citizens

[spoc148]

I was just wondering how many special citizens, e.g. tax collectors, scientists, and entertainers, you have in each of your cities. I havent really tried to place some citizens as tax collectors or scientists and was wondering if they are helpful or needed.
thanks
spoc148

 

[Matt_G]

I try to have as many citizens as there are tiles to work.
For a city without overlap, that's 20 tiles, therefore I try to configure it for max shields while pulling 40 food, post hospitals.

Sometimes you do need to hire one in a far off corrupt city though, due to happiness problems. If making them a taxman takes care of the problem then that is what I do. Sometimes they have to be a clown to keep the number of specialists as low as possible.

 

[island007]

As little as possible, I prefer to keep them working in the fields.

 

[Hamilcar Barca]

get em in the fields and producing as productivity is vital for a more internationally dominant civ.

 

[DoctorCiv]

Agree with previous statements that the most productive citizen is one who is working an improved tile.

That being said, I use extra citizens for entertainers when necessary (usually to keep up a WLTKD), otherwise tax collectors for extra cash. You just don't usually have enough scientist citizens to affect your research rate significantly.

 

[RegentMan]

I only use taxmen/scientists when all of the tiles are being worked.

I use entertainers frequently early game when cities are growing too fast for improvements.

 

[col]

Its usually better to use the lux rate to control happiness. If you compare the cost of say 10 or 20% against the loss of income and shields in taking workers off the land, you come out ahead using the lux slider.

 

[Darkness]

@regentman: Try to up the luxry slider. It works far better. The income and science you miss out on by doing this is easily compensated by the extra food and production you get by keeping your citizen in the field.
Remember: In the early stages of the game food is the most important thing....

 

[Karl_t_great]

Generally taxmen and cientists are useful for special purposes only and you should not have them in early expansion phase (pop a setteler instead).

The math bihind....
Each taxman/scientist gives 1 gold each turn to treas/science, and do require 2 food to survive. Imagine a 2 food -> 1 gold conversion.
Each field worker can add at least 1 g (tile w. road) to city income. This is multiplied by city improwments, and money to crruption is then reduced.
Basically there is no point keeping a worker collecting taxes when working a riverside he make 2 gpt (or 3 with marketplace).

101 reasons to use specialists:
1. (the most obvious) there are no more free tiles
2. corruption, if You're unable to get more than 1 g from a distant city, You migth be happy with few extra gold from taxmen.
3. 40 turn science with 1 scientist
4. Starving a captured city with all taxmen (my favorite form of ethnic cleansing)
5. balancing for WLKD (You do not allways need a entertainer) to have no one unhappy and lower corruption
6. to complete research while having revolution
7. to decrease city growth
8. to get better score

...and there must be dosens of more even though I cannot think of any other.

Finally I'd like to commen the entertainer issue by col and darkness:
note that the lux slder (on Domestic advisor screen) works best for core cities, which have low corruption. On far away cities increasinf lux rate does not help hence the corruption. my rule of thumb is to set the lux according to core cities near capital and use entertainers farther away when needed.

karl (student in civeconomics)