Ideas on city specialists

[ShadowWarrior]

Here is my idea for city specialists

City specialists can be staffed in any kind of city improvements such as zoo, library, and mkt. The only upper limit to the number of city specialists that can be staffed in these improvements is the food requirement. City specialists staffed in improvements will accumulate points each turn. When certain number of points have been accumulated, it will unlock some kind of bonus effect for the particular improvement in which that specialists is staffed.

For example, each specialist will accumulate two points each turn. If I staff two specialists in a library, they will accumulate 4 points each turn. When 30 points have been accumulated, a bonus effect will be unlocked for this library. The bonus effect could be that the library is free of maintenance cost.

For the next library bonus effect to be unlocked, 60 points have to be accumulated. The next library bonus might be that hte library will contribute to 5 more beakers.

Subsequent bonus effect will be more and more expensive (just like social policies), but the bonus effect will also become more and more powerful.

All city improvements can staff specialists. So zoo, colloseum, barracks, wall, and lighthouse can all staff city specialists. The first bonus for city wall may be that the wall is stronger. The second city wall bonus maybe that the city can attack twice per turn instead of just one. A barrack bonus may result in ranged units produced in this particular city having higher attack points than their default.

The key to making this game fun with this idea is that we need to be creative with the bonus. Bonus can be generic straight forward bonus like adding 10 beakers or three gold. But bonus can also be more indirect. For example, the third library bonus may grant 25 percent reduction in beaker research cost for all technologies that have already been discovered by two other civilizations. The fourth barrack bonus may allow this city to produce ranged units that have less and less maintenance cost. The conversion rate of hammers to gold maybe favorably increased with the second bank bonus.

Bonus should be somewhat conditional. For example, the third bonus for library is that each trade route originating from this city add 5 more beakers. Well, this bonus has meaning only if this city has trade routes. We players will then have to make a choice. Do we want to concentrate all our trade routes at this city? If we do, then we will get a huge boost in beaker production. But what if we have another city that currently has unlocked a market bonus which effectively increases gold output of that city by 25 more percent. In that case, its not a bad idea for us to concentrate all our trade route in that city instead of this library city. So we have to make a strategic choice.

Bonus should not just be conditional. Bonus should be different from game to game and we would never know what kind of bonus we will have. The first library bonus for City A in game A may be free maintenance cost. The first library bonus for City B in game A maybe the addition of two more beakers. The first library bonus for City A in game B maybe a totally different type of bonus. This randomness creates more replayability.

Bonus should also be conditional on geography. For example, the first granary bonus will add one more food to all worked farms that are located on grassland. But worked farms on flood plains or plains will not have any food bonus. The first lighthouse bonus will add one more food to worked fish resources.

This should be an interesting feature. We essentially have to make a choice between tall and wide for each of our cities. We can go for tall growth in our city, but the specialists we staff in our city's improvements means that there is less food production, unless you are staffing the specialists in the granary. But then again, who says that granary must generate food bonus? Maybe the granary bonus you end up with in a particular game is related to gold, not food. For example, one granary bonus maybe that each domestic food transfer route that originate in this city will add two gold. In another word, if this city with this particular granary bonus transfer food to another city within the same empire using trade route, this trade route will generate two gold for this originating city. This city, then, gets gold bonus, but no food bonus.

Let me know what you think

 

[killmeplease]

so essentially its something like xp and promotions but for buildings
in civ3 culture buidlings used to give more of this yield with time, maybe it was a measure to make culture victory easier. old buildings and wonders also used to produce 'tourism' gold.

technically something like this is already realized with specialists, if you want more science you place a scientist and it creates a great scientist, which builds an academy, which increases science production etc.

 

[Redaxe]

I think it could be cool for the Circus Maximus have a happiness specialist - like an entertainer from the old civ 5. You place a citizen in there for 4 local city happiness.

In Rome or Constantinople there were probably 1000s of people at least in the cities organising and running the games and the chariot faction/guilds had 10,000s of members.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Let's take it a step or two further...

'Specialists' to me, represent all those people in the city who do not have to spend all their time producing Food, but can develop other skills for trade, entertainment, education, - all the skills that turn a tribe into a civilization. So, by modern times, 80 - 90% of the city population should be Specialists.

Further, the traditional Food model for city growth in Civ games is really, really flawed. Having enough to eat was basic to keeping people in a city, but population growth did not come from within the city, it came from Reasons For People To Move To The City - jobs, access to education, entertainment, power, prestige, etc.

Put these two together, and the number of unfilled Specialist Slots should drive the city growth - jobs waiting to be filled - and practically every building in the city should have 1 or more Specialist slots.

