Which/When/how many Specialists should I use?

P

perr0

Chieftain
Joined
Dec 8, 2010
Messages
12
I never know which, when and how many specialists to assign. What is your approach to it?

What I usually do is, when going to Culture victory, assign all culture relates specialists.

But for other types of victory, I never know. Science specialists seem more important to me. Should I always assign them?

Engineers never look so appealing to me, since I usually have better non-used tiles available for production in my cities (like 4 hammer mines vs only 2 or 3 from engineers). But specialist will also give me points towards golden age. How important is this?

I'm kinda lost with it. I searched for more info but only found sites detailing what they were and what they provided. None actually told how my approach to using them could be.
 
Science and guild specialist almost always as long as your cities will grow. If you are going to science victory fill every specialist slots for 8 turns before bulbing cs. Assuming you have selected secularism from rationalism tree.

If you play Korea try to fill every slot too because they give +2 science. Just be careful to not pop Great Merchant
 
Always work all science slots. If food is actually a problem do something to increase food like sending a food cargo ship. (You often want to have a farm on all fresh water tiles)

Guild slots: Don't build a given guild until you are ready to run it.

Engineer slots: Only run if nothing better. (Such as the only tiles that would be run is 2f 0c 0h; even then you'd want to ensure the city won't stagnate)

Merchant slots: Unless you are Venice, in addition to this being an even lower priority than engineer slots, never run until there's no risk of actually spawning a GM. (Each and every GM you spawn is one fewer GS)
 
GMs, GEs and GSs are all on the same Great Person Points counter -- each one that spawns increases the cost of the next by 100 GPPs. So, each GM or GE you spawn increases the cost of the next GS by 100 Great Person Points. As a practical matter, that means one less GS.
 
perr0 said:
By you mean like grow +1 every 10 turns or less or so or even more turns?
Click to expand...

10 turns would be the last acceptable case I'd say unless you have to rush build something. Try 8 turns or less in satellite cities and 5-6 in your capital.
 
Browd said:
GMs, GEs and GSs are all on the same Great Person Points counter -- each one that spawns increases the cost of the next by 100 GPPs. So, each GM or GE you spawn increases the cost of the next GS by 100 Great Person Points. As a practical matter, that means one less GS.
Click to expand...

Is this true only for the ones that spawn from GPPs or does the penalty also apply to other ones, such as the GP that pops in the Liberty tree? Do the post-Industrial GPs you buy with faith in BNW affect your spawning penalty?

I know in Civ IV BTS, it was generally the rule that you had the best results when maxing specialists and spawning from only one city. Is that generally still true in Civ V BNW as well, with Guild spawning working on a separate counter, of course?
 
It applies the other ones like the one from Pisa/Liberty. It does not apply to faith bought ones.

And no, you want to be working science specialists in all cities. More Great Scientist points = more Great Scientists, period, even if you get diminishing returns.
 
Generally, I work every scientist slot, every guild and I kick in the engineers if I'm in a pinch and need to finish something quicker and/or have a WF going. I almost never run the merchant slots, because I have plenty of gold (given to AI for a lump sum) to be solvent at all times
 
joncnunn said:
Always work all science slots. If food is actually a problem do something to increase food like sending a food cargo ship. (You often want to have a farm on all fresh water tiles)

Guild slots: Don't build a given guild until you are ready to run it.

Engineer slots: Only run if nothing better. (Such as the only tiles that would be run is 2f 0c 0h; even then you'd want to ensure the city won't stagnate)

Merchant slots: Unless you are Venice, in addition to this being an even lower priority than engineer slots, never run until there's no risk of actually spawning a GM. (Each and every GM you spawn is one fewer GS)
Click to expand...

If you're going for a SV and have Secularism and Universal Sufferage would you just run as many specialists as possible (without sacrificing growth) in most cases?
 
Not entirely. If you pop an engi, that just means you popped one less scientist, which can be a bother in the mass bulb endgame phase
 
I usually go for Domination, with culture as a fallback. Any difference in recommended strategy with GPs?
 
EditorRex said:
I usually go for Domination, with culture as a fallback. Any difference in recommended strategy with GPs?
Click to expand...

Not for the natural born ones.
GS > GE >> GM.
In case of domination, GS is better for getting you to the win the game key military unit faster.

In case of culture, the GS gets you to a key tourism tech faster.
 
I'm mostly in agreement. I've had a few times when I went Engineer to ensure I finished a certain Wonder first/quickly.
 
In most games it's good to build and staff the writer's guild as quickly as possible. The goal is to get as many great writers as possible, win the World's Fair, ally with all cultured CS's and bulb an artist as soon as the 2x culture kicks in, and then bulb all the writers 8 turns later. You can get over 10k culture this way. The only downside is you lose out on some tourism if you're going for CV.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

K
[BNW] How many cities is best for Immortal and large maps?
2
Replies
26
Views
2K
consentient
consentient
K
[BNW] I going bankrupt in BC. -25 gold/turn
Replies
5
Views
628
martindo
M
T
How many military units should I build?
Replies
8
Views
2K
Quintillus
Quintillus
Plains-Cow
I Want to Assassinate My Own Spy Specialists
2
Replies
27
Views
2K
TheMeInTeam
TheMeInTeam
pineappledan
Specialists... What are We Doing Here, Guys?
2 3
Replies
44
Views
5K
azum4roll
A
Top Bottom