Poll: Specialist Strength Check

How does each Specialist perform in game?


  • Total voters
    26
  • Poll closed .

Stalker0

Baller Magnus
Joined
Dec 31, 2005
Messages
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Continuing with some polls, now lets check in on the specialists themselves.

The poll is to determine if there are any specialists that need tweaking. Please leave in the comments if you think conceptual changes are needed.
 
I think the merchant could use some serious numbers bumping for both his GPTI and Specialist slots are extremely underwhelming compared to pretty much every other great person.
it's essentially a 3:c5food:1:c5unhappy: for 4:c5gold: which is pretty terrible conversion rate ,adding to that the GPTI it produces is really weak and the instant yields from trading mission mediocre at best.
 
I think the merchant could use some serious numbers bumping for both his GPTI and Specialist slots are extremely underwhelming compared to pretty much every other great person.
it's essentially a 3:c5food:1:c5unhappy: for 4:c5gold: which is pretty terrible conversion rate ,adding to that the GPTI it produces is really weak and the instant yields from trading mission mediocre at best.

Just noting that we are covering the Great Merchant in other polls. This is purely about the merchant specialist and the yields it provides.
 
Merchant clearly has underwhelming yields. I don't really have a problem with it, since you will still want to make some GMs, and it can give rise to some interesting city specialisation i.e. I often won't work merchants all the time in my best GP city, but instead in some other city. A small buff to them could be good, but I would rather see them buffed through policies/wonders/beliefs, so you have more situational/focused strategies. I find things that buff a particular specialist are pretty FUN, such as tutelary gods or walls of babylon. I think a merchant bonus would fit great with progress.
 
Engineer specialists are hard to justify. I almost never work them unless I'm hurrying to build a wonder. It's usually better to work a tile instead. Maybe some more building or tile improvement synergies might help?
 
Diplomats start off strong, though the buffs they get from Techs don't scale as well as other Specialists. This is mostly due to their Yields being spread between Gold, Science, and Culture.
 
I don't know why Musicians have better yields than Writers and Artists. Maybe it's time to equalize them? Or at least, Artists shouldn't be weaker than Writers, seeing as they're unlocked later.

Engineers are weak. I'd rather work a normal mine since they give more production, don't consume additional food, and Great Engineers simply aren't worth it.
 
Besides the cultural specialists and maybe science specialist I find that it's almost always better to work tiles for yields as the specialists never give enough yields to justify the food cost, and food cost included I would be gaining more overall yield value from working tiles (IE, better to work mines than engineer specialist as you get similar or greater production from the mine, plus extra food compared to the engineer specialist).

Therefore specialists are mostly run by me to create GP, and nothing else, and that is their only practical value when tiles of similar yield are available for working. (This is all written assuming city growth is desired. In cases where it isn't wanted, specialists compare more evenly to tiles)
 
Engineers do have some uses even beyond GEs, especially in the earlygame for reasons like making a Settler or accounting for poor tile selection. They feel weak in the lategame though, and should probably scale a bit more. Merchants on the other hand feel weak from the start, and the lackluster GP they make doesn't help.
 
I think a lot depends on the value of the GPPs. If they will lead to a GP (before the game ends) then they are high-value yields. If not, they are worthless.

Scientists are very strong when the science they generate also boosts the yield of the Great Scientist that they create. Perhaps too strong.
 
As the poll finished up, there looks like some support for a minor Merchant adjustment. Though the Engineer had more detractors, its pretty close...I think too close to make any conclusions. Regardless, the number of votes for any topic is not that high, so hard to draw any strong conclusions.
 
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