Specialists... What are We Doing Here, Guys?

[rkkn]

3a or 3b?

oh I thought the second one was 4.
3a is the good one

 

[Stalker0]

I think people are already jumping back into solutions, where the fundamental question really being asked in this thread is..... what do we want specialists to "do"?

Let me break it up into a few components:

Are Specialists OP?

I would argue compared to vanilla, VP specialists are heads and shoulders stronger, for 3 reasons:

1) The weakness of growth. We need to remember that in vanilla, population = science. It was your principal means of acquiring science, and so growth was quite important. It is significantly weaker in VP, and so the food cost for working specialists is much lower.

2) The happiness system. VP pretty harshly punishes growth when it comes to happiness (although this has softened somewhat in recent versions). As such, the optimal play right now is to grow a city to a certain point (often 4ish pop) and then switch to specialists to reduce growth and promote more yields, which tapers off unhappiness and keeps the city yield production high. Its either this or turn off growth entirely, which is never optimal. So it could be argued, specialists right now are ESSENTIAL, there isn't really a world where you aren't using them especially in your early expansion phase.

3) The power of Scientists. This goes back to number 1, scientists are one of the key means of acquiring science (both the scientist itself, and the GS later created from them). There is no real push without scientists, and so they are an essential part of good gameplay.


So you could make the argument that in general, specialists are already soooo strong, maybe too strong? Lets dig in a little more individually:


The Niche of Individual Specialists

So now looking at specialists more individually, what is there niche right now?

• Writer: Essential culture generator (both base, the great works, and later the bulb). There is no optimized play without them.
• Artist:
  • Essential culture generator
  • Essential GAP generator (majority of Golden Ages come from GA bulbs)
• Musician
  • Strong culture generator (at this point the culture from the musician and works somewhat pales to your base culture, so its a nice boost but not essential)
  • Essential tourism generator (if your going CV play, the musician bomb is a key component)
• Scientist
  • Essential science generator
• Civil Servant
  • Good early game yield generator
  • Essential votes and paper for DV play
  • Strong votes for nonDV play
  • Weaker in the mid to late game, somewhat obsolete as embassies are no longer optional.
  • Often concentrated in a single city
• Engineer
  • Situational hammer push for wonder rushing
  • Situational for high food/low prod city
• Merchant
  • Weak yield generator (money is the weakest yield generally)
  • Situational to counter bad WLTKD yields that you get stuck with for large periods of time.
  • Situational for freedom play with Transnationalism (Town = free franchise).

So with this list, there are a few things to consider. The first is....a good portion of specialists right now are ESSENTIAL. They are already so strong I use them all the time, every single game. Its never a question of if I'm using, its just whether my build order optimizes for them a little earlier or a little later (aka how fast you get to writer's guilds for example).

Second, engineers do have a niche, they just aren't ESSENTIAL like so many other specialists.

I would argue the only two specialists that truly have "problems" is the civil servant and merchant. The merchant is just a weak specialist, the GM isn't that exciting, the base yield of the merchant isn't very exciting, etc. Meanwhile the civil servant tends to blow its load early, its a nice early and midgame specialist, but loses a lot of steam and scaling in the later game.

The role of GPP in secondary cities
So as PAD brought up in the OP, there is a difference between specialists whose GPP are likely to contribute to a great person, and those who will not. Is that a problem?

This to me comes back to an old argument around building balance (especially late game building balance). How much "use" does a building need to have to be considered useful and balanced? Is 1 copy of it in the capital enough, maybe in the "core 4 cities", or it needs to be good in all cities to count.

Specialists to me are the same idea. While its true specialists in city 8 are not likely to give me good GPPs, I certainly am getting it from cities 2 and 3 lets say. So, if specialists are strong enough to frequently use in your main 3-4 cities, and maybe situational in the rest....is that actually a balance problem, or is that just things working as intended? This is a critical question.

 

[pineappledan]

I'm less concerned about whether or not people use specialist slots and more concerned about what it is that they do.

There are lots of resources, improvements, and boosters for terrain that give , all the same yields that specialists give. Some tiles give to boot! My question is what do specialists do as a game concept if they aren't making Great People? Why do they exist outside that context?
- For the GWAM specialists, they don't exist outside that context; they are restricted to 3 guild cities.
- For the rest, you can get slots for them in all your cities. Why? They compete for finite Citizens for their slots, but don't actually provide anything you couldn't get from a tile.

To me, that suggests we should either trim specialists out of common buildings, so they only exist in a context where they can create GPs, or they should do something a little different from tiles, regardless of where they are being worked, and regardless of their roll in GP creation.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm less concerned about whether or not people use specialist slots and more concerned about what it is that they do.

Beyond GPP, specialists sever as a yield converter/magnifier. They turn food and population into alternate yields, either more yields than what the terrain could create, or a different yield than the terrain can create.

There are lots of resources, improvements, and boosters for terrain that give , all the same yields that specialists give. Some tiles give to boot! My question is what do specialists do as a game concept if they aren't making Great People? Why do they exist outside that context?

this is a fallacy. For hammers and gold I would agree, but science and culture on tiles is rare and limited. GWAMs and GSs provide FAR more science and culture than the equivalent terrain that is given up.

