How to purchase Great People using faith?

Ekko

Chieftain
Joined
Mar 12, 2013
Messages
1
Hello, I can't for the life of me find the option to purchase a Great Merchant nor Great Scientist with faith. I have fully bought all the "Commerce" and "Rationalism" policies, have a bunch of faith but cannot find the option, neither in any of the cities purchase menus nor through the "Religion Overview" screen.

I see options there for purchasing some religious buildings and pre-industrial land units but that's it...:confused::confused::confused:
 
It must be the Industrial Age. You can't buy great people other than Prophets with Faith prior to then.
 
Also, note that great non-prophet persons are are shown near the TOP of the units list;
also, remember you won't be able to do it if you have another civilian unit in the city.
 
You can also set to auto purchase. For Great Scientists it doesn't particularly matter which city it gets placed.
 
You can also set to auto purchase. For Great Scientists it doesn't particularly matter which city it gets placed.

Huh? If by "placed," you mean planted to form an academy, it matters a great deal. You want to plant academies in cities that have the highest science multipliers. In most games, this will be your NC city (+50% science), since that is also most likely to be first to get a university and first to get a lab. If you have another city with an observatory (and university, etc.), that is OK as well. But randomly planting GSs wherever they happen to spawn is not a good plan.

Same thing applies to landmarks and your Hermitage city.
 
That I agree with.
I meant which city it gets placed in.

But I'm not sure why in the industrial era you would from an academy. I'm doubting it would pay for itself.

I ran a calculation in my current game on my first Great Scientist which was in early Ren. and calculated it would take roughly 60 turns for an academy to produce more beakers than taking one now. (At current pace it was 67 turns but it looked like a couple of techs that would have been researched during it would move it up slightly.)

My beakers per turn rate was 106 and I did NOT have a mountain start.
 
Hello, I can't for the life of me find the option to purchase a Great Merchant nor Great Scientist with faith. I have fully bought all the "Commerce" and "Rationalism" policies, have a bunch of faith but cannot find the option, neither in any of the cities purchase menus nor through the "Religion Overview" screen.

I see options there for purchasing some religious buildings and pre-industrial land units but that's it...:confused::confused::confused:

1. Need Industral Era or later.
2. Must have a religion in at least one city.
3. As long as 1 and 2 are met you can buy following GPeople with a policy tree active. (e.g. If you open Freedom you can get GArtists, but if you later open Order, you can get GEngineers, but no GArtists until you reopen Freedom since they are mutually exclusive).
4. GProphet - Always of the religion of the city it is bought in. (No Policy Trees opened are required)
5. GMerchant - Commerce
6. GScientist - Rationalism
7. GArtist - Freedom
8. GGeneral/GAdmiral - Autocracy
9. GEngineer - Order
 
I ran a calculation in my current game on my first Great Scientist which was in early Ren. and calculated it would take roughly 60 turns for an academy to produce more beakers than taking one now. (At current pace it was 67 turns but it looked like a couple of techs that would have been researched during it would move it up slightly.)

My beakers per turn rate was 106 and I did NOT have a mountain start.

Curious about your computation. Do I understand correctly that you compared the beakers from immediately bulbing the GS (beakers for last 8 turns - for simplicity's sake, assume 8 x 106, or 848 beakers?) vs. the cumulative beakers from an academy (i.e., payback time for the academy vs. bulbing now)? Or am I not reading the phrase "to produce more beakers than taking one now" correctly?
 
Curious about your computation. Do I understand correctly that you compared the beakers from immediately bulbing the GS (beakers for last 8 turns - for simplicity's sake, assume 8 x 106, or 848 beakers?) vs. the cumulative beakers from an academy (i.e., payback time for the academy vs. bulbing now)? Or am I not reading the phrase "to produce more beakers than taking one now" correctly?

I did a simple multiple by 8 for the value of bulbing; which was close enough as the newest University was over 8 turns old.
For the academy worth: I multiplied the beakers per turn that would be made for it located in the best city as the raw number; that was before I had tech to increase the value and so I estimated how many turns it would be before I had that tech to increase as well as number of turns until a Public School could be built to come up with the 60 turn beak even estimate.

If my capital had started with a mountain, it would have boosted value of an academy.
 
In addition to university, you must have had NC in your capital (total 83% science boost with university), so academy yields 14.64 beakers (183% of 8 base yield). 14.64 x 60 turns equals 878 -- close enough to the 848 beaker assumption from bulbing.

Of course this ignores the effects of the academy beakers on RA yields or yields from subsequent GS bulbs, or the effects of Rationalism policies, the Order factory policy or Scientific Theory/Atomic Theory on the academy beaker yield. Those all shorten the academy "payback" period, but how much depends on frequency of RAs and how soon you get to those policies and techs.
 
In addition to university, you must have had NC in your capital (total 83% science boost with university), so academy yields 14.64 beakers (183% of 8 base yield). 14.64 x 60 turns equals 878 -- close enough to the 848 beaker assumption from bulbing.

