This has probably been answered many times, but is it preferrable to settle great people or build specialty buildings? Or do you settle the first then build with the second? Or do you use different strategies with different types?

I'm stuck on Prince/Monarch level (probably because of too much building/not enough warmongering or specialization) & would like to improve my play. I tend to settle the first Great Scientist, then build an Academy. I do the reverse with the Great Prophets. Use of great generals is strategy & situation dependent. Ditto with great spies.

Is this what ya'll do? If so, what level do you play on?

Thanks!

For Great Prophets, if I have the holy city to a religion, I'll always use them to build a shrine (also, if Ghandi's nearby and has founded Buddhism, I'll save my GP until I take over his city). I almost always settle Great Generals, I find the experience that every unit in that city can get is too invaluable to use them for anything else. After military science, I'll also build military academies. I always settle Great Merchants and Great Spies. Unless playing a cultural game, I'll usually pop a tech with Great Artists. Great Scientists I'll use for whatever I need the most. If I'm in a tight tech race, I'll pop a tech with them. Usually, though, I'll build academies in my best science cities. After that, I'll settle them in those cities, especially if running Rep. And Great Engineers I always use to complete a wonder.

Thanks Reverend.

Use of great generals is strategy & situation dependent.
That should go for all Great People.

For Great Scientists generally I will have a city with enough beakers that an academy is better, but if now (and I have a good chance of getting another GS soon) I sill settle. I personally don't bulb enough, and should do so more (this goes for all GPs).

Priests: if I am actively spreading/will spread a religion I have the shrine for, I always go shrine. No questions.

Merchant: I always tend to settle, but if I need gold fast I use that.

Spy: Toss up between settle, scotland yard, and infiltrate.

Artist: Bulb if they get me something I want. Great work/settle, if culture is needed somewhere. Else GA. And if I get too many due to my wonderspamming, the rest will be settled.

Engineer: Almost always settle.

And I am not perfect in my usage, far from it (I especially favour long term too much).

Great prophets are one of the most powerful early settling great people. Gold is harder to come by so that +5 could translate into +10 beakers or more because it helps you move the slider up when you have libraries and no markets(who wouldn't be tempted to settle a great specialist that gave +10 beakers?), and hammers are especially good early on when buildings are cheaper/smaller, and you want to get buildings up as reasonably fast as possible.

That being said, if you are on a landmass that will have many cities, and you intend to spread the religion(or ideally, AIs do), the shrines then become super powerful, giving +20 through +40 gold.

The great prophet would still be superior for awhile though, so assuming you'll get another one, I'd settle the first one and build a shrine with a later one.



This is all assuming bulbing is not more advantageous, which it is sometimes, and not at others.

Prophets should usually found Shrines. If you've got a religion with practically no spread, and don't feel like going to the considerable effort to get it spread, and it's not even in your Wall Street city, then he should be used elsewhere. Settling him (in Wall Street) nets 15 Gold, 4 Hammers, about 5-7 Beakers, and some Culture.

A Great Spy should almost always settle in the capital first, build Scotland Yard in the capital second, and further ones settle in the capital. You want your first ScotYard in the capital for its inherent 4 EPs. Adding Kremlin lets you run NINE Spies, all tripled in effect. (If you don't get your first GSpy until you already have a bunch of Esp buildings, then build ScotYard first.)

Compare to: some city has Courthouse, Jail, IntelAgency, and SecBur. Those produce 22 EPs, while your GSpy produces 12. The gain from the buildings is 22 if you build ScotYard there, but putting the settled GSpy in a city that already has one (capital) gains you 24, plus the 10.5 Beakers and Culture.

If you plan on moving your capital, then build ScotYard where you expect to move it to and start settling there, but not many people move their capitals.

And now for the hardest one: Great Scientists when settled in the Oxford city can generate up to 9 Beakers before multipliers (if in Rep). Before Astronomy, that can mean about 35-37 Beakers (+295%, +305% as Korea), and after it, that's about 29-30 Beakers (+225%, +235% as Korea), and another 2 with Lab. Without Rep, multiply the above by 2/3. Plus he gives up to 2 Hammers and some Culture.

