Great person tech discovery

DynamicSpirit

DynamicSpirit

Fear him of the pink tie
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Two questions:

1. Has anyone ever worked out the list of what technologies each type of great person will offer to 'discover' for you? Such a list could be useful on occasions...

2. Does anyone know how it's decided how many beakers the great person will contribute to the discovery? I'd always assumed, without ever examining the figures - that it was capped at some fixed amount for the given difficulty level/game speed - but that theory got disproved in an epic/monarch game last week in which I happened to have a scientist and an engineer around at the same time...

John Dalton (scientist) was offering me 2709 towards printing press
Archimedes (engineer) was offering me 1806 towards gunpowder
 
1). The allocated tech will be one within your research capability, but either (a) one you don't want, having decided on another research path, or (b) the one you are already within a couple of turns of completing anyway. Very very rarely do I get the chance of something really useful. And Great Prophets don't offer any tech help after Printing Press.
2). In the mid and later game, the points available seem to be enough to do about half the relevant research. I don't have the figures for epic/monarch, but at noble/normal the cost of Press is 33% higher than that of Gunpowder (2080 vs 1560) whereas your values give 50% more for Press: the cost of a tech increases from level to level and varies with game speed, but not by a fixed proportion for each shift of level. The points from a GP rise (very slowly) if he [are there any female GPs ?] remains unused and the allocated tech can also change; it certainly will if you complete the allocated tech without using the GP, but alas not at all necessarily related to what you want. In my case, for example, I was once offered help with Military Tradition whilst using the Pacifism civic in a game set up for 'always peace'. This sort of help I can well do without.
 
I am beginning to appreciate using great people for techs. I my current game I got a great prophet from stonehenge. I found he could discover theology for me. Now, I was not pursuing a religious strategy (I hadn't founded any religions). And theology was a tech I hadn't ever planned on researching. But I went ahead and had him discover theology. I founded christianity, spread it to all my cities, and now to almost all my neighbor's cities (Frederick). Now frederick is christian and is friendly, I am making 19 gold per turn from the church of the nativity (which I built with my second great prophet). So that is one friendly neighbor and a lot of gold per turn I didnt have before, not a bad result at all.

So clearly there are instances that it can be very helpful to have a great person to discover a tech for you. There are even early "slingshot" strategies based on this.
 
They are called "beakers" because Sid watched The Muppets and he remembered the scientist character named Beaker. I'm sure he has acquired a vast knowledge of science from watching PBS and Sesame Street. Please don't confuse us here with facts, either historical or scientific. This is Civ 4. Where else could science research rate drop upon discovering the scientific method (I had 5 monestaries at the time).
 
I don't have a list for what will be researched by each type of great person but the techs that they give you will be techs that resulted from that area. A Great Prophet will give techs that are religion oreiented: Theology, Philosophy, Printing Press. I have never kept my GPs around long enough to make a complete list. There may be a list in the XML files but I wouldn't know where to look.
 
I have seen a list of these in a topic on one of the boards...I think the strat one or the customization one.
 
DynamicSpirit said:
1. Has anyone ever worked out the list of what technologies each type of great person will offer to 'discover' for you? Such a list could be useful on occasions...
Click to expand...

Yes.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952

Of the techs you are capable of researching, a GP will discover that which has the highest score in the flavor of that GP. When two available technologies have the same flavor score, the cheapest is selected [this formula determined by observation]

2. Does anyone know how it's decided how many beakers the great person will contribute to the discovery? I'd always assumed, without ever examining the figures - that it was capped at some fixed amount for the given difficulty level/game speed - but that theory got disproved in an epic/monarch game last week in which I happened to have a scientist and an engineer around at the same time...
Click to expand...

Yes.

Each of the Great People has an iBaseDiscover value, and an iDiscoverMultiplier - you can find these in CIV4UnitInfos.xml. The GP will contribute iBaseDiscover + iDiscoverMultiplier * CivPopulation beakers at normal speed. This does not overflow, however - if you use a great scientist to discover an 800 beaker tech, you are "wasting" over 700 beakers. Such is life.

And before you ask - the same is true for engineers boosting production; iBaseHurry + iHurryMultiplier * CityPopulation
 
VoiceOfUnreason said:
And before you ask - the same is true for engineers boosting production; iBaseHurry + iHurryMultiplier * CityPopulation
Click to expand...

Aha, that explains a lot. I had an engineer offering 850 (or so) hammers in one city, and 600 in the next one over.
 
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