While playing some recent games, I became curious about whether or not it mattered if I concentrated all of my Great People Point production in one city or not. Assume that you have a finite number of points you can generate across your empire, you can either focus all of them (specialists and wonders) in one city, or across a few cities (say your three best cities).

If the points required to generate a Great Person were constant (always 100), this would not be an issue. In the long run, the points would always generate the same number of great leaders. However, the points required is not constant. Each Great Person costs 100 more Great People points to generate than the last.

As I'm sure we've all seen, cities with a single specialist (+3 GPP/turn) steadily accumulate points, however the capital may be generating many Great People in the meantime, and thus raising the bar, faster than the smaller city can catch up. Basically, any city that cannot produce 100 Great People Points in the time it takes for the biggest cities to generate another Great Person will never produce one.

So I built a simple simulator, so I could explore the dynamics. These are the assumptions/parameters I used:
- Three cities, with a finite number of Great People Points distributed across them. For simplicity, I chose 30 Great People Points to distribute.
- I defined a parameter, d, which describes the distribution of those points. Basically, its the ratio of the the points in one city to the others.

For example:
If d = 1, the cities have 10, 10, 10.
If d = 2, the cities have 15, 7.5, 7.5.
If d = 3, the cities have 18, 6, 6.
If d = 10, the cities have 25, 2.5, 2.5.
As d approaches infinity, the cities have 30, 0, 0.
If d is larger, you have one city that has much more Great People Points production than the other cities.

If d = 0.5, the cities have 6, 12, 12.
If d = 0.1, the cities have 1.428, 14.28, 14.28.
As d approaches 0, the cities have 0, 15, 15.
If d is smaller, you have one city that has fewer Great People Points than the other cities.

- I ran the simulation and measured the number of turns required to generate 20 Great People, and then normalized the data about d = 1.

Here is the result:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Great_People_Points_Distribution.jpg
Please note the use of a logarithmic x-axis, and the y-axis is zoomed in. Lower is better, as this denotes fewer turns required to generate the same number of Great People.

Some observations to make:
- No distribution of Great People Points can help you or harm you by more than about 8%.
- The sporadic behavior is caused by cases where cities are unable to "catch-up" to the increasing point total required to generate a Great Person.
- At around d < 0.2, the city with less Great People points is never able to generate a Great Person, as the required total number of points increases faster than the city can accumulate points. Thus, beyond this point, it is better to use those Great People Points to speed up the other cities.
- At round d > 10, the same thing happens in reverse. The other two cities are now never able to generate a Great Person since the primary city is outpacing them and moving the required total faster than they can generate points. At this point, it is better to focus on the one city.
- Both extremes approach asymptotic limits
- There is a dangerous break-point near d = 10 where the primary city gains one more Great People Point and now the required total points is outpacing the other cities, reducing Civ-wide Great People production by 16%.

This case assumed that there were no boosts to Great People Point production. Most boosts are empire-wide (Parthenon, Philosophical, Pacificist), and thus the d value is unchanged (all numbers get bigger, but the ratios stay the same, you have 60 points to distribute instead of 30).

However, the National Epic boosts Great People Points by 100% in just one city. Let's see how that impacts the distribution of points:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Great_People_Points_Distribution_National_Epic.jpg
We basically see the exact same behavior, but it has been "tilted" and moved to the left by 2x with the impact of the National Epic's 100% multiplier.

Now we see some more interesting, and expected, behavior:
- The total difference in points (from having no Great People Points in the city with the National Epic, to having all Great People Points in a city with the National Epic) is a factor of 2 (60% to 120%).
- Individual break-points relating to cities being unable to catch up to the pace still has an effect of about 10%.
- Focusing all of your Great People Points in one city is the way to go
- The big jump-point where no other city can produce a Great Person due to the run-away primary city now occurs at d = 4. That is, the primary city is generating 20 points (40 with National Epic), and the other two cities are generating 5 points. It takes 2.5 turns to generate 100 points for the primary city, and 20 turns to generate 100 points for the other cities at that point.

In summary, in the reasonable range of d, there is a potential to increase your Great People production by 20% to 30% if you focus your Specialists and Wonders in one city with the National Epic. Other cities will be able to produce Great People, up until a point. If you get many Wonders and Specialists in your National Epic city, you may gain no Great People from having a single specialist or wonder in another city.

As with most other game systems in Civ4, its all about specialization. Having jack-of-all-trades cities is significantly less efficient.

A little more detail on cities trying to catch-up to a pace-setting primary city.

Here's an example off of the National Epic curve, where d = 5.25 and within the scope of a game, the other cities are never able to generate a Great Person.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Great_People_Points_Timeline.jpg

Now, the required number of points goes with the square root of turns, while the accumulated points for any city goes linearly with turns, so there is always some point in time where a city will generate a Great Person. Its just that with a sufficiently fast primary city, this point in time may exceed the 400 turn limit of the game.

Here's an example of d = 2.0 (primary city has 15 points [30 with National Epic], the two secondary cities have 7.5 points).
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Great_People_Points_Timeline_d21.jpg
Here we see that the secondary cities produce 4 Great People, and the primary city produces 16 Great People. Even this relatively slight difference in raw Great People Point production (15 vs. 7.5) has a large effect.

There is one flaw I immediately see in your analysis. The number of additional GPP required for the next GP increases by 100 only until 1000. After that +200 GPP are required until 3000 GPP are reached, Then 300 additional points are required, etc.

0-1000: +100 GPP
1000-3000: +200 GPP
3000-6000: +300 GPP

You get the idea.

Note that the number of initial GPP required, and thus the initial increases and the breakpoints every 10 GP generated can be higher or lower based on game length. an Epic game has ~150% of the turns of a normal game, so 150 GPP required for the first GP.

Intriguing, I never knew that, as its not spelled out anywhere.

I don't think that really changes any results or conclusions, and in fact, it might make the effect even more pronounced in favor of focusing on one city.

Thanks for the analysis and explanation. And also the note the constructive criticism it needs some adjustment.

I had been giving this some thought without clear resolution so far. I did realize the good potential for some GP points to never be effective in lesser cities... but the specialists/improvements are typically for the other benefits than the GP points. So far, GP generation has remained one of the auto-pilot areas for me in the game and thus incidental to the fact that I typically have just a few large, high production cities which are the most likely sites for GP point related construction.

The whole question of GP point distribution also involves the special aspect of what kind of GP one wants next so a GP dominant city which is also heavily religious or scientific etc. will tend to result in more GP of a specific type than may be desirable. But this is perhaps more the result of not paying attention to this aspect of the game. :)

Another flaw is that you don't have a finite number (30) of GPP to distribute. This would be true if wonders were the only source of GPP.

But with Caste System, or many improvements, you have vitually unlimited empire-wide GPP production through specialists. Increasing GPP in one city does not decrease it in another city.

Your analysis is most applicable to Great Engineer and Great Prophet points, which can't be increased using Caste System. Still, Forge and Factory (9 Engineer GPP) is almost as good as every great wonder (10 Engineer GPP) or the Iron Works (10 Engineer GPP).

Aye, its not meant to be an end-all simulation of everything that can happen in Civ4... for that you need, uh... Civ4! :lol:

This was put together to understand some simple cases, to get a feel for the trends and behaviors. I figured maybe someone else might get a kick out of it, so I posted it. Use it for what it is, but certainly don't expect it to provide solve the problem for every case in Civ4.

I hope to put up some updated plots with the increased GPP requirements tomorrow.

Actually an improved model might have a 'base GPP' for each city (specialists which are basically available on a equal per city basis.) as well as a 'bonus GPP' (Wonders which are limited)

Perhaps an analysis of adding an additional GPP to the 'max city' when it is already X greater than the others

Woo! Good threat but I have to stop to work in order to analyse it to understand every thing.

LeSphinx

Nice Job done. ;) That absolutely clarifies some concepts behind Great People Point.

This is a great start for this issue! What about taking into account WoundedKnight's (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3339227&postcount=8) suggestion to have individual cities focus on generating specific Great People types?

Ugh, getting into Civ IV is great - I now need to brush up on both probabilities for analyzing combat and numerical analysis for this! :)

Your analysis is great, at least for its intensive use of math! :D
However, it seems to me that there is a true question: how to increase GPP? You have 2 ways: hire specialists and build wonders. To build wonders, a city needs high production, but specialists generally reduce production. This is a dilemma. What's the best compromise? I am still wondering.

OK, here's an update of the above four plots with the increased number of GPP required after 1000. As expected, this factor makes it even harder for cities generating few GPP to produce a Great Person if another city is consisently upping the requirement by 200 GPPs.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Great_People_Points_Distribution.gif

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Great_People_Points_Distribution_National_Epic.gif

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Great_People_Points_Timeline.gif

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Great_People_Points_Timeline_d2.gif

I have also generated an animation of the timeline plots as d increases, with the National Epic in the primary city. This helps visualize the impact of cities just barely able to generate a great person or not. Note that there's not a lot of difference in total number of Great People generated.

Right Click and Save As here for the animation (2.8 MB, zipped). (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Great_People_Points_Distribution_Animation.zip) :D

Again, this assumes finite number of points to distribute, but its interesting given the assumptions.

Now let me take a whack at analyzing some of these other questions that have come up. :mischief:

Whenever I get a philo leader I look for the opportunity for a GP strat. This concept has had me curious too and I have tried both types a number of times. From my experience, one city is no doubt whatsoever the fastest and easiest way of producing the most GP, but if you have the right layout for spreading early wonders and high food prevalence nearby distributing can be more effective, but slower harder game with more mm.

If I see a place with LOTS of flood-plains or fish etc that can be one of first couple cities, I go with the one city GPs. Pyramids and Parthenon are the musts (anywhere) and you set the target city up to get Great Libary. I focus on getting Mercantilism, Ankor Wat (philosophy is must for civic anyway), and later Statue of Liberty. Sistene Chappel as bonus as well.

Many GP get pumped back into target city to make it super city, and it also is of course your science city. You don't need any others cos it will make many hundreds by itself.

With Representation (immediately from Pyramids), Beurocracy if it is your capital, or else Free Speech if not, and all target city tiles are cottages, and caste system, mercantilism, and philosophy and above wonders and a high food city you have a early classical age GPP of usually 200+ and the bonuses stack up including +3 Science + 1 hammer (priests) + 2 CP on top of what each specialist already produces. 250% GP in your city in your target jumping to 350% as soon as you research Philosophy.

If you have a lot of cities (like 25+) and a generally high food terrain, distributing your GPP can be worth it with careful monitoring. You can maintain the GPP production for much longer if you add Statue of Liberty to the mix as next goal and with caste system, can add (with food allowance) often 3+ specialists per city to the exisiting 2 free ones, all getting 250% for 40-100 GP production in every single city. If its 25 cities, just the civic science BONUS alone is over 400 accross your empire. I often find myself going all priests in bursts for the production on top.

These are maybe more important strats for me than most people cos I prefer to play with tech trading turned off most of the time so the science discoveries are vital (on emporer they have been to keep ahead with tech trading off, but getting the early wonders is much harder so I mostly have to forego any real GP strat since they suck unless you go all the way). But even with tech trading allowed as default it's still nice mega-bonus and just plain fun way to play.

OK, new analysis. :)

Lets say we have built some Wonders at the capital, that in total generate 4 Great Prophet points, 4 Great Artist points, and 2 Great Engineer points. This seems to be a relatively common distribution in many of my games. Since I'm mainly doing this analysis for my benefit, that's what I'll assume. If you play differently... feel free to do your own analysis! :lol:

So 10 GPP/turn in the Capitol from Wonders that were built for the primary effect of the Wonder, and the GPP was just bonus. Now, let's say we've decided we want two types of Great People more than anything else: Prophets and Engineers. (Just as an example).

Let's also say we have a secondary city that has also built a Wonder (say, giving 2 Great Merchant points), and that city can support 3 specialists. The capitol can support 3 specialists as well, and the National Epic has been built there. Finally, lets say we have another town which can support 2 specialists but has no Wonders.

How do we go about getting the most Prophets and Engineers over the next 200 turns, assuming we've already generated 2 great people so far in the game?

I ran each possible permutation (48 cases), with 1000 Monte Carlo runs each (since the type of Great Person you get is random).
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Great_People_Permutations_v2.gif

In this scenario, the Capital generates 9 Great People, the secondary city generates 1 Great Person, and the other city is unable to generate any Great People. The secondary city is no slouch, with 1 Wonder and 3 Specialists, generating 11 GPP/turn (2 + 3*3), but this can "only" generate 2200 Great People points in 200 turns. The other city is running 2 Specialists for 6 GPP/turn, but still is unable to generate a Great Person over 200 turns (since it generates 600 in that time, but the requirement reaches 1400).

For getting the most Great Prophets (average of ~6.9), making all Specialists into Priests is the obvious answer. This setup still generates 1 Great Engineer on average.

For getting the most Great Engineers (average of ~6.1), making all Specialists into Engineers is the obvious answer. This setup generates nearly 2 Great Prophets on average.

However, if we look at the sum of Great Engineers and Great Prophets (basically, trying to drown out the Artist and Merchant points from our Wonders), the total variation is small (~0.2). If neither Engineers or Prophets are valued more than the other, the selection of Specialists should be based on their raw benefits, not the GPPs they generate.

Since the total number of points in each city is constant for all cases, all cases generate 10 Great People within the 200 turns. However, it appears that very consistently, you will get 2 Great People who are not Prophets or Engineers. This is typically Artists from the Capital and Merchants from the Secondary city, due to their Wonders.

In summary, this further emphasizes that generating a few GPP in your cities just won't do much for you, and should not be a consideration when adding Specialists or Wonders to your other cities. GPP should really only enter into the decision making process for the Capital and perhaps one other city. The rest of the time, just worry about the benefits of the Specialists and Wonders, and don't concern yourself with trying to accumulate GPPs there.

So my next thought was... does it ever make sense to not have Specialists in cities with different kinds of Wonders? Basically, since the Capital has a variety of points, perhaps instead of producing more "random" Great People there, we should generate no extra points there, allowing the other cities to generate the exact Great People we want.

Here are all permutations (12) where we do not have any extra Specialists in the Capital:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Great_People_Permutations_Empty_Capital.gif

Now the Capital generates 5 Great People (vs. 9 with 3 Specialists), the Secondary city generates 2 (vs. 1) and the other city generates 1 (vs. 0).

The maximum number of Prophets is 4.7 (vs. 7.0), the maximum number of Engineers is 3.6 (vs. 6.1), and the sum averages to 5.7 (vs. 8.0). And the total number of Great People goes down 2 (from 10).

So trying to focus on producing the desired Great People in cities less cluttered with Wonder GPPs is rarely something worth doing. If your whole game hinges on completing a Wonder first, slowing down the Capital's GPPs and hiring many Engineers (although its rarely possible to hire more than 1 until Factories) might be a smart move. The rest of the time, just loading up your National Epic and most Wonder-filled city with extra Specialists is better in the long run, even if you randomly get some Great People that are less useful.

:thumbsup: Awesome post.

Question: If you vary the number of great leaders, e.g. from 20 to 30 in the graphs of the first type, how does this middle region vary? Do the valleys shift left and right? It would be nice to find that given some d-neighborhood, say between d=9.0 and d=10.0, that there is an optimum choice of d that is somewhat insensitive to the number of great leaders in question.

How about this:

"As the number of turns increases from 0 to 400, how does the d at which the other cities no longer contribute (that is, an end to the sporadic peaks/valleys) vary?"

I think that would answer the basic question in a more straight-forward (for me) manner.

[Please scroll up and read the updated, previously "reserved" posts if you have not already seen them.]

Alright, here's a look at an interesting question.

