Hi everyone,

I've read in several strategies that I need a GP farm. I just wonder what to do with GP's. I usually build some academy's, add most GP's to cities, maybe start one golden age and of course start a corporation when I can.

Is this the way to use them, or should I do other things with them?

Thanks!
TinkerBell

There's no 'proper' way to use them. Building academies in your future science cities (particularly the future Oxford!) is a good move in many circumstances.
If you plan to settle Great Scientists, try to put them all in your Oxford city to maximise the amount of :science: the G.Scientist will give you.
For Prophets and Merchants, settling in your best specialist :gold: city and future(?) Wall street city is a good plan maximise its :gold: output.



However, all the other abilities for Great People have uses too e.g. Lighbulbing techs.
The value of having a tech right here and now is huge if you can leverage it.

-In the case of Prophets, bulbing Theology can be very powerful! The Apostolic Palace is a crazy wonder (if you can control it), the Theocracy civic can be quite useful too.

-Scientists, well these guys bulb down the Liberalism path getting Philosophy, Paper, Education, Liberalism and can even be used for the Astronomy line, Machinery, Optics, Astro if you tech the right paths. Scientists also give double the :science: of other GPs when bulbing!
This can allow for some extremely fast teching. I get steel pre-1000AD quite often using bulbs, other people get it in 600AD :eek: but it largely depends on trading with AIs ,so higher difficulty levels (Emp+, Monarch can get a good tech lead from it though) benefit more.

-I've never used Merchants to bulb and I'd consider bulbing with an Engineer to be a waste (would rather instabuild a good wonder!).

-Spies are a bit wierd, they can't bulb any techs, but they can't be killed while exploring anyones land. The only way they can die is to be on a ship thats sunk! Unfortunately they don't start with Commando, so they aren't particularly good scouts in wars (unlike regular spies).
Settling is likely the best move for a first spy, a second can build Scotland Yard in the city the first settled, any more can settle in the same city again. Or you could start start a G.Age.
If you have a very early G.Spy from the Great Wall then settling will allow you to see everyones research very quickly, and probably view city radius for quite a while before the rivals :espionage: catches up.
Infiltrate is only much good if you know that AI will have techs for you to steal AND you work towards using :espionage: on them heavily (trade route, shared religion etc bonuses).

-Personally I don't like Artists at all. If I accidentaly get one I just start a G.Age :lol:


Corporations in the late game can be incredibly strong, but so can the State Property civic and that doesn't allow corps. So make sure you have decided which you will use before you start using your GP for founding corps.


There are a lot of ways to use them and many things affect how effective each use will be. Higher difficulties makes G.Scientist bulbing more attractive, representation improves settling, prepping for a big war or wanting to develop cities quickly gives a G.Age a lot of weight.


The only thing you can do is play around with them to find what you like the most ;)

If you want to try some bulbing, the GP bulbing preference (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/greatpeople_tech.php) list might help. The BTS Unaltered Gameplay (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=274636) (BUG) mod comes with the list built into the Technology advisor screen and lots of other nice features too.

My personal preference:

Scientists: Early game, academy in your best research city, bulb philosophy/education and lib. Late game, golden age or possibly settle in your oxford city. Best early great people other than an early spy IMO.

Merchants: Early game (as in you built the GLH and generated one really early), settle. Mid to late game: Trade mission.

Spy: Settle, or possibly golden age if mid game or later. A great wall generated spy will likely allow you to steal anywhere from 2-6 techs from another nearby civ, which can be gamebreaking.

Artist: I often use for a golden age, or settle on a border city to increase cultural pressure. Culture bombs are an option that I think others use, but I'm not much for them - I prefer to use slow culture pressure.

Engineer: Some settle, I will almost always use for a wonder. If I get one near when I'm going to build ironworks - that's a nobrainer to finish that in one turn. Speeding up statue of liberty is nice too.

Priest: I almost always settle. Occasionally if I know it'll net Theology first, I'll bulb it, but 2 hammers and 5 gold is pretty nice.

