Recently I've been doing some experimenting to come up with some more unusual slingshot openings. During this time I stumbled onto something I haven't seen mentioned before, not even in the Article threads talking about GPP generation and Great Person techs.

Typically you might use your first GP to bulb Civil Service. Nearly always this leaves you with a turn or two of self-research to finish it off. However, the GM also can bulb you Civil Service, and I noticed that any time I used a GM on it, he finished it off completely. So even though different Great People can bulb you the same techs, the actual beakers they contribute can have a huge variance.

To do some more testing I ran a game where I set up my research to the point where a GS, GP, and GA would all bulb me Philosophy. The cost of Philosophy was 1040 beakers; the GS would completely research it while the GA and GP only gave me 1002 beakers each towards it. No big deal, you say. Well, that's true in the early game but not so true later on. For example, in a typical game for me the GM adds ~1600 beakers to Printing Press while the GS only gives ~1100 (I might have them switched). Education is another tech with such a wide margin. This difference is significant. In a typical game I can also burn two GAs on Nationalism and still be only at 95% research on it. Maybe I'll get 75% research on it from a single GM (I haven't actually used anything but GAs on Nationalism yet).

So planning your tech paths to utilize selective use of Great People includes more than just finding the first one that can bulb you the tech. It's also about finding the most optimal one to bulb you the tech so you get the maximum savings in beakers. So far all we have are lists on what techs it is possible for each Great Person to get. Where do we get the information on which one contributes the most to a given tech?

That's definitely true. My guess in the past has been that maybe every tech has a certain GP that has a predilection for it.

If you figure out numbers, that's cool.

Okay from further research it looks like each Great Person has two fixed (by game settings) beaker values they can contribute to any tech, a 'high' and 'low' value. It looks like only one type of Great Person can ever contribute the 'high' beaker value to a particular tech but this is hard to prove when I can't see lists in the code where these techs are assigned.

And to answer my own question, both the GA and GM are 'low' on Nationalism. If only one type can ever be 'high', then this would leave the GE, but of course it could also be true that nobody is required to be 'high' on a tech and everyone you can bulb is 'low'. I also did have it switched, it's the GS who is 'high' on Printing Press.

So far all we have are lists on what techs it is possible for each Great Person to get. Where do we get the information on which one contributes the most to a given tech?

Um, it doesn't matter much.

Summary: GP's contriibute a base number of beakers, and additional beakers based on your current population. So if a Prophet missed Civil Service, and a Merchant got it, you had a larger population when you popped the merchant.

Scientists are 1500 + 3/pop, the others 1000 + 2/pop. iBaseDiscover and iDiscoverModifier are the relevant settings in CIV4UnitInfos.xml

Edit: the flavor of the tech has nothing to do with it

Um, it doesn't matter much.

Summary: GP's contriibute a base number of beakers, and additional beakers based on your current population. So if a Prophet missed Civil Service, and a Merchant got it, you had a larger population when you popped the merchant.

Scientists are 1500 + 3/pop, the others 1000 + 2/pop. iBaseDiscover and iDiscoverModifier are the relevant settings in CIV4UnitInfos.xml

Edit: the flavor of the tech has nothing to do with it
Okay, so this pretty much covers all the evidence I've been seeing. Scientists are obviously your Great Person of choice in every situation. Unless you're playing on Epic/Marathon I find a 500+ beaker difference highly significant. After you've used 2-3 that's basically an additional free tech you saved yourself in research once the GS can no longer finish the whole thing.

Unless you're playing on Epic/Marathon I find a 500+ beaker difference highly significant.

I assume that the beakers contributed by lightbulbing a technology (and thus the 500 beaker difference) is multiplied by the game speed modifier. 500 beakers on normal should translate to 750 on epic or 1500 on marathon. It should be equally significant on any speed.

Um, it doesn't matter much.

Summary: GP's contriibute a base number of beakers, and additional beakers based on your current population. So if a Prophet missed Civil Service, and a Merchant got it, you had a larger population when you popped the merchant.

Scientists are 1500 + 3/pop, the others 1000 + 2/pop. iBaseDiscover and iDiscoverModifier are the relevant settings in CIV4UnitInfos.xml

Edit: the flavor of the tech has nothing to do with it

Do these values change on different game speeds? Especially the baker per population, I'm pretty sure the base does change...