Furthermore, the types of Specialists should be expanded = religious types are not only the outgoing Missionaries and Inquisitors, but also local priests, monks, and Temple workers who affect more than just religion - early Priesthoods from Babylon to the Maya also had Scientific, Cultural and Political affects as well.

So, let's have grades of Specialists, and an extra category or two of Specialists:
Each of these 'feeds' into the Great Person at the top:
Great Prophet or Religious Specialists:
.....Priest
.....Religious Scholar
.....Evangelist
Great Scientist or Science Specialists:
.....Scribe
.....Scholastic
.....Scientist
Great Engineer, or Production Specialists:
.....Artisan
.....Craftsman
.....Engineer
Great Merchant, or Gold Specialists:
.....Trader
.....Merchant
.....Entrepreneur
Great Artist/Writer/Musician, or Happiness Specialists:
(These are the only ones that are not a hierarchy - each adds points to a specific 'Great Entertainer' type)
.....Author
.....Musician
.....Artist
Administrator or Efficiency/anti-corruption Specialists:
.....Administrator
.....Bureaucrat
.....Minister
And some Specialists could even be Unique to Civilizations or Social Policy/Religion/Tech:
Bard – a specialist Musician who also adds value like a Scholar
Philosopher – a specialized Scholar, available earlier, with some Social Policy affects
Mandarin, Commissar - Administrators unique to a particular Ideology or Civilization

Wait, there's More:
The type of specialist that goes into a given Building Slot could vary with Social Policy or Technology.
Example: The Palace would originally have an Administrator Slot. This Administrator would reduce the Corruption Factor in distant cities, making it easier to 'go wide' - up to a point. That point is pretty close by, because the original Administrator is not very good, until other technologies like Roads, Writing, Bureaucracy, Telephone/Telegraph, Railroads, etc increase his reach and effect.
BUT the Palace would also have a slot for an Artisan, because the denizens of the Palace are the original 'users' of Luxury Goods in any civilization.

Your first religious Building would have a slot for a Priest (obviously!) BUT once you develop Writing, you could (with the right Policy) get a second slot for a Scribe, because many of the early schools teaching writing were Temple Schools associated with the religious structure in a city. Some current 'religious' special buildings might get this 'science' specialist right off the bat: Mayan Pyramids, for example, or Babylonian Ziggurats (because early Babylonian Astronomy/Astrology really needs to be represented somewhere in that civilization)

Buildings would gain Slots both as a result of city growth and as a result of Technology and Social Policy. The same Market that served a Pop 3 city with one Trader Slot might have up to 3 such slots in a city of Population = 20. Furthermore, as you progress from Trader to Merchant to Entrepreneur in your Tech, the effects would grow in the Building: the 'Market' of 1995 AD with 3 Entrepreneurs working out of it would be far more powerful than a 'market' of 600 BC with one Trader hawking pots and rugs...

 

[killmeplease]

Further, the traditional Food model for city growth in Civ games is really, really flawed. Having enough to eat was basic to keeping people in a city, but population growth did not come from within the city, it came from Reasons For People To Move To The City - jobs, access to education, entertainment, power, prestige, etc.

thats not quite right
population rose no matter were there jobs or not. if there was no "vertical" space people would settle new lands or invade neightbours or started a civil war etc.
unrealistic thing in civ is that growth is stopped with unhappiness

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

thats not quite right
population rose no matter were there jobs or not. if there was no "vertical" space people would settle new lands or invade neightbours or started a civil war etc.
unrealistic thing in civ is that growth is stopped with unhappiness

Population rose in a given city because there was a good life in that specific city: "good life" being described as enough to east, personal security, a livelihood (income), access to religion, entertainment, and other 'necessities'. When population pressure or circumstances reached a certain point, people would start a new city/settlement somewhere else - frequently provoking invasions, wars, etc. BUT not necessarily: the massive expansion of Greek colonies in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE are a good example of the spreading of population (and culture and influence) from the Crimea and southern Russia to Spain, none of which provoked immediate war - but did eventually result in most of the cities outside of Greece itself becoming part of another polity: local 'political' and military influence trumped cultural ties.

You are partly right and partly wrong in your comment about unhappiness. Unhappy People either leave the city or revolt (which comes in degrees, from Civil Disobedience to Unrest to outright Civil War). BUT when they leave the city they don't just disappear - they found a new city, or add to the population in an existing city where the 'Happiness Factors' are higher. Right now, as in so many things in Civ V, the concept is only half-thought out and the results bowdlerized and simplified, producing a game which is, frankly, boring compared to what it should be and could have been.