Specialists in Cities

[{UK}Kila$]

Hello all I need a little help.

I have been playing on Prince Level and have been in the No 1 position for most games played until I reach about 1200AD. After that point a drop to about 4th place and up to that point im storming.

I think it may be down to the fact that I dont use the city specialist's and admittedly I don't really know the benefit of using them. Are there any guides or tips anyone can give me on using them.

Cheers

 

[petey]

It depends on what you want the city to do. If you have a city with a lot of commerce and that's fueling your research, put a couple of scientist specialists there and let the bonuses stack up by building libraries, universities, etc. If you have a Shrine, put a merchant in there and build markets and banks. If you have a lot of food but not much production, add an engineer or a priest to get some hammers.

Just remember that each specialist takes up two food, so you need enough extra food in the city to be able to support them. They're especially good for cities when they are approaching their happiness/health limits since that stops the city from growing to the point that the new population isn't productive.

 

[Drake007]

Getting the great library in a food-rich city is definitely a good move imo. Since you gotta have a library to build it, you'll be able to add 2 scientist specialists to go with the 2 free ones and the +2 from the wonder. Put the national epic in there, and you'll have +28 scientist birth rate for the price of only two specialists.

All those great scientists will help your research quite a lot (academies + free techs). You can also add some engineers, merchants and prophets as you wish, or stick to scientists and make the city a great people/commerce hybrid, since the great library will become obsolete one day.

Most of the time I use only one city for specialists and barely use any in other cities. I also feel a 2nd "specialist" city isnt very useful in most cases. Actually having one is A LOT better than not having any though.

 

[josephstalin]

You dropped your position in score, as AI built much more cottaes, than you did. They mature by that time.

 

[Stalker0]

Normally I use specialists in the early game when my cities hit a population cap through happiness. Then I use them again in the late game when my cities start getting big enough to use all of their tiles...with one city with a lot of specialists for GP.

However, you can use specialists throughout the game in a variety of ways.

1) Make your specialists pay their bills. For example, with representation and the sistine chapel, all of your specialist give you a free +2 culture and +3 beakers. Suddenly, they become a lot more attractive.

2) Turn commerce cities into production ones for brief times. The one problem with commerce cities is the lack of hammers, which give them all their cool multiplers. However, you can use engineers and priests to give them some hammers for a time to let them finish these buildings quicker.

3) Focus your civilization in "emergency times." Lets say your in a race with another civ to get Liberalism (for the free tech). It may be worth it to dedicate a lot of your cities to science specialists for a little while. Especially at higher levels when the AI's science rates become more competitive, getting a free tech can help keep you in the ballgame. On the other side, if you get attacked by a large force, you may want to go pure income for a time to upgrade your troops for the fight.

4) Specialists can give a further early game advantage. If you look at a science specialist, he gives +3 beakers. Now assuming for that your running at 100% science, that's 3 commerce. For a non financial civ, it can take a while before cottages give that kind of commerce, so its actual a boost in your overall output to go scientists. However, your growth rate will ****** as a result, which is why its a good idea to only do this when your near your population limits.

However, lets say you get representation early through the pyramids. Now that's +6 beakers, or 6 commerce. You won't get that kind of output until towns late in the game. In this case, you may find it worth it to go some more specialists early regardless of food, and crank your advantage even more.

 

[Periander]

Yeah, that's my strat in a nutshell, Philosophical leader, chop rush the Pyramids, go Representation, rush to Literature, build the Great Library and the National Epic, then head for Philosophy, Taoism and Pacifism,... You can pwnz tech wise with just one city.

 

[Ogrelord]

I try making a 5 Cities core specialist cities. 1. prophet (almost always cpaital city) 2. science 3. engineers 4. artist 5. mechant (always coastal)

haven't mastered it enough.

 

[{UK}Kila$]

Ok thanks all that makes a little more sense. One more thing though....when you assign a specialist does it not take one of the resource tiles of the city display , and if you get a free specialist via a wonder....are they assigned automatically or do you have to select them yourself. It was not clear in the manual on this point.

Thanks for all your help people.

 

[Ogrelord]

Things that give you a free specialist does not cost you 2 food or 1 citizen. you can assign them as any specialist as long you have the buidlings for it. i.e temple give you one place for priest, forge gives you a job for engineer, and so forth.

 

[Artanis]

Ok thanks all that makes a little more sense. One more thing though....when you assign a specialist does it not take one of the resource tiles of the city display , and if you get a free specialist via a wonder....are they assigned automatically or do you have to select them yourself. It was not clear in the manual on this point.

Thanks for all your help people.

If the city governor is on, it'll assign it automatically. You can manually reassign it yourself though using the normal specialist controls.