Corporations are also good uses for them - sushi and mining inc especially.

EDIT: GHP beat me to it - I think if you combine our advice you've probably got most of what you need!

What do you do to get Great People?

The InfoCenter says this : "You can get great leaders by specialized cities. You can customize each city to fit a specific purpose such as science or culture. "


Question : How do you customize a city to produce a great person?

What do you do to get Great People?

The InfoCenter says this : "You can get great leaders by specialized cities. You can customize each city to fit a specific purpose such as science or culture. "


Question : How do you customize a city to produce a great person?

You need to get the city to produce Great Person Points (GPP), to do this you can build wonders and run specialist citizens.
Each wonder and Specialist will create a specific type of GPP, a scientist will create G.Scientist points while the Stonehenge wonder produces G.Prophet points.

All points generated in a city get fed into a pool in that city, once the total point hits a certain limit a Great Person is born. The Great Person you get depends on the type of point you put in 30% Scientist points and 70% Prophet points will give 30% for a G.Scientist and 70% for a G.Prophet.

To allow your cities to use specialist citizens you need to either
Have buildings that allow them. Libraries allow you to assign 2 scientist specialist for example.
Or run the Caste System civic which allows you to assign as many Artist, Scientist and Merchant citizens as you want (limited by population and food)

I usually don't use a single GP Farm, rather, I heavily specialize certain cities. Mainly I stack all of Scientists, Merchants, Engineers and Spies into my Oxford, Wall Street, Ironworks and Scotland Yard cities, respectively (mainly because those national wonders combined with the slot buildings allow beaucoup specialists of a certain flavor).

Depending on input variables, such as:

in which city I build the National Epic (:gp: bonus for that city)
which of those cities has the most :hammers: or :food: for building wonders
surplus :food: for feeding the specialists
the order which I gain the techs needed to create buildings for specialist slots... thus determining how long each one has to start accumulating :gp:


One or two of these specialty cities' :gp: output will usually overwhelm the others, and thus from mid game on one or two types of Great People are born, with the exception of Great People earned from first-to-discover or quest/event rewards.

Usually, my merchant city ends up as a big producer because the extra :food: each provided by a settled Great Merchant is half the nom-nom's needed to feed an additional merchant specialist. Then again, whenever I score the Great Library, it gives my scientist pool a head start.

No mention of GG's, great generals. Weird.

So what do we do with GG's?

I have a hard time settling any of my GP's. Call it a lack of discipline, but I want the here and now-- GA, Bulbing, Buildings, Culture Bombs. :king:

If I can build it, I'll build the GG's UB. Does anyone find using a GG w/ a unit a bit unnecessary... or stressful?

Using it to upgrade a unit for getting your West Point makes sense...

But when I send my general in, I sweat bullets, when I could just have'em pop his building or settle.

No mention of GG's, great generals. Weird.

So what do we do with GG's?

I have a hard time settling any of my GP's. Call it a lack of discipline, but I want the here and now-- GA, Bulbing, Buildings, Culture Bombs. :king:

If I can build it, I'll build the GG's UB. Does anyone find using a GG w/ a unit a bit unnecessary... or stressful?

Using it to upgrade a unit for getting your West Point makes sense...

But when I send my general in, I sweat bullets, when I could just have'em pop his building or settle.

Super medic. For me, first GG is almost always attached to a weak unit like a warrior or a chariot, and becomes a super medic, to help heal the stack - I'll almost never use it to attack unless it's 95% or higher odds.

A GG settled in the HE city can also provide some insane units right out of the box if you run theocracy and vassalage... It may not always be the approach to go for, but it is too good to not even consider using them for settling.

No mention of GG's, great generals. Weird.

So what do we do with GG's?

I have a hard time settling any of my GP's. Call it a lack of discipline, but I want the here and now-- GA, Bulbing, Buildings, Culture Bombs. :king:

If I can build it, I'll build the GG's UB. Does anyone find using a GG w/ a unit a bit unnecessary... or stressful?