 

[pineappledan]

Beyond GPP, specialists sever as a yield converter/magnifier. They turn food and population into alternate yields, either more yields than what the terrain could create, or a different yield than the terrain can create.

non-specialists also convert into other yields. Sometimes that other yield actually just ends up being more , but they still consume and then generate something else.

More or less yields isn't at issue here. You can set terrain or improvements higher, or have strong unique improvements, or natural wonders, or policies/beliefs that augment tiles up. The amount of yields isn't how you're going to make specialists feel different from tiles, because that's already the rutt we're in. adjusting mines up and down, and engineers up or down with each congress.

this is a fallacy. For hammers and gold I would agree, but science and culture on tiles is rare and limited. GWAMs and GSs provide FAR more science and culture than the equivalent terrain that is given up.

No it's not. There are a multitude of ways you can get from tiles. Is less common, hence your defenseof Scientists. They're more reliable and common than tiles (unless you're Maya), but in the end a scientist isn'tdoing anything different than slapping some on a tile. Just eating slightly more , and creating a different number of .

 

[Stalker0]

but in the end a scientist isn'tdoing anything different than slapping some on a tile. Just eating slightly more , and creating a different number of .

Which is a niche that does not exist elsewhere in the game..... hence why they are good and useful.

Now you could create a generic terrain improvement that just gives science, the issue with that is its "unlimited", I can blanket the board with them and just generate more science than god in my satelite cities. The niche of specialists is that they are powerful but also limited, you are capped on how many you can leverage to get their benefit. You could create a terrain improvement with some restrictions on placement to mitigate it, but then we blurring the lines between regular and UI improvements.

 

[pineappledan]

Now you could create a generic terrain improvement that just gives science, the issue with that is its "unlimited", I can blanket the board with them and just generate more science than god in my satelite cities. The niche of specialists is that they are powerful but also limited, you are capped on how many you can leverage to get their benefit. You could create a terrain improvement with some restrictions on placement to mitigate it, but then we blurring the lines between regular and UI improvements.

Which is just what the Maya do already, yeah. I understand that on tiles isn't common, but it's not rare either, and there's a civ that can mass-produce them.

The fact that scientists generate a relatively uncommon tile yield doesn't really make them special though. Furthermore, it's not doing Civil Servants, Merchants or Engineers any favours to focus on how Scientists are useful as justification to keep the other 3 as relatively useless.

 

[CppMaster]

The fact that scientists generate a relatively uncommon tile yield doesn't really make them special though.

Why do they need to be special beside generating GPPs, consuming food and causing urbanization? GPPs alone is a reason to work them.

 

[Circe]

I've been fairly content with specialist balance for a while. They don't need to beat tile improvements at all times because you don't have an unlimited number of desired tiles to work in every city. Towns and Manufactories can similarly improve subpar tiles into easily workable ones. That's their role, to me. I'm generally opposed to buffing yields anymore. If there were something more creative, such as civil servants enhancing Envoy production rates in their city, that might be okay.
Science and culture will always be king because they directly contribute to ending the game faster, much more strongly than food, production, or gold do. The only way someone is picking a merchant over that(assuming they can't have both) is if the gold is indirectly getting them more science or culture than the specialist itself would. Or if gold income is nerfed so severely that working merchants becomes standard play for revenue.

 

[pineappledan]

Why do they need to be special beside generating GPPs, consuming food and causing urbanization? GPPs alone is a reason to work them.

Well, I guess that's the point of this thread. Should specialists do something different?

It seems like a lot of the proposals we've been seeing in the congress are rooting around for an intractable problem with Engineers in particular: They just don't do anything particularly good if they aren't making Great Engineers. And when I look at the other specialist types I don't see them being any less guilty of the same sin as Engineers; other specialists just benefit from not having a basic improvement doing the exact same thing as them.

So is there a deeper problem here, or do we just keep going with these little tweaks? +1 to Engineers on this tech, or on that building. A buff manufactory here. And town should do this, and get a bonus from that.
Are we just not getting these yields exactly right at the exact right timing, or is there an underlying deficiency with what specialists do?

 

[Stalker0]

Are we just not getting these yields exactly right at the exact right timing, or is there an underlying deficiency with what specialists do?

The engineer question is fundamentally this: "Is it ok to have a situationally useful specialist?"

Because on an island type city with not a lot of hills to mine, engineers are 100% useful. I make them, I use them, hell I rely on them. If I'm rushing a wonder, I may go hard on engineers, even if my overall yield balance isn't the strongest, its better than risking losing the wonder.

You could argue this is actually the best form of specialist balance, you use a specialist in "specialized" situations.

Is that enough?

 

[pineappledan]

Is it okay that we have a yield like GEngineer points, where upwards of 70% of the ones you earn don’t do anything?
Is it okay that you have this distinction between specialists and non-specialists, but the two categories don’t behave differently most of the time?

…probably. This mod has been around for years. But could this be an improvement, and a way out of having 80% similar proposals about the same game component each Congress?

