When you retire them for big projects, do you get more bang for your buck if you retire higher levels, or is it moot enough that you just use level 1s and 2s?

Sometimes you might also capture an enemy colony and get their citizens and it might be a good idea to recall them for one of your bigger more specialised planets or into general gov.

Promoting and retiring is probably something I would only do late game or if in need of a desperate boost.

Thank you for the input.  Interesting logic, all.

I don't mind having to transport the Galactic Citizen to a planet of my choosing.  There's a reality there, and real risk too; I've lost a few to pirates.  But yes, the Galactic Citizen always being born on the home planet seems not right.  He/she should be able to be born on ANY planet in my civilization, maybe partly due to what's going on on that planet (lots of research, a real bang-up center for ship manufacturing, etc).

Tell me if you think my math is correct.  I'll use Scientists as an example, but it can be applied to the others, too.

 At the base value, a scientist can produce +3% when working for the government, but can provide a whopping +30% when stationed on a planet.  That 30% number rises as the Scientist learns the locations of the labs, bathrooms, and best sushi places and gains more experience in all those things.  A level 8 Scientist can bring a 38% boost to a colony's base science.  Three level 9's and a level 8 can add 39+39+39+38 = an added 155% to base science.

I can add 155% to Earth VI's science production with those Scientists.  From here, it's merely a math problem, right?

Let's say the base science on that planet is 12.  12+155% comes to 42.6.

Now, if I want to put those scientists to work for the government, they would be contributing only 3% each to Earth VI.  In this example, 3X4=12%  But they would also contribute a +12% to every other colony.  If I have a series of research based planets, this could eventually boost science more than just assigning them to a single planet.  And I can leave my more experienced scientists on the colonies, while assigning young scientists to the government; no need to get them to level up.  That can help mitigate the risk of travel in mid-game when the pirates, monsters, and Drengin are creeping about my part of the galaxy.  It also helps mitigate the risk of losing a colony to a conquerer, as long as I don't lose my capital colony.

I'm thinking that I should take advantage of both.  Working in colonies AND working for government.  But having a hard time figuring out how to decide when to populate the government and/or colonies (except for the risk factors noted above).

Hi,

There are certain techs especially the larger hull sizes and high end weapons which take an age even if you have a good scientific workforce and these can and indeed I think should be rushed by using a scientist, 20 prometheon and two arnor spice.  

Engineers are very useful on your major ship building planets but can also be wonderful to rush huge ships. using "Crunch time". I don't have galciv3 on the laptop I'm using at this moment but you can find the requirements by threatening to promote an engineer in this way. You can put your absolute best ship at the top of the queue and it will complete instantly and be ready for use the same turn. A life saver if you're being attacked and have an engineer in place either by design or because it's a captured planet which has an engineer attached.

Cheers,

Jon