Depending on the number of turns remaining (or that we care about), if we have many Great People Points being generated in the National Epic city compared to the other cities, the other cities will never generate a Great Person.

Here's the result:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Great_People_Points_Capital_Only.jpg
Please note that the d ratio is calculated prior to the National Epic multiplier.

For example, if you have generated 2 Great People already, and are concerned about the next 250 turns, you should determine if your National Epic City's raw GPP output is more than 2.75 higher than your next highest city. So if the that city is generating 12 GPP (24 GPP/turn after National Epic multiplier), and the next highest city is generating 4 GPP (floor(12/2.75)), then that city will not generate a Great Person in the next 250 turns. If the city has 5 GPP/turn, it will.

Further example, you have generated 6 Great People already and think you'll have the game wrapped up in 100 turns, for better or worse. The d ratio of interest is ~1.3. That is, if your best city (after National Epic), is generating 32 GPP/turn, any city generating less than 12 GPP/turn will not contribute any Great People.

This of course assumes all cities are at 0 accumulated points at the beginning of the measured period.

In summary, if you have generated few Great People, and have a robust city with say, 4 Wonders, and 2 Specialists, and the National Epic, and have 200 turns to go, you'll need cities with 6 GPP/turn or greater (2 Specialists) for them to have an impact. But that impact will be in the form of a single Great Person, compared to many from the primary city.

Add more Wonders to the primary city, and the other cities will have to keep up (at the rate of increase * 1/d). Otherwise, cities with 2 Specialists are worthwhile for Great People generation.

Great job Vol. Very thourough analysis, that comes up with a clear answer.

This begs the question if civIV should be tweaked so that a GP produced in one city increases the cap for 150 in that city, but only say... 50 in the others. This would make it a bit more useful to have more than one city.

I guess though that even with this change it wouldn't be a good idea with many GP cities, and two would probably be the max, with one city still generating the most of them.

very interesting. i will tailor my strategy to this and see if it changes anything.

Well, you could design the city to grank Great Engineers and just use them to finish wonders flat, but is that undermining the versatility and purpose?

If you want to get mostly engineers or prophets you are better off spreading the great person points over your empire (since forges and temples only allow you 1 specialist)

If you want scientists, merchants or artists go for a focused city or two.

Hi,

OK, new analysis. :)
Great ones so far! :goodjob:

How do we go about getting the most Prophets and Engineers over the next 200 turns[/B], assuming we've already generated 2 great people so far in the game?
I'm not sure how you've calculated the odds for getting each type of great person, but I hope you're aware of the fact that the odds have nothing to do with the number of GPPs generated for each type, but only with the number of sources that generate GPPs for each type?

(It wasn't obvious from your post (at least to me) how you've calculated that, so I thought I'd mention it)

-Kylearan

Actually, no, I had no idea. Number of sources, huh? That seems odd, and potentially expoitable. Does each specialist count as a source? Does it count as a source if it only contributed for one turn?

Don't think I'm going to try and answer those myself, but if anyone else wants to, I think we'd all be interested.

Hi,

That seems odd, and potentially expoitable.
How?

Does each specialist count as a source?
Yes, each specialist counts as one source, as does each wonder.

Does it count as a source if it only contributed for one turn?
For that turn, yes. :p The odds are averaged over all turns though, so having the Pyramids (great engineer source) for 100 turns and adding a scientist for only one turn, you still have a 99% chance of getting a great engineer.

-Kylearan

Well, it would have been potentially exploitable if it didn't work as you just described at the end of your post.

So for the purposes of determine what kind of Great Person it will be, all sources effectively contribute 1 point per turn towards that calculation. But for the purposes of determining when a Great Person appears, the full number of GPP per turn is used.

Hi,

So for the purposes of determine what kind of Great Person it will be, all sources effectively contribute 1 point per turn towards that calculation. But for the purposes of determining when a Great Person appears, the full number of GPP per turn is used.
Correct. What I'm not sure about is whether the "memory" which sources of GPPs contributed on which turns gets wiped after producing a great person, or if the city will remember all sources that had ever produced GPPs. I'll investigate that, and maybe write a guide about all this. :p

-Kylearan

Very good article. Thank you for all the work! :goodjob:

I think it's the number of points / total points needed decide what type of GP, say engineers, great wonders producing eng GPP make up 600 of 1000, then the probability will be 60%.
Or it might be the number of points/turn on the generating GP turn that determines the odds, a la, engineer sources generating 18/24 for the turn the GP is born, then it's 75%. Something like that.
I favour the first theory but it would take quite a lot of memory to keep track of all that... but it's highly doable and possible. Don't have CIV4 on this comp to test this :)

Hi,

I think it's the number of points / total points needed decide what type of GP
No it's not. I've tested it, see my summary about it here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146174).

-Kylearan

Thanks for the link Kylearan : it help
LeSphinx

very good stuff.
anecdotally. however, i seem to have 4 or 5 cities producing gp's.
but i like gp's.
You also have to factor in smaller, or hemmed in cities that accumulate a lot of specialists.
and i try to spread out national wonders so as to accumulate more points in more cities.

Very useful guide that. It does beg the question as to if it's worth moving the capital to a high food area so that I can reap the mercantilism benefit. And if so, at what stage - you'd have to think ahead or you'd waste potential wonders.

Furthermore, I wonder how much the difficulty level will affect things? On Noble you can generally count on producing any wonder that you start ahead of anyone else, but as the difficulty rises, you have to rely on specialists only. Moreover, if you are able to go high production in one city and get most of the wonders, with few specialists and high food in another, for multiple specialists would that work on the graph? In the latter case you would presumably go for farms over cottages and ensure it wasn't your capital.

Higher difficulty levels are supposed to not get production bonuses on Wonders. So if you can keep up in tech, you have a shot at getting Wonders.

I didn't understand a digit of your math but I'll take your word on it, GP production has definitely been something I don't understand well enough to use to full advantage. Thank you.

Edit: This doesn't work in later patches.

How get Great Engineers at triple speed.

1. Build the Pyramids.
2. Wait 18 turns (+36 GPP, 18*100% Engineer)
3. Switch to Caste System.
4. Hire 10 scientists for 2 turns (+64GPP, 2*91% Scientist, 2*9% Engineer)
5. Final odds: 90% Engineer, 10% Scientist.

I've obviously been spreading my cities too far out. Dope.

Thanks for the very interesting post. I used to deal with optimization problems frequently and find these questions intriquing. While I need to think about this some more, my gut tells me your model is not properly constructed (or I don't understand your distribution metrics).

Items to think about:

In your model you treat GPP as a finite resource but it is not. It is an infinite resource simply dependent upon time. If the game were to run infinitely, then you would have infinite GPP. This simple issue can severely alter you dyanmics.

The finite resource in question is city-specific resources such as specialists and certain wonders.

Items that impact all cities equally are irrelevant to the question of distributione of the finite resource. These items impact the rate at which GP are produced but not the ratio of one city to another.

There is also a limit on specialists per city. You cannot convert every citizen to a specialist and keep a functioning city. So a city with high production values in other areas can afford to have more specialists than another city.


Some quick thoughts on how too look at this mathematically. This is not well thought out but is somewhat inuitive once put in this fashion.

How long does it take a single city to produce a GP? This is simply a function of time.

G = t(S+W)c

G = GPP points
t = turns
S = number of specialists
W = wonder gpp
c = civ wide modifier (like leader trait or civic trait)

This model describes how a city gets GPP over time.

Now the real goal here is to produce the most GP in the shortest amount of time.

Consider a 3 city civ. and its total civ-wide GPP production rate. If you have S number of specialists, it does not matter what city you put them in. Your overall civ GPP rate will be the same. The issue is that GP are not generated per civ but per-city.

Consider the formula above and 3 cities with only 3 specialists to distribute. If you put one S in each city, you will reach your first GP in ~33 turns since each city is producing +3 GPP per turn. The next GP will be in ~66 turns when the second city gets to 200 GPP. The next will be in ~99 turns. If you look at the rate of GP production; it is 3 GP in 99 turns For the first 3 GP, the rate would be 3GP in ~99 turns. Or a GP every 33 turns.

Now consider if you put all 3 specialists in one city. You now generate 9GPP per turn. The first GP comes in just ~11 moves; the second GP comes in ~33moves; the 3rd GP comes in ~66. The GP production is 3 GP in ~66 turns. or 1 GP per ~22 turns.

Since GP are produced per city, you should distribute your resource in a way to maximize GPP production in a single city.

The same holds true with wonders, stack them in a ctiy to maximize that cities rate.

One caveat is that once you get to a larger CIV, you have to consider sub-optimal distribution because if you can't pile all of your S in a single city, but the general tenet should hold true. Maxize one city at a time.


Just my nickle's worth. Look forward to comments, critiques.

I had a bash at a gp city with the Germans +100% GP rate. I got my capital up to 60gp points a turn. At one point i was making a GP each 10 turns from the capital.

Does reducing specialists in the highest GP for a few turns to allow other cities to make a great person make sense? What happens to your theory if you halve the GP rate of the number one city for 10 turns or so?

I did have to use the civic pacifism for 100% gp rate for this rate of 60. Each specialist was adding 9gp points. Although i needed a religion. Also the national wonder to add 100% but i wasnt able to build this in Berlin. Bad planning and late development of Berlin as GP city. It was interesting the plus 100% was done on the base rate not cumulative. Grrrr.

Begs the question what is better for a GP farm. Lots of irrigation to have loads of specialists or lots of wonders? GP rates over top 5 cities worked out at 60 24 12 12 12 spread over top 5 GP producing cities. I ended up with a lot of scientists. Wasnt ideal need to plan wonders better.

Ideally i would of prefered great artists or great engineers.

1. 60gppt -490
2. 24gppt - 342
3. 12Gppt - 640
4. 12Gppt - 613
5. 12Gppt - 522

(Great Person points turn) (1290ad on monarch standard map)

I would interested in any comments on these figures. Plus any advice on how to improve these numbers.

The only real downside to going for GP points was it didnt aid any strategy on my game.

Wow, is there a short summary for those of us who just joined this forum? (and cannot make sense of the graphs and vocabulary)

I think the gist is have one specialist Great people farm (city) using lots of irrigation to allow more specialist such as artists etc. Using the caste civic to allow multiple specialists in your cities. Plus Pacifism civic to add 100% to your base rate Great people point per turn assuming you have the religion in your city that your currently using. other wonders too. Its been pointed out elsewhere in forum that adding great merchants to city give you +1 food and extra trade allowing a bigger GP farm. (320 points a turn is highest i have seen on forum so far)


I find if you can have a city of 16+ in size with a huge excess of food this will allow 7-8+ specialist. End of day this post seemed to be about the value of having a second/third great people farm. In my opinion its only of value if the second/ third or even fourth city producing great people points stands a chance of catching up to your specialist GP farm.

If city number 1 produces 100 Great people points a turn and city 2 only produces 20 points a turn it will take many turns to ever produce a great leader. If it ever does.
4 turns
100+100+100+100=400
20+20+20+20=80
After 9 turns
100+100+100+100+100=500
80+20+20+20+20+20=180

By time city 1 resets to 0 after producing a great leader and the required rate rise 100 to 500 city 2 now has 420 points to gain to reach the 500 mark and is not looking likely of ever producing a great leader.
If the second city produces 70 points a turn it increase chances of great leaders arriving. It appears the charts try to look at the value of additional cities producing more great leaders and what the optimum solution is.

I figure a city must produce at least around 50% or so of the leader great people farm you have to stand a decent chance of producing a few leaders in game. The 2nd GP farm needs to cover in excess of what the incremental rise in points required for the next leader is to stand a chance of ever producing a leader.

I hope that makes sense. Im no expert.

wow thx...

I have a problem with city specialization on civ in general.

I tend to take industrious leaders and build wonders. Wonders (Great and National) are one of the cornerstones of city specialization.

But Wonders are also a large part of the GP point supply, at least for folks like me who build lots of wonders.

And GP supply is maximized by putting all the GP points in one city, and building the national wonder there (which I already knew before I found this thread, but this thread reveals it objectively).

Hence there is a tension between building a wonder where it would be useful for city specialization, and building it where it will maximize GP points.

In practice I find that maximizing GP points performs better. At least for the frst 3 quarters of the game or so, which is usually what decides a game.

So the net effect of this is that I don't end up doing much city specialization, which rather detracts from the fun idea that the civ4 designers had for spicing up the game. Or to be more specific, I do one special city (my capital) that has gobs of wonders, the National Epic, and usually the Oxford University. The rest of my cities are fairly generic, although there will usually be a partly specialized city for cranking out military (Herioc Epic, West Point) and another for production (Ironworks) if my capital city isn't in a good production spot.

One possible way to fix this would be to simply remove the national epic altogether. If you do that, you aren't giving up so much when you spread your GP points around, as the first graph in this thread demonstrates.

So the net effect of this is that I don't end up doing much city specialization, which rather detracts from the fun idea that the civ4 designers had for spicing up the game.

I don't believe the designers especially wanted to encourage city specialization. I think they wanted to create a variety of viable approaches---which I think they did. You may find that specialization or non-specialization fits your goals better---it's fine either way.

Well Rarely does a World Wonder contribute anything to city specialization. The only City Specific effects of a World Wonder are Culture and GPs
(the Great Library also gives some science to the city its in) so for a non Cultural Win, for max GPs, all World Wonders should be in one city. (and you don't give up anything for that.)

Now the National Wonders... well they contribute very little GP so they don't need to be in the GP city (although having one of the National Wonders that allows more specialists is nice there, and trhe one that boostsa GP is mandatory)

The thing is what specializes a city is the National Wonders, the Buildings, and the Terain Improvements, World Wonders really don't do anything.

*pull*

VERY interesting read and confirming a gut feeling I had some time now. But has anybody checked the math for later patches and Warlords? :)

After reading this thread, the philosophical trait seems pretty weak. If you should collect your GPP in one City, the "major" advantage of philosophical is reduced to one city. Not very much of my (usually not very large) empire.

I don't believe the designers especially wanted to encourage city specialization. I think they wanted to create a variety of viable approaches---which I think they did. You may find that specialization or non-specialization fits your goals better---it's fine either way.

The cap on National Wonders per city suggests to me that they wanted to strongly encourage city specialization.

The cap on National Wonders per city suggests to me that they wanted to strongly encourage city specialization.

I don't see that at all. The National Wonders are extremely powerful when combined, so, if you let them all be built in one city, people would tend to do that. Forcing them to be separated prevents them from being too absurdly powerful. This has nothing really to do with whether different cities are specialized or all do much the same thing.

I would argue that specialization arrises naturally whenever there exists some degree of comparitive advantage in the realization of a goal. The simple fact that, in CIV, you settle your cities across diverse terrain leads to certain cities being better suited to certain tasks. The quantity of cities which you devote to any given task will be determined by the desired quanity of output of that task. The singular purpose of a national wonder is simply to reduce the number of cities devoted to a task required to meet a specific output goal (or, put another way, to increase output if resource devotion remains constant), allowing the marginal cities to pursue other goals. So, in a way, the simple inclusion of the national wonders (regardless of the 2 per city limitation) seems to indicate a desire to drastically increase the comparitive advantage of certain cities, reinforcing the idea of specialization. At the same time, the 2 per city limitation has a moderating effect, limiting the ability of any city to gain wide ranging comparative advantages across a number of tasks and forcing interesting decisions regarding the spreading of specialization among numerous cities.

After reading this thread, the philosophical trait seems pretty weak. If you should collect your GPP in one City, the "major" advantage of philosophical is reduced to one city. Not very much of my (usually not very large) empire.
If Great People only benefitted a single city, you might have a point. But, as it stands, your whole civilization stands to gain from an increase in the birth rate of great people.