Of course this ignores the effects of the academy beakers on RA yields or yields from subsequent GS bulbs, or the effects of Rationalism policies, the Order factory policy or Scientific Theory/Atomic Theory on the academy beaker yield. Those all shorten the academy "payback" period, but how much depends on frequency of RAs and how soon you get to those policies and techs.

Yup, capital had NC & University.
Rationalism policies: Hum; I forgot to include those in my estimate; I already had opened Rationalism. And in around 40 turns or so I'd have hit the trade post one which I think is an additional percentage bonus to University.
Order factory not a factor: even a beeline to that wouldn't have gotten there.
I did estimate that Scientific theory would have saved another turn or two at the end; but Atomic Theory not a factor as would have been after that point.
I was including the RAs already in progress in my estimate on what I'd reach. I did not include possibility of renewal; which ended up added another tech to my estimate.
 
Yeah, Free Thought is extra 17% for university - takes city science multiplier from 83% to 100%. Rationalism opener gets you another 15%, to 115%.

So, ignoring RAs (although one shouldn't ignore them), those two increase academy yield to an effective 17.2 beakers per turn (pre-Scientific Theory), shortening the academy payback period from about 60 turns to about 50 turns (even shorter if you hit Scientific Theory during those 50 turns -- ST will increase effective tile yield from 17.2 to 21.5 beakers -- if you hit ST, say, 30 turns in, it will shave another 5 turns off the payback time). And all that also ignores the longer term benefits, once you get a Lab (extra 50%), hit Atomic Theory, etc., which magnify the benefits of the early academy as you approach your late-game bulb-fest.

There was another thread last year that tried to build a model for this, and BWS tried to do something similar more recently, but the computations and variations (should you bulb Astronomy to get into Renaissance faster? should you bulb Scientific Theory? What effect does population growth have? How to account for RAs? etc.) are fiendishly complicated.
 
As a general rule of thumb, I will settle GS until I have Labs. The time between Public Schools and Labs is iffy depending on my current tech rate and goals for the game.

I generally do not use :c5faith: to purchase GS until I am ready for the end game bulb fest. By the time you can buy great people with :c5faith:, and can also start to stockpile :c5faith: as the automatic great Prophets stop consuming your :c5faith: in the Industrial Era.

I find that for a good Science Victory, I will plant early GS up until the Renaissance/early Industrial Era. I will get Research Labs and buy (or build if not enough :c5gold:) in key cities. If timed right, eight turns after I get my Labs should be about the same time that I get the Rationalism finisher to bulb 2 free techs (for which I pick Rocketry and Satellites). At this point I can buy 2-3 GS and 1 GE with :c5faith:. I will use the GS to bulb techs and the GE to rush Hubble. I will also start building Apollo in my highest :c5production: city. When Hubble finishes I use 2 more free GS to bulb techs. By the time Apollo finishes, I should be able to build all the SS components.

For a Diplomatic victory the game plan is pretty much the same, accept the tech path is different. I will bulb 8 turns after I get Labs in an effort to unlock the UN. I will also have filled out Patronage in the early part of the game to ally all the CS which is not as important for a Science Victory.

For Cultural Victory I will generally buy GA with :c5faith: and a successful Domination game seldom reaches the Industrial Era ;)
 
Yeah, Free Thought is extra 17% for university - takes city science multiplier from 83% to 100%. Rationalism opener gets you another 15%, to 115%.

So, ignoring RAs (although one shouldn't ignore them), those two increase academy yield to an effective 17.2 beakers per turn (pre-Scientific Theory), shortening the academy payback period from about 60 turns to about 50 turns (even shorter if you hit Scientific Theory during those 50 turns -- ST will increase effective tile yield from 17.2 to 21.5 beakers -- if you hit ST, say, 30 turns in, it will shave another 5 turns off the payback time). And all that also ignores the longer term benefits, once you get a Lab (extra 50%), hit Atomic Theory, etc., which magnify the benefits of the early academy as you approach your late-game bulb-fest.

My estimate on hitting ST was 40 to 45 turns (with academy chosen) so not quite as much saving. The corrected break even point (applying the portion you described that I had missed) is that it's only reaching the "game already effectively decided point" which would be reached quicker by bulbing. Turn number to actually launch the space ship or build the UN would be lower with an academy. (Going for fastest space launch instead of abandoning when game already won, Academy better at that point.)
It was also clear that if I had been able to build an Observatory in the capital; that an academy at that point would even pay for itself before that "game already effectively decided".
 
That's why I love this game so much. It's so complex with figuring things out. I just test out all kinds of stuff I see on here and don't really play seriously.
 
just a point for the OP. When buying GP with faith the GP points cost dose not go up like it does with Liberty Finisher at el.
I was needlessly defering faith purchase until the next GP appeared in my capital, till I read on here the error of my assumptions.
cheers
John
 
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