brianb1974
Warlord
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2007
- Messages
- 157
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.
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.