Using it to upgrade a unit for getting your West Point makes sense...

But when I send my general in, I sweat bullets, when I could just have'em pop his building or settle.

I almost always settle my GGs, reinforced by the fact they produce :science: under representation.

Using it to upgrade a unit for getting your West Point makes sense...
A sensible use, but I never do this personally.

Does anyone find using a GG w/ a unit a bit unnecessary... or stressful?
I never use GGs for combat troops, its too risky. The only times I attach them to units is for a Super Medic or for a 5 move galley.
Both are purely economic moves on the grounds the medic keeps my :hammers: investments alive longer, and the galley will move my workers/settlers, etc around islands faster.

Mind the Temple of Artemis if you're running several GP farms with the intent to diversify and produce one type of specialist per GP farm - it gives you :gp: points toward a Great Merchant, but also a free priest, which in turn gives you :gp: points toward a Great Priest.

I almost always settle my GGs, reinforced by the fact they produce :science: under representation.


A sensible use, but I never do this personally.


I never use GGs for combat troops, its too risky. The only times I attach them to units is for a Super Medic or for a 5 move galley.
Both are purely economic moves on the grounds the medic keeps my :hammers: investments alive longer, and the galley will move my workers/settlers, etc around islands faster.

I always use my first one as a Warlord to unlock the HE; my next few will settle in the HE city, which will someday may also have West Point, Maoi Statues and either a stable or a drydock. That way I'm producing insane units w/o the civics, whether they are Flanking II/Combat I land troops or Combat III or Drill III naval units.

Lately I have attached a GG to a Privateer to get the Blitz promotion. You can get 2 or 3 more GG's EASY by feasting on caravels, triremes and galleys (and chasing down unprotected galleons).

I'm not sure how many people will agree with me (I think the ideal for most is getting an early GS and building an academy), but my preferred early GP is by a fair margin a Great Spy. The amount of techs that you can steal can be insane. Plus, you get line of sight to all their cities and can explore their territory. Obviously, the usefulness of a Great Spy is dependent on circumstances (incl difficulty): if you're surrounded by only a couple of poor techers, then you're obviously better off with a GS. The usefulness of the Great Spy diminishes significantly after the early part of the game.

My next favourite GP early is the GS, followed by the Great Prophet (assuming you have a shrine), the Great Engineer, the and GM. I don't really use a Great Artist in the early part of my games for anything other than a GA.

Great Scientist: Typically the first few of these are best used by building academies in your highest unmultiplied tech cities. Some people prefer bulbing but that's not something I usually go for. Sometimes it may be better to settle a GS with representation in your Oxford city than to build another academy.

Great Merchant: If it's reasonably far into the game, I may try to do a trade mission to the city with Temple of Artemis if I could see myself using the gold. Otherwise, you will probably make more in the long run by settling them in the city you will have Wall Street in.

Great Engineer: Early game, I'll almost always snag my favorite wonders with them. If there are no good wonders you can get with him in the near future, simply settle him in a city that will need the production, or has production multipliers.

Great Prophet: First one I always use to create my religious shrine, if I have founded a religion. Otherwise settle in the same city as you would with a GM; or you could use to pop a Golden Age. Even if you have two religions founded, it's rarely more beneficial to build 2 shrines.

Great Artist: Only really useful if you are going for a cultural victory. If you are, you can read how to best use them in a guide for that. Otherwise I always use these for my Golden Ages if I get them.

Golden Ages: Remember, these require n+1 GP where n is the amount of golden ages you have popped with GP before. Also, you cannot use two of the same type of GP so keep that in mind. I typically only pop 2 Golden Ages (using 3 total GP) in any given game. Golden Ages can be more useful later in the game when you have more worked tiles. It most benefits tiles with at least one :hammers: and at least one :commerce:, so if you have a lot of these you will get a greater reward for it.

