Great writers

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mbuna120

Chieftain
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Sep 13, 2006
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I am playing a game with the new civ...female leader and can build a tower thing on a cs to gain its resources (Portugal?) and I have a surplus of 5 great writers. I've also generated a few artists and a musician and several prophets and other great people. I'm playing on a continents map on empower difficulty everything random. I had to eat pacal because he refused to stop pushing his religious beliefs on me even when I asked politely... I appear to be first in score (barely) as Poland (my best trade buddy) is close on my tail. Askia is still on my continent but he's alive by my sufferance only and I might just provoke him into war and take his lands because I enjoