Specialists were one of the new mechanics in Civilization IV and MoM is going to further expand on them.
Great People
The types of Great People are the same in vanilla, but they have more abilities. The idea is to give them unique and different abilities and make the choice how to use them really interesting.
Great Merchant
- Settle in City (gives gold per turn, very useful in a city that has a high level of Gold Specialisation)
- Trade Mission (must be performed in foreign city, gives some gold like in vanilla, but also gives you a resource that the foreign city has access to. Very useful if you need a resource like iron or horse, but also nice for other resources as allmost all give a bonus proportional to how many you have)
- Discover Food Resource (Farm resource on grassland, pasture resource on plains, sea resource in a city with a harbor. If you have many coastal cities, sea resources are great as they give you gold for every harbor you have. The food resources on land allow you to build farmers markets and smokehouses in a city with a merchant district, so they are handy as well in case you have only few food resources)
Great Sage:
- Discover (random) Spell: a bit of a gamble. It's useful if you look for more ways to spend your mana and don't want to invest into arcane buildings too much
- Discover mana node (requires that no other mana node is nearby): this is quite useful if you have bad luck and the land you are has little to no mana nodes.
- Settle: provides Research per turn. If your city has lots of +research% and a high research specialisation level this can net you lots of research and even more than an academy would
- Academy: gives +25% research and 2 scientist slots. Very useful if you want to further specialise your city into science. Nice synergie with settled great sages
Great Engineer:
- Rush Building (useful for wonders in low production cities. In other cases stone is better to rush buildings)
- Discover Mining Resource (requires Hill. very handy if you want to increase your metal income, use it near a city that has already invested into buildings that increase metal income like mining guild, etc.)
- Invent new Equipment (if your strategy is about conquest, this is probably your best choice. Better Equipment is never wrong. Exploration of Dungeons can also give you new Equipment, but Engeneers are more reliable (and expensive)
- Settle: adds some hammers to the City. Useful in the early game and if you want to specialize a city to train military
Great Bard:
- Culture Bomb (same as vanilla, nice if you are going for a cultural victory or in border cities)
- Golden Age (only Bards can start a golden age)
- Settle (can be useful in a city with a merchant district, as your abilites to gain culture there are limited. Useful if you want to create many great merchants)
- tale of legends: will be used for a new trait mechanic
Great Priest:
- Pilgrimage: gain influence with the Holy City
- Divine Intervention: gain 2000 Faith
- Settle: lots of faith per turn, useful in combination with the Oracle building (which can only be build in a city near incense)
- Construct holy building
Specialists:
In Vanilla CIV specialists are either crap (just use them in 1-2 GP Cities), or great (specialist economy). In MoM Specialists are in general more useful. They have lower yields compared to tiles, but provide specialisation points to the city (a good way to manage what specialization levels the city will gain) and of course Great Person points. While in Vanilla Civ you will get 0-1 Specialists in most Cities and you can't do much about it, in MoM the amount of Great Persons a city produces depends a lot on its Population and Culture. So a specialist Economy is more focused around getting Great Persons rather than yields from specialists (although civics that improve specialist yields still exist). There are also no civics that allow unlimited specialists, thus making buildings that grant specialists more important (and sometimes you might want to build a building just for the specialist slots). Also the mechanic from CIV V that every Specialist has its own counter is being used, so no more random great persons. Very annoying if you want a great scientist and you get a great artist that had a 4% chance to be born.
Great People
The types of Great People are the same in vanilla, but they have more abilities. The idea is to give them unique and different abilities and make the choice how to use them really interesting.
Great Merchant
- Settle in City (gives gold per turn, very useful in a city that has a high level of Gold Specialisation)
- Trade Mission (must be performed in foreign city, gives some gold like in vanilla, but also gives you a resource that the foreign city has access to. Very useful if you need a resource like iron or horse, but also nice for other resources as allmost all give a bonus proportional to how many you have)
- Discover Food Resource (Farm resource on grassland, pasture resource on plains, sea resource in a city with a harbor. If you have many coastal cities, sea resources are great as they give you gold for every harbor you have. The food resources on land allow you to build farmers markets and smokehouses in a city with a merchant district, so they are handy as well in case you have only few food resources)
Great Sage:
- Discover (random) Spell: a bit of a gamble. It's useful if you look for more ways to spend your mana and don't want to invest into arcane buildings too much
- Discover mana node (requires that no other mana node is nearby): this is quite useful if you have bad luck and the land you are has little to no mana nodes.
- Settle: provides Research per turn. If your city has lots of +research% and a high research specialisation level this can net you lots of research and even more than an academy would
- Academy: gives +25% research and 2 scientist slots. Very useful if you want to further specialise your city into science. Nice synergie with settled great sages
Great Engineer:
- Rush Building (useful for wonders in low production cities. In other cases stone is better to rush buildings)
- Discover Mining Resource (requires Hill. very handy if you want to increase your metal income, use it near a city that has already invested into buildings that increase metal income like mining guild, etc.)
- Invent new Equipment (if your strategy is about conquest, this is probably your best choice. Better Equipment is never wrong. Exploration of Dungeons can also give you new Equipment, but Engeneers are more reliable (and expensive)
- Settle: adds some hammers to the City. Useful in the early game and if you want to specialize a city to train military
Great Bard:
- Culture Bomb (same as vanilla, nice if you are going for a cultural victory or in border cities)
- Golden Age (only Bards can start a golden age)
- Settle (can be useful in a city with a merchant district, as your abilites to gain culture there are limited. Useful if you want to create many great merchants)
- tale of legends: will be used for a new trait mechanic
Great Priest:
- Pilgrimage: gain influence with the Holy City
- Divine Intervention: gain 2000 Faith
- Settle: lots of faith per turn, useful in combination with the Oracle building (which can only be build in a city near incense)
- Construct holy building
Specialists:
In Vanilla CIV specialists are either crap (just use them in 1-2 GP Cities), or great (specialist economy). In MoM Specialists are in general more useful. They have lower yields compared to tiles, but provide specialisation points to the city (a good way to manage what specialization levels the city will gain) and of course Great Person points. While in Vanilla Civ you will get 0-1 Specialists in most Cities and you can't do much about it, in MoM the amount of Great Persons a city produces depends a lot on its Population and Culture. So a specialist Economy is more focused around getting Great Persons rather than yields from specialists (although civics that improve specialist yields still exist). There are also no civics that allow unlimited specialists, thus making buildings that grant specialists more important (and sometimes you might want to build a building just for the specialist slots). Also the mechanic from CIV V that every Specialist has its own counter is being used, so no more random great persons. Very annoying if you want a great scientist and you get a great artist that had a 4% chance to be born.