The first GS should build an Academy in your Great Library city, the second in your science city (if it's not the same place). Any others, you need to see what your base Beaker rate in the potential Academy city is and divide it by 2, which tells you the gain to be made if you build an Academy. If the city has growth room, this could go up. Compare that with settling him in the city with the highest multiplier (+225% most of the time, so about 29 Beakers). Whichever is the better, choose that one. IME, MOST of the time, it's better to settle him, but if you have a heavy-Commerce city and a high science slider, a new Academy may be in order.

* Most above calculations assume running Rep, owning Sistine, and otherwise having maximum multipliers. Culture calculations were not made due to the large number of variances available in how many multipliers are typically available. Effects of Castles and Nationhood were not included, but will only maginify the differences. Not responsible if you can't understand the 5th grade math involved.

Engineers are rare and valuable, especially in early game. If I'm philosophical I may use the first one to hurry The Pyramids (the only wonder that I think is worth of wasting an engineer), but the second one must be spared for powerful Mining Inc. This corp can easily give you 10 or more hammers - equal to 3 settled engineers - in your every production city. Thus I don't think settling engineers make much sense unless you are sure to get Mining, or playing the whole game in state property, or finishing game early.

But generally the correct use of GP:s seems to be tricky. Golden Age scales much better with size and power of an empire than settling and lightbulbing - so I guess settling/lightbulbing are more valuable at early, and GA:s in late game.

MkLh, feel free to read the actual topic. Heck, read the TITLE.

i think it mostly depends on the context of civ, leader, map, game situation, economic type, era, victory contitions, broad strategic intentions and pure whim.

For example normally if one has a relgion founded your first prophet would be used to make a shrine there (after all you might not get another and shrines are powerful) but one time playing saladin i aimed to get 4 religions founded in my capital city by getting polytheism, monotheism, building the oracle for code of laws and bulbing a prophet for theology before building a second city. it worked and later managed to get 2 more religions from philosophy and divine right and enough great prophets to make shrines for all 6 religions... and won the game with a religion powered culture victory.

but that is an unusual tactic and wouldn't work for all civs and maps starts.

It's situational, always do the math. +50% in a city with greater than 12 light bulbs is at least 6 beakers which is what you get from settling a GS. The catch is that the GS is worth 9 beakers if settled in a city that has an academy. But if your empire is going for high slider research most of the time, then an academy in each of your high (read mature) commerce cities is probably going to be your best bet for beakers. You might just want to save some GSs in reserve for an academy too, as that 50% will be a big payoff at a later era relative to the +6, if you don't wait too too long to make the academy.

I always settle GG's in the most productive, non-wonder building cities. If you run theocracy, you can spread the GG's around your top production cities, but regardless you want to be making units with 2-3 promotions each turn to put a serious dent on an enemy of similar technology as yours. I guess a warlord could be very useful on defense in the case of a peaceful game, but that's an oxymoron since you can't generate them peacefully (though I guess it might be valid to war until your first GG for the purpose of giving 10-20 xp to 1 or 2 defensive units, and only wage passive-aggressive war). The only other reason that I'd warlord a unit was to give that one unit all the XP to level it to one of the building requirements (Heroic Epic, Westpoint) or to give it Tactics to an already high level unit.

I usually use a GP to pop a religion to have one (usually crucial to get at least Christianity in a game overstocked with civs), or otherwise for my first two golden ages. After that it's just equal to a freebie tile in an important city.

In terms of city specialization, what you could try is keeping the sliders at about equal proportions, e.g. 50:50. Then in some commerce cities, only build money buildings, and in other commerce cities, only build research buildings. Then run them appropriately as wealth or research, and settle matching great people. That will cut down on spending hammers on every building, until anger/sickness require it, and allow your hammers to go to the city's specialized activity. So in short, I wouldn't settle a great person in anything other than a high commerce city, and only to match the specialities---either research or wealth. But only in the case of philosophical trait would I try to get great people at the expensive of a specialty building.

But is your question the difference between say a library and science specialist? Which is better? You'll need some modeling. Assuming it takes equal turns to pop a GS or build say the library, a mature commerce city would probably benefit greater, immediately, from the specialty building, whereas the immature city would probably benefit from the +3 research of the specialist as much as it would from the library, with the GS as an extra bonus. The catch is whether or not that +2 culture is a deciding factor or not (and it might not be if your specialist is generating culture too).


Myself, I aim to get rich first, so that I can gradually raise research to 100% and still have a profit every turn, as money does buy happiness in Civ4.

This has probably been answered many times, but is it preferrable to settle great people or build specialty buildings? Or do you settle the first then build with the second? Or do you use different strategies with different types?