For instance, wonder building is often best confined to one or two very high production cities. Does this mean that the industrious trait is only adding any benefit to those two cities? Is industrious automatically a weaker trait than creative based on the simple fact that creative give a passive benefit to every city across the empire? Certainly not, as every city is able to reap the rewards from the additional wonders the industrious trait allows you to complete. In the exact same way, philosphical lets you transform a limited single-city bonus, into a civ-wide bonus.

This doesn't even address the fact that, in the early game, it is quite reasonable for a philophical civ to be running specialists in a number of cities, while the cost of great people is relatively low, speeding even further the rate of great person acquisition.

From experience running dedicated production of great people (with a specialist economy, many large cities) I have to say that the assumptions of the above analysis are very weak, i.e. no skilled player should run cities at constant ratios, and therefore one should never find the situation described above..

One has to monitor the GPP in each city and assign specialists as necessary, sometimes even to the point of starving a city, so that great people appear in all cities..

I'd say that with a specialist economy ca 60% of the great people come from the GP farm in the long run, and having specialists in many other cities noticeably increases the total number of great people.

The analysis simply shows how a badly run civ would fare...

The analysis simply shows how a badly run civ would fare...
While I agree with you that the original analysis was full of holes (it is quite old at this point), I disagree with the conclusion I believe you're attempting to draw.

I'd say that with a specialist economy ca 60% of the great people come from the GP farm in the long run, and having specialists in many other cities noticeably increases the total number of great people.
You mention the long run, but CIV is not about the long run. Why should I care that if I run 3 scientists in this city over here, in which I could be working cottages instead, 200 turns down the road, I'll get one extra great person a few turns sooner than I would have. That's a high short term cost for something that won't pay off till the very long term. (Note: If, instead, those 3 scientists are going to get me an extra great person soon, I see less reason not to run them. This is why specialists are much more powerful in the early game.)

No one will disagree that running extra scientists in extra cities will produce more great people. However, you have to look at the cost of those extra great people. A natural great person farm will have an easy time running lots of specialists due to numerous food resources and generally favorable terrain (high food concentration onto a smaller number of tiles). This, combined with the output-increasing national epic, results in a very high output/cost ratio for a basic stream of great people. Now, if I choose to augment this stream with a second city (even if that city is just as well suited to great person generation), it must be accepted that this will not double the rate of great person births. Hence, the output/cost ratio of your great people has been lowered across the empire. You are spending more resources, but not as efficiently as before.

A more realistic scenario is that any other city chosen to augment your national epic city will be inferior in it's ability to generate great people. At this point you have to look at what that city could be doing instead of producing great people. It's generally accepted that, absent representation and past the very beginning of the game, cottages produce more beakers than specialists (when Great People are excluded from the equation). With that in mind, it becomes a matter of cost-benefit analysis. Is the extra great person(s) sometime down the road worth a reduction in my present research capacity? This will depend upon a number of factors: the number of cities already devoted to GP generation, the quality of the land, the current stage of the game (cost of additional great people), and some others.

In the end, it's an interesting balancing act. I support a play style that spreads specialists out during the early portions of the game, but consolidates into a single great person farm sometime shortly after completing the national epic. The other cities, by that time, have transitioned back to cottages, as I prefer the increased research output (and other benefits) to the distant opportunity to get an extra great scientist.

You say, in the long run, 60% of Great People will come from the Great Person Farm. I say: A) What does that look like in the short term? and B) Wow, the whole of your empire outside your great person farm could only account for a measly 40% of total great people? Seems like a misappropriation of resources to me. Maybe they should have been doing something else with their time...?

I used to advocate putting wall street and national epic together in a GP farm, preferably in a city with a shirne(s), where you build a ton of farms and maintain a huge bunch of merchant and priest specialists. You get huge GP points and huge gold.

The problem is, as I've increased in difficulty levels, I've found it difficult to keep all those citizens happy - unless you have globe theatre. Since I can't put all three of those national wonders (globe, national epic, wall street) in the same city, I have to choose how to split them up.

In my current game, my original capital was a pretty good gp city (decent food resources, some early wonders). I managed to start a religion in a city with good food potential. So, I ended up with two GP farms, my capital with national epic and wonders, and my money/religion city with globe and wall street. I think the capital ended up generating about 144 gpps, and the science/money city about 110.

I built a new palace in a commerce city, and this new capital/science city also ended up generating enough gpps to produce a gp every now and then as well.

So, I suppose if you were ONLY interested in GP points, you'd combine globe and national epic in your GP farm. But, it seems worthwhile to incorporate a money city.

It's also worth considering that it takes time and resources to create a good GP Farm; relevant techs have to be discovered, wonders have to be built, the city has to produce food and grow to support specialists (and it can't run as many specialists while growing), once GP farm reaches health/happy caps buildings/wonders have to be built to raise caps (or additional units shipped in while running HR).

Therefore while the maths indicate a GP farm running eg 40gppt will outpace five cities running eg 10gppt you need to work out how long it will take your GP Farm to create that kind of output and whether its better to be running multiple GP producers in the meantime.

Whilist I'm not clever (or keen) enough to do the maths this suggests to me that early game (before GP farm matures) it will be stronger to run multiple GP producers (aka specialist economy), late game (with mature GP farm) its better to run single GP producer (and cottage over the rest of the cities) and somewhere in the middle it will become very confusing.

What I do quite often is run GPP in parallel early game (i.e., SE), and as each city produces a GP, effectively "turn off" the GPP by sending in the workers and cottage over most of the farms. Early on, I choose which city will be my GP Farm, and I don't cottage that one over.

Very nice synchronicity in this strategy, and it allows complete customization as to what type of GP you get early and how many of each. e.g., you could run priests in just one city because you were able to found only one religion (with scientists in all the rest), or whatever is needed.

Interestingly, this whole strategy is more difficult to manage on lower levels. On high levels, you can't get a significant number of Wonders, if any at all. Wonders make the GPP income vary from city to city, can't have their GPP turned on/off and thus you have less control over maximizing your GPP resource production into GP, and also muddy up your GP types. So, on high levels (Emperor and above) it's easier to do this (takes less management).

Wodan

This is obviously only if your not running an economy heavy based on specilists. One big problem for actually graphing up stuff like this is that the gpp generation doesnt start at the same point for all the cities nor do it remain constant over an extended period of time. Is it possible to make a threedimensional graph with one beeing how much gpp the primary city is generatng oin average then seeing how much GPP would be needed in the 2nd city to be benificial and in the 3rd city and the 4th city and so on? For any given value of city 1(say 40) you need an amount of GPP in the second city to produce at least 1 great person and then another amount to get the 2nd city to produce 2 and the 3rd city to get 1 and then 3,2,1 etc with how much reqruired for the extra cities depending on the average output in the maincity. Is this even remotly possibly to graph? From your analysis it seems that you never want to have more than 2 cities producing gpps but with philosophical pantheon and pasicifism is this true? Say you can run 4 specialists in up to 5 cities would this produce enough great persons or do you need more to be worth it? This analyses feature only very low amounts of GPP. This is what i mostly use in my games but i would still be very much interested to know at what point its worth to get up the 3rd city? or the 7th? or the 10th and so forth. Eventually the city wont produce any great persons and it is likely better to use the city for something else.

I hope i made sense and didnt come across as too harsh and it was indeed helpfull for somehwat understanding the mechanics for generating GP assuming low gpp generation.

This case assumed that there were no boosts to Great People Point production. Most boosts are empire-wide (Parthenon, Philosophical, Pacificist), and thus the d value is unchanged (all numbers get bigger, but the ratios stay the same, you have 60 points to distribute instead of 30).

However, the National Epic boosts Great People Points by 100% in just one city. Let's see how that impacts the distribution of points:


Perhaps Im misunderstanding something, but pacifism, philosophical are not 'ratio-neutral' at all if one is considering the impact of National Epic, but infact diminish its importance significantly; all these bonuses multiply the base 3 GPPs, so for instance someone non-philosophical & outside pacifism would be getting 3GPPs per scientist in other cities, and 6GPPs in National Epic city; ratio of 1/2. Someone both philosophical and in pacifism would be getting 9 GPPs in other cities, and 12 GPPs in National Epic city; a much better ratio of 3/4.

Another problem I see with this analysis if I understand it correctly, is, if it were done, for instance for beakers instead, it seems to me it would likewise come to the conclusion that any beakers produced outside the oxford city are just as wasted; for instance library, academy, university and observatory combined give 125% (or little less due to rounding down on each 25%) boost to base beakers, and oxford adds another 100% - so non-oxford cities would be getting just a slightly better ratio than, in the case of GPPs, non-national-epic cities of someone EITHER philosophical OR in pacifism have for them, and far worse than someone who is both philosophical and pacifist.

Yet, avoiding having any commerce cities besides the oxford one is hardly a good advice on how to play this game, for working many more tiles (i.e. with more cities, population) obviously more than compensates those not nearly as bad ratios..

Perhaps Im misunderstanding something, but pacifism, philosophical are not 'ratio-neutral' at all if one is considering the impact of National Epic, but infact diminish its importance significantly; all these bonuses multiply the base 3 GPPs, so for instance someone non-philosophical & outside pacifism would be getting 3GPPs per scientist in other cities, and 6GPPs in National Epic city; ratio of 1/2. Someone both philosophical and in pacifism would be getting 9 GPPs in other cities, and 12 GPPs in National Epic city; a much better ratio of 3/4.

This is correct.

Another problem I see with this analysis if I understand it correctly, is, if it were done, for instance for beakers instead, it seems to me it would likewise come to the conclusion that any beakers produced outside the oxford city are just as wasted; for instance library, academy, university and observatory combined give 125% (or little less due to rounding down on each 25%) boost to base beakers, and oxford adds another 100% - so non-oxford cities would be getting just a slightly better ratio than, in the case of GPPs, non-national-epic cities of someone EITHER philosophical OR in pacifism have for them, and far worse than someone who is both philosophical and pacifist.

Yet, avoiding having any commerce cities besides the oxford one is hardly a good advice on how to play this game, for working many more tiles (i.e. with more cities, population) obviously more than compensates those not nearly as bad ratios..

This isn't a correct analogy.

The difference between the great person generation and the beaker generation is that beakers are accumulated over your entire empire and then used to research a technology while great person points are accumulated locally and used for the local generation of a great person.
The amount of Great Person Points (GPP's) needed to generate a great person is a moving target. After the generation of a great person, the second one costs double the amount of the first and the third costs three times as much as the first. This means that a city slowly generating great person points might never reach the moving target. Each time another city is the first to reach the target and all of the great person points generated in this city are essentially wasted. They aren't reset to zero or something but they just aren't accumulated fast enough to reach the moving target. Of course, great persons also contribute production, gold, science and culture.

Oh, and welcome to civfanatics, by the way. :band: :dance:

This is correct.



This isn't a correct analogy.

The difference between the great person generation and the beaker generation is that beakers are accumulated over your entire empire and then used to research a technology while great person points are accumulated locally and used for the local generation of a great person.
The amount of Great Person Points (GPP's) needed to generate a great person is a moving target. After the generation of a great person, the second one costs double the amount of the first and the third costs three times as much as the first. This means that a city slowly generating great person points might never reach the moving target. Each time another city is the first to reach the target and all of the great person points generated in this city are essentially wasted. They aren't reset to zero or something but they just aren't accumulated fast enough to reach the moving target. Of course, great persons also contribute production, gold, science and culture.

Oh, and welcome to civfanatics, by the way. :band: :dance:

thx!
thats a good point, but his first chart seems to say that the racing condition between cities, discounting the effect of National Epics, under reasonable distributions is not problematic, it alone only affects some random walk +-8% around the mean. Since its the argument, as I understand it, that the debalance by National Epics is what makes the situation so very inefficient, the significantly diminished effect of National Epics probably relieves a substantial portion of the worry about issues with such distribution, because of the racing conditions.
The potentially added total population of specialist due to more area being worked for them (in all cities) should be more than able to make up for this (smaller) inefficiency it terms of total efficiency of the use of the empire & its territory, just as much as a commerce in a non-Oxford city is still worth it even though such distribution of commerce between cities is technically less efficient than putting them all in that city - only in this aspect did I draw a parallel.

Point is a concept of distribution of specialists across cities seems to imply that one is like actually choosing whether one would put 10 specialist around your empire or somehow migrate those populations to once city; just like with commerce resources found or built on tiles, the food resources and the city population is not free to move in this way, but this doesnt imply its wasteful to use them in such cities anymore than it would imply so for the commerce resources, with even potentially worse multipliers in comparison to that fictive alternative.
It doesnt seem to me to be the most useful way of investigating about specialist distributions. Im thinking perhaps finding some ideas about how to distribute such specialist so that those outside the National Epics city are not aditionally hampered by the racing with it more than say their relative GPP multipliers, or even say, to around 2/3 , like it is with commerce..

I would like to understand more about the mathematics used for that chart+-8% chart, I tried analysing the racing situations, but couldnt come up with a way to reason about situation with multiple cities. Im particularly interested in what exact situation does a city loose the race with a larger city forever, under what kind of a concrete scenario? Though Id intuitively expect this to happen, I couldnt understand exactly how when I tried thinking about such situations, it allways seemed it would catch up eventually with the moving target, even if in game-impractical amount of time, it seemed their GPP points grew quadratically due to accumulation, while the 'border' moved only linearly...

thx!
thats a good point, but his first chart seems to say that the racing condition between cities, discounting the effect of National Epics, under reasonable distributions is not problematic, it alone only affects some random walk +-8% around the mean. Since its the argument, as I understand it, that the debalance by National Epics is what makes the situation so very inefficient, the significantly diminished effect of National Epics probably relieves a substantial portion of the worry about issues with such distribution, because of the racing conditions.
The potentially added total population of specialist due to more area being worked for them (in all cities) should be more than able to make up for this (smaller) inefficiency it terms of total efficiency of the use of the empire & its territory, just as much as a commerce in a non-Oxford city is still worth it even though such distribution of commerce between cities is technically less efficient than putting them all in that city - only in this aspect did I draw a parallel.

Point is a concept of distribution of specialists across cities seems to imply that one is like actually choosing whether one would put 10 specialist around your empire or somehow migrate those populations to once city; just like with commerce resources found or built on tiles, the food resources and the city population is not free to move in this way, but this doesnt imply its wasteful to use them in such cities anymore than it would imply so for the commerce resources, with even potentially worse multipliers in comparison to that fictive alternative.
It doesnt seem to me to be the most useful way of investigating about specialist distributions. Im thinking perhaps finding some ideas about how to distribute such specialist so that those outside the National Epics city are not aditionally hampered by the racing with it more than say their relative GPP multipliers, or even say, to around 2/3 , like it is with commerce..

I would like to understand more about the mathematics used for that chart+-8% chart, I tried analysing the racing situations, but couldnt come up with a way to reason about situation with multiple cities. Im particularly interested in what exact situation does a city loose the race with a larger city forever, under what kind of a concrete scenario? Though Id intuitively expect this to happen, I couldnt understand exactly how when I tried thinking about such situations, it allways seemed it would catch up eventually with the moving target, even if in game-impractical amount of time, it seemed their GPP points grew quadratically due to accumulation, while the 'border' moved only linearly...

I just skimmed over the article again. I had read it some years ago and had forgotten its exact argumentation. The article was written shortly after the release of the game and not every detail about the game mechanics was completely understood then. The article explains a small part of the effects of the way the game generates great people and does so with nice graphs, but it isn't the the definite article on great people generation (and wasn't meant to be so).

