Specialized Cities and problems

[Beld]

So I've played through about 5 games on explorer and normal speed, trying out different things as most of us are I'm sure.

Like many, I've gravitated to the specialist cities with a weave of automated trade routs leading into a capital or main production city.

This worked very good in games where the AI was far away or passive. One weakness it has though, over cities with local sourcing and manufacturing, is that when war is declared your trade routes are quickly disrupted.

This results in all of that automation crashing down, and having to escort your trade vehicles from site to site on a manual path to the production city. It also usually means heavy loss of unescorted supplies. Is there a way to attach a soldier to a wagon?

I find that if I have enclosed cities, where ore makes tools makes weapons, or tobacco makes cigars, and I just collect at distribution points, it becomes a lot easier to have to hoard goods and micro manage during a war (as there is less logistics volume).

So I'm still not sure about the Specialist city concept in all but the most food strapped of environments. Am I missing an important part, or is such up from economic power supposed to have such a built in risk?

 

[Polobo]

Buildings and specialists are expensive but raw resources are plentiful - and hard to get multiple in a single colony. In a three-phase production line having the 2nd and 3rd phases in the same colony is a good idea but in general you'll have to get the raw resource to that colony.

That said, if you cannot fill up a larger building then having the professional in the same city as the supplier makes sense.