Newbish question here....

When I get a Great Person of whatever variety, what is usually considered the best option of how to use them? Up until now, I've been using them to either give me a big boost in whatever tech I'm researching, or just give me one outright if they can. I've only had the game for a couple days, and I've started looking at all the symbols and am starting to actually understand what I'm looking at instead of just a "music note" or "beaker" or hammer. Is it smart to move two of them into a city and activate a golden age for yourself? I looked in some of the newbie tips threads, but I'm at work and can't devote a lot of time to reading every post, so I apologize if this is explained in those somewhere.

Welcome to CFC!!!!

You put BTS in the title you only need 1 great person for a first golden age in BTS. If you need to burn multiple GP for a golden age best bet is to move them to the same tile and make a group before triggering the golden age.

As for uses, "it depends" ;)

First scientist normally goes on an academy. Subsequent ones go on bulbing philosophy, education or (if I haven't teched machinery) liberalism. Occasionally I do a complicated bulb like astronomy when isolated. There's a thread about great person tech preferences somewhere.

After liberalism I rarely use scientists to bulb (maybe half of printing press or a bit of physics/biology, perhaps some of radio if going for a UN win). I settle them in the Oxford city.

Great Prophet - early game I tend to settle these in the best production city for +2 hammers and +5 gold. If I have a religion that I founded (rare) and I want to spread I will make the holy shrine. Later on I may bulb theocracy but I tend not to get a lot of priests. Late game if I have acquired a holy city without a shrine I will build the shrine and spread the religion to as many cities as possible for the gold bonus, and build Wall Street in the city. No shrine needing religion -> golden age

Great Engineer - mainly from building pyramids early on, I normally build the Great Library then (if have no marble - not worth it otherwise). If China I may bulb machinery for chokonu. Late on use for mining inc. Midgame, handy to speed up Oxford. Sometimes save them to speed up building the US.

Great Artist - golden age unless playing a cultural game (in which case I settle early, culture bomb later). If I have a good city being culturally pressed I may settle or bomb that too. Can also be handy to claim that oil source just outside your current borders ;)

Great Merchant - I don't seem to generate all that mnany of these. Need cash -> trade mission. Otherwise, I settle in the future Wall Street city or in my GP farm (since they give +1 food).

Great Spy - I hardly ever get these (rarely build the great wall). I'll have to pass on this one but if I got one unexpectedly I would probably settle him, use for a golden age or if it is me vs. tech leader may infiltrate I guess.

Great Prophets, I will always use to build a shrine in one of my holy cities or one that will soon be mine. :) Great Engineers I use to speed building some wonder. I used to settle a Great Spy in my capitol, and then make Scotland Yard there if I got a second, but now I think it's more worthwhile to start a Golden Age with them.

i think if you occasionally got a Gspy, and one is not enough for a GA, it might be better to infiltrate him to your second best friend, he's worth a crapload of techs, but you'll need to act(steal them or start a mounted war) fast after that, before he understand he's been infiltrated and beefs his own espionage up.

got to agree with ParadigmShifter about building academies with the first GSci. after that, it's pretty much up in the air, although you can't go wrong with just settling them.

bulbing is great in the early game, but you will probably get more net :gold::hammers::science: by settling.

if you can get GSpies early, they are invaluable for setting up espionage gambits. i will settle the first, then build the scotland yard.

GSci should be used mostly for academies and some bulbs, although their usefulness starts to fade after the mid-game.

GArts are not as bad as everyone says they are, but many overlook the importance of :culture:

GMerks are actually great. the +1:food: is just enough to balance out one specialized city for 1000 yrs. also, they enable some of the most powerful corps in the game.

GEng and GProfs are kind of in the same boat for me; when settled, they offer hammers. however, they do allow wonders, sort of; the GEng can only half-build the later wonders, and you can only found a holy shrine if you control its holy city.

so that said, there are a lot of choices, but it depends a lot on map size and game speed. i forget which is better for which, though. check the forums. i just played a quick emperor occ game and it seems that settling is probably the best move in that instance.