The point that I was making in my previous post is not really included in detail. The article is more about the effect of the National Epic. Of course, when you are able to focus all of the great person point generation of an entire empire in a single city with the heroic epic, then you will generate about twice as many great people points then when you focus them outside of the city with the National Epic (or a smaller factor than 2 with the philosophical trait or the pacifism civic). That's the factor 2 that you see in the second graph (60% on the right versus 120% on the left).

The article doesn't really explore the effect of spreading great people points generation over many cities. The analysis is done for 3 cities, for d=1, the great people points are spread over 3 cities, for very small values of d, the great people points are focussed in a single city, for very high values of d, the great people points are focussed in 2 cities. If you're generating all of the great people points of an entire empire in 1, 2 or 3 cities, then you're still focussing them and not spreading them.

I'll try to show the results of spreading them in an example. You'll have to do some minor calculations. You can't hope to really understand the mathematical effects of game rules without doing some calculations. But I'll keep the numbers simple so as not to complicate matters unnecessarily.

But first of all, I want to remove a misconception shared by many namely: doubling the number of great person points generated by your empire will result in double the number of great persons after the same amount of time. This is not true. This has to do with the number of great person points needed for the next great person. It is a number that increases as follows (normal speed values):
100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000,
1200, 1400, 1600, 1800, 2000, 2200, 2400, 2600, 2800, 3000,
3300, 3600, etc.

Say for the sake of simplicity that all of the great person points are generated in a single city, so no loss of great person points in a city that is not going to generate a great person. Then after generating 1000 great person points, you'll have created 4 great persons, the ones for 100, 200, 300 and 400 great person points. It will take you 2100 great person points to generate 6 great persons, more than double the amount to generate 4 great persons.

(If you're mathematically inclined: the function describing the number of great person points needed to get n great persons starts of behaving like a quadratic function and even speeds up to a polynomial of the third degree after the n=10. This means that the number of great persons generated after a time T (at a constant great person point generation) starts of behaving like sqrt(T) (4 times as many great person points gives you twice as many great persons) and slows down to T^(1/3) (8 times as many great person points gives you twice as many great persons).)


Let us now discuss spreading great people points vs focussing them in one (or a few) cit(y)(ies).
First of all, there is an opportunity cost to using specialists to generate great people. It means that you will need more farms (to feed the specialists) instead of mines and towns which usually means a lower output of the city. The representation civic and small cottages might temporarily give an advantage to the specialist situation, but once the cottages mature a little, they will even outproduce a specialist under representation. You can have multiple cottages for each specialist because the specialist needs farms to feed him. In return for this opportunity cost, you expect to gain great people which make it worth the investment. If the return in great people is low or the time it takes to get great people is very long, then the investment wasn't worth it. The opportunity costs were too high for the limited return.

The best way to show what happens when you spread great people is an example. I'll try to use simple values in the example so that the calculations are relatively simple.

Situation 1:
The player created one Great Person farm specialised entirely to create great person points. It's generating 50 great person points per turn. Obviously this is unlikely in the early game, but it is very possible in the late game.

Situation 2:
The player created the same great person farm. Additionally, the player chose to create 5 great person points in 10 other cities effectively doubling his output in great person points. What will be the effect of this?

Situation 1:
Great People will be generated after this many turns:
2, 6, 12, 20, 30, 42, 56, 72, 90, 110, 134, 162, 194, 230, 270, 314, 362, 414, 470 (game end)

Situation 2:
Great People will be generated after this many turns:
2, 6, 12, 20, 30, 42, 56, 72, 90, 110, 134, 162, 194, 230, 270, 314, 362, 414, 470 (game end) all in the great person farm. Hmm, really? Yes, the other cities never in the entire game produce one single great person. Yes, they do produce many great person points, but they can never finish a great person before the great person farm has finished its next one and the amount increases again.

I'll show a few of the calculations to hopefully convince you that I didn't cheat with the numbers.
It takes 1000 (100+200+300+400) great person points to create 4 great persons in the single great person farm. That takes 20 turns at 50 great person points per turn.
To create the fourth great person in another city takes 400 great person points. But after 20 turns at 5 gpp's per turn, these cities only have 100 great person points.

It takes 23500 great person points to create 19 great persons in the single great person farm. That takes 470 turns at 50 GPP's per turn. The 19-th great person costs 2800 great person points. But after 470 turns, the 5 GPP's per turn producing cities have just accumulated 2350 GPP's.

Does this mean that these small cities will never produce a great person even if the game would play on indefinitely? No, not never, but it takes longer than the length of a game to produce one.

What this shows is that if the difference in great person point generation is too big, then the additional cities are useless for generating great persons.

If the 10 cities would be producing 10 GPP's per turn (tripling the empire wide output of great person points), then one of them would generate a great person after 100 turns and another after 160 turns (didn't calculate any further). In this case, there is some return of the investment, but producing 1600 great person points in 10 cities (16000 great person points in total) for 1 great person after 100 turns and another after 160 turns while the great person farm created 11 in the meantime shows that tripling the output of great person points has a very low revenue in this case. In my opinion, definitely not worth the opportunity costs.

If you can get a few cities which produce high amounts of great person points, then that is okay. But if you add numerous other cities which only add small numbers of great person points, then those aren't going to help generate great people. Try to concentrate the generation of great person points in a few cities (1, 2, 3, maybe 4) which have a roughly equal output (differing no more than a factor of 2 or 3 in output).

Of course, you should focus the production of great person points in those cities that have multiple food resources. Not only can you get a higher food output in these cities than in normal cities meaning that the total number of specialists and the total generation of great person points in such cities has the potential to be much higher, but also the opportunity cost to support these specialists is low as each food resource can support several specialists already very early in the game. You don't need many farms to get a decent number of specialists in these cities.

I hope this helps. :)

This has been a fascinating read, even if I'm too lazy to do all the math.

I just have one question. If I want to create a GP city, then I want high food production to support the specialists. I'd also like to build lots of Wonders there for the "free" GP points.

Cities with high food production tend NOT to be good production cities. How am I building all the Wonders? There are only so many forests around.

I'm relatively new to this forum, and I'm sure the answer is here somewhere. I need to keep reading...

This has been a fascinating read, even if I'm too lazy to do all the math.

I just have one question. If I want to create a GP city, then I want high food production to support the specialists. I'd also like to build lots of Wonders there for the "free" GP points.

Cities with high food production tend NOT to be good production cities. How am I building all the Wonders? There are only so many forests around.

I'm relatively new to this forum, and I'm sure the answer is here somewhere. I need to keep reading...

It's not that hard to create a city that produces enough food to support 10 specialists and if you pick the city where you want to create specialists right, then this city will be able to support many more specialists by the late game. 10 specialists create as many great person points as 15 great wonders. If you're able to get anywhere near 15 great wonders in a single city, then you're playing at a difficulty level that is clearly not challenging you.

So the idea is that the great person farm is creating great persons by having many specialists, not by having many great wonders. It might have some (by chopping forests as you say or by temporarily changing terrain and focussing on production), but this city is typically not having many wonders as it doesn't have the production to create them.

Some other cities that are focussing on a high hammer output will (try to) build the wonders of your civilization, not for their great person point bonuses but for the other benefits of the wonders.

That makes sense. I've just made the jump from Noble to Prince (I know...I'm a piker...that's why I'm reading the boards). I'd been playing industrious civs, and I knew is was time to step up when I was building 4/5ths of the Wonders and founding 5 religions. Needless to say, Prince has been a bit of a shock to my system. From reading the boards, it looks like building a Wonder is a rare achievement at the higher levels. I need to get out of the habit now, and learn other ways to get ahead. Anyway, thanks for the reply.

That makes sense. I've just made the jump from Noble to Prince (I know...I'm a piker...that's why I'm reading the boards). I'd been playing industrious civs, and I knew is was time to step up when I was building 4/5ths of the Wonders and founding 5 religions. Needless to say, Prince has been a bit of a shock to my system. From reading the boards, it looks like building a Wonder is a rare achievement at the higher levels. I need to get out of the habit now, and learn other ways to get ahead. Anyway, thanks for the reply.

At the levels that are really challenging someone (doesn't really have to do with the actual difficulty of the level, just the relative difficulty for the player), the player doesn't have the luxury to go for many world wonders. Especially at the start of the game where expansion and claiming good city tiles is very important, going for a wonder can be a luxury that you can't afford. One will have to choose between building a wonder like the pyramids and building several cities. If the level is really challenging you, then you probably can't afford to miss those cities.

Not everyone likes to play at a difficulty level that challenges them so much that it is hard to build a world wonder. Many just like to build an empire with many beautiful cities with many wonders. In that case, maybe the world wonders can be a substantial source of great person points. Usually, I won't have many world wonders in my great person farm.

See Obsoletes games for a strategy on producing Great People and wonders. You settle the great people (usually priests) in your capital to provide more hammers to build more wonders which produce more Great People. Its a pretty nice virtuous circle and he plays it at Immortal/Diety.

Wonders don't produce as many Great People as specialists, but you can have both specialists and wonders in the same city.

And, wonders don't eat food.

Wodan

See Obsoletes games for a strategy on producing Great People and wonders. You settle the great people (usually priests) in your capital to provide more hammers to build more wonders which produce more Great People. Its a pretty nice virtuous circle and he plays it at Immortal/Diety.

Wonders don't produce as many Great People as specialists, but you can have both specialists and wonders in the same city.

Personally, I think settling great persons is a relatively pretty poor investment of the great person. Many of the great persons also don't provide a great number of hammers when settled. Still, if you want to create a super city, then that's the way to do it. Super cities work better on smaller maps where their relative influence is bigger. On huge maps, one single super city is unlikely to have a big influence on your empire.

If you have Pyramids and are running Representation, settling an early GP is a very good option. Otherwise, I tend to agree. Save them for a golden age, if nothing else.

Wodan

If you have Pyramids and are running Representation, settling an early GP is a very good option. Otherwise, I tend to agree. Save them for a golden age, if nothing else.

Wodan

I must admit that the representation bonus on settled great persons is pretty significant. I just don't like to go for the Pyramids in my games. That wonder is so expensive and there is always some industrious AI or an AI that starts near stone. To get it first, you'll have to build it fairly early. If you have stone yourself or play with only a few AI opponents on a small world, then it's probably less costly to try and get that wonder after some expansion of your empire. On the lower difficulty levels, it's probably also not that costly to get it first.

Yeah but even if you don't get it, you get a very efficient translation of hammers to gold which can allow you to run a deficit economy and increase your tech speed.

Look at it this way: if there was something that allowed you to research at 125%, would you do it? I think you probably would.

Wodan

ps I pulled the 125 number out of my rear; it would be interesting to do an analysis to see what that number really is.

Yeah but even if you don't get it, you get a very efficient translation of hammers to gold which can allow you to run a deficit economy and increase your tech speed.

Look at it this way: if there was something that allowed you to research at 125%, would you do it? I think you probably would.

Wodan

ps I pulled the 125 number out of my rear; it would be interesting to do an analysis to see what that number really is.

It can be an efficient transition of hammers to gold if you have stone or are industrious.

And no, I won't always go for research at 125%. Not if it would seriously harm my expansion. So if I can build the pyramids without seriously harming my expansion, then I'll try it.

On huge maps at immortal or deity level with the standard number of opponents, a decent rate of expansion would give one more than 10 cities before 0 AD (without war, with war it's hard to tell).
The pyramids cost 500 hammers, a settler 100, so building the pyramids is a rather costly affair (or 750 and 150 at the epic speed at which I usually play).

10 cities before 0AD seems to me is way too much. That's crippling to your economy, no matter what size map. When do you usually get Currency or something?

Regardless, personally I feel that with CIV, expansion at all costs is not the best way to go. That's a good way to get yourself in trouble. It always has to be a balance of economy, military, expansion, and research.

Wodan

10 cities before 0AD seems to me is way too much. That's crippling to your economy, no matter what size map. When do you usually get Currency or something?

Regardless, personally I feel that with CIV, expansion at all costs is not the best way to go. That's a good way to get yourself in trouble. It always has to be a balance of economy, military, expansion, and research.

Wodan

I agree that you should balance your economy with your expansion. It's quite easy to overexpand and ruin your economy. That has been true since the first version of civilization 4.

Usually, claiming some resources and using hereditary rule so that my cities can grow a little and use multiple cottages per city helps to prevent a catastrophic stagnation in my economic expansion.

The balance between economic expansion and normal city expansion is a little different on the different map sizes. For instance on huge maps, city upkeep costs are typically a little lower. This is done intentionally as otherwise only a tiny fraction of the map could be settled at the start of the game. The high difficulty level does increase the city upkeep again.
I won't say that it's very easy to create an economy that can sustain more than 10 cities at 0AD, but as I usually play that way, it is certainly possible.

If you don't expand at a fairly fast pace at these settings (immortal/deity, huge map, standard number of opponents), then you will see that the AI will claim a significantly larger part of the map than you do and you will have to compete with AI civilizations twice your size. That can be a problem. Especially if you also use the aggressive AI setting as they will see you as a weak civilization that can be conquered easily.

By the way, we're derailing this thread a bit. It is a thread about great people points, so maybe we should continue this discussion elsewhere if you want to continue it.

Nah, let's just drop it. Thanks for your thoughts.

Wodan

Nah, let's just drop it. Thanks for your thoughts.

Wodan

Thank you for yours. :)

By the way, we have almost the same number of posts (at the moment).

:lol: You're right. Neck and neck. ;)

Anyway, back to the OP... lately I've been focusing in one city, but not worrying about GPP "purity" like I used to do... so I get the mixed bag of GP to feed golden ages.

Wodan

The pyramids cost 500 hammers, a settler 100, so building the pyramids is a rather costly affair (or 750 and 150 at the epic speed at which I usually play).

You are certainly right, that losing 5 settlers can hurt your expansion. But on the other hand, who can build 5 more cities from the start, and not run their economy into the ground by doing so?

Of course, the math isn't so straight forward. Some Civs get settler building bonuses, and others get wonder bonuses, and then there are resources to make the case more complex. So the base value comparison is a little hard to guide by.

Back in the days of Civ 3, the Land-is-Power ideal was pretty much dead-on. It still has certain valid points, but there are at least a couple deity builders who get along fine by focusing on vertical growth instead.

You are certainly right, that losing 5 settlers can hurt your expansion. But on the other hand, who can build 5 more cities from the start, and not run their economy into the ground by doing so?

Of course, the math isn't so straight forward. Some Civs get settler building bonuses, and others get wonder bonuses, and then there are resources to make the case more complex. So the base value comparison is a little hard to guide by.

Back in the days of Civ 3, the Land-is-Power ideal was pretty much dead-on. It still has certain valid points, but there are at least a couple deity builders who get along fine by focusing on vertical growth instead.

I didn't want to say that not building the pyramids would allow one to build 5 more settlers and I purposefully didn't say so. To create new cities, you also have to create units to defend them and workers to improve the area around them. Furthermore, you will want to grow your cities vertically a bit so that your economy doesn't stall.

I just wanted to say that building the pyramids will cost me a lot in expansion speed, usually too much for my taste. If you start near stone, then it's less of a problem, but that depends on luck.

The consensus in the thread seems to be that the optimal strategy for generating great people is to concentrate on one city. Over the course of a game, this certainly makes sense. What about the first few though? For example, if you are like me, you reach a point where the happy caps and your economy require you to put the brakes on city growth and the research slider, and you can usually whip a couple forges/libraries/courthouses/temples (or, if you're lucky, a wonder or two.) At that point, using my current game as an example, I have the GL and a library in one city, a forge, the Great Wall and Museum of Maus in another, and a random-event-generated-settled-GS in a third city, who now has company from the library there. While I am running HR, I have more food than happiness in those three cities. [I am alone on my landmass and was first to CoL, but the nearest civs are Hindu, who are warring with the Buddhists so I am not ready to alienate the world by picking a religon.]

