Do you work water tiles (2F, 2C), or do you prefer assigning a specialist?

[JiM_cz]

Could more experienced players help me decide which option is better?

My situation & train of thought.

Working water tiles (2F, 2C).

Pros:
Higher population means more profitable trade routes (I believe 1 pop = +5% value?).
Higher population makes it easier to whip when needed; I usually try to run Slavery as much as possible.
After a few water tiles are being worked, the total commerce output becomes higher than what a specialist would generate.

Cons:
Higher population makes it harder to keep citizens happy, meaning more hammers spent on happiness buildings instead of units or wealth.
Specialists give benefits immediately, whereas growing to the point where worked tiles outperform a specialist takes time.
Specialist beakers/gold are independent of slider settings. Btw, I usually run representation the whole game.

 

[a pen-dragon]

First, another Con: a larger city costs a bit more maintenance.

Now, IMHO the big plus of the water tile compared to specialists is the 2 food. This means the city grows faster.

What I then do is to let a city grow to the happy (sometimes health in the late game) cap ASAP and only then assign specialists.

Growing into unhappiness is rarely worth it, notable exceptions are planned whips, and when you will soon get more happiness.

Also, I disagree with this:

Higher population makes it easier to whip when needed;

because the production gained from a whip only depends on the number of population points whipped away, while growing takes more food at larger sizes. Thus whipping a large city is less efficient than whipping a small one. Basically this only makes sense when you need all that population to meet the minimal population requirement for a whip, e.g. growing a city to size 6 in the early game to 3-pop whip a settler.

 

[Fippy]

Big difference between a natural happy cap (from resources & Rep) and happy buildings needed.
I don't think water tiles are ever worth building stuff like a temple (without AP hammers).

points have so much value when you plan bulbs, or maybe a great merchant gold infusion.
No time to worry about water tiles in cities with that task

But more food first can be excellent in preparation of golden ages or a switch into pacifism / caste..
filling up before the multipliers arrive.

 

[pmarc]

Representation specialists are better than coast, but I think you still want to grow as fast as possible until you have the population to max out the specialists (so either 2 with library, or as many as your food surplus allows in Caste System). You can also try to assign more specialists than your surplus allows during a golden age if the starvation is not faster than the great person generation.

 

[Gabethebabe]

I generally don't use specialists, unless:

I am at happy cap

I want to generate (a) Great Person(s). If possible, I will run 2 Scientists ASAP somewhere, after getting writing.

I need a specific resource for that city. Usually an Engineer for more hammers, especially if it increases a bonus. For example going from 2-4 hammers with a Forge means you actually go from 2-5 and your engineer generates 3hammers. When you have a 25% bonus (forge), I try to micromanage hammers to a multiple of 4.

I am running representation

 

[Plains-Cow]

I will work water tiles over assigning specialists unless I am in a golden age because getting a great person (scientists, not spies, ideally) is FAR better than any tile yield that a golden age 2F2C boosted would give. I also whip off of water tiles rather than land tiles if I need to do any whipping. Never whip off of a cottage!

 

[ArchGhost]

What I do

Short answer: Don't work specialists without a specific task.
Use that citizen to work a food tile and grow, whip it into something.
Use that citizen to work a hammer tile, use the raw hammers for material (workers, settlers, workboats, fogbusters) or Wealth/Research if at Currency/Alpha
Use that citizen to work a cottage tile, and add growth turns to it.

A 4 yield water tile would qualify as a food tile for the purpose of this shortlist. The extra commerce is a boon. More so if you didn't even need the lighthouse (a lake tile).

I also like to work them at max pop when stopping at the happy cap (either on a settler/worker or just building Research/Wealth and configuring to not grow) because hey, free commerce if there is no cottage to put turns into instead. And unless you're setting up for whips you can't really use extra food at the moment.



More detail?
Examples of "specific task" could be:
-Run any combo of specialists just to get GP for first Golden Age. Useful if you are ignoring Music or capture an early wonder for extra GPP. Can do it later too to pair with another GP you have lying around for another Golden Age to swap civics, kickstart economy, mass farm GP etc.
-Run scientists to collect GPP toward a Great Scientist for an Academy, or later bulb
-Run Scientists at low slider/high econ crunch to crawl towards econ tech like Sailing, Alpha, Currency or something to trade for these
-Run scientists in Pacifism+National Epic+Golden Age later, or multiple library cities simultaneously early to setup multi-bulb slingshot up to Liberalism or Astronomy
-Run merchants to get GPP toward Great Merchant, to consume for gold for tech (an alternative to tech toward things not on the GS bulb list) or unit upgrade strat. Have even done this early (with GLH points) to get Currency/Metal Casting via bulb to tech another direction/double up GLH+Colossus.
-Run an Artist for first border pop for new cities while in Caste

Once these tasks are done, switch the city back to working tiles to grow up to cap, grow and whip, or improve tiles themselves (cottages).

Rep scientists are pretty good, especially post-Library, but the largest benefit of Rep is the happiness: up to +15 citizen space to work tiles or be whipped away. Direct yields from specialists are good in some cases, but a lot of the time losing the food (and thus size/growth speed) is worse than what you are getting in return. Again there are special cases where you need the yields (digging out of an econ hole, etc). GPP generation on Scientists/Merchants is almost always better than the Specialist yields themselves. Or rather, the GPP yield per turn is far better than their beaker/gold per turn.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Pros:
Higher population means more profitable trade routes (I believe 1 pop = +5% value?).
Higher population makes it easier to whip when needed; I usually try to run Slavery as much as possible.
After a few water tiles are being worked, the total commerce output becomes higher than what a specialist would generate.

5% on its own isn't going to make a difference in trade route value. 50% can barely make a difference prior to big, juicy, intercontinental trade routes.

As mentioned, higher population won't make it easier to whip unless you're whipping things so hammer-intensive they shouldn't be whipped.

I'm not clear on the last point: several water tiles will generate more commerce than one specialist, but one water tile will generate less commerce (or rather commerce equivalent) than a specialist, meaning several water tiles will generate less commerce than several specialists, four water tiles will generate less commerce than two water tiles and two specialists, etc.