Citizens

I do the same in at the start and go for Leaders ASAP.
An exception is a specialized planet or situation. (Generals, Spys, Diplomats, etc)

I used to plant my first citizen on my home world.  If you are on a sparse map and your home world is the only one you have, that is effectively an empire wide +30% bonus.  

Nowadays, I end up building up 2-3 scientists and saving them to plant on a really good Research planet I find.  Still figuring things out, maybe.  Fun!  

This just my opinion, but a early boost can help probably not in the long run. It really depends on how many you end up with, and if it is really worth a slower start. If you specialise, and what.

One or more workers assigned to your homeworld is good for synthetic races early in the game, since you need as much social production as you can get to "build" population for colony ships. 

Yes, robots are very difficult to spread around quickly, so I usually just dump workers and scientists on the home planet. Not unusual for me to have 8 or so citizens on there by mid game when playing YOR.

Yep your use of citizens has to be adapted to the type of maps you like to play on. Like me personally I never assign citizens to planets anymore, I just store them up until I unlock Leadership. I will use a few also as admins and spies. Yes that slows me down a bit at the start, but the type of maps I play on I am usually guaranteed to have 10+ planets around turn 100. That is the nice thing about Crusade, you can be flexible with how you use citizens to suit your needs.

I prefer very large maps with lots of planets as well. However, I've found that taking the first 2-3 picks (scientist/worker) and plopping them on your first major science/prod planet greatly helps your expansion rate. Yes, those picks can never be leaders, but later I'll do a quick math calc to determine when I can move the citizens off planet to gain the empire wide bonus.

The early game gains, IMO, far outweigh the slightly lesser bonus later.

The States/Regions  tread that was posted back in the original game could come into play here...

I think they need to have region capitols that perhaps cost a crap load to build but give several benefits..  one of which is will serve as the launch point for citizens that are assigned to closer planets.

This would give the distant worlds some viable options for getting citizens assigned...

I generally use my first few citizens to jump-start hub planets.  Depending on how many planets I can get on my first rush (which may include 1 or 2 admins, depending on starting position) I go for Leaders.  I like the flexibility, and I do usually have one area of production which is scattered.  Leaders help with this, until I can get a hub planet up and running.  As time goes on, I may make one or two more "planet citizens" on specialized planets (I always use escorts to ensure smooth sailing for long routes), but generally go for the flexibility.

Spies/Generals/Diplomats are on a case-by-case basis, for me.

ooh, also, it is nice taking the starting planet of a "tall race" .. I recently got 8 planetary citizens (5 of which were Engineers) on a relatively poorly defended planet (only 4 legions defending, and only took out 4/5 of mine).  Basically won the game for me.

Leaders are great, but don't underestimate the power of specialization.

A scientist put on a science hub world can generate more science than 20 other planets if done correctly, probably more. And bonuses early are much stronger than bonuses late.

As much as I can afford it during a long and vigorous Colony rush, I set aside 2 or 3 citizens as government scientists.  When I am convinced I have found the best Research world and gotten the hub buildings up, they move there and stay there.  90% boost on a hub world is impressive!  I make sure to park the right Mercs there and everything.  If my gang of leaders is working Research as well, it gets even better.

On a truly large map with a truly large empire, the 3% does really add up, but my feeling is that if you are at the stage where 3% counts because you have so many planets, then 6% is even better.  So, I go for Leaders a lot.  They are also good if you are conquering your way to a giant empire.  Instant bonuses to new planets is very helpful to a rampaging tyrant.

Still, pumping up an early Research planet with some planted scientists is going to pay off all game long.  And it is more important as your initial ratio of planets per player from map settings goes down.

So many choices.

So many choices and strategies with citizens. This is good, v.good.

I normally try to specialise planets early but I find myself always having to make an interesting choice each time a citizen comes up which is great.

I was skeptical when I first heard of the Citizens feature, but having toyed with it in the few days since I bought GC3 in the sale I think it's been done pretty well and seems to add some interesting decisions to the game. I do though have one question and one gripe though.

Question: Once I've assigned a Commader to a ship, how do I transfer them to a different ship? I encountered this situation the other night where I attempted to assign a Commander to a small combat ship, but the Commander was instead assigned to a medium support vessel instead, which was really inconvenient as I didn't have the logistics capability to have a pointless support vessel in my task force. It happened twice.

Gripe: Isn't 'citizens' a really daft name? Your empire contains billions of citizens. Surely these individuals are luminaries or specialists.

The Commander has his own ship amongst the group you assigned him to. Just move his ship to whatever group you want to attach him to.

Never really thought about it and it doesn't bother me.