After reading this and other threads like it, I am wondering if I am heading down the wrong road by having three cities generating similar amounts of GP points? One city is (roughly) 75+% GS (GL and a "working" GS, plus the GP gpp from the Moai Statues); one is a mixed bag (has generated a GSpy already from the Great Wall; now with GW and MoM, and a "working" GE (forge); the third is 100% GS (two GS from a library and a third a settled scientist from a random event.)

I am going to pop my 2nd and 3rd great people shortly, after which I hope to be able to choose a religon and lift the caps a bit. From the math, on a purely great person generating standpoint, it does not seem to make sense to continue running those specialists in all three cities.

Does it matter that I'm playing a Phil civ? I know the ratios don't change, but I will get to great people 4 and 5 sooner than otherwise. My original thinking was that given my fairly isolated start and my characteristics and circumstances (decent food, nearby calendar resources), having more GP farms rather than fewer would garner me more GP. Since that clearly is not the case, when do you close down GP farms 2 & 3?

OK, after a couple hours of play, I've generated a total of 6 great people (one GSpy, four GS and one GE, plus a GA from Music). Playing as England/Victoria, I'm generating 30 GPpts in one city, 22GPpts in a second and 18 GPpts in a third, plus running a spy specialist in a border city. I have the Parthenon, so I've got that and the Phil bonus working. The GSpy settled in my capital, each scientist built an academy, the GE rushed Notre Dame (good-bye happy caps!!) and the GA was used for my first Golden Age (allowing me to be first to Philosophy, Civil Service and Engineering- but I got pipped by a turn on the Apostolic Palace).

The point here is, despite the math showing that the spreading of GPpts over multiple cities is "sub-optimal" in the long run, the fact is I've actually popped 2 each from three sources, right when I could benefit the most from getting that many. I also have three more in the pipeline, and with a little micromanaging, I'll be able to ensure that the weakest producer is next before I "shut it down" (that is, I'll only run specialists that provide ancillary benefits, not because they're going to produce another GP). That will leave me with two strong GP farms: one producing beakers from Representation and scientists (2 GL and 2 hired), the other (my capital) producing some beakers but also producing GPpts from Wonders and specialists (Spy, Engineer and Priest).

I just can't bring myself to abandon either just now- maybe after Scientific Method, the GL city will switch over to production and I'll concentrate GP in the capital.

GPP should be considered as a part of your strategy.
Are Wonders and/or specialists profits the important and GPP subsidiary?
Or as many GP as possible?
Or just the required GP type?
Best regards,

The idea presented in the first post is that it is quite useless to have a city try to produce a great person with 2 scientist while you also have a city producing great persons with 2 engineers, 3 scientists, 2 merchants, 10 GPP from wonders and the National Epic bonus to GPP. One city would be producing 6GPP and the other (7*3+10)*2=62 GPP. The one producing 6 GPP would never during a game produce a great person.

If you have 3 cities producing a similar number of GPP's, then it is likely that all three of them will regularly produce great persons and you will also produce slightly more great persons in total than if you would only have one GPP producing city. Of course, it would be even better to have all of those GPP's in one city boosted by the national epic, but it is often not possible to feed all of the specialists in one city.

As you add more and more cities that produce great person points, then it becomes more and more likely that several of them will never create a great person. Some of them will be chasing a moving target number of GPP's and will never reach that target as other cities producing great persons move the target faster than the rate at which the city produces great person points. Still, regularly the raw gold, science, production, culture or espionage points can be worth the effort. These are often less than what would be offered by improved terrain, but if you're out of improved terrain and still have food left, then it is a good option.

@TabascoBob:
For me, it depends entirely on the game. Chances are, though, I will try very hard to pop a couple of great people from different cities for my first few. Once I'm up and running with a significant GP farm, I'm going to push the GP threshold higher with new GP in that city faster than my smaller GP generating cities can keep pace with, but for the first few, I can push out 4-5 Great People pretty quickly across a decent sized empire and that can get me quickly to Liberalism/Astronomy/Chemistry/whatever. I find that a quick dash to Chemistry and then Liberalism is often possible so that I can grab Steel and go marauding across the world with Cannons when some of the backwards Civs will still have Longbows for quite a while.

I find that it's not worth a major push for Great People unless I have a specific purpose for them since it's usually only 1 or 2 cities that are well situated for specialists without sacrificing too much else. Other cities can work a couple of specialists, but not too many because they don't have enough appropriate buildings. Also, most cities don't have enough food and population to run specialists and still work those cottages + mines.

Having the list of what gets bulbed in what order is very helpful for that so that you can strategically avoid certain techs and make sure that your bulbs are appropriately directed. If you are not bulbing, then cottages and mines are probably better than specialists in most cities.

This is basically the difference between a "parallel" SE and a "serial" SE. Whether you realistically expect to have multiple cities generate GP, or have one GP Farm that is going to outproduce most if not all your other cities.

In a parallel SE, for example, you specifically do NOT want to build the NE.

A parallel SE is particularly useful in the early game. Most SEs start as a parallel SE even if they intend to make a GP farm later. The only question there is how well you manage your GP generation so that you maximize your GP production without overly delaying the NE and other bonuses (and thus losing out # turns of benefiting from their multipliers).

Thanks folks. I appreciate the further feedback. @popejubal: point taken. I am at a crossroads on electing the strategy you describe, or going spaceward, and taking my (sweet ol' turn-based game) time doing it. Wodan, never had the opportunity to thank you for your thoughts but I have learned a lot from your posts; the distinction between parallell and serial is a turn of phrase that helps crystallize the debate in my head: thanks. I have specifically been holding off on NE until I had reaped all the "low hanging" GPs. (Because I was racing for MoM, I ended up starting the GL in my coastal MS city; now, I am really not sure I want the NE there... but I digress.)

I'm tempted to do some math to see where my specific break point is but... maybe I'll just lay down until the feeling goes away and play later. ;)

Especially before I have the National Epic built, it's not too unusual for me to pop GP from 2 or 3 different cities. There is nothing wrong with this. But one must make a distinction between making multiple GPP producers via wonders or via specialists. The great thing about using a small city to generate a GP from specialists is that as soon as the great person is born, you can "turn off" those specialists and never try to produce another GP.

The problem of having multiple cities generate GP disappears if you make sure each city stops producing GPP when they have built what you expect to be the last GP it will need/ever make. As soon as you get a proper GP Farm up, with NE and all, it quickly becomes obvious that your less-capable cities are not going to be able to produce a GP so they should already have been turned off.

With GPP from wonders, it's quite possible their GP points will be wasted forever. But with wonders, one would hope you were building the wonder primarily for obvious benefit rather than the GPP producing quality. Obviously the wonder GPP is not going to hurt if it's going to be your GP farm or if you just need that first great prophet or whatever.


This is basically the difference between a "parallel" SE and a "serial" SE. Whether you realistically expect to have multiple cities generate GP, or have one GP Farm that is going to outproduce most if not all your other cities.

In a parallel SE, for example, you specifically do NOT want to build the NE.

A parallel SE is particularly useful in the early game. Most SEs start as a parallel SE even if they intend to make a GP farm later. The only question there is how well you manage your GP generation so that you maximize your GP production without overly delaying the NE and other bonuses (and thus losing out # turns of benefiting from their multipliers).

I'm not sure I understand why you would specifically NOT want to build the NE in any type of SE game.:confused: Do you mean you should not go out of your way to get the tech that allows it? Because if you can build it, I see no real reason not to. Having the NE in one city is not going to slow the overall rate of GP acquisition. It can only increase that rate.

(By the way, to remind everybody why this is an important issue... GP generation requirements goes up with each GP produced. So, if one city makes a Great Engineer for 200 GP, then the next GP produced by ANY of your cities will now cost 300 GPP. Thus, if a single city is making more GPP than another of your cities, there is some possibility that the first city will "outstrip" the second and make 2 GP before the second city will make 1. In addition, if you have multiple cities making GPPs, which is what a "parallel SE" is doing, then effectively you're spreading out GPP production so that you get more GP earlier. Having a GP earlier in the game means you get its benefit earlier... that Academy is providing it's bonus to science over more turns (and to boot earlier beakers are better because you get techs earlier), you get that wonder earlier, etc. So if you have one city outstripping multiple cities, this is basically removing your "parallel" benefit, which while it might get you more GP over the total course of the game is giving you them later in the game which is a considerable negative.)

I'm not sure I understand why you would specifically NOT want to build the NE in any type of SE game.:confused: Do you mean you should not go out of your way to get the tech that allows it? Because if you can build it, I see no real reason not to. Having the NE in one city is not going to slow the overall rate of GP acquisition. It can only increase that rate.
Consider that you might have 7 cities each generating GPP. Take one of those cities, probably the one which already has the highest GPP/turn (since it's your best candidate for GP Farm, so it's either a high food or high production city), and build the NE.

What have you done? You have now added +100% GPP production in that city. Except... your 6 remaining cities (except those which were just about to generate a GP anyway) are now likely to never produce a GP at all.

Let's take the worst case scenario. Say all 6 will not now generate a GP. So we have lost all those GPP and also we have changed their GPP production to an effective non-benefit. Effectively they now have 0 GPP production.

As you state, which I agree with 100%, the "trick" here is to use some basic resource management skill and "turn off" specialists in cities which will not produce a GP. In fact, the real "trick" is to use a modicrum of foresight and planning, so that you recognize this way beforehand, and never bother to run specialists in them in the first place.

(Unless of course you value them for another benefit, such as the beakers they generate, which is a different story. And most SEs will indeed value them for this, since scientists are probably the main source of beaker generation. But, tell yourself they are effectively making 0 GPP and you can make the correct cost/benefit decision for yourself.)

Back to the comparison. We have now lost:
1) X accumulated GPP across 6 cities
2) Y GPP / turn across 6 cities

While we have gained:
3) Z GPP / turn in 1 city

Is the loss of X and Y worth it to have Z? Depends on the exact numbers in question obviously.

But your question was, "I don't understand why you would specifically NOT want to build the NE in any type of SE game." Clearly, if X and Y are not insignificant numbers (which they will not be in a good parallel SE), then the decision is anything but a sinecure. Certainly, it would be lacking to assume that it is ALWAYS a good idea, which seems to be what you're doing.

In addition, we should recognize that a good player may well be generating GPP of different types. If that player switches from parallel SE to serial SE (with NE), then the ability to perform this is diminished. While a GP farm (especially in Caste System) can indeed switch from generating one type of GP to another (e.g., from scientists to prophets), this can drastically change empire-wide beaker generation, and also it doesn't work nearly as well for engineers (because only Forge allows early engineers so you can really only run 1 specialist and because caste doesn't work on engineers, so either way it doesn't really work).

Anyway that's why.

ps I think a lot of players aren't even really aware of this issue, so they don't really plan for it.

It's kind of like how the Colossus can be a negative to a CE player, because if the CE player is working coast tiles, he's obviously not advancing his cottages. It's not a clear benefit and when deciding to build the Colossus some sort of cost/benefit decision should be made. But seriously, most players simply build the thing, thinking of all the added commerce they'll be getting. Just click to the city screen and you can see the governor switch from working cottages, hamlets, etc, and working the coast. Yes, you are now getting a tad more commerce from the higher raw commerce income of the coast tiles. But, you're delaying town advancement which is the core strength of a CE. Same thing with whipping... you're removing guys from working cottages. Are you SURE you want to do that? It's really not a clear-cut decision.

Good planning in a SE will make a conscious decision to run a "parallel SE" or a "serial SE". And, good planning will decide long beforehand whether a parallel->serial switch will be performed later in the game (or whether to stick with one or the other from the get-go), and in fact, pretty much exactly when that switch will occur. Once you do this a couple of times, the math isn't even that hard.

While this is somewhat of an advanced skill, it's interesting to me that many players aren't even aware of it. (At least that's my observation.) Especially players who are clearly skilled ones. Because, contrarily, those same players are the ones who recognize that GP generation is one of the biggest strengths of a SE.

SEs are not simply an alternative to CEs. SEs have clear strengths over CEs, particularly in GP generation, ability to do early lightbulbs and get way ahead, etc.

anyway I have to get to work. :)

Speaking of "lightbulbs", this thread helped one flicker dimly/briefly over my head. Spending some conscious thought and an iota of planning (not the norm for me), I have embraced the idea of grabbing the early cluster of GP from three or four cities, all of which are running specialists to control population growth until I can lift the happy cap, and/or generate beakers while the economy recovers and I can raise the slider again. Whipping those libraries, running scientists, and popping three or four GS in close succession-- I've never had the "problem" of deciding whether or not to settle a GS, build the third academy, or bulb PHIL before. And, once I get calendar resources or Representation/Nationhood, or get the military city online and can move obsolete units back to the core cities for HR-happiness duty, those specialists can go back to the cottages or mines or (horrors!!) under the whip for a forge or market.

A very helpful thread to me, I appreciate the thoughtful posts.

Back to the comparison. We have now lost:
1) X accumulated GPP across 6 cities
2) Y GPP / turn across 6 cities

While we have gained:
3) Z GPP / turn in 1 city

Is the loss of X and Y worth it to have Z? Depends on the exact numbers in question obviously.

This is what I'm trying to get at. You ask is the loss of X and Y worth it for the gain of Z? What I'm proposing (I'm a bit tired at the minute so I may be way off), is that in almost all but the most unusual of cases X+Y is going to be less than Z. It could be said that the value X - the loss of accumulated GPP across the 6 cities is not a true factor in the decision, because if you plan for a GP farm you could avoid the accumulation of GPP that won't produce a GP. The main one I was thinking about before was Y - the loss of the GPP per turn across the 6 cities.

In the case where the 6 cities are producing GPP that will never produce a GP due to 1 city producing so much GPP as to outstrip the others, then the number of GPP in the 1 city must be huge. I haven't done the numbers yet but I'm guessing the GPP per turn rate must have to be significantly higher for it to mean it will keep overtaking the weaker city in GPP.


I look at it like this. Suppose we have 7 cities all generating the same number of GPP per turn. What happens if you give a 100% boost to one of them (let's assume no other modifiers). Well, without the NE, a city would produce the GP on turn x. With the NE, that GP could only possibly have been produced on turn x or earlier. For the second GP, without the NE, it will be produced on turn y. With the NE, the second GP would be produced on turn y or earlier. And so on.

So I think looking again at the numbers X, Y and Z, it's going to be typical that the value of Z is greater than X and Y.

In addition, we should recognize that a good player may well be generating GPP of different types. If that player switches from parallel SE to serial SE (with NE), then the ability to perform this is diminished. While a GP farm (especially in Caste System) can indeed switch from generating one type of GP to another (e.g., from scientists to prophets), this can drastically change empire-wide beaker generation, and also it doesn't work nearly as well for engineers (because only Forge allows early engineers so you can really only run 1 specialist and because caste doesn't work on engineers, so either way it doesn't really work).

I had a feeling this might be the reason. I was hesitant to mention it because I thought it might be a fairly minor point. Mainly because with a GP farm it is often very realistic to be able to influence the type of GP you want to at least 50% or so. I find the production of engineers to be a very small benefit to sacrificing faster overall GP births empire wide. I guess you could say I'd rather have 1.3 scientists than 1 engineer, generally speaking anyway. Obviousy because of the randomness in GP births, this is not an exact science. :D

if you plan for a GP farm you could avoid the accumulation of GPP that won't produce a GP.
Well of course you can do that. That would be planning for and implementing a serial SE.

Your reasoning is circular. "I don't have to choose between X and Y because if I don't spend the cost for X then Y is always better."

