Specialists being created in a nonmanaged city

[Smirk]

This is extremely annoying and is repeated constantly either with growth or some other effect causes it to kick in.

Strictly speaking it might be a good idea to run a scientist specialist while under representation instead of that 1/1/3 cottaged plain. But this is very shortsighted and even ignoring the fact that the cottage grows only with use the 1 food might be the difference between future production as well.
I've even found it makes regular old +1H citizens. It seems to be representation that causes it, that coupled with undeveloped tiles. But an undeveloped grass or plain is still better than a citizen. It seems the +3 science is outranking the small amounts of food and hammers you get from regular undeveloped tiles.

Anyway, this is bogus, especially when you have the governor turned off.

 

[Smegma]

I've noticed the exact same behavior! My cities will suddenly lose production and I won’t know why. Turns out that for some reason I’ll have several science specialists and other random citizens. This occurs even when there is workable AND improved land available. For example, someone will be taken off a mine and made into a scientist for no reason!

 

[playshogi]

Yes, they really need to fix this, by providing options for the player to reliably control it. I especially don't want scientists appearing in a city I'm tailoring to produce Great Artists.

 

[Lord GS-41]

Do those specialists have a yellow box around them? If not, they're there because of a city building or wonder or something. I think they're known as free specialists.

 

[BeefontheBone]

IIRC the yellow ones are ones you've set yourself, white ones are governors' decisions, and the ones without boxes are free ones. Might be wrong, though.

 

[Smirk]

The yellow boxed ones are Forced, it will state this on the popup text. Otherwise they are automated. You can have free specialists that are forced to a particular type.

But this has nothing to do with the bug I'm talking about, as this is happening early in the game before any free specialists appear and happening when the governor is explicitly turned off. And I am able to remove them and work them as normal, and have done this on numerous occasions in the same cities.

It appears to be present with Representation and also Sistine's Chapel, both give special bonuses to specialists which apparently is overvalued, so much so that the governor is setting them when its not even turned on.

 

[Commander Bello]

I have noticed the same and my theory is that as soon as you finish a building allowing for specialists AND (boolean AND) there is enough food surplus (I don't have any clue, how much food surplus is needed, though), the game automatically puts in that very specialist.
This is extremly annoying, since you have to check with your cities every time.

 

[Silvermink]

It also has to do with total citizen output. A scientist or other specialist under representation with the Sistine chapel wonder has a total output of about 10 units(gold/culture/production). This is far greater than many tiles. A non-river grassland farm produces only 3 units(food). If the city has enough surplus food(2-3 when not on automate food), then it will select a specialist. Turning on specialize food as well as the other type you want, will eliminate most of these choices by the AI. If you have the city govenor off, then when the city grows, it makes a choice using the same rules.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I haven't seen the game move my citizens to specialists when the governor is off. It does sometimes allocate new citizens as specialists when a city grows. It would be nice to have an option to avoid this, but, the game almost always does the wrong thing with new citizens, so, this is just one more example of it.