Managing Cities/Staffing Specialists

[rover6695]

I'm curious how you all manage your cities and specialists.

For me, I leave them on default, UNLESS there is some special tile (like a natural wonder) which I then select but otherwise keep default.
OR if I am building a wonder, I might go to production focus.

Otherwise, I leave it all on default and do NOT staff any special buildings be they schools/universities/guilds UNLESS they do not take away from overall city growth.
My priority is always university in the capital, then guilds, then national wonders (like ironworks).

Just wondering if this is fine or if there is a better way?

 

[mrjepson]

It can make a big difference putting in specialists in a few large cities just to get the great people. A few extra of the yield they have can make a big difference depending on how many cities are in your empire. I'm usually trying to have science and culture produced this way as the empire wide yield is usually a significant increase. I find money and production less useful as you can usually get that through tile yields.

 

[wideframehoss]

Micro-manage everything and work all science specialists.

 

[Acken]

In general manual is better than automatic
The exception would be if you have no idea what youre doing and end up doing stupid stuff.

Envoyé de mon SM-G903W en utilisant Tapatalk

 

[inthesomeday]

The most common way to micro manage is to manually lock every single citizen however you want and then set to production focus, so that new citizens grow to production tiles. We do this because when the turn rolls over, if the citizen grows to a tile with lots of food, the food doesn't register for the next turn's collected yields. However, production does do this.

As to what tiles to lock, it depends on what you're working towards. 99/100 times that'll be quick growth balanced with tolerable production, but sometimes if you think you don't need your city to keep growing, or if you're wanting to work hammers or science or gold, or a million other reasons, it's worth it to not work the growth. But I mean what to selectively work isn't as important as locking the tiles you do want to work. Every time you get a new citizen in any city, lock it on whatever tile you'd like to work, and keep the city on production focus. It ends up knocking many turns off of your production every game, meaningful turns that can mean the difference between winning and losing.

Specialist wise, work every scientist specialist you can afford to work in every city all the time. If the city stagnates or starves don't do it, but it's okay to unwork a mine for scientists, as long as the city keeps growing. If you run out of tiles to work and scientists to work, start working engineers unless you've got a guild in the city, in which case work the guild. In fact, guild specialists are the only other kind of specialists it's okay to unwork mines for. So the order of things to work, for the most part at least, would be:
-Growth (including cow and sheep pastures, hill farms, etc; 2-growth tiles count if they have good hammers)
-(Natural wonder- rare)
-Scientists
-Guilds
-Reasonable hammer tiles (mines, horse pastures; 1-growth tiles count with good hammers)
-Engineers
-NEVER merchants

You can work GOLD TILES if you're low on gold, like plantations etc. However do not work merchant slots unless you've got secularism AND Statue of Liberty AND the freedom policy of food on specialists.
And academies work in your capital whenever you've got proper growth still, although normally your academies should go on food heavy tiles already. I normally build them on tiles that already have a 3 food 1 hammer yield, like stable cattle and granary plains wheat. Normally avoid academies in river tiles and hills, unless you have to.

 

[Nick31]

This is a topic to "mark" if you're trying to improve a level, i.e. up to Emperor, or to Immortal, or beyond.

The Production-focus trick requires some micro, but helps a lot in the early game when you need eveything asap (scouts, settlers, a shrine, etc.) and that extra 2 hammers (growing into a hill, and then changing to a better food tile, often) makes a turn of difference.

The Specialist slots are crucial for your science. A "standard" opening is to try to save up enough money to buy a University in your capital (or second-largest city, particularly if in a jungle spot and has weak hammers but lots of jungle tiles). By immediately working both science specialists, you get a GS ASAP which you an then plant in your Capital. There are a ton of threads debating the optimal way to use GS, but as a "basic" play for jumping up a level, planting an Academy super early gets you a big leg up, and your second GS will be in time to save up and then burn as you bulb into a crucial tech like Industrialization or Scientific Theory, depending on your plans.

The other specialist spots are variable. Generally, food is everything in a Tradition game, and there are various opinions on how many specialists to work, particularly after your get to Rationalism specialist bonuses. You can experiment with micro yourself in your games, or read more threads.