I'm stuck on Prince/Monarch level (probably because of too much building/not enough warmongering or specialization) & would like to improve my play. I tend to settle the first Great Scientist, then build an Academy. I do the reverse with the Great Prophets. Use of great generals is strategy & situation dependent. Ditto with great spies.

Is this what ya'll do? If so, what level do you play on?

Thanks!

Prophets: (1) Found a religion if I don't have one. (Generally, it's Christianity.)
(2) Build shrine. Although sometimes I'll lightbulb Theology if I think I'll get another Great Prophet.
(3) Ease the way to Divine Right.
(4) Settle and hope I don't get any more.

Engineers: Use to build major wonders (pyramids, apostolic palace, spiral minaret, forbidden palace), later corporations. Why would you settle them?

Merchants: early game, settle, late game, send them overseas.

Spies: First one settle in capital, second one build Scotland Yard in capital, the rest settle in capital.

Scientists: First builds Academy in capital or science city. If I have other decent science cities, they settle there. If you settle scientists in the city with the Great Library, you'll get hardly anything else but more Great Scientists.

Artists: generally settle, occasionally culture bomb. I don't generally have much for them to do.

Prophets
- shrine, if I found an early religion (or capture an early holy city) in case where the city looks like a good commerce city long term
- bulbing Theology for Christianity when I don't have a religion and/or am on a continent with no religions, Theology can be a decent trade tech for quite a while and so this bulb could actually be viewed as a multitech bulb
- save for GAges later in game (although reading some of these posts I might need to consider whether the gold benefits warrant early settling)

Scientists
- academy
- bulbing

Merchants
- save one for Sids if on watery map
- bulbing, or trade mission depending on need

Spy
- settle or Scotlands depending on how far advanced the game is

Engineer
- rushing an early wonder
- bulbing later in game or saving for corporation

Artist
- bomb in cultural games otherwise golden age

General
- 1st settle
- 2nd depends on game, if lots of war then warlord a healer, if not save later to either settle or make an academy

Note: my use of great people is based on a game theory that says that victory is obtained as a result of both immediate advantage as well as constant build up. I trust my worker improvement and city development to take care of the constant build up. Certainly, anyone who looks at what the AI does in these regards will agree that a human player can do better, which is why if one wants to do well they shouldn't automate their workers. Certainly a settled GP might earn more over the years than one that is applied situationally, however, an instantaneous advantage could result in a long term advantage that is greater than that obtained by the constant results had from settling. This is what makes Civ a challenging game. One cannot always simply quantify the two possible outcomes of a decision and then choose which ever has the greatest numerical value.

It all depends on your overall strategy and situation.

Usually:
1) Great Prophet - build a shrine if I have a wide spread religion, if not I settle in my best prod city.
2) Great Merchant - settle in my best gold city (the one that will get Wall Street) unless I'm strapped for cash, then I'll send him on a mission to a distant/large pop city.
3) Great Scientist - Build academy in my main science/GP Farm city (SE) and then always settle in that city (current SE game I have 13 settled GS and 10 scientist specialist in the city with Representation/library/univ/observ/GL/Oxford which = 621 beakers just from specialists)
4) Great Engineer - quick build a needed (or preventative) wonder or settle in main production city
5) Great Artist - start a golden age, after that I'll settle in my gold city or pop a new border
6) Great Spy - totally dependent on situation

Guys, you are hereby authorized to READ THE TITLE OF THE POST. He doesn't want to know what you do with Merchants, Engineers, and Artists because THEY DON'T HAVE A BUILDING. Only Prophets, Scientists, and Spies. (And Warlords, but I don't think he meant those.) Geez, why don't you share your cheez whiz recipes while you're at it?

Going for a moderator position? ;) I dunno, man, the discussion steered to a more general topic on GP and since his question is answered within our cheez-whiz, who cares?

I've never made cheese whiz from scratch. However, one time my son and I made some salsa from scratch. It tasted pretty good when first tasted, but the garlic hung on too much and eventually everything tasted like garlic. I doubt if you'd want that recipe. .....Oh and my most humble apology for typing outside of the lines.

... i don't. We both answered the question... just with more detail.

Guys, you are hereby authorized to READ THE TITLE OF THE POST. He doesn't want to know what you do with Merchants, Engineers, and Artists because THEY DON'T HAVE A BUILDING. Only Prophets, Scientists, and Spies. (And Warlords, but I don't think he meant those.) Geez, why don't you share your cheez whiz recipes while you're at it?