A serial SE has an opportunity cost, just as a parallel SE does. The serial SE has to give up the opportunity of having multiple cities produce GPP.

In the case where the 6 cities are producing GPP that will never produce a GP due to 1 city producing so much GPP as to outstrip the others, then the number of GPP in the 1 city must be huge. I haven't done the numbers yet but I'm guessing the GPP per turn rate must have to be significantly higher for it to mean it will keep overtaking the weaker city in GPP.
It has to be roughly twice higher. Which, by the way, is the bonus provided by NE.

Also recognize that we're not simply talking about simply outstripping the others. If the NE generates ANY great people at all then it is delaying the generation of gp from multiple other cities.

I had a feeling this might be the reason.
It's not "the" reason, it's an secondary or even tertiary reason. I just threw it out there because it will be a concern in some games.

I find the production of engineers to be a very small benefit to sacrificing faster overall GP births empire wide.
Did you just make an assumption that a GP farm automatically results in "faster overall GP births empire wide"???

That's exactly what we're talking about here. I contend that such is NOT always the case.

If one city avoids the others to pop GP, that just means said single city
outputs more than all the others together,i.e., no loss of GP.
Remember that when the cities output the same GPP the first one to pop
also delays the others.
The problem is when you want that type of GP first,then another type,and
so on,let's say, a Prophet to the Shrine, followed by 2 scientists to bulb,
a merchant to the food or corporation. Here, the parallel way shines.
Best regards,

Well of course you can do that. That would be planning for and implementing a serial SE.

Your reasoning is circular. "I don't have to choose between X and Y because if I don't spend the cost for X then Y is always better."
I agree - I think the reasoning is sort of circular. I guess my point was that there should be no need to have X as a factor for any SE economy if sufficient planning (and predicting the future) could be used. As it is, it would be tedious to try and predict at what points in the future each city would increase its GPP count so the parallel SE would be simpler.

But in any case it's not the main point I'm trying to drive here.


A serial SE has an opportunity cost, just as a parallel SE does. The serial SE has to give up the opportunity of having multiple cities produce GPP.

IMO the opportunity cost is better described as the specific GP the other cities can genereate with higher odds. If we assumed all GPs were of equal value, this cost would be 0. If I get all 5 GPs from one city in 300 turns, it's no worse than getting 5GPs from 5 cities in 300 turns. The lost GPP from the non-NE cities are completely made up by the gained GPP in the NE city.


It has to be roughly twice higher. Which, by the way, is the bonus provided by NE.


I disagree. For the NE city to completely outstrip all the other cities forever, it needs a very very large amount of GPP. There will almost always come a point where the amount of GPP catch up the NE city has to do is so great, another city without the NE will get to a threshold first.

I tried out a four city model (spreadsheet) as follows: At normal speed, the thresholds are 100,200,...,900,1000,1200,1400,1600,... (effectively two joined linear functions).

I'll label the cities A, B, C and NE. The cities start on the the following GPP on turn 1 (to make it easier to determine the GP birth for the three first cities we stagger the initial GPP a bit).

Turn 1:
A: 18GPP
B: 12GPP
C: 6GPP
NE: 0GPP

Each of the four cities earn 6GPP, except the NE city which earns 12GPP.

With this setup, on the 482nd turn the 14th GP is generated. Over those turns, city A had 3 births, B 2 births, C 2 births and NE 7 births.

If we now remove the NE so that the four cities now are identical apart from the starting GPP on turn 1, we get...

On the 435th turn, the 12th GP is generated (13th would be turn 515). Over the 435 turns, each city had 3 births.





Also recognize that we're not simply talking about simply outstripping the others. If the NE generates ANY great people at all then it is delaying the generation of gp from multiple other cities.

The generation of GP from the other cities may be delayed technically but it's (IMO) the wrong way of looking at it. Those GP that are "delayed" are being born earlier because of the NE city. Having a NE city can only increase GPP generation.

This means I would usually oppose the idea of avoiding the NE just to ensure these the GP production in these other cities is not delayed. As I was saying earlier, only the value of being able to choose which GPs are born can possibly outweigh the potential for extra GP births.



It's not "the" reason, it's an secondary or even tertiary reason. I just threw it out there because it will be a concern in some games.

As far as my reasoning at the moment will allow, it seems the only good reason.

Did you just make an assumption that a GP farm automatically results in "faster overall GP births empire wide"???

I didn't make the assumption, but a pseudo-proof of what would be called the assumption. If we are allowed to ignore the cost of researching the tech Aesthetics and the cost of building the NE, and even the fact we'll pollute the pool with the great artist(?) (they are small factors in the decision though) then there is no reason not to build the NE to increase empire-wide GP generation. Buidling the NE can only possibly increase the GP generation or leave it constant. That last sentence I feel can be proven and I did that reasonably explicitly in my previous post:

I look at it like this. Suppose we have 7 cities all generating the same number of GPP per turn. What happens if you give a 100% boost to one of them (let's assume no other modifiers). Well, without the NE, a city would produce the GP on turn x. With the NE, that GP could only possibly have been produced on turn x or earlier. For the second GP, without the NE, it will be produced on turn y. With the NE, the second GP would be produced on turn y or earlier. And so on.



That's exactly what we're talking about here. I contend that such is NOT always the case.

This surprises me because I feel it's a fairly straight forward mathematical argument.

Let's suppose that for the nth GP to be born empire-wide, one of our cities has to reach X GPP. Let's also assume that city A would have been the city to reach the X GPP and so produce the nth GP for our empire if it weren't for the NE. By adding the NE to our empire, it cannot possibly take longer to genereate that nth GP. Adding the NE to a city other than city A can only mean the nth GP may instead by generated earlier and by a different city.

I cannot for the life of me think of any analogy, and at the moment, the precise form of a proof eludes me. If you're still not convinced, I'll try again to think of a way to prove it. I'm almost certain there must be a way to prove it by induction.

While the NE will of course increase the GPP production empire wide, it will not in every single case increase the short term GP-birth rate. It will normally do this, but not always.

Counterexample for the proposition: By adding the NE to our empire, it cannot possibly take longer to generate the nth GP.

Next GP: 200 GPP

City A: 192 GPP + 3GPP per turn (GP in 3 turns)
City B: 165 GPP + 9GPP per turn (GP in 4 turns)

Without the NE, city A will create a GP first, with the NE in city B in this turn, city B will create a GP first. To produce the great person at 300GPP the fastest it is better to let City A create the next one and then speed up the GPP rate in city B. This would happen if for instance city B got the NE in three turns instead of this turn. It's pretty clear that City B will get to the required 300 GPP much faster than city A, but by delaying the NE it got an approximately 200 GPP head start compared to not delaying.

Of course, the same effect can also be achieved by switching off some specialists in city B, so it is not really necessary to delay the NE to get this effect. You just don't want to delay using the 200GPP produced in city A until the say 7th great person. (I didn't calculate when city A would get a GP when city B would get the NE now, it's an estimate.)

The main idea is to use the slow cities earlier than the fast cities so that the conversion of GPP to actual Great Persons in these cities is not delayed. The slow cities will be ineffective/inefficient for producing great persons later in the game. You don't want to keep using large numbers of great persons spread over many cities for a long period of time without much result. We all agree on that. (except for the direct hammer/gold/science/culture/EP gain of these specialists).

Note that the counterexample shown here is contrived. While it may happen once in a game, it will typically be better to get the NE out earlier and maximise the GPP generation in that city. It's a contrived counterexample, not the typical situation. However, you may encounter it in some games.

While the NE will of course increase the GPP production empire wide, it will not in every single case increase the short term GP-birth rate. It will normally do this, but not always.

Counterexample for the proposition: By adding the NE to our empire, it cannot possibly take longer to generate the nth GP.

Next GP: 200 GPP

City A: 192 GPP + 3GPP per turn (GP in 3 turns)
City B: 165 GPP + 9GPP per turn (GP in 4 turns)

Without the NE, city A will create a GP first, with the NE in city B in this turn, city B will create a GP first. To produce the great person at 300GPP the fastest it is better to let City A create the next one and then speed up the GPP rate in city B. This would happen if for instance city B got the NE in three turns instead of this turn. It's pretty clear that City B will get to the required 300 GPP much faster than city A, but by delaying the NE it got an approximately 200 GPP head start compared to not delaying.

Of course, the same effect can also be achieved by switching off some specialists in city B, so it is not really necessary to delay the NE to get this effect. You just don't want to delay using the 200GPP produced in city A until the say 7th great person. (I didn't calculate when city A would get a GP when city B would get the NE now, it's an estimate.)

The main idea is to use the slow cities earlier than the fast cities so that the conversion of GPP to actual Great Persons in these cities is not delayed. The slow cities will be ineffective/inefficient for producing great persons later in the game. You don't want to keep using large numbers of great persons spread over many cities for a long period of time without much result. We all agree on that. (except for the direct hammer/gold/science/culture/EP gain of these specialists).

Note that the counterexample shown here is contrived. While it may happen once in a game, it will typically be better to get the NE out earlier and maximise the GPP generation in that city. It's a contrived counterexample, not the typical situation. However, you may encounter it in some games.

Ah yes you are correct Roland. I really should have added to my proposition (because I was sort of assuming it in my head :lol:) that the GP bars start at empty (or very near empty like in my example).

So in the short term, in certain situations delaying the NE will allow for more GPs but in the long term getting the NE sooner is going to work out better.

One thing I did in at least one game, was run a secondary GP producer into a food deficit for a few turns while I tried to get a GP out just before the NE got its next one.

With the model I made above, I was also assuming a constant GPP rate for the 4 cities - this is another added limitation that is not necessarily realistic in-game.

I'm still really struggling to see how a "parallel SE" could possibly encourage you to delay the NE deliberately, at least for any more than a few turns anyway.

I could imagine the NE being much less valuable if there are several GP producing cities of similar output (eg. 7 cities all producing 6GPP). But usually it is possible to find a good site for a GP farm where running many more than 2 specialists is easy, and in this city delaying the NE more than necessary seems wasteful.

One thing I did in at least one game, was run a secondary GP producer into a food deficit for a few turns while I tried to get a GP out just before the NE got its next one.

Yes, that could prove valuable.

I'm still really struggling to see how a "parallel SE" could possibly encourage you to delay the NE deliberately, at least for any more than a few turns anyway.

I could imagine the NE being much less valuable if there are several GP producing cities of similar output (eg. 7 cities all producing 6GPP). But usually it is possible to find a good site for a GP farm where running many more than 2 specialists is easy, and in this city delaying the NE more than necessary seems wasteful.

I don't think I'd delay the National Epic often. The only reason would be to get a Great Engineer out somewhere. Even then, I might just build the NE and lower the number of specialists and use the extra food in the city for other purposes. You can view the NE as a way to double the efficiency of the food->GPP ratio. Why delay that?

I agree - I think the reasoning is sort of circular. I guess my point was that there should be no need to have X as a factor for any SE economy if sufficient planning (and predicting the future) could be used.
I agree.

And, the converse is equally true: There is no need to have Y as a factor for any SE economy if sufficient planning (and predicting the future) is used.

Either way, this reads to me as a non argument. If I plan for one thing, then there's no need to plan for the other. Well, duh. :)

If we assumed all GPs were of equal value, this cost would be 0. If I get all 5 GPs from one city in 300 turns, it's no worse than getting 5GPs from 5 cities in 300 turns. The lost GPP from the non-NE cities are completely made up by the gained GPP in the NE city.
(Noting the assumption)

Yes, agreed. That's the question here, though, isn't it. Can the NE city truly "make up for it" and how fast? The NE isn't even available until considerably into the game.

I disagree. For the NE city to completely outstrip all the other cities forever, it needs a very very large amount of GPP.
I'll grant from your example that my estimation of "double" wasn't accurate. However, I think the example is not a good one for drawing other conclusions. Several reasons.

For one thing, it doesn't track WHEN each GP is produced. Second, it assumes stagnant GPP production capacity. Third, it ignores the impact of civic choices and wonders.

The generation of GP from the other cities may be delayed technically but it's (IMO) the wrong way of looking at it. Those GP that are "delayed" are being born earlier because of the NE city. Having a NE city can only increase GPP generation.
I ran some simultations on my own.

I'll agree with your statement "having a ne city can only increase GPP production". I'll repeat my own which was "having a NE delays the generation of gp from multiple other cities."

Also, I'll point out that building the NE has a hammer cost. At that point the game, a hammer cost that might be better spent elsewhere.

(One strat I do quite a bit is run a parallel SE, and, once I get close to Emancipation, as each city generates a GP, I do a SE->CE switch. I keep a NE city as GP farm but otherwise am wholly CE.)

This means I would usually oppose the idea of avoiding the NE just to ensure these the GP production in these other cities is not delayed. As I was saying earlier, only the value of being able to choose which GPs are born can possibly outweigh the potential for extra GP births.
Which was one of my points. As was the hammer cost of NE, and also the effect of civic choices.

I agree.

And, the converse is equally true: There is no need to have Y as a factor for any SE economy if sufficient planning (and predicting the future) is used.

Either way, this reads to me as a non argument. If I plan for one thing, then there's no need to plan for the other. Well, duh. :)
Agreed. The reason I mentioned it though was that it seems both X and Y usually go together. It's possible to make both of them a non-cost with the right planning, excluding the GPP from wonders.




(Noting the assumption)

Yes, agreed. That's the question here, though, isn't it. Can the NE city truly "make up for it" and how fast? The NE isn't even available until considerably into the game.
I agree it's a good point that the NE is only opened up a fair way into the game. I would estimate that as long as it's coming in before about half of your GPs are born, it would be worth it. I've usually found that by the time I want the NE I often have marble available, and even without that, the NE is not too expensive a wonder. To be able to build the wonder, it's obviously wise to have a source of hammers (2 hills maybe) for when the building needs to be done.


I'll grant from your example that my estimation of "double" wasn't accurate. However, I think the example is not a good one for drawing other conclusions. Several reasons.

For one thing, it doesn't track WHEN each GP is produced. Second, it assumes stagnant GPP production capacity. Third, it ignores the impact of civic choices and wonders.
Well I had tracked when each GPP was produced but I didn't include it in the summary. If I get time tomorrow I"ll upload the spreadsheet, as there are a number of inputs that can be fiddled with.

It assumes stagnant GPP production capacity, but I think that's not too big a concern if the GPP production capacity across the cities increases roughly at the same rate. I have a feeling that a gradually increasing rate of GPP would give more reason to build the NE, rather than less reason.

I have to agree that things like the Parthenon and Pacifism and Phi leaders are going to make the NE bonus less game-changing. So the idea of a single GP farm I guess is more important in economies that have none (or few) of those other GPP modifiers.


I ran some simultations on my own.

I'll agree with your statement "having a ne city can only increase GPP production". I'll repeat my own which was "having a NE delays the generation of gp from multiple other cities."
Ok ok but what is the point? I feel it's like saying that if two stores have a sale on - one has 30% off store-wide and the other has 50% off store-wide - and you go spend all your money at the 50% off store, then you are sacrificing the potential for any savings at the 30% off store. I know analogies like that can be annoying, but it's about the same level as how I imagine delaying a NE is.


Also, I'll point out that building the NE has a hammer cost. At that point the game, a hammer cost that might be better spent elsewhere.

