Playing on Warlord, Mansa, BTS version. After some typical initial play, I found myself with two cities near the southern coast and my neighbor HC just down the beach on the southeast corner of the small continent that I'm on. In the spirit of friendship, I built some "diplomats" with "ceremonial axes" and...um...welcomed him lovingly into my empire. :D

It was only after taking Cuzco that I realized what a prize it was. The cow I passed on the way in was a nice resource...no metal...but three clams and two fish. In other words, Cuzco has enough food resources to singlehandedly feed every offensive lineman in the NFL and still have leftovers.

Now, I've never really built a GP farm, just read about them on the forums and have vaguely understood that they are nice to have. I think if I'm ever going to learn, now's the time. I've tossed a grainary, lighthouse, mint (forge UB), courthouse and the Colossus in the city (seemed a decent play as financial and I 've put up more coastal cities) and a library. What other buildings will I want here...and what if any wonders are helpful.

And is a GP farm worthwhile when not playing Philosophical, even in a spot as hot as this one?

By the way...I'm fairly new to CivIV. Was playing well on noble on vanilla CivIV but BTS has knocked me back down to warlord. I don't quite get espionage or corporations.

Thanks for any and all answers.

An actual "GP Farm" is even more important when you aren't philosophical if you ask me. It takes a lot longer to get a Great Person, so you want all of your points accumulated in the same city to speed it up.

I'm sure there are some articles around here that could help you more than I could, but here's the basics of what you want. You have a lot of food, so that is good. The ultimate goal of this city is to just run as many specialists as possible, since they provide the GPP to give you a great person.

Early on, you need a library in this city, and you will be able to have 2 scientists specialists. Granary is also good to grow the city to it's cap faster. Other than that, all you need is National Epic to double your GPP, Great Library (for 2 free scientists), and any other building which will help you raise your health/happy caps, or allow you to run more specialists. Hammers aren't important except for building wonders. Just run as many specialists as you can (caste allows unlimited scientists, artists, and merchants.

That's the basics, from there you can fine-tune your GP Farm.

But YES just do it, you want one.

The main thing that you didn't state is the National Epic, make sure you build that thing in there as soon as possible.

For buildings, it's pretty much been said. If you aren't running caste system, you'll want buildings to open up specialists. Forge for an engineer, library for scientists, market for merchants, temples for prophets. And then there are spies and artists if you really want those. :p

The strongest wonder for your GP is without a doubt the Great Library. The building itself gives you 2 great scientist points, and then the two free scientists give you 6. That's 8 GS points from a single wonder, 16 with the national epic! Good gravy there.

For any other wonder, in regards to the GP farm, just look at what points it'll give you. Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, and Hagia Sophia are all nice for Great Engineer points, which are really hard to come by early on. (only one engineer specialist until factories!) Other than the GL, the University of Sankore is kind of nice for a few GS points. Plenty of Great Prophet wonders too if you want prophets.

Unless you really want artists for some reason (culture game?) you should also try to avoid putting artist wonders in there. The one artist point from the National Epic can't be helped, but other than that.

Playing on Warlord, Mansa, BTS version. After some typical initial play, I found myself with two cities near the southern coast and my neighbor HC just down the beach on the southeast corner of the small continent that I'm on. In the spirit of friendship, I built some "diplomats" with "ceremonial axes" and...um...welcomed him lovingly into my empire. :D

Good, good ...

It was only after taking Cuzco that I realized what a prize it was. The cow I passed on the way in was a nice resource...no metal...but three clams and two fish. In other words, Cuzco has enough food resources to singlehandedly feed every offensive lineman in the NFL and still have leftovers.

This is a good Great Person farm, moreso if you captured it around 2000 BC (the earlier you get the city the earlier you get more Great People).

Now, I've never really built a GP farm, just read about them on the forums and have vaguely understood that they are nice to have. I think if I'm ever going to learn, now's the time. I've tossed a grainary, lighthouse, mint (forge UB), courthouse and the Colossus in the city (seemed a decent play as financial and I 've put up more coastal cities) and a library. What other buildings will I want here...and what if any wonders are helpful.

The National Epic would be nice here. The good thing is that you have plenty of infrastructure already here, so the next step is to chop (preferably) or simply slow-produce the National Epic. If the Great Library is available, build it before the National Epic as a rival civ could build it. Make sure you check the remaining AI's (if any) to see if they have a marble to trade. This, of course, assumes you don't have marble. If you do, all the better.

And is a GP farm worthwhile when not playing Philosophical, even in a spot as hot as this one?

Absolutely!

By the way...I'm fairly new to CivIV. Was playing well on noble on vanilla CivIV but BTS has knocked me back down to warlord. I don't quite get espionage or corporations.

My advice:

-Don't worry about corporations at all until you master the early to middle game.
-For espionage, just go to the Espionage screen and select the AI's who you want more espionage (more weight) on. That will help you see their demographics. Make sure you keep checking the Espionage advisor to see if you may need to put more points on someone to see their demographics.

Thanks for the advice all. Just got back from volleyball (um, I was a warlord player against immortal competition :confused:) so I'll get back to it and see how it works.

If you don't have the GL you're probably going to want to run the caste system civic if you aim to generate great scientists as non-philosophical-> 6 gpp/turn from 2 science specialists is really slow.

Since you're spiritual you can easily switch between caste and slavery and use both.

