Can you pick citizens to choose which tiles to use?

[Veteranewbie]

Can you order the citizens in a city to pick which tile to use? Since sometimes when i am building wonders, i would prefer most of my citizens to use mountain tiles for that nice 3 shields instead of my irrigated grassland. If so, how do you do it? Also, when 2 cities share a same tile, how do you pick a shared tile for one city, if it has already used by another city? Thanks

 

[Krayzeenbk]

Yes, you can pick which tiles are used by workers in the city. Simply click on the tile you want to be worked, and a citizen will be reassign from another tile to the tile you clicked. If you want a citizen to be reassigned from a specific tile, first click that tile to make a specialist, then click your new tile to make that specialist work the tile you choose.

When 2 cities share a tile and you want to change which one gets to use it, go to the city using it, click on the tile to make it unused (and reassign the specialist created to another tile, unless you need an entertainer), then go to the second city, and reassign workers to work the tile using the procedure described above.

 

[wilbill]

And be sure your city governors are turned off or they'll just switch the citizens back to the tiles they think they should be working.

 

[Krayzeenbk]

I believe once you try to reassign workers the game will ask you whether you would like to turn off your governor... they are also off by default I believe. They only reassign workers when borders in the radius of the city change, or a citizen starves. They also pick which worker to remove if you click "Give them some entertainment" in the disorder popup, and which worker to add when a city grows.

 

[Khshayarsha]

When the Disorder dialog box does not allow the option to have the governor automatically assign an entertainer... you know what that means... it means assigning an entertainer will cause starvation. The governor does not want to take responsibility for that. It's up to you if you want to cause starvation.

At the point where making another citizen into an entertainer will remove work from a food tile, the Disorder dialog box does not include the "Give them some entertainment" option. Your only two choices are to ignore it (and probably let the rioters wreck some stuff), or else "Zoom to city."

What happens when you zoom to city? You select one worked tile to make an entertainer. At this point all the worked tiles will be foody tiles. You try to select the one that loses the least amount of food (or the least amount of shields, or money...). But no matter what you choose, you will cause starvation.

One other expedient, instead of reassigning a tile to entertainer, is to move up the Smiley Face slider a notch. This will cause loss of money, of course, and force you to either slow down your tech research, or else run a deficit.

In fact, moving up the Smiley Face one notch may not be enough. You can see in the Domestic Advisor screen if the frowning faces still outnumber the happy citizens. You may need to move up the slider two or three notches to cure Disorder. Then you'll really be out a lot of money and be forced to cut down the tech research before you break the bank.

Such are the unfortunate choices we sometimes have to make: either lose a lot of money, or else starve a citizen to death. Usually it's war weariness that causes such severe unhappiness. Other things you might do, that may not be immediately possible, are: 1) End the war; 2) Capture an enemy city that has a luxury you didn't already have, already roaded and connected to your trade network, and then end the war; 3) trade for another luxury.

Make sure the unhappy city has its Temple, Cathedral, Marketplace, and Police Station once you get it back under control. Other long-term strategies would be to get Wonders that increase happiness. But when your immediate problem is to end Disorder in a single turn, there may be nothing but unpleasant choices available to you.

 

[Krayzeenbk]

Originally posted by Khshayarsha
When the Disorder dialog box does not allow the option to have the governor automatically assign an entertainer... you know what that means... it means assigning an entertainer will cause starvation.

That is not necessarily true. The disorder box frequently makes mistakes. I belive it is because after reassigning, there are tile combinations that will still produce enough food to keep your city from starving. The easiest way to pick which citizen to make into an entertainer is to click on your city once you go to the city screen. The governor will automatically reassign all citizens in the city so that there is no disorder, and so that the city at least does not starve, if at all possible.

 

[Khshayarsha]

So why does the governor sometimes not offer the "Give them some entertainment" option?

That's a neat idea, clicking right on the city tile itself. I'm going to try that next time this happens. Every single time I've ever found the "Give them some entertainment" option missing, and then I "Zoom to city" and make an entertainer manually, it has never failed to cause starvation.

 

[Krayzeenbk]

That's because you probably made an entertainer by only removing one citizen from a tile, which is what the governor looks at when he doesn't give you the option. OTOH if you click on the city itself, then the governor will completely reassign all workers (not just remove one), which often allows your city not to starve (though in some, fairly rare, cases, you will still lose a citizen). You can also do this manually.