Specialist & benfits, when to use what [c3c]

[jb1964]

First of all, my answer to the above question is "I don't know." So words of wisdom, links to site that have figured this out, etc. are all welcome. This is a going to more of a dialog with myself to internalize what I have seen my teammates in BNH02 use to great affect. Check out the link in my signature to SG BNH02 and read through a game that almost ended at the hands of an archer but did end when we launched the ship.

Specialists and Benefits
Taxmen - 2gpt
Scientists - 3bpt
Cop - 1gpt/1spt (A good call in Commie governments)
Civil Engineer - 2spt for a structure, not units. (Don't try to accumulate for a switch to a unit 'cause it doesn't work.)

Most of the use of specialists is going to come from your more corrupt cities. Your far away, or conquered lands

Scenarios
Research slider pushed to bring the tech in four turns...
More beakers will not speed things up and will not go into the treasury.
With research pushed way up your best bet is probably a taxman.

Research slider pushed to bring the tech in 5 turns or more...
The higher the number of turns the more easily a few scientists will reduce the turns. But in your corrupt regions maximize food and hire many scientists to bring the tech in early. The nice thing about food production is that it can't be corrupted. Take advantage of that.

Other scenarios to be pondered at a later date…
Research minimum, building treasury for any number of good reasons
Waging war and holding corrupt cities

 

[TimBentley]

Taxmen only produce 2gpt. Therefore, I find it is usually better to lower the science slider and use scientists, rather than having a higher science rate and more taxmen.

 

[Renata]

Surviving a difficult anarchy. In Nad's current deity succession game I traded for a tech for a high amount of gpt right before planning to change governments. The gpt hit in anarchy was over 60g per turn. Since we had a lot of flood plains around, I was able to reduce that to less than 30gpt using taxmen, without loss of population.

Not really a desirable situation to be in in the first place, but once there, it did help.

Renata

 

[microbe]

Specialists and Benefits
Taxmen - 2gpt
Scientists - 3bpt
Cop - 1gpt/1spt
Civil Engineer - 2spt for a structure, not units.

The bottom line is do not waste.

General rules:
If hiring scientists let you finish research faster, do it than taxmen. Otherwise, hire taxmen.
If you want shields more than science or gold, hire civil engineer.
If civil engineer can complete the build faster than cop, hire civil engineer, otherwise policemen, since the latter gives more gold too.

 

[Justus II]

A key fact to remember is that the shield/gold from a cop is actually returning one corrupted from your normal production, so that it is then multiplied by any improvements you have in the city, unlike the other specialists, who add 'artificial' sheilds/gold/beakers. So (for example) if you have a market in the city (not uncommon in larger cities, even if they are fairly corrupt) it will get the 50% bonus, and may yeild 2 net gold. Same with libraries, etc. It also means that 1-2 policeman in some of your moderately corrupt cities (30-60% range) can be a real good payoff, as they tend to still have most of your infrastructure in place. A taxman and a civil engineer would give 2 gold and 2 shields, but 2 cops would give 2 gold multiplied by any markets/banks, libraries/universities, and 2 shields multiplied by any factory/powerplant. Like all of them, it depends on the circumstances, but I find cops quite useful even in moderate cities.

 

[Bartleby]

The flipside which is implicit in what Justus II says is that cops have no effect in utterly corrupt cities.

 

[Justus II]

The flipside which is implicit in what Justus II says is that cops have no effect in utterly corrupt cities.

That's not quite true, with the current patch, most cities will still get at least one shield and trade from a cop, similar to a courthouse. (Not always, but in most cases, even the 90% corrupt ones).