Sounds good. I have always had "store-bought" Cheeze-Whiz. ;)

But 'specialty building' is pretty vague. He implied he meant what's best to do with a great person, settle or build the building, but then he went on to state that he wanted to specialize his cities better. So if the OP was as anal as the title, it should have been better focused. So anyway, try my cheez whiz.

Branching off from an initial topic is a natural progression of human conversation.

Be gone cyborg scum! :borg:

I think if you do the maths it's best to settle all GS after the 1st in your Oxford-academy city.

I pretty much settle them in the cities that are similar to the GP. If it's a production city I'm settling the Great Engineer. My holy city is getting a shrine, after that I'd possibly hang onto the Great Prophet a while if it looked like I might create another shrine. Scietist goes to the science city (duh) academy first then settle them.

One thing I don't think mention previously was the option of taking your Great Merchant and send him on a trade mission to the farthest reaches of the world. Lowest gold I've ever pulled from the trade mission was about 2500, i've seen several go for about 6900 in one game. That's a lot of coin which can let you run at high %'s for many turns which would probably outdo anything the settled Merchant could do (excepting possibly a corp but those for other threads).

The way I follow the War Academy article (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/tech_research.php), the difference is this, assuming only a library and an academy:

Settled: 6 beakers * 1.75 =< 10.5 beakers


Fresh academy in another mature commerce city with at least 30 beakers from the slider setting:

30 beakers * 1.25 vs. 30 beakers * 1.75 (new academy)
37.5 vs 52.5 is a difference of 15 beakers

So in that case a fresh academy was a better deal.


Say the city is poorer and only making 20 beakers:
20 beakers * 1.25 vs. 20 beakers *1.75
25 vs 35 is a difference of only 10 beakers

In that case settling the GS was a slightly better deal, but only if the city can't significantly raise its base commerce later on.



The one case where settling GS may be vastly superior is with the Oxford U.
In that case the modifier is 2.50. Each GS then is 6beakers *2.50 = 15 beakers added to the city. 18 beakers if you also had an academy there.
The only way to beat that with a fresh academy is if you have a commerce city making roughly at least 40 beakers with sliders and other buildings.


I think if you do the maths it's best to settle all GS after the 1st in your Oxford-academy city.

I like to settle a couple of GGs in my military city because it's nice to get some units produced with 17XP, getting 4 promotions. Other GGs become Warlords, preferably on tanks/mod.armour for Leadership and Morale (3 movement, or 3 attacks, worth at least 6XP) and then Commando. But the AI seems to prefer settling all its GGs, which suits me fine since when I capture the cities they're in I can soon make more high-XP units.

I like to settle a couple of GGs in my military city because it's nice to get some units produced with 17XP, getting 4 promotions. Other GGs become Warlords, preferably on tanks/mod.armour for Leadership and Morale (3 movement, or 3 attacks, worth at least 6XP) and then Commando. But the AI seems to prefer settling all its GGs, which suits me fine since when I capture the cities they're in I can soon make more high-XP units.

Has anyone ever seen the Ai make a warlord unit? i haven't.

Has anyone ever seen the Ai make a warlord unit? i haven't.

They do, or at least they have done at some point since BtS was released. If I played a game with a lot of warmonger AIs around I would see the message 'xxxxx has died in combat' when their warlord unit got killed, sometimes several times in a game. Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing it recently. Maybe one of the patches made them always settle or build academies - perhaps because the AI was too suicidal with it's warlord units? I certainly have seen a hell of a lot of settled GG in captured cities recently.

Has anyone ever seen the Ai make a warlord unit? i haven't.

It happens.... at least with BAT mod.... was actually attacked by a Warlord in a recent game.... :eek:

The only way to beat that with a fresh academy is if you have a commerce city making roughly at least 40 beakers with sliders and other buildings.

Yep, and I think the odds of getting a second 40 commerce to science city before universities, free religion, monastries or representation, are small.

...
One thing I don't think mention previously was the option of taking your Great Merchant and send him on a trade mission to the farthest reaches of the world. Lowest gold I've ever pulled from the trade mission was about 2500, i've seen several go for about 6900 in one game...

ehh idk I've seen it as low as 1,500ish on Normal speed

Still, that's quite a lot of gold :lol: