Advice: Specialists and Great Peeps

[MooFreaky]

Ahoy all.

I am playing currently on Immortal; however, I feel that I really want to step up my gaming and become stronger. I have been working on remaining more focused on a style of play. I used to meander through the techs without long term targets, just deciding as I went. I would have a general idea what building to place in cities, but would always get side tracked with "hey an extra <insert building here> would be kinda cool" even when it wasn't exactly optimal.

I love specialists; however, I know that I am not effective enough in their usage on higher levels of play (Immortal/Deity), as I am just not focused enough with them.
I am struggling to get away from cIV where I would build Great People farms, I just don't distribute my Specialists enough to get Great People often enough. Or I seem to have a conflicting amount of Wonders and Specialists in a city so I get random GP points that don't add up right.

What are some tips on using Specialists? When is it better to sacrifice working a tile to specialise?
Should I be focusing certain cities on certain specialists? I currently tend to try and have all my Great Scientist slots filled and nothing more... Is it worth dropping them in one city and focusing on pumping a Great Engineer? Or does having a mix and match in one city work?


Obviously, my gaming style has been around lots of smaller cities and warfare, but I really want to master using specialists. I just don't have the masses of time to play game after game to learn everything from the ground up anymore.


So what are your key thoughts on specialist use? Both pertaining to gaining Great People and in general??

 

[JRambo]

Say you are going tall, three to four large cities. You should get to Education fast, build universities in each city, and run both science specialists in every city. That should keep your BPT in check, and also help you with RA later.

If you are going wide, you still might need science specialists in multiple cities, and most certainly you would want a couple in your capital. (with some exceptions, of course)

Other specialist slots are mostly strategy dependent. For example, if you are going for cultural VC, you will want to run some culture specialists. Or perhaps your civ might make special use of some great people, therefore you'll want to produce a great person by running a certain specialist.

As for tech/beelining choices, that's the area of the game I would also like to improve at. Most of the times, thought that varies from game to game, I go for luxury techs first, then Archery, then quick to Construction. After that, I go to Philosophy, to complete the NC in reasonable time...