Purporse of Citizens?

About the only time I ever use citizens is when I capture a big city under such intense cultural pressure that there are not enough tiles to work and not enough buildings to enable enough good specialists.

1 Hammer + 3 beakers (representation) + 2 culture (sistine chapel) is almost a respectable use of the 2 food the dude eats

That said, I usually whip them away because they'll usually starve otherwise. But in a really big city where you want to whip a factory or something, you get a better rate if you work it for a turn before laying down the whip. Even if an extra guy starves in the process, it may be worth it.

Also, sometimes my national park doesn't have enough infrastructure to use all its specialists. One of my usual strategies is to choke off an opponent at the beginning of the game so that he is unable to improve his tiles and he provides me with free workers. Eventually, my economy grows to the point where I actually get around to taking the city. Capital cities are, after all, usually great sites. Unless your opponent got the all forest start--out of 20 tiles in the BFC, 17-18 forests and 2-3 specials. If the specials aren't really great, the city isn't worth a damn until you can build lumber mills. So just let the opponent keep it and build you workers until shortly before replaceable parts. Then you take it, whip out the basics (forge, granary) and slog your way through building as much infrastructure as possible before biology. Then build national park (and your workers built preserves out of the mills after scientific method) and it's like whammo god city. But anyway, by that time you might not have enough buildings for all those specialists. So some of them might be citizens. I've had such a late-bloomer city go legendary before, powered largely by sistine-powered specialists. It helps to do this if you can BUY the infrastructure under universal sufferage.
 
Wodan, I understand your post and agree, provided any of those options are available. And, of course, if you're able to work a tile that has no food harvest associated that would also accomplish restriction of growth, and is obviously better than working a citizen specialist because of the higher hammer yield.

You misread my post, however. I never suggested

... taking a "unhappy citizen" and changing him to a "nearly worthless specialist" (citizen)

only that citizens could be used to consume excess food without harvesting food, thus preventing or slowing growth, which may be a viable course of action to avoid growing into unhappiness.

One example I can think of is a coastal city, just below it's happiness cap, and already working all it's land tiles and specialist slots, that would have either +2 food and one commerce by working another sea tile, or stagnant growth and one hammer by working a citizen. Now, granted either isn't a very good use of that population, and effort should be made to build more buildings to open more specialist slots, but in the mean time working the population as a citizen will prevent growth, and by preventing growth the additional population will not turn the city unhappy.
 
Right. In such a case we're working the citizen to get the hammer.

If our reason for working the citizen is simply to prevent from going unhappy, frankly, IMO it would be better to work the coast tile because we will gain significant commerce.

There's little that's inherently bad with having an unhappy citizen in such a case. He'll just sit there and mind his own business.
 
The scenario you describe is impossible. We are not taking a "unhappy citizen" and changing him to a "nearly worthless specialist" (citizen) because that unhappy citizen does not exist yet. Before that unhappy citizen exists, we are taking a different guy off of a high food tile, such as fish or wheat, and changing THAT guy to something.

The suggestion to change him to a citizen (1:hammers:), frankly, seems quite sub-optimal to me (unless running representation).

Although the situation is not only rare but also sub-optimal, as you point out, it is not impossible to want to use a citizen specialist. Here's the situation where it occurs:

A: You want to halt growth for the city to avoid going over happy cap.
B: Slavery is not an option at this point because you are either building a wonder or you just started a regular building and do not want to (or can't) slave right yet.
C: You do not have any regular specialist producing buildings in the city
D: You have few :hammers:-bearing tiles around the city, certainly nothing over 1 :hammers:

Here are some other options:
1) change him to a forest, on a hill if possible (2:food:1:hammers: or 1:food:2:hammers: or 1:food:3:hammers:)

You don't have any tiles over 1:hammers: so only the grass/forest is your only option from the above. But since you want to halt growth, why would you use a tile with 2:food: in addtion to the :hammers:? A citizen is better.

2) keep him working the fish and change 2 or 3 other guys; e.g., change 2 grass forests (2:food:1:hammers:) to plains forests or hills forests (1:food:2:hammers: or 1:food:3:hammers:). Or change grass cottages to plains cottages (which builds your future infrastructure for when you get more happy and can grow your city to work all your cottages at the same time)

Certainly this is a better option but it may not be available because the only tiles available are plains or grass/forest or worse (jungle, tundra, etc.)

3) change him to a mine or workshop (1:food:2:hammers: or 1:food:3:hammers: or 4:hammers:)

Again, these tiles are not available.

4) change him to a real specialist.

With all those other options, why in the world would we change him to a citizen (1:hammers:)?

Again, these options are not available. Remember, you want to stop growth so food bearing tiles are out. A citizen specialist is like using a 1:hammers:-no food tile.

NPM
 
Build some workers so you have some decent tiles instead of being a crappy player with crappy cities.


If you have absolutely no hills or workshops or whatever and can't slave right away keep building until you can slave. Growing into unhappiness is okay if you plan on whipping them away afterwards. If it's a wonder you can whip cheaper buildings (perhaps ones that open specialists!) and let the overflow go into the wonder, though I sort of question how you could build a wonder with crappy production in the first place.

If you are not in slavery then its extremely early in the game and this whole thing isn't relevant or its afterwards and you have caste/serfdom/emancipation in which case its late enough for you to plop some workshops down.

Don't be terrified of growing past your happy cap. If your city happens to be unable to stall its growth completely and you can't build a worker or settler, its okay to let it (slowly) grow unhappy if you have no better options. The new citizen could then be starved for extra production if a new tile becomes available, (i.e. workshop) or whipped away once slavery is an option, and become useful if your happy cap goes up. Working a 2 :food: 1 :hammers: tile and growing a little unhappy is better than a raw 1 :hammers: citizen that halts growth. Not by much, mind you, but still better.



The only situation you could need them is where you have absolutely no hammer tiles at all (and no ability to make them) and you really just want some production. This pretty much only occurs in one-tile island cities.
 
Although the situation is not only rare but also sub-optimal, as you point out, it is not impossible to want to use a citizen specialist.
::sigh:: I'll respond but please note that much of what you're saying was covered in previous posts. If you're going to join in the discussion (and you're very welcome to do so!), you might want to read the thread first. :)

I didn't say it was "impossible to want to use a citizen specialist". I said it was impossible to swap a yet-to-be-created pop for a citizen specialist.

What we're swapping is an EXISTING pop for a citizen specialist.

This is an important distinction because if we're comparing the two, we have to factor in the loss of income from whatever the EXISTING pop was doing.

Here's the situation where it occurs:
We've discussed those situations and more. No need to reiterate some of them. ;)

You don't have any tiles over 1:hammers:
If we're precluding other possibilities as a precondition to the discussion, I agree. If we're not, then we need to include other possibilities as a result of the discussion, which is what was done prior to your post.

But since you want to halt growth, why would you use a tile with 2:food: in addtion to the :hammers:? A citizen is better.
Because there is little harm from having an unhappy citizen. And, if you have the expectation of getting more happiness resources soon, either through research of Calendar, through trades, or through Hollywood etc, then having that guy there and ready to go would be a big benefit.
 
I have released all fear of unhappy citizens, so long as I'm in Slavery, and just waiting for the right time to whip. They're just slaves in the holding pen, and on the auction block.
 
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