Golden Ages: Remember, these require n+1 GP where n is the amount of golden ages you have popped with GP before. Also, you cannot use two of the same type of GP so keep that in mind. I typically only pop 2 Golden Ages (using 3 total GP) in any given game. Golden Ages can be more useful later in the game when you have more worked tiles. It most benefits tiles with at least one :hammers: and at least one :commerce:, so if you have a lot of these you will get a greater reward for it.

I often try to get consecutive GA's via GP's and the Taj. I find that if I can secure the MoM by that time having 24 turns straight of GA production creates a huge advantage. And all I'm looking for is a temporary advantage. Anything that can extent that window makes conquest that much easier.

I often try to get consecutive GA's via GP's and the Taj. I find that if I can secure the MoM by that time having 24 turns straight of GA production creates a huge advantage. And all I'm looking for is a temporary advantage. Anything that can extent that window makes conquest that much easier.

I will use the same tactic if I can. Many times I will shoot for the MoM, and in the mean save at least one GP (an artist will be saved if he pops no matter what) and then pop the Golden Age while I am building the Taj Mahal. This will hopefully mean I will win the Taj race and get consecutive golden ages.

Edit: I love your quote. Such a great line :)

Early, Settle or Academy/Shrine/Yard.
Midgame, found Sushi or Mining.
Golden Age later in the game, or disband.

As for great generals I usually get a supermedic and save the rest for Military Academies. Success in war is more about production quantity and speed than about unit quality in my experience.
Sometimes though if I play a charismatic leader I might put 2 ggs in the HE city to produce level 4 units with barracks and theo. This is especially true if I've had an early war, Cyrus comes to mind with early super-UU and imperialistic on top.
Pyramids gives more weight to settling as well but I rarely build it anymore.

As for great generals I usually get a supermedic and save the rest for Military Academies. Success in war is more about production quantity and speed than about unit quality in my experience.
Sometimes though if I play a charismatic leader I might put 2 ggs in the HE city to produce level 4 units with barracks and theo. This is especially true if I've had an early war, Cyrus comes to mind with early super-UU and imperialistic on top.
Pyramids gives more weight to settling as well but I rarely build it anymore.

that would definitely seem true (im just a newbie though, so I dont know how it's different at higher levels, so I play on noble)

I mean promotions rarely are enough to turn the battle - no, the war- decisively in your favor. I guess if you can get those chinese x-bows or shock x-bows or something like that regularly (perhaps due to a random lucky event), THEN of course they are worth it.

Or even better, I remember once getting free promotions from a random event to all my pretorians. :eek:

especially in mid game, city defending L-bows and even worse units just don't go reliably down with promotions, so why bother taking any more of them. Besides the A.I. can also get free promotions such as those granted by protective traits.

Speed (of recruiting strong enough armies and blitzing) and quantity, and to some extent quality are way better than most promotions.

I just played a game on Pangaea as Frederick and massed trebuchets + drafted rifles sure did the trick. I won by domination around the end of the 19th century.

Even shite units such as my whipped musketeers and long bows actually took two of the enemy cities, the reason for that being of course that I had built too many trebs, and I had lots of them left over at the staging area when I attacked Sitting Bull.
So I just bunched them all up and put my trebs along them and marched onwards.

Great stuff guys. I like the "supermedic" idea, and what exactly is an "HE"?

Thanks

Great stuff guys. I like the "supermedic" idea, and what exactly is an "HE"?

Thanks

The HE is the Heroic Epic, the national wonder that doubles units production. It need a unit of at least 10XP (8 for Char) thats been promoted 3 times and Literature to be built.

HE == Heroic Epic

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What I do:

GS: Build academies in coastal cities
GE: Instabuild wonders
GM: Have them join a city that was awkwardly placed, or tech if it's a good tech. If neither are good options, then golden age.
GA: Golden age or culture bomb a new city.
GP: If I don't have a holy city, then either golden age or join a crappily placed city.
GSpy: Join city with the first, then build the wonder with the 2nd in whatever city I put the first. All others join the same city.