City automation

[volkanbadem]

I am using the BUG mod. Is there any way to prevent the city assign the scientist automatically . I want to assign the tiles manually all the time.

 

[Major Tom]

Click the minusbutton next to specialist. Click the tile you want to be worked.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

First, click on the Turn Off Citizen Automation button for a City, if it isn't already off.

Then, click on the Turn On Emphasize Food button, which is located a little bit below the whipping button in a City screen.

If you leave Citizen Automation turned on, then you may find that your existing citizen assignments will get changed, probably in a way that you don't want (such as working a G For square in place of a GH Mine square).

But, with Citizen Automation turned off, your existing citizen assignments should remain how they are now, while with Emphasize Food turned on, newly-born citizens (the new citizens that appear when your Cities grow in City Size) should get assigned to a role that provides the most Food, which will almost certainly not mean being turned into a Specialist, such as not being turned into a Scientist Specialist, at least until your Cities are large enough that they have run out of any Food-earning squares to work.

There is a bit of a tradeoff to having Citizen Automation turned off, though, as when you switch to building a Settler or a Worker, the squares which citizens are working will not be automatically adjusted in your favour, and the same is particularly true when you whip a Settler or a Worker with Citizen Automation turned off (for example, a GH Mine might get whipped away while the G Farm will continue to get worked... which means that you'll only earn 3 Hammers instead of 4 Hammers for the last turn of completing that Settler or Worker after having just whipped it).

For this reason, when I switch to building a Worker or a Settler, I will manually adjust the squares that are being worked, and even more so when I whip the Worker or Settler, and then I may manually adjust the squares back once I am finished producing a Worker or a Settler (I will probably work a G Farm when not building the Worker or a Settler but I would favour working a GH Mine while building the Worker or Settler, but then again, when done with a Worker or Settler that I didn't whip, I might continue to choose to work the GH Mine if the City is already near its Happiness cap). The alternative approach will probably be something like:
1. The City has:
Citizen Automation = off
Emphasize Food = on

2. I start to build a Settler or a Worker, so I set:
Citizen Automation = on
(Emphasize Food being on or off doesn't seem to matter)

3. After the Settler or Worker has been completed, I will:
i. Pick a non-Settler or non-Worker build item
ii. Set Emphasize Food = off, if I didn't do it previously
iii. Set Citizen Automation = off
iv. Set Emphasize Food = on

That way, the citizen assignments will be "the best as chosen by the City Governor in terms of its regular way of assigning citizens," instead of being overly focused on Food.

Meanwhile, newly-born citizens will continue to work the high-Food squares and thus are unlikely to become Specialists unless I've run out of Food-earning squares for new citizens to work.

 

[Fractal Spiral]

It's really helpful to keep checking the city tiles yourself and decide what you want the exact tiles worked for each city to be. If two or more cities could reach a Corn farm for instance, you have to decide only one city that can have that tile. If you highlight it and take it for a city, the other one will not be able to use it. Even if you stop using that Corn farm in order to work another food source like Fish for example, the other city doesn't automatically use that Corn, you have to tell it to "highlight" that spot as workable. Try clicking on tiles in each city screen. Rearrange the circles to get exactly what you want, if you use automate still check it alot. It does weird stuff sometimes.

Also in BUG Mod you can hover over the city name etc in the map, to see what specialists are assigned there. So you'll see a picture of a Scientist or Spy in the city name bar info with the turns to border pop etc. A little picture shows how many Scientists are working. Also, the top of the BUG mod HUD tells you how many turns for a great person. You can see sometimes, that a place will get a Great Spy in like 50 turns, means it just started working a Great Spy when it grew another size. That pisses me off so I immediately go take away that Spy specialist and make him go back to the mines / farms unless I really did want a spy of course.

The game is always trying to put scientists and spies in random cities, often where I'll never even get one Great Person, or when I really need production, so I have to tell it who is boss but I do get tired of checking every turn so using automate could help sometimes.

 

[Re-loader]

I know what you are describing OP. It happens when your population increases, as mentioned above.

I think BUG mod tells you in advance your city's population is increasing, so there is your warning that you'll have to adjust the specialists.

 

[bhavv]

Even with the bug mod, its difficult to keep track of auto specialist placements ruining my GPP pool.

 

[elitetroops]

Even with the bug mod, its difficult to keep track of auto specialist placements ruining my GPP pool.

With a large empire you should get used to checking the city details tab in domestic advisor every turn for specialists. If there is an unwanted spy somewhere, click on the city icon at the left to go to that city screen, fix it, then esc to return to domestic advisor. This is much faster than scrolling through all your cities.