Is there a quick way to change tasks for specialists?

[morchuflex]

Hello.

In the late game, you often get 10+ specialists in bigger cities. Sometimes, you want them to be taxmen, another time scientists of engineers.

I don't want to discuss which one is more useful, but only to know wether or not there's a quick way to set all of them at the same time to the same task?

I have noticed that, when you click the center of the city display, they all set themselves to taxmen or scientists depending on the science rate (taxmen when science is above 50%, scientists otherwise).
Is there anything else?

In particular, I really wish Firaxis had implemented an "optimize" button that would set just as many engineers as needed to complete the project in one turn, or t least to deliver exactly the right amount of shields without wasting efforts. Because I'm currently handling 20 very large cities, and micromanaging specialists takes about three minutes per turn...

 

[Paalikles]

Optimizing is what you need to do. As is, the civ engine cannot handle the level of optimization you want.

Perhaps adding options such as "set all specialists to [type]" could be done, but the only optimal way of doing it, is having the city planner (you) do the manual labour.

If you feel that is unsatisfactory, try experimenting with city governors - manage citizen moods etc.

IMO, managing tasks for specialists are closely related to micromanaging tile usage to optimize growth - so I would not want to leave it to the program to do that - just look at how poorly the engine allocates workers on city tiles.

 

[The Last Conformist]

IIRC, the gov'nor doesn't use the new Specialists (Civil Engineer and Police Officer).

 

[bingen]

Youi can change your specialists from the F1 screen without going into the city view.

 

[citizen001]

You just click the citizen and it changes to whatever you want.

 

[punkbass2000]

 

[morchuflex]

You just click the citizen and it changes to whatever you want.

Now this is helpful... But not quite up to my expectations.

 

[Arathorn]

Sorry, morchuflex. There's no way I've ever seen or heard of to optimize the cities -- heck, even your observation about taxmen/scientists based on science rate is pretty new to me. No "change all" buttons (or even an assistant program to do that that I know of, but my knowledge of such programs is pretty thin). It's just not there. If you need/want that level of optimization (and I know I do), you have to do it manually and semi-painfully.

Arathorn

 

[morchuflex]

Sorry, morchuflex. There's no way I've ever seen or heard of to optimize the cities -- heck, even your observation about taxmen/scientists based on science rate is pretty new to me. No "change all" buttons (or even an assistant program to do that that I know of, but my knowledge of such programs is pretty thin). It's just not there. If you need/want that level of optimization (and I know I do), you have to do it manually and semi-painfully.

Tooooooooooo bad!
The trouble is, like you, I can't abstain from micromanaging, at least when there still is serious comptetition.

 

[citizen001]

Now this is helpful... But not quite up to my expectations.

on the city screen there are heads in the middle. click the one you want to change and it switches to a specialist.

 

[morchuflex]

@Citizen001:
You missed my point; I'm not asking a newbie question about how to turn citizens into specialists!

 

[citizen001]

OH, sorry!!

 

[Mr. Do]

I hate messing around with specialists, espeically when you want to change an entertainer to a scientist or something, and you can't even click on the citizen a few times to get the specialist what you want, cos the position of the specialist changes when you switch someone from being an entertainer! If I can remember bingen's post next time I got a lot of citizens to mess around I won't get to frustrated though.

Sorry for the odd-topic rant

 

[morchuflex]

I hate messing around with specialists, espeically when you want to change an entertainer to a scientist or something, and you can't even click on the citizen a few times to get the specialist what you want, cos the position of the specialist changes when you switch someone from being an entertainer!

Couldn't agree more! This is utterly unbearable. Makes you wonder if the team at Firaxis' ever played their own game...
Furthermore, in the F1 screen, you must click approximately 1 cm on the left if you want to click on a specialist...