For me:

Granary, library, possible academy (if adding great scientists to city). Other than that the usual aueduct and temple for health and happiness.

National Epic/ Great lib are musts.

If you can build the pyramids too your specialists will add 3 additional science under representation civic. Thats 9 science beakers for a great scientist added to a city or 6 for a science specialist in your city. :eek:

Granary and whipping may well speed up production rates early on. if its will take 10+ turns and you can whip 1-2 people it may save time.

With 4-5 food resources you should be able to crank up 100+ great people point per turn on a good GP farm. pacifsm/NE/Great lib assumed.

Post a screen shot of what you acheive.

All great advice above.

I would add: If the city's BFC (radius or Big Fat Cross) has any forests, keep them intact - don't chop! You can build the National Park there later for an enhanced GP Farm.

Welcome to the Forums JRedGiant. :beer:

Yes, a dedicated GP farm is *MORE* important for non-PHI leaders because the National Epic will have a larger effect (because of the way percentage multipliers are handled and because GPP have diminishing returns).

***

Also: If you can't use all that food because of cap trouble, found overlapping cities nearby so you can put all those wonderful tiles to good use... or prepare for heavy whipping.
Both will slightly reduce your GPP output though - for the maximum Great People madness you could simply build the Globe Theatre if health is manageable.

I usually prefer several good cities to one great city though... and a city can be a very good GP farm even with only 2-3 food resources.

Thanks for the advice all. Just got back from volleyball (um, I was a warlord player against immortal competition :confused:) so I'll get back to it and see how it works.

Immortal competition?

Immortal competition?

Much better volleyball players. Playing tonight with people more my level...

Anyways, I was a little hesitant on building the Great Library in Cuzco (the GP farm) since I was making Timbuktu my SSC. But I decided it was pointless to ask for advice and ignore it, put the Great Library up in Cuzco and then, with the Great Engineer that popped out, rushed the Heroic Epic. From then on I received a steady stream of scientists out of Cuzco.

I wasn't sure what the generally accepted best usage was, bulbing or specialists, but I decided to send them all to Timbuktu to pop an academy and super scientists. Meanwhile Timbuktu popped a few Great Prophets, who actually got sent back to Cuzco to specialize and help build infrastructure. Several other cities have developed nicely as well, sprinkling in national wonders to taste. One of these had the Heroic Epic and popped a Great Artist, whom I saved for a Golden Age. I launched this right after developing Assembly Lines and set all my cities to build factories.

At this point the game was won...I could easily have teched to the spaceship or launched a rifleman/cannon invasion on the Ethiopians to the north. However, just for fun I decided to military tech out before invading.

My opening lands had neither horses nor oil, so my first land based military unit with a speed of more than one was....mechanized infantry! I secured oil rather quickly and am now at 1900, the Ethiopians have been knocked off the continent and their islands have capitulated, and the other civs are nervously eyeing my transport fleet.

It's a win. I could have done it faster but I wanted to check out some of the modern warfare pieces.

Lessons learned: GP farms are very nice - they can turn your SSC into a powerhouse. I'm sure there's other things that they can do as well.

After this win I may be ready to try noble. Thanks again for the help all!

Anyways, I was a little hesitant on building the Great Library in Cuzco (the GP farm) since I was making Timbuktu my SSC. But I decided it was pointless to ask for advice and ignore it, put the Great Library up in Cuzco and then, with the Great Engineer that popped out, rushed the Heroic Epic. From then on I received a steady stream of scientists out of Cuzco.

Keep in mind that without representation, the Great Library only gives you 6 beakers. While it's decent, its the GP points that make it worthwhile, all those Great Scientists it pops out.

All of the Great People are good because Golden Ages are good. Some Great People are significantly better than others, though.

Great Prophets are the best GP of all if you have a popular religion that doesn't yet have its shrine. If you need a Great Prophet to build your Shrine, don't worry about the speed at which you get the Great Person, just make sure that it's almost certainly going to be a Great Prophet. It takes a very long time to get your 3rd and 4th Great Person, so don't let other GP points pollute the pool if you really want that Great Prophet.

Great Scientist points are easier to come by, so it's no big deal to let your pool get a bit polluted early in the game if you are shooting for a Great Scientist. At worst, you'll end up with a Great Prophet or a Great Engineer for your first Great Person and that's not really a bad thing at all. :) If it is a Great Prophet, save it for later. Hopefully you'll capture a holy city relatively soon and you don't want to count on the AI to build the shrine for you. Great Engineers can build that wonder you've been wanting - just make sure it's a wonder you really are going to use to your benefit so that you're not just building an enormous trophy that won't be put to work. Alternatively, settle the Great Engineer on your best production city, and start cranking out troops like there's no tomorrow. :)

For your primary GP farm, though, you'll be more worried about the type of Great Person that you produce. You'll hopefully be generating a decent number of Great People here, so an occasional Merchant or Artist is to be expected. Try to keep to a plan, however. You'll probably want one particular kind of Great Person multiple times - Scientists if you are running for Liberalism, Engineers and Prophets if you are trying to make a production powerhouse (especially if the production powerhouse is your shrine) and perhaps a Merchant if you are looking forward to a Corporation. Just try to make sure that at least most of the pollution that you are contributing to the Great Person Point pool is going to generate a Great Person that you at least wouldn't mind getting even if it isn't the one you are directly targeting.