 

[CppMaster]

BTW, scientist are OP and should probably be nerfed. Merchants could get some love instead.

 

[axatin]

In general, I think Engineers and Merchants should focus on their main yields (and GPPs of course), and it should be designed in such a way that using them is fundamental for maximizing those yields. For that reason, I think option 2 of the OP is a good approach. It's totally fine for me if specialists are situational, and I even think they should be. I'm afraid that option 3 would make all cities more similar, while I would prefer an incentive for increased city specialization instead.

The problem with merchants is also that gold is in general quite weak, because it has lost its unique function of buying CS influence (which was a good change btw). On the other hand, proposals to reduce gold income have passed this season. If it's harder to earn gold, then merchants and in particular great merchants will be much more useful.

(A bit off-topic: Maybe we also need a more general discussion about gold and how to differentiate it from production more strongly. Should it be more a "limiting" resource, something that is necessary to focus on in order to have enough of it? Or should it get some unique function production doesn't have?)

 

[Legen]

It seems like a lot of the proposals we've been seeing in the congress are rooting around for an intractable problem with Engineers in particular: They just don't do anything particularly good if they aren't making Great Engineers. And when I look at the other specialist types I don't see them being any less guilty of the same sin as Engineers; other specialists just benefit from not having a basic improvement doing the exact same thing as them.

The rationale behind the engineer buff proposals had to do with how they were generating as much production as a resource-less mine in Ancient and Classical Era. Which was bad, given the extra food they consumed.

I don't think specialists need to do something special that they aren't already doing. How much you get from specialists depends on which social trees and ideology you go for. Those going for Tradition/Industry/Rationalism/Freedom are obviously going to get more out of specialists than those going for Authority/Imperialism/Order/Autocracy. And I think this is a good design, you get to tune how important specialists are going to be in each of your games this way.

 

[rusbeh]

I agree specialists are really strong and essential. If anything I think they should consume slightly more food. This would make food more important as it's not really at the moment.

Not sure any one of these solutions would make the system better. I like how it is at the moment, just needs some balancing for sure.

 

[Erion]

I reckon this isnt a "pick one solution from the list" thread but i agree with the sentiment that specialists should be somewhat special. I also get when people say they actually shouldnt, they are already good when we need that bit extra of a given yield. In this sense, i like the idea of then giving yields as a % instead of flat, it'd be like they are doing what they do already (give some more yield) but in a different way that is particular to then. Some people might say "why do this for the sake of just differentiating then" and to this i say that a lot of things in the game doing the same job feels like that isnt actually different things (tile vs specialists, for example, they feel the same). I think its cool to have some assets be different than others, however slightly, if it isnt a whole lot of trouble to code, that is...

Also, i was under the impression GPPs where global already and i'm kind of saddened now. I understand the concern about tall vs wide balance and, again, if it isnt too hard to do or to much work, make that scale with number of cities, like some people said, would probably be nice...

 

[Legen]

Personally, I prefer specialists to start as being reasonable and simple (just one yield type plus GPP), but being enhanced by specific social trees. You then get to choose whether they remain as they start, or whether they become powerful enough that they are a major part of your economy. That adds variety between games (assuming you're not on a very focused civ) and decisions you make throughout each game.

 

[pineappledan]

Personally, I prefer specialists to start as being reasonable and simple (just one yield type plus GPP), but being enhanced by specific social trees. You then get to choose whether they remain as they start, or whether they become powerful enough that they are a major part of your economy. That adds variety between games (assuming you're not on a very focused civ) and decisions you make throughout each game.

That’s one of the things that attracts me to the % modifier idea. With that, we could remove specialist boosts from the tech tree. Since specialists would grow in power with the city they wouldn’t need to be kept relevant by tech boosts. Each of the 7 specialist types has 3-4 tech boosts and they often get buried in the tech screen. It would slim down a lot of techs and clean up the tree, removing dozens of low-impact boosts sprinkled all over that only make things more complicated to read.

Then policies/beliefs etc — the things players get to choose — can still boost specialists like they do, but all that fat is trimmed out of the tech tree

 

[Siddorm]

I am thinking that great scientists (GS) and great writers (GW) are too strong. For example, if you create academies and works throughout most of the game you can then "bulb" the GS and GW for massive science and culture yields later on. Doing the same with great artists (GA) also results in massive golden age points yields. For culture victories, the great musician (GM) "musical tour thing" is also overpowered.
Doing the above with GS, GW, GA, and/or GM almost feels like cheating to me; especially since the AI doesn't seem to do this very much.
Here are two speculative ideas (I realize that these would require balancing, coding etc.):

• Remove all yields from specialists except for great people points (GPPs). Such a simplification could make things less complicated for both players and devs (regarding balance etc.).
• Regarding great engineers: allow them to be "bulbed" not just for wonders but for whatever (permissibly for multiple items) is in the city production queue.

Regarding @pineappledan 's ideas:
I like the global GPP idea, because it seems to work well in Civ 6.
I generally don't like the idea of using % modifiers because they tend to become hard to balance to prevent them from generating excessive yields.