(One strat I do quite a bit is run a parallel SE, and, once I get close to Emancipation, as each city generates a GP, I do a SE->CE switch. I keep a NE city as GP farm but otherwise am wholly CE.)
Right. This is something I do loosely as well. The decision to go for a single GP farm will happen around the time the NE becomes available. IMO this is not an argument for delaying the NE though. I absolutely agree that before the NE it's worth running a "parallel" SE but my original point was I couldn't see why you'd think too much about keeping a parallel SE going after the NE was available at the cost overall GPP production. I've seen a few reasons now, but some of them, like the hammer cost of the NE seem very minor. If you're going to build the NE eventually anyway, I'd almost argue the cost of the NE is not a real factor in the decision to delay.

I would like to note as well, that normally I am going to be trying to produce scientists in the GP Farm, and whatever other GP types I consider most valuable. Even though the odds are less certain, and the GP pool is a little bit muddied from the NE and any other wonders, I still feel that having the NE overtake other cities multiple times in GP production is worth it because they are GP types I want anyway. If it were the case that the GP farm had to produce GP types that I really didn't want, then there'd be a real problem running a NE city. But this does not happen, in my limited experience.

I have to agree the whole argument is a bit fuzzy, because you can't pin anything down into even a remotely simple formula. I would just be very interested to see a real game example where the decision to delay the building of the NE was a good move. I just had never thought of the idea of a parallel SE after NE before your post.

I've usually found that by the time I want the NE I often have marble available, and even without that, the NE is not too expensive a wonder.
It's not so much whether it can be subjectively qualified as "expensive" as what is given up or delayed in order to build it. Everything has a cost. Even if you simply have the NE build units or Research, that's something you have to give up.

It assumes stagnant GPP production capacity, but I think that's not too big a concern if the GPP production capacity across the cities increases roughly at the same rate. I have a feeling that a gradually increasing rate of GPP would give more reason to build the NE, rather than less reason.
That's an issue we haven't really discussed. For example, a parallel SE can spread out wonder builds to multiple cities, and make effective use of them. A serial SE, to maximize GPP production, has to delay wonder builds (i.e., has to queue them up) and this both risks losing the wonder to an AI and also delays getting the benefit of the wonder.

This is where you say yes but this pollutes GPP type in the GP farm. Yes, and that is a reason why you may desire to build a wonder in a city you never want a GP from, period. Nevertheless, that is lost GPP and perhaps a tiny % risk of pollution is worth it to increase GPP production. Or, perhaps you're doing a golden age strat and thus any GP is put to good use. Or several other scenarios. Anyway.

A parallel SE can focus different cities on different types of GP, and build appropriate wonders in each. GPP pollution can be controlled as desired, either to eliminate it or to choose to intentionally place it in certain cities. i.e., one city with 30% pollution but will only produce 1-2 GP over the course of the game may be more desirable than having a GP farm with 7% pollution and producing 15 GP over the course of the game.

I have to agree that things like the Parthenon and Pacifism and Phi leaders are going to make the NE bonus less game-changing. So the idea of a single GP farm I guess is more important in economies that have none (or few) of those other GPP modifiers.
Yeah, that's certainly a big affecting factor. Choice of parallel or serial SE as part of overall game plan is part and parcel with what civics are desired to be run.

Ok ok but what is the point? I feel it's like saying that if two stores have a sale on - one has 30% off store-wide and the other has 50% off store-wide - and you go spend all your money at the 50% off store, then you are sacrificing the potential for any savings at the 30% off store. I know analogies like that can be annoying, but it's about the same level as how I imagine delaying a NE is.
No I think you misunderstood... I must have not said it clearly enough.

Say in a parallel SE you have a city specifically producing prophets (for shrines) at the same time you have a GP farm. Delaying production of multiple prophets can mean a HUGE amount of lost gold.

I would like to note as well, that normally I am going to be trying to produce scientists in the GP Farm, and whatever other GP types I consider most valuable. Even though the odds are less certain, and the GP pool is a little bit muddied from the NE and any other wonders, I still feel that having the NE overtake other cities multiple times in GP production is worth it because they are GP types I want anyway.
My usual problem is that I often HAVE TO HAVE a specific guy, say a merchant to found sushi. I have to "turn off" my GP farm (which is producing a huge chunk of my total empire reserach) in order to spit out that merchant.

I have to agree the whole argument is a bit fuzzy, because you can't pin anything down into even a remotely simple formula. I would just be very interested to see a real game example where the decision to delay the building of the NE was a good move. I just had never thought of the idea of a parallel SE after NE before your post.
Well good I sparked a discussion then. I myself like game variety and experimenting different strats... I think it keeps the game fresh and interesting. Which is why I keep playing after what 3 years now?

That's an issue we haven't really discussed. For example, a parallel SE can spread out wonder builds to multiple cities, and make effective use of them. A serial SE, to maximize GPP production, has to delay wonder builds (i.e., has to queue them up) and this both risks losing the wonder to an AI and also delays getting the benefit of the wonder.

I wasn't really part of the discussion, but this is an element out of your post that I'd like to focus on. I often see players mentioning this, but I never use it in my games. I never have the luxury in a game to choose where I want to build a wonder. I almost always need to choose the optimal production city to have a chance to win the wonder race. And of course a city that is optimal for production isn't using specialists, it's using farms and mines and workshops. So this city won't be a good great person city. It likely will never produce a great person from the GPP produced by the later wonders.

My skill is suited for playing a challenging game at immortal-deity level on huge maps (with random maps, not preselected), so I can see me adopting such a strategy at monarch-emperor level games where I can get seriously ahead of the AI in the technology race. But I can't see me using this at the really challenging games. Am I missing an element or is this strategy more suited for games where you get ahead of the AI in the technology race?

It's not that hard to create a city that produces enough food to support 10 specialists and if you pick the city where you want to create specialists right, then this city will be able to support many more specialists by the late game. 10 specialists create as many great person points as 15 great wonders.


You are making multiple mistakes by assuming specialists beat wonders for GPPs. Part of the reason is your looking only at the points of 3 vs 2. But wonders do much more than specialists.

You pick your best 3 specialists... = 9 GPPs
I pick best 3 wonders... (TGL, ToA, SoL) = 8 + 5 + 5 = 18 GPPs...

I got you crushed 2 to 1 here...

You want to go another round?
Ok, lets add 2 more things into the mix..

You now pick a total of 5 specialists... = 15 GPPs
I add to my list Parthenon [2 + 50% (global total)] and Taj (2 + 100% total GA-Time)

You still don't have a chance of catching up...

Try again?
Ok, you pick one more specialists (+3) = 18 GPP total only..
I'll be nice and throw in a harmless Mausoleum... [2 + (All GA-factors * 50%)]

You still wont beat me...

Alright, lets open another slot... for each.
You put one more specialist into the mix, (+3) = 21 GPP
I put my first National Wonder, the National Epic... [1 + (100% * Total GPPs)]


You still don't stand a chance, and never will...

If you're able to get anywhere near 15 great wonders in a single city, then you're playing at a difficulty level that is clearly not challenging you.

Getting near 15 is attainable at deity...just not always.

You are making multiple mistakes by assuming specialists beat wonders for GPPs. Part of the reason is your looking only at the points of 3 vs 2. But wonders do much more than specialists.

You know exactly what I mean so there was no need for such an arrogant reply.

It's not so much whether it can be subjectively qualified as "expensive" as what is given up or delayed in order to build it. Everything has a cost. Even if you simply have the NE build units or Research, that's something you have to give up.

Yes but I also said that if you're going to build the NE at all it seems a non-issue. If anything, I'd say delaying the NE and building it later is the cost. If you are going to build the NE at all, generally it is going to be the sooner the better. If you're about to get DoW'd on or something then of course priorities are going to be a bit different. But I've never thought about possibly building Research in the likely GP farm when the NE can be built. Surely it's fairly reasonable to say the NE is a far far better return for the hammer investment, unless we are talking short-term enough that 5-10 turns is a big issue.

That's an issue we haven't really discussed. For example, a parallel SE can spread out wonder builds to multiple cities, and make effective use of them. A serial SE, to maximize GPP production, has to delay wonder builds (i.e., has to queue them up) and this both risks losing the wonder to an AI and also delays getting the benefit of the wonder.
It may just be the way I play but I don't let the GPP from wonders affect my GP strategies much at all, at least not after the first few GPs anyway. I don't build many wonders in the first place, but if I can I'd rather be placing them in only a couple of cities - the ones with either a lot of hammers or a lot of GPP already (eg. the GP farm).

For me, the main way to maximise the benefit of every wonder is the the main effect of the wonder - not the GPP it generates. I have to agree with Roland's comment that if wonders can be built in a city of choice, and frequently, something about the game seems a bit easy. Having said that, I know I'm not much of a wonder builder anyway, and I don't play IND leaders very often I admit.

This is where you say yes but this pollutes GPP type in the GP farm. Yes, and that is a reason why you may desire to build a wonder in a city you never want a GP from, period. Nevertheless, that is lost GPP and perhaps a tiny % risk of pollution is worth it to increase GPP production. Or, perhaps you're doing a golden age strat and thus any GP is put to good use. Or several other scenarios. Anyway.

A parallel SE can focus different cities on different types of GP, and build appropriate wonders in each. GPP pollution can be controlled as desired, either to eliminate it or to choose to intentionally place it in certain cities. i.e., one city with 30% pollution but will only produce 1-2 GP over the course of the game may be more desirable than having a GP farm with 7% pollution and producing 15 GP over the course of the game.
Maybe. I find that example a bit odd because I'd take 15 of any GP over the 2 best GP any day.


Yeah, that's certainly a big affecting factor. Choice of parallel or serial SE as part of overall game plan is part and parcel with what civics are desired to be run.


No I think you misunderstood... I must have not said it clearly enough.

Say in a parallel SE you have a city specifically producing prophets (for shrines) at the same time you have a GP farm. Delaying production of multiple prophets can mean a HUGE amount of lost gold.
But this doesn't seem relevant. If delaying the production of Great Prophets means a huge amount of lost gold, then why not make the GP farm produce prophets too? If you did that you'd actually increase the number of great prophets born. Each great prophet that is lost due to having a GP farm outpacing it is going to be made up by the GPs the GP farm is producing. It would be questionable value to have your GP farm outstripping all your other cities with rubbish GPs like artists (or whatever you think is the worst in the particular game) but usually it's not too hard to ensure the GP farm is heavily biased towards the preferred GP.

I really don't agree that delaying a few great prophets in one city is a huge loss, if another city is producing them sooner.


My usual problem is that I often HAVE TO HAVE a specific guy, say a merchant to found sushi. I have to "turn off" my GP farm (which is producing a huge chunk of my total empire reserach) in order to spit out that merchant.
I agree there are many points of the game where you want a specific GP. This is a situation where it would be better if you had produced fewer GPs previously, because each GP now can cost a huge amount of GPP (e.g. if we are talking the time of corporations). At this point, I'd be planning well in advance what GPs I want, and would probably time my GP births so that I was producing the desired GP one or two GPs before I actually need it. If I'm after a merchant, for example, and I can only get roughly 70% odds of one in the GP farm, then I'd reasonably prepare to get one or two non-merchants before I get the merchant. It depends how badly I want the corporation.


Well good I sparked a discussion then. I myself like game variety and experimenting different strats... I think it keeps the game fresh and interesting. Which is why I keep playing after what 3 years now?
:goodjob:
You are making multiple mistakes by assuming specialists beat wonders for GPPs. Part of the reason is your looking only at the points of 3 vs 2. But wonders do much more than specialists.

You pick your best 3 specialists... = 9 GPPs
I pick best 3 wonders... (TGL, ToA, SoL) = 8 + 5 + 5 = 18 GPPs...

Forgive me for this is probably a dumb question, but I have no idea what rationale you're using here. How do you get 18GPP from 3 wonders? Isn't it only 6GPP?

How do you get 18GPP from 3 wonders? Isn't it only 6GPP?

Each World Wonder comes with a base of 2 GPPs, and then gets BONUS/MODIFIER points added with that base.

TGL = Base of 2 + (2 x 3) = 2 + 6 = 8
The reason for the extra 6 GPPs is because the running specialists it gives you also contributes.

ToA = Base of 2 + 3 = 5
Remember the free priest adds 3 GPP.

SoL = Base of 2 + 3 = 5
Remember, the free Specialist it gives you adds 3 GPP.

8 + 5 + 5 = 18

Oh, for some reason I'm used to TGL meaning great lighthouse, and the great library is just GL.

Anyway, those GPPs are coming from the specialists. Yes I know building the wonders is what grants the free specialists but RJ never said those 10 specialists were not already coming from wonders.

In any case, your comparison is biased because you allow the parthenon to be included in the wonder GPP total but not for the specialists. At 5 specialists or wonders they would both even out at 30GPP/turn. And even then, you are assuming you'd get all 5 of those wonders lol.

And golden ages are irrelevant, or at least you haven't included them fairly, because they would also multiply the effect of the specialists. And then you go an include the NE for your wonder count but not for the specialists. It seems to me you just wanted to drive home a minor point in the most pedantic, biased way possible. The calculations are correct but they are, IMO, almost useless because they do not even get near to describing typical gameplay.

My goal here is to learn, so please tell me where I'm wrong and why.

The serial way never can lose to the parallel one from a quantity/speed point of view.

Then, the question arises if a type of specialist is wanted. But, which one and when?

By when I mean the beginning, middle or end game. Well, in the beginning I'm in parallel,
that I want it or not. In the middle probably I can have Caste, also in the end until
Emancipation is a must.

And what type of GP? Scientist,merchant or artist? I would say no, as my one or two
GPfarm can handle it.
A prophet not in the 1st part of the game? For a late Shrine? Or?
An engineer again not in the beginning? To bulb or rush? Corporation, yes, just keep one.
A spy again not in the beginning? Hum... I give the word to warmasters.

It looks the serial way has a price, but it's the way.

Best regards,

Yes I know building the wonders is what grants the free specialists but RJ never said those 10 specialists were not already coming from wonders.

Well that would be a really silly cop-out wouldn't it?

BTW, I noticed some people use TGLH for better distinguishment between the two wonders.

Anyhow, specs require an extra pop-point (must be happy), whereas wonders require no food.

That's an issue we haven't really discussed. For example, a parallel SE can spread out wonder builds to multiple cities, and make effective use of them. A serial SE, to maximize GPP production, has to delay wonder builds (i.e., has to queue them up) and this both risks losing the wonder to an AI and also delays getting the benefit of the wonder.
I wasn't really part of the discussion, but this is an element out of your post that I'd like to focus on. I often see players mentioning this, but I never use it in my games. I never have the luxury in a game to choose where I want to build a wonder. I almost always need to choose the optimal production city to have a chance to win the wonder race. And of course a city that is optimal for production isn't using specialists, it's using farms and mines and workshops. So this city won't be a good great person city. It likely will never produce a great person from the GPP produced by the later wonders.

My skill is suited for playing a challenging game at immortal-deity level on huge maps (with random maps, not preselected), so I can see me adopting such a strategy at monarch-emperor level games where I can get seriously ahead of the AI in the technology race. But I can't see me using this at the really challenging games. Am I missing an element or is this strategy more suited for games where you get ahead of the AI in the technology race?
Several thoughts. A GP Farm, you're correct, often is utilizing max food and specialists to get a lot of GPP. It can be difficult, especially on high level, to make any wonder in that city, period. Thus, on high level, you might have to make a choice to build a wonder in other than your GP farm, which means you are not maximizing your GPP production.

Note that not all GP farms use high food and specialists. A wonder/production GP farm is very possible. It uses just a few specialists along with mines/workshops etc. You typically end up with more of a mixed bag of specialists, but this can actually be a good thing especially if you are using a golden age strategy.

Anyway, you point out the exact negative of having a GP farm that I was responding to. The serial SE has to either give up on maximizing GPP production (and build the wonder elsewhere or don't build it at all), or it has to risk not getting the wonder and also delay wonder builds by queueing them up. (Which is my quote you were responding to.)