Do these values change on different game speeds? Especially the baker per population, I'm pretty sure the base does change...

CvUnit::getDiscoverResearch

Research is ( BaseDiscover + DiscoverMultiplier * Team.TotalPopulation ) * (GameSpeedInfo.UnitDiscoverPercent)

UnitDiscoverPercent is 67/100/150/300 according to my copy of CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml. That last number looks wrong, though - isn't Marathon supposed to be 2x, rather than 3x? Maybe lightbulbing with GPs is out of balance at the slowest game speed.

marathon is 2x epic! Epic is 1,5 x normal, so marathon is 3x normal

Thanks for the info!

Um, it doesn't matter much.

Summary: GP's contriibute a base number of beakers, and additional beakers based on your current population. So if a Prophet missed Civil Service, and a Merchant got it, you had a larger population when you popped the merchant.

Scientists are 1500 + 3/pop, the others 1000 + 2/pop. iBaseDiscover and iDiscoverModifier are the relevant settings in CIV4UnitInfos.xml

Edit: the flavor of the tech has nothing to do with it

That's interesting. All I'd noticed was that scientists give more beakers than the other great people. I made one of each great person using world builder on the same turn. All except scientist gave the same amount of beakers towards a given tech. The scientist gave a considerably larger amount. I always like running scientists to boost my research. Now I have even more reason. :D

However, unless I'm misunderstanding the formula, more population will result in less beakers given by a great person. Whereas u say more pop means more beakers are given. Well I'm sure I'm misreading the formula.

It's just that say u had a population of 30, 3/pop would give an extra 0.1 beaker!!

It must be a typo, since value / pop will almost therefore always be less than 1 and pretty pointless. Bulb values do increase however so it must be pop / value. So to balance out the extra flatrate bonus from the GS he benefits a little less fom high populations, but he's still going to be consistenly better by a big margin unless you have a tremendous pop size.

I think that it would be 3*pop. Then the GS would always have the same ratio with everone else having 2*pop. The way I read 3/pop was 3 per population, / is used as per in various things, such as 60 km/hr.

Yeah, that must be it. Last time I was fooling around with GPs I had a size one city only and the bulb beakers was 1002.

I know it's stating the obvious (when learning new civ stuff I like to get a simple strategy out of it), but increasing ur pop makes bulbing techs from great people more powerful (infinitely powerful in fact!)

My question is whether you should use great person for technology at all:

Take GP as an example, in quick setting, he will produce 1P (Production) 5C (commerce) per turn.

The 5 gold will subject to

Bank +50%
Grocery +25%
Market +25%
Capital and civil service +50%.
Wall Street National Wonder +100%.
Total 250%.

Now: 5 gold is no longer 5 gold:

5C ====> 5C + 12.5 C = 17.5 C

I play quick setting, so money received is 700 – 800. In 40 turns, I will get all my money back.

Take GE as another example, in quick setting, he will produce 3 Research + 3 Commerce per turn.

The 3 Research will subject to

Library +25%
Observatory +50%
University +50%
Academy +50%
Oxford University +100%
total +275%

So if the capital has both science improvements:

Library +25%
Observatory +50%
University +50%
Academy +50%
Oxford University +100%

and commerce improvement

Bank +50%
Grocery +25%
Market +25%
Capital and civil service 50%.
Wall Street National Wonder 100%

You can get the money back in about 40 turns. We usually play longer than 40 turns.

If the GP gives civil service, then this particular modifier will be taking effect a lot quicker. :)

Yes, research goes up with population. Personal foul, ambiguous expression of mathematical formula, 15 yards and loss of down.

My question is whether you should use great person for technology at all:

Your calculations are fine, but the starting premise is wrong.

Most important error, it assumes that amortized payoff and instant payoff can be directly compared, but the game is very much an illustration of how small advantages early can have large effects.

The lesser error is that the value of a GP in different roles varies with the strategy used. If you are playing a priest game (doubled shrines, Angkor Wat, Wall Street + Iron Works), the value of settling is quite different than when playing a science game.

Which doesn't mean that the conclusion is wrong - only that you haven't demonstrated it.

My question is whether you should use great person for technology at all:

Most games are effectively over long before anyone builds bank, grocery, market, wall street, library, observatory, university, oxford university. You're right that, that late in the game, using Great People for techs becomes fairly unappealing. But, most of the decisions you have to make are much earlier.

