A Guide to Farming Great People

This is an update on my earlier post about using Wonders to generate GPP's. I'm now adding in city improvements, too, as requested.

All Great Wonders generate TWO GPP's per turn. All National Wonders generate ONE GPP per turn.

Buildings allow you to create specialists that generate GPP's, but of course you have to assign the specialists to get those GP's.

Great Artists
GREAT WONDERS:
1: Parthenon (Polytheism)
3: Notre Dame (Music), Sistine Chapel (Theology)
4: Taj Mahal (Nationalism)
5: Broadway (Electricity), Kremlin (Communism)
6: Hollywood (Mass Media), Rock and Roll (Radio)
NT'L WONDERS:
2: Heroic Epic, National Epic (Literature)
3: Globe Theater - up to 3 artists (Drama)
4: Hermitage (Nationalism)
5: Mt. Rushmore (Facism)
BUILDINGS:
3: Theater - up to 2 artists (Drama)
6: Broadcast Tower - up to 2 artists (Mass Media)

Great Engineers
GREAT WONDERS
1: Pyramids (Masonry)
2: Hanging Gardens (Mathematics)
3: Hagia Sophia (Engineering)
5: Pentagon (Assembly Line)
6: Three Gorges Dam (Plastics)
NT'L WONDERS
3: West Point (Military Tradition)
5: Ironworks - up to 3 engineers (Steel)
BUILDINGS
2: Forge - up to 1 engineer (Metal Casting)
5: Factory - up to 2 engineers (Assembly Line)

Great Merchants
GREAT WONDERS
1: Great Lighthouse (Masonry)
2: Colossus (Metal Casting)
3: Versailles (Divine Right)
4: Statue of LIberty (Democracy)
6: Eiffel Tower (Radio), UN (Mass Media)
NT'L WONDERS
3: Forbidden Palace (Code of Laws)
4: Wall Street - up to 3 merchants (Corporation)
BUILDINGS
2: Market - up to 2 merchants (Currency)
3: Grocer - up to 2 merchants (Guilds)

Great Prophets
GREAT WONDERS
1: Stonehenge (Mysticism), The Oracle (Priesthood)
2: Chichen Itza (Code of Laws)
3: Angkor Wat - up to 3 priests (Philosophy), Spiral Minaret (Divine Right)
BUILDINGS
1: Temple - up to 1 priest (Priesthood)
3: Cathedral - up to 2 priests (Music)

Great Scientists
GREAT WONDERS
2: Great Library - 2 FREE scientists (Literature)
6: Interet (Fiber Optics)
6: Space Elevator (Robotics)
NT'L WONDERS
4: Oxford University - up to 3 scientists (Education)
5: Red Cross (Medicine), Scotland Yard (Communism)
BUILDINGS
2: Library - up to 2 scientists (Writing)
4: Observatory - up to 1 scientist (Astronomy)
6: Laboratory - up to 1 scientist (Computers)

In addition to the above, there are also the religion-specific Shrines, which generate +1 (not +2) GPPs (prophet) and also allows the creation of up to 3 priests, though you need a Great Prophet to create one in the first place.

Note that the PARTHENON boosts GPP's by 50% for your entire empire; the NATIONAL EPIC boosts GPP's by 100% in that city. Be sure to build the National Epic in your GP farm (or, if you are playing the "city balance" strategy, put it in a city that needs boosting).

Finally, the following techs provide freebie GP's if you are the first to discover them:
Music - Great Artist
Economics - Great Merchant
Physics - Great Scientist
Fusion - Great Engineer

EDITED to remove language that implied that number of GPP's determine percentile chance of getting GP's. It's actually the number of SOURCES of GP's, regardless of GPP's they individually contribute. Also to add Physics.

A few observations:

Great Engineers and Great Prophets are the hardest to generate early on if you forego or miss Great Wonders because you can only create ONE specialist with a forge or temple.

It's hard to use National Wonders to churn GPPs because you can only have a maximum of 2 per city, and you want one of them to be the National Epic (right?), but having them in the "wrong" city can mix up your odds. This is espcially true for the One City Challenge (where the cap on National Wonders is lifted for your one city) since so many of the national wonders generate Great Artist points, which is undesirable for the OCC.