If delaying the production of Great Prophets means a huge amount of lost gold, then why not make the GP farm produce prophets too?
Because we're talking about SEs, after all. Scientists are almost certainly your main source of beakers. And your GP farm is probably running a lot of scientists, often with Oxford. So, if you switch it to priests for a bunch of turns, that's a LOT of lost beakers.

At this point, I'd be planning well in advance what GPs I want, and would probably time my GP births so that I was producing the desired GP one or two GPs before I actually need it. If I'm after a merchant, for example, and I can only get roughly 70% odds of one in the GP farm, then I'd reasonably prepare to get one or two non-merchants before I get the merchant. It depends how badly I want the corporation.
Yep. But don't you agree it would be easier to plan this in a parallel SE? You don't want that merchant for Sushi until pretty late in the game, so isn't it actually a benefit to be able to plan it out so your merchant-producing city generates him at about the right time?

Instead, as you say, a serial SE has a GP farm and by the time it gets to the point of wanting him it can only make it come out to 70% odds, and it's just an iffy proposition.

That's an issue we haven't really discussed. For example, a parallel SE can spread out wonder builds to multiple cities, and make effective use of them. A serial SE, to maximize GPP production, has to delay wonder builds (i.e., has to queue them up) and this both risks losing the wonder to an AI and also delays getting the benefit of the wonder.I wasn't really part of the discussion, but this is an element out of your post that I'd like to focus on. I often see players mentioning this, but I never use it in my games. I never have the luxury in a game to choose where I want to build a wonder. I almost always need to choose the optimal production city to have a chance to win the wonder race. And of course a city that is optimal for production isn't using specialists, it's using farms and mines and workshops. So this city won't be a good great person city. It likely will never produce a great person from the GPP produced by the later wonders.

My skill is suited for playing a challenging game at immortal-deity level on huge maps (with random maps, not preselected), so I can see me adopting such a strategy at monarch-emperor level games where I can get seriously ahead of the AI in the technology race. But I can't see me using this at the really challenging games. Am I missing an element or is this strategy more suited for games where you get ahead of the AI in the technology race?

Several thoughts. A GP Farm, you're correct, often is utilizing max food and specialists to get a lot of GPP. It can be difficult, especially on high level, to make any wonder in that city, period. Thus, on high level, you might have to make a choice to build a wonder in other than your GP farm, which means you are not maximizing your GPP production.

Note that not all GP farms use high food and specialists. A wonder/production GP farm is very possible. It uses just a few specialists along with mines/workshops etc. You typically end up with more of a mixed bag of specialists, but this can actually be a good thing especially if you are using a golden age strategy.

Anyway, you point out the exact negative of having a GP farm that I was responding to. The serial SE has to either give up on maximizing GPP production (and build the wonder elsewhere or don't build it at all), or it has to risk not getting the wonder and also delay wonder builds by queueing them up. (Which is my quote you were responding to.)

I can see that a great person factory based on production and wonders can of course produce the wonders and thus use their great person points in one combined pool, sometimes called a wonder economy. But you were talking about adding the wonders in the cities that are going for specific types of great persons in parallel. In that case, all of those cities would need to have a good production to be able to do that (or the difficulty level would need to be less challenging). And maybe even a good production is not good enough in a challenging game, maybe you need a great production. It's unlikely to have that many cities with a production as great as your best production city.

So a game where you're able to build the wonders in the cities where their GP-points are contributing to the exact great person that you're trying to acquire in that city is likely not pushing your skills to the maximum.

That was just the simple point, I was trying to make.

Of course, it is nice when you're able to place the wonders exactly where they are performing the best. By the way, if these cities will at some point in the game stop producing great persons, then from that moment on, the great person points from the wonders are wasted. So pooling the GP-points from wonders in one big production city is often the choice that I make.

I can see that a great person factory based on production and wonders can of course produce the wonders and thus use their great person points in one combined pool, sometimes called a wonder economy.
A wonder economy is not quite the same thing as having a wonder GP Farm.

But you were talking about adding the wonders in the cities that are going for specific types of great persons in parallel. In that case, all of those cities would need to have a good production to be able to do that (or the difficulty level would need to be less challenging).
Two things:
1) Quite a lot of cities are capable of good production, they simply don't use it in most games. If you're doing a parallel SE then you can certainly work hills (where as otherwise you might work farms or coast) until the wonder is made. e.g., make the Oracle, and THEN turn on priests in that city.
2) The "difficulty level" argument is staid and unfair. Everybody knows that the AI does not always prioritize wonders, either by beeling techs or by building the wonder as soon as it gets the tech. It depends on the wonder, and it depends on what AI leaders are in the game. It also depends on other factors, such as if the AI is at war.

And maybe even a good production is not good enough in a challenging game, maybe you need a great production. It's unlikely to have that many cities with a production as great as your best production city.
And the point is?

We're talking about maximizing GPP production and about generating specific GP. Speed of building wonders is a factor but it's not the ONLY factor. Simply being able to point out a concern does not invalidate anything that has been under discussion. Heck, I've pointed out several concerns with serials SEs, but that doesn't mean a serial SE (aka "GP Farm") is a bad strategy.

So a game where you're able to build the wonders in the cities where their GP-points are contributing to the exact great person that you're trying to acquire in that city is likely not pushing your skills to the maximum.
This conclusion is based on invalid assumptions / premises, so it does not logically follow.

Bottom line, by no means do I advocate a parallel SE is better than a serial SE. I honestly believe its as good as. Which means it's an effective alternate strategy. A valid candidate in order to have good game variety, keeping the game fresh & fun.

Another way to state what I just said is that there are pros and cons with *either* strategy. A GP farm is not perfect and has its costs and negatives. Likewise, a parallel SE is not perfect and has its costs and negatives.

Of course, it is nice when you're able to place the wonders exactly where they are performing the best. By the way, if these cities will at some point in the game stop producing great persons, then from that moment on, the great person points from the wonders are wasted. So pooling the GP-points from wonders in one big production city is often the choice that I make.
True enough. But, cons and negatives about your preferred strategy have already been noted in previous posts.

I've been following this thread with interest while finishing one game and starting another, all with the specific intention of improving the quality and number of GP generated. Without pretending to have followed all of the specific point/counterpoint above, it still "seems" that I can harvest GPs earlier, and get specific ones at that, by producing them in parallel. The fact that I've played PHI civs for the past couple games has helped generate these GPs that much sooner, so much sooner that it has made a big difference. Further, having a GSpy, a GP, a GA and 2 GScientists pop from 3 different cities within a few dozen turns of each other has been a game changer twice in a row.

Now I'm "stuck" in a game with a turbo-charged Washington (capital city, Oxford, NE) running 5-6 GS, 3 GE and 3 GSpy; a New York City (with Wall Street) running 5-6 GM; and a captured capital (Berlin) that is food rich and well-populated, so it's running a motley collection of GP (I modifiy the "auto-selected" choices when I go through the City Screen). I'm managing the generation of GP in all three to make sure the 2 non-NE cities get theirs out.

Obviously, this means that the "primary" GP farm is going to produce fewer total by the end of the full number of turns. I accept that. This also means that, in total, I will generate fewer GP than I otherwise would over the full number of turns. I also accept that.

What I am unwilling to do is abandon my "pure" GM farm (which is my Wall Street City, which under Representation is a jewel) which will continue producing GM GPpts; however, it likely will never produce a GM unless I shut the other two off.

In the captured capital, there's really nothing for all those specialists to do but produce maximum "GP" benefits, which include the production of GPpts (and, ipso facto great people. It's got about 10 specialists and (because of tile overlap) is otherwise a fine example of "full employment."

In order to pop great people from the secondary GP farm, all I have to do is occasionally "turn off" the specialists in the primary. Right now, Washington has just produced its 7th or 8th; I've produced 5-7 others in 3 other cities. It may be that Berlin is getting to the point where it will never catch the NE city again, but it's really got nothing else to do but run specialists without completely reorganizing the nearby cities (which might be "better" but that kind of MM is not as much fun as marching off to war, YKWIS?)

I guess the GPpts in the "second" city that get generated after a certain point, maybe as soon as the next GPerson, might be considered "lost". I'll have to look at that city to see if there is some minimal MM that will at least optimize what I'm getting, if I'm not getting another GPerson. For example, Priests are generating hammers and beakers because of a wonder and my civics; if I'll never produce another GPerson, then it doesn't really matter if I am running engineers or priests.

However, running the GMs in my WS city are worth it regardless of whether or not they ever produce another GPerson.

A wonder economy is not quite the same thing as having a wonder GP Farm.


Two things:
1) Quite a lot of cities are capable of good production, they simply don't use it in most games. If you're doing a parallel SE then you can certainly work hills (where as otherwise you might work farms or coast) until the wonder is made. e.g., make the Oracle, and THEN turn on priests in that city.
2) The "difficulty level" argument is staid and unfair. Everybody knows that the AI does not always prioritize wonders, either by beeling techs or by building the wonder as soon as it gets the tech. It depends on the wonder, and it depends on what AI leaders are in the game. It also depends on other factors, such as if the AI is at war.


And the point is?

We're talking about maximizing GPP production and about generating specific GP. Speed of building wonders is a factor but it's not the ONLY factor. Simply being able to point out a concern does not invalidate anything that has been under discussion. Heck, I've pointed out several concerns with serials SEs, but that doesn't mean a serial SE (aka "GP Farm") is a bad strategy.


This conclusion is based on invalid assumptions / premises, so it does not logically follow.

Bottom line, by no means do I advocate a parallel SE is better than a serial SE. I honestly believe its as good as. Which means it's an effective alternate strategy. A valid candidate in order to have good game variety, keeping the game fresh & fun.

Another way to state what I just said is that there are pros and cons with *either* strategy. A GP farm is not perfect and has its costs and negatives. Likewise, a parallel SE is not perfect and has its costs and negatives.


True enough. But, cons and negatives about your preferred strategy have already been noted in previous posts.

The discussion of serial versus parallel is a discussion you were having with PieceofMind, not with me. Maybe you have us mixed up or something? We were discussing something different. Or at least I was trying to discuss something different. I don't want to start discussing serial versus parallel as I don't have a really preferred method. It just depends on the game for me. I'll typically use more than one city to create great persons.

I made the quite simple observation that if you're able to build a wonder with a sub-optimal production city, then you're apparently not really pressured in that wonder race. If you're regularly in that position, then it seems to me that you're not really challenged in wonder races at all. If you're not really challenged in wonder races at all, then it sounds like you are in control during that game. It typically happens when you're ahead of the AI or at least even with the most advanced AI's or have diplomatic means to control the flow of the game. It doesn't sound like a game where you're struggling to keep up in the technology race and are a second rate civilisation in the technology race for a large part of the game. It also doesn't sound like a game where large hostile civilisations are toying with you.

So I concluded that picking and choosing your building sites according to the type of GPP produced by the wonder is only feasible when you're more or less in control of the game, not when you're struggling to keep up.

As I said, it's not a remarkable statement.

In order to pop great people from the secondary GP farm, all I have to do is occasionally "turn off" the specialists in the primary. Right now, Washington has just produced its 7th or 8th; I've produced 5-7 others in 3 other cities. It may be that Berlin is getting to the point where it will never catch the NE city again, but it's really got nothing else to do but run specialists without completely reorganizing the nearby cities (which might be "better" but that kind of MM is not as much fun as marching off to war, YKWIS?)

The Globe Theatre can turn that city into a :whipped: and drafting production powerhouse. Also, if it has lots of food (and if it's a GP farm, then I'm sure it does), then you can farm/pasture just enough tiles to irrigate all the farm resources and get all your bonuses and cottage/workshop/watermill the rest. Great GP farms also make outstanding production cities with Workshops/Watermills. When you hit the point where that second GP farm will not keep up with your primary, it's time to just run the specialists that are appropriate to the empire's needs and ignore the GP points.

Just work useful tiles ahead of specialists and build improvements that decrease/don't increase available food unless it's a resource. Also, even without GP points, specialists are still good. They're just not as good as appropriately improved tiles.

Good job, great topic. I only read the first two pages (for now) but I learned a lot.

However I already started a game with 3 GP farm in mind so I will finish it, while tweaking my cities with what I learned here. Let me know if it makes sens :

I will at first tweak my cities so they generate roughly the same amount of GP points. Example first city makes 20 GP, second 20 GP, and third 10 GP (with national wonder that's 20). So they never go above 1:1:1, thus the d ratio. The d ratio never goes below 1 in the chart, so I will be safe.

Now if I look at the chart in this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3364963&postcount=19), I see excellent news. It seems that as I generate great people, I get wider and wider margin of error. While at first I had to have a 1:1:1 ratio between my 3 cities, I can now have as much as 2:2:1... To accomplish this I will just have to alternate building wonders at each city, and use the specialists to equalize these ratios.

The other good news is that I can get what I want. Right now my first city is getting engineers (pyramids etc), my second city is getting artists (Sistine, etc) and the third one located in a nice sea of grasslands is still in production and might go for artists too since I might go for a culture victory.

That being said, I believe that the one city approach is NOT the ultimate answer, even if the data present here are very well thought out. There are a couple of simple, fundamental reasons for this :

1) You WILL generate more GP points on multiple cities than a single one. You can dream up the perfect city all you want : there is only so much a single city can do. Again, there is a maximum GP output out there and you will hit it eventually. Since national epic basically gives you 2 cities in one, you'd need at least 3 GP cities to make more great persons than your primary, but I believe it is fairly possible to do, even consistently so. You will end up with more great persons in a game this way.
2) Now that we know there is a ratio out there beyond which your other cities won't produce great persons, the only thing we have to do is stay under that threshold and we can successfully extract Great persons from all 3+ cities at the same time. We can even choose what to make!

You don't even have to slow down a city to accomplish this, the only thing you need is to even out GP production among your cities.

That being said, I believe that the one city approach is NOT the ultimate answer, even if the data present here are very well thought out. There are a couple of simple, fundamental reasons for this :

1) You WILL generate more GP points on multiple cities than a single one.
Some misc. thoughts.

GP earlier are better than GP later. Spreading out means you get your GP later in the game. Which means the benefit you get from them is later (e.g., you get an Academy X turns later and thus lose X turns of benefit).

Devoting multiple cities, even partially, deducts from city specialization. Devoting one city out of my empire to be a GP farm is one thing. Devoting 3 or more is a big deal.

You can have NE in one city only. So, spreading out means losing a good bit of "free" GPP.

Whatever victory being pursued, all GPP in cities that don't produce a GP by game end, are lost. A multi-city approach will increase these lost GPP by a large amount.

As a general rule, a multi-city approach works better early game, then loses most of its efficacy, for the above reasons.

In my experience, even though I've built a ton of wonders in a single city, and have a ton of specialists in that same city (usually my science+capital city), and even have NE in that same city, there are other cities where I have lots of specialists (Wall Street + Shrine(s), Nat Park) and these generate enough GPPs, ESPECIALLY when I'm in a Golden Age (during which I switch to Pacifism for +200%) that I usually can get a GP or two out of each city. This is without even doing it intentionally. It makes a lot of sense to have 7 Merchants in Wall Street, and maybe a few Priests too. Am I going to sabotage my economy just to avoid GPPs? Heck no.

That +200% boost (+300% if you're Phil) makes a huge difference in where your points get generated. These bonuses magnify the effect of Specialists much more intensely than they do those of Wonders. And it's because of that that I usually have 3 or 4 cities that wind up producing GPs, even though I'm focusing on building a Wonder city.

In the early game, I could see a point to trying to have more Specialists in your Wonder city to boost your GPP, but never rob yourself by refusing to assign a Specialist.

IMO.