 

[inthesomeday]

Oh yeah I forgot to mention the most important micro of all-- settler building. Because your city can't starve while producing a settler, it's customary to be extremely hawkish with your hammers. Work as little food as possible because the rate of exchange is something like 4 apples to a settler hammer. Sometimes it's better to work a whole bunch of food but it's rare. Either way it's best to experiment a bit with different tile combinations until you find a solid lowest turn number. Then work the tiles that both qualify to give you the low turn number and have the highest amount of gold.
This trick is extremely crucial, in fast game paces it can save a turn and on slow ones it saves many. It can mean the difference between a beautiful hill river mountain space with lake Victoria and three luxes and a garbage flatland coastal expand with one horse and nothing else.

 

[Tzar Sasha]

Is it okay to work merchant specialists IF you are playing as Korea with markets built while researching the techs to obtain universities? Especially, if the plan is to switch them from the market to the university once built. I would think that there would be enough time to not obtain a GM by the time the university is built/bought.

 

[inthesomeday]

Yes, that would be okay. There are some very sparing occasions to work merchant slots, Venice and Korea chief among.

 

[sixty4half]

I really think you guys are going a little over board with the whole Don't Work Gold Tiles and Don't Work Gold Specialists. Gold tiles usually produce food as well, Elephant Camps/Plantations OR they are Gold/Silver mines which make 4 hammers. You're generally going to work those spots. Maybe not over a Wheat or Riverside Farm or Grassland Marble, but generally with a 10+pop city you're going to be able to work a few mines or a few 2F 1H 3G tiles to help with your economy. I think the only exception is flat desert incense in a non-Petra City.

Once you've created a few GE/GS you can work a couple of Merchant Specialists in pretty much any city and not fear ever producing enough points to actually generate you GM. If you're working 3-4 Scientists in all of your cities, you're going to produce more GSs before your GM meter can even think of catching up.

 

[Dushku]

Work as little food as possible because the rate of exchange is something like 4 apples to a settler hammer.

Actually, it's the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and THEN every 4 food after that. So it can often be beneficial to work food to get Settler hammers. Depends on the land.

@sixty4half: While it is true that avoiding GMs is usually the reason people say don't work gold slots, I would still argue that if you're deliberately not producing a GM, then 2 gold only is THE WORST use of a citizen. Even an unemployed, +1 hammer would be better in almost every scenario.

 

[inthesomeday]

Gold and silver mines are obviously going to be worked simply by virtue of being mines; however I'd strongly advise against ANY tiles that are 2 , 1 1, or less. Unless you put an academy on one or something like this they're typically pretty awful tiles. Most tiles with 2 yields are less are garbage, except for hills very early game. However you should always have workers everywhere improving tiles to work in most cities all game, so there should never be a reason to work 2-yield tiles. Most of the time you shouldn't even count gold as a yield, it's fairly worthless and you should only work it most of the time when it's a by product of food and hammers on the tile. If you need gold, it's okay to work a few plantations or camps, as long as they at least have food or production on them. I normally only do this in a few cities about once or twice a game, right when I'm building a lot of infrastructure or roads and before the next big gold buildings. Trade routes should only be international in high level singleplayer, but even when using all my routes for food I normally don't run into situations severe enough to work merchants, which are essentially raw desert insence in the early game most of the time.
Citrus, cocoa, salt, silver, marble, gold, copper, and gems are usually the gold-producing tiles in my empire. I occasionally work plantations when I'm undergoing some gold-intensive project, like roads or libraries, but I prioritize markets right after libraries or sometimes even before so gold's usually not a big problem. And I play Liberty.

Edit: Dushku said it well, citizens are better
And I've always wondered about the food exchange, good to know.

 

[psparky]

I often find using unemployed citizens gives the optimal production for settler builds. In a recent (delayed ICS) food-heavy production-poor start, I could not do better than work one mine and have six unemployed. I could have worked a couple of plains tiles for the same result (and indeed did after building trading posts on them), but I thought it was kinda funny to only work one tile

Anyway it's definitely worth checking.

 

[MightySpice]

In general manual is better than automatic
The exception would be if you have no idea what youre doing and end up doing stupid stuff.

If you want max growth it's pretty save to choose 'max growth'. That's how i start and after i improve terrain i manualy manage it to a more optimal setting.

 

[danaphanous]

My style appears similar to the guide inthesomeday posted.

I also recommend not running guild specialists for most of the game unless Korea, Venice, or completely filled every other useable tile in a city.

However, After the rationalism tenet it IS 2 gold AND 2 science base. Which is pretty ok. I sometimes work the gold specialists over the engineers here if I'm saving gold for something and have nothing really that important to build (so engineer hammers are not worth it). You produce more raw gold running the merchant specialist then you can get in wealth from the hammers of the engineer so if you have nothing all that pressing to build it can situationally be a better deal. I would never work them enough to produce a merchant over an engineer or scientist though. Just not nearly as useful.

 

[rover6695]

OK ok, great tips. So can we condense this to easy to use crib notes?
I have been leaving my cities on default, only going to production if I need a wonder, or only selecting a tile to work IF it is special-like a natural wonder.
Otherwise, it's just been too confusing-I do well with parameters.

I've been afraid to staff specialists because it slows growth, likewise why I stay in default instead of production focus.
So from now on, how should I manage?
If I am understanding you all correctly:

-Set the tiles to be worked yourself (In what order)
-ASAP staff ALL science buildings fully (University/Public School/Research Lab) as well as All guilds AND Workshops UNLESS growth stagnates.
Otherwise, leave them alone (which includes markets/banks UNLESS you need $$$$)

Am I right?

 

[inthesomeday]

For the most part, besides the workshop. Engineer specialists are mostly for when you're out of tiles.

If you want the order I typically work in, it would be:
1. Growth until I'm growing consistently in a few turns
2. Mines until my production is reasonable
3. Scientist slots
4. Guild slots
5. Engineer slots
6. Gold tiles
7. Merchant slots

Natural wonders come as #2 when possible, and gold tiles are subject to moving around if your gold income is low. However I'd still strongly advise against working merchant slots; you're definitely trying to avoid generating them, so until Statue, Freedom policy, or secularism, their yield is literally 2 gold, which is one of the worst yields from anything in the game.
I'd like to mention though, when you do have the two specialist freedom tenets, AND the Statue of Liberty, AND secularism unlocked, it's okay to run pretty much every specialist you have. Those four qualifiers add 1 food, 1 hammer, 1 happiness, and 2 science, basically. Meaning it's worth it almost always, which betrays an important bullet when wondering about micro: the reason we do micro is because conditions change the optimal, so there is no perfect guide. These are guidelines, but as you gain experience with micro, you'll figure out what works best for your games and for whatever you're trying to do. Your judgement is typically best, unless you want to post screenshots of every single game and ask for advice from everyone.

 

[rover6695]

I guess I just want to know if my method is OK or inefficient, whereby I tend to leave them on default, and do not like staffing specialist slots IF they slow my growth.

I work best with parameters!

 

[Browd]

They will slow your growth (no food), but at the cost of earning Great Persons and the dedicated yield from those slots (beakers, hammers, etc., plus extra beakers when you adopt the Rationalism policy Secularism). You are assured of none of that when you leave your cities on default focus. You will occasionally get engineer specialist slots worked, and a few merchant specialists when gold gets low, but those are rarely the choices you would make if you were actually making choices. I can't recall ever seeing a scientist slot worked on default focus, although I suppose it might happen.

Don't get me wrong, default focus is fine, if you are just playing the game as an idle game, for fun and to pass the time/decompress after work or school, and don't want to be bothered with micromanagement. But if you are playing competitively (either with others or with your own pride/ambition) or just want to play "well", you are handicapping yourself if you abdicate assignment of your citizens to the AI (which has no idea what you want to accomplish, not even what your desired victory might be -- at least the AI civs know their own grand strategy choices when they automate themselves -- you are a mysterious sack of uncommunicative meat as far as the AI is concerned). You can also automate workers and automate scouts and boats for map exploration, with the same "OK-ish" results (after all, the AI automates everything, and does OK-ish, most of the time).

 

[Primacide]

Default focus worked fine for me up to emperor difficulty. However, if you want to step up to immortal or deity, you will have to micromanage. It was awkward to me the first couple of games, but it quickly became second nature.

If you want the quick and dirty version: work food. When a scientist slot becomes available, work it. If you can't because it will impact your city too much, at least have an idea of when you can work that slot. Mostly, though, click the highest food tile.