Manage your specialists carefully! You don't want unexpected Great People popping out. While there's no such thing as a "bad" GP, by getting one you didn't want, you can significantly delay getting one you DO want.

er... comments?

I'm not sure that I agree with trying to suppress great people just because you want a specific one. If you play to the strengths of each GP and the needs of your empire, they can all be extremely useful in any situation. Trying to hold a certain one down just to get another one doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Don't underestimate the golden age. It can give you a pretty big boost when you need to catch up or get ahead of your rivals.

Golden Age can be nice, especially if you have a few cities full of towns and Universal Sufferage

This is a good guide - I'm sure I'll reference it in the future. Thanks!

Here's a few comments:

Physics gives a free great scientist

The national epic, in addition to boosting great people points, adds a chance of getting great artists. Sometimes I skip it entirely if I don't want artists.

Great prophets are easy to generate early, because the techs required for temples are very cheap. But it's very hard to force great prophets later.

I got a city up to 312 GPP/turn by running all merchant specialists, then adding the Great Merchants thereby generated to the city as Super Specialists, creating more food to feed more merchant specialists. City was size 38 with 19 mechants at that point.

Hi,

Taelis said:

The national epic, in addition to boosting great people points, adds a chance of getting great artists.

Click to expand...

Only by being a source for great artist points itself (+1 GPPs great artist), nothing more. Or what am I missing here?

-Kylearan

Kylearan said:

Only by being a source for great artist points itself (+1 GPPs great artist), nothing more. Or what am I missing here?

Click to expand...

Something strange that I first read about in this thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=143504

Apparently the type of great people generated is based on the number of sources, not the number of points for each source. So the Parthenon and the National Epic count as much as a specialist. Since seeing that thread I've been watching my cities, and it seems to be true.

That means that in a city with 4 specialists and the National Epic, 1 out of five great people will be artists. Without the National Epic, the city would generate 25% fewer gpps (with a philosophical leader and pacifism), which doesn't mean 25% fewer great people, of course.

If the first two great people are born before you can build the Epic, four more great people costs 300+400+500+600+700 = 2500 gpps. Five costs 3300 gpps.

A city with pacifism and a philosophical leader that generates 900 unmodified gpps, will generate 2700 after the bonuses, and reliably create four great people of the desired type.

Same city with those bonuses plus the National Epic will generate 3600 gpps, create five great people, which, on average, will include four of the desired type, plus one artist.

So, in this specific example, the National Epic adds 1 great artist. That's true in many cases, and a great artist or two isn't usually worth 250 hammers to me, unless I'm planning for a cultural victory.

Disclaimer: A city with more specialists and wonders will benefit more from the National Epic; a civlization relying on more than one city to farm great people will be hurt more (because the city producing the most great people will produce more artists); your millage may vary.

Hi,

Taelis said:

Apparently the type of great people generated is based on the number of sources, not the number of points for each source.

Click to expand...

Thanks for explaining something to me that I had found out in the first place...

What I meant was why you singled out the Epic, because it's true for other wonders as well. The Parthenon for example boosts GPP output as well and is a source for great artists, etc.

-Kylearan

Kylearan said:

Thanks for explaining something to me that I had found out in the first place...

What I meant was why you singled out the Epic, because it's true for other wonders as well. The Parthenon for example boosts GPP output as well and is a source for great artists, etc.

Click to expand...

Lol, oops! And thanks for figuring that out

I singled out the Epic because it's only purpose is to generate more great people - but if those people reliably turn out to be artists, then what's the point? The Parthenon also, but at least I can build that in a different city. (Also, playing on immortal, I can't build the Parthenon, so I just didn't think of it.)

If great people were based on points instead of number of sources, the National Epic would be 3x better, and I think always worth building. But not now.

You forgot the best specialist generator of all... Caste System!

Hi,

Taelis said:

I singled out the Epic because it's only purpose is to generate more great people - but if those people reliably turn out to be artists, then what's the point?

Click to expand...

Well, the great people won't be artists reliably, it's just that there's now a chance (one (more) source) for them to appear. Sure, if you absolutely don't want to have them, then don't build it. Otherwise it's still a nice wonder to have in my book if you're willing to accept a small risk.

(Also, playing on immortal, I can't build the Parthenon, so I just didn't think of it.)

Click to expand...