One thing that I don't think was addressed here is the fact that a GP's yield slowly increases with time. Check on their beaker yield one turn, then check it again the next turn and it will have risen slightly. It would that you get more benefit from a GP by holding onto it and using it later, but not by a heck of a lot.

Does anyone know what causes this?

Yes, research goes up with population. Personal foul, ambiguous expression of mathematical formula, 15 yards and loss of down.



Your calculations are fine, but the starting premise is wrong.

Most important error, it assumes that amortized payoff and instant payoff can be directly compared, but the game is very much an illustration of how small advantages early can have large effects.



If there is an instant payoff, I will use it; but in general, we do not have control here. A few cases of instant pay off are:

(1) You are not working on CS sling shot and the great person is for civil service;
(2) Founding a religion, especially fighting for your first religion with others;
(3) You are planning a Calvary attack and the great person is for nationalism or military tradition (similarly pairs are (crossbow, machinery), (tank, industrialism), (infantry, assembly line ) … );

....



The lesser error is that the value of a GP in different roles varies with the strategy used. If you are playing a priest game (doubled shrines, Angkor Wat, Wall Street + Iron Works), the value of settling is quite different than when playing a science game.

Which doesn't mean that the conclusion is wrong - only that you haven't demonstrated it.


Well, many people write many guides in this forum, can anyone pick up this topic and make the calculation?

One thing that I don't think was addressed here is the fact that a GP's yield slowly increases with time. Check on their beaker yield one turn, then check it again the next turn and it will have risen slightly. It would that you get more benefit from a GP by holding onto it and using it later, but not by a heck of a lot.

Does anyone know what causes this?

It means the population of your team went up. That's the 3*pop bit that I didn't explain well the first time.

Same thing happens with engineers rushing wonders (except that for engineers it is population of the city, instead of the team).

If there is an instant payoff, I will use it; but in general, we do not have control here. A few cases of instant pay off are:

(1) You are not working on CS sling shot and the great person is for civil service;
(2) Founding a religion, especially fighting for your first religion with others;
(3) You are planning a Calvary attack and the great person is for nationalism or military tradition (similarly pairs are (crossbow, machinery), (tank, industrialism), (infantry, assembly line ) … );

I'd add a 4th
(4) A wide assortment of other tech races. For example, using a GS to pop Education to get you first to Liberalism (which then can pop Astronomy and generate that oh so wonderful window of kicking somebody's butt when they can't kick back).

Also, you state 'we do not have control here'. But that's not true. The tech a GP can pop will change as you learn new techs. I'll often hang onto a GP while finishing a couple of techs to generate the advantageous pop that I want.

Same thing happens with engineers rushing wonders (except that for engineers it is population of the city, instead of the team).

So there is a very simple effective tactic here: Rush a wonder with the GE in your largest city (depending on lots of other factors of course).

Gosh that's fascinating. I've really got to get into reading the xml.

I can't see the reason behind population increasing beaker yield for bulbing sciences and increasing hammer yield for rushing buildings.

I wonder if there is more ways in which this information can be utilized to be a better civver :).

You could build the Hanging Gardens before lightbulbing if it doesn't finish researching the tech to squeeze some more beakers out of him but thats about it.

It means the population of your team went up. That's the 3*pop bit that I didn't explain well the first time.

Same thing happens with engineers rushing wonders (except that for engineers it is population of the city, instead of the team).

Ok, I got a wee bit confused here...:crazyeye:

In Eqqman's initial post, he said that the Great-Merchant had provided more beakers than the Great-Prophet. When you replied to this saying that "Your population must have been higher when you popped the GM", I misinterpereted that as "When the GM was created your population was higher", when it in fact is the population level at the time of the usage which affects this. Eqqman was obviously talking about two different games here.

I think then, that if you are a crazy micro-manager, you should save up your Great People for use at the very last minute, researching the first few turns of an expensive tech so that your Great Person can contribute just a few more beakers from population growth. Of course, if you miscalculate by a turn, all your work is then for nought.:p

I'd add a 4th
Also, you state 'we do not have control here'. But that's not true. The tech a GP can pop will change as you learn new techs. I'll often hang onto a GP while finishing a couple of techs to generate the advantageous pop that I want.

I tried that many times and always get Devine right.