Carefull guys, he's just a beginner and you already talk about bulbing, tech brokering and others advanced strategies :p

If you really do not know what to do with great people, you could forget them for a while, and just either settle them in specific cities (scientists in science city, merchants and prophets in gold city, artists in cities having cultural pressure, engineers either in science city or in production city, spies all in the same city, and general in unit producting cities), you will never go really wrong with that, or launch golden ages if you are not too far from the end of the game and/or have a big empire and/or want to change a lot of civics (anarchy-free during a golden age).

Now, a little bit more advanced would be to use the first scientists to build an academy in the science city (future oxford too, likle the gold city should be future wall street), use the second great spy to build scotland yard in the spy city, use great prophets for shrines, and use a great general (or several) to build military academy in one r several unit cities.

And, when you have a better grasp of the game, you can begin to learn about bulbing; but before that, you will have to learn to predict and create great people for specific goals, because that way they can be insanely powerful.

Depends on the situation but generally, in the early game go for longer term benefits. Always build shrines with prophets, if you can bulb a tech for a new religion go for it unless you're almost done with said tech already. Unless you're going for cultural victory use Artists to start golden ages or settle them for sustained culture and extra gold. Culture bombs are only good for pushing that third place city up to par with first and second.

Scientists should build academies in as many major science cities as posible, but keep in mind they bulb great techs, you may want to bulb techs on the liberalism path because that free tech is a juicy bonus.

Engineers should almost always be used to rush wonders, only settle them if you have no other wonders or even national wonders left to make really. The free hammers towards wonders are just too invaluable to waste.

Merchants are probably the most arguable as far as usage goes. Bulb is always an option, as they bulb some sweet techs, but settling merchants is a good way to add a food or two to a food starved city, and that huge gpt is nothing to ignore either. The huge influx of gold from a trade mission can prove very useful if your economy is running on fumes though, and can provide a quick tech boost to push towards a valuable tech.

Just remember one important great scientist (GS) bulb route: 1 GS for philosophy (require mediation, mathematics and either code of law or drama), 2 GS for education , 1 GS for libralism (no machinery) , 1 GS for Printing press (require machinery), sometimes 1 GS for chemistry ( know gunpowder and engineering) . this is the most important use for GS. so try to purify the great people pool ( not mixed up with wonder producing Great artist or great spy,). whether use the 1st GS for academy or bulb philosophy depends on how ur tech progress (say if u have code of law then bulb philosophy may seem more beneficial)

its all about timing. U may over expand ur empire through early war or aggressive settling which makes ur economy look very bad(say 10% or 0 % research rate).or in case u beelline a military tech while ignoring others. bulb a tech (like philosophy) opens up trade opportunity which enables u to back fill many important techs around the same era. so u will be ready for another expansion sooner.

later u will find some use for other great person. but the trick above is really powerful. u should play above monarch level after u know this trick and some basics of this game. enjoy!

Ok, thanks for the tips everyone. I've played a few games now, only on settler, but I won a space race in one of them, and got a diplomatic victory in the other. I'm starting to learn even more of the game now. My game last night, I actually put like 3 scientists in, so I popped a couple GS in that city. I remember one of my GP, there was some gold or something JUST outside my borders and actually in a rival territory. I sent a GA I think over to the city right there and popped him for culture to expand my cities borders and I got the gold mine. It REALLY helped when I learned about the Ctrl+R to see all the resources around. I bought the game off of Direct2Drive, so I didn't get any physical manual or anything like that, so I've been slowly learning about the game by reading on here, and I've already discovered alot of new information. Thanks again everyone!

That's not a good use for a great artist though, your cities border will expand eventually, or you could put another city down and work the gold.

Unless you were having happiness problems at settler, which I find rather hard to believe ;)

The physical manual is useless anyway:D. regarding the use of GPs, I say if you are playing around the lower difficulties you should experiment, see what the different results get you. And later, when you are playing the tougher difficulties, and have a question regarding their use, come back and ask the question with a specific example/situation. You will get better answers that way.

Welcome to CFC:beer:

I agree. Just pointing out that most of the time a culture bomb isn't worth it ('cept in culture games).

An early Great Spy can be used to explore. He's immune to attack and can go anywhere he wants without open borders. He also can't be caught while scouting other civs.