net 2 or 3P,2-8C+, worth at least $6, and up to, well, a lot.



Things become more dramatic when your tax rate is lopsided. E.G. if you're running a 90% science rate, then merchants are quite likely to be useful in cities with high gold multipliers and low beaker multipliers, even if you are giving up a bunch of commerce to get them.

Two comments here.

One: I find in most games that I don't have tremendously lopsided buildings in most cities. Production cities have markets and grocers for their health/happiness effects. Commerce cities have all the science buildings, because science is where I am spending most commerce. But they also tend to have most of the gold buildings, because their side-effects, and also because I am usually running at 10-20% gold. So you might have gold multiplier +50% pretty much everywhere, with science multiplier 0% or 75%.

Two: I also don't use any specialists except for GPP in my GP farm.

That said, I think your overall point is important - there is a distinction between "base" science and gold, as versus science and gold you actually get after building effects. Given that you must generate gold, you should try to generate it in the most efficient manner possible.

So here's a question: are specialist merchants worth using in a city with Wall Street? They get a 300% multiplier there. If you average 150% elsewhere, then these guys are, in effect, getting $4.5, which is better than $3 for sure. Still not competitive with land-use, though.

In addition to the cases noted above, I find specialists extremely useful in coastal cities. If you have, say, fish then you have 6 excess production in a coastal city, so you can afford to work some zero or one food land tiles with mines to maintain production. If you go over the health limit, however, it will chew your surplus up - 6 above the health limit and your city will stabilize working no land tiles. Unless you're careful you can go into a spiral where the city works only sea tiles and has no hammers, and it does this automatically. Specialists can be used to prevent population growth above the health limit.

Another niche, again as noted, is to have cities with massive food surpluses and the appropriate buildings.
Oxford University/University/Observatory/Academy/Library gives big cumulative beaker bonuses. You can use this to maintain a lot of research from one city (or a few) while all of the native commerce is dedicated to culture (culture win) or cash (absorbing military conquests, Kremlin-fueled buying sprees). Similar comments apply to a cash-cow city, with Wall Street, Bank, Market, Grocer, a religious shrine or shrines, etc.

I don't use specialists as much as I could because they are not handled gracefully and it seems to require a lot of tweaking until the city reaches a stable point.

So here's a question: are specialist merchants worth using in a city with Wall Street? They get a 300% multiplier there. If you average 150% elsewhere, then these guys are, in effect, getting $4.5, which is better than $3 for sure. Still not competitive with land-use, though.
The analysis is tricky -- the real* value of a merchant specialist is that it allows you to turn your science slider up slightly. (Certainly not a full 10%, though) Its value heavily depends on the rest of your empire.


I ran a quick scenario with the following parameters:

Your gold city is making 64 commerce, 150% beakers, and 300% gold.
The rest of your empire averages out to 256 commerce, 150% beakers, and 150% gold.

In such a situation, a merchant is worth roughly 4.4 commerce if you can keep your science rate at roughly 80% or higher.

If you're also running representation, then the merchant is now worth 7 commerce.

However, if your gold city is only making 100% beakers, the representation merchant is worth a full 8 commerce. (5.5 without representation)



But suppose your empire is somewhat more vast -- the rest of your empire actually averages out to 1024 commerce.

Then, your regular merchant is worth 4.8 commerce, and representation merchant is 7.4 when the slider is around 80%.

And if the gold city is at 100% beakers instead of 150%, the regular merchant is 6.2, and the representation merchant is worth 8.5.


(All of these numbers get better if the target science rate is 90%, or if we improve the rest of your empires average science multiplier)

*: ignoring the GPP

One: I find in most games that I don't have tremendously lopsided buildings in most cities.
I do tend to have some lopsidedness:

Older commerce cities, and balanced cities, have had the time to build all of the commerce-boosting improvements.

But newer cities tend to have markets and grocers first, because they're growing and need to break through limits. Later on, recently captured cities may already have these improvements! (But no library/etc, of course)


I'm also curious about the possibility of specifically trying to lopside your cities -- it takes a while to build everything, so maybe you should build different ones differently, and use specialists in the appropriate ones, until your civ is homogenous?