I'm still an emperor player so I'm curious, why can't you build it on immortal? As far as I know, the AIs do not get any bonus when building wonders, so their only bonus would be getting the tech earlier and maybe having larger or better improved cities to build the wonder. But in theory the human should still be able to get it?

If great people were based on points instead of number of sources, the National Epic would be 3x better, and I think always worth building. But not now.

Click to expand...

Granted, you have a point there...

-Kylearan

Taelis said:

If great people were based on points instead of number of sources, the National Epic would be 3x better, and I think always worth building. But not now.

Click to expand...

I think you are overestimating the effect of this. In the absence of other sources for great artist points, the chance of a great artist will still likely be less than 10%. Even if you happen to get a tad unlikely and get 2 or even 3 great artists, the Natioanl Epic will still have been worth it since in a very high specialist scheme, it's worth at least 3 great people.

Kylearon and Taelis, thanks for clarifying about the sources, not points, determining the chances of different GP's. That explains my frustrations in my latest (failed) OCC game. [That, and finding out that Great Engineers can't rush projects]. That would explain why the Civilopedia is so cagey about describing each Great Wonder as only increasing the "chance" of a particular type of GP, not specifically saying "+2 Great Scientist Points" or whatever.

BigCMan: Great Artists suck when you are attempting the OCC, unless they mod (patch?) it to allow cultural victory.

Taelis said:

Apparently the type of great people generated is based on the number of sources, not the number of points for each source. So the Parthenon and the National Epic count as much as a specialist. Since seeing that thread I've been watching my cities, and it seems to be true.

Click to expand...

Hmmm...if that's true, and you had, say, the Pyramids and the Hanging Gardens, you could put in a bunch of specialists of all types (effectively increasing the number of GPP generated), then just before the GP would be generated, drop all the specialists and leave one Great Engineer. That should give you a 100% chance of getting a GrEng as long as you had no other sources of non-GrEng GPP, da?

DeltaV -- no, because the chances accumulate. See, this is what's confusing about the GPP % chance system. I think (correct me if the following logic is wrong guys) this is how it works:

Assume you have a city with Pyramids and a temple, allowing you to assign 1 priest, which generates 2 GPP (IIRC).

In turn 1 you assign the priest. You generate 4 GPP. Because there are only 2 sources of GPP, you get a 50% chance of an Engineer and a 50% chance of a Prophet.

In turn 2 you send the priest out into the fields. You generate 2 GPP. Now there is only 1 source of GPP, but there were also the GPP's you accumulated in turn 1. Now you should have a 67% chance of an Engineer and a 33% chance of a Prophet.

Correct???

Hi,

DeltaV said:

Hmmm...if that's true, and you had, say, the Pyramids and the Hanging Gardens, you could put in a bunch of specialists of all types (effectively increasing the number of GPP generated), then just before the GP would be generated, drop all the specialists and leave one Great Engineer. That should give you a 100% chance of getting a GrEng as long as you had no other sources of non-GrEng GPP, da?

Click to expand...

No, because the odds are averaged over all turns. That one last turn with the engineer only would change little compared to all the other turns with all the other specialists.

See my article GPP explained for the details.

-Kylearan

Hi,

Padmewan said:

Assume you have a city with Pyramids and a temple, allowing you to assign 1 priest, which generates 2 GPP (IIRC).

In turn 1 you assign the priest. You generate 4 GPP. Because there are only 2 sources of GPP, you get a 50% chance of an Engineer and a 50% chance of a Prophet.

In turn 2 you send the priest out into the fields. You generate 2 GPP. Now there is only 1 source of GPP, but there were also the GPP's you accumulated in turn 1. Now you should have a 67% chance of an Engineer and a 33% chance of a Prophet.

Correct???

Click to expand...

Yes, although the number of GPPs are irrelevant.

Turn 1: Two sources (engineer/priest)
Turn 2: One source (engineer)

Overall: Three sources, two engineer and one priest.
=> 2/3=67% engineer, 1/3 = 33% priest.

-Kylearan

I seem to be the odd one out in actually quite liking Great Artists. I find them a big help when I'm invading. No waiting for the city to become useful, and extended wait for the borders to expand. It's immediately your city with a healthy cultural influence (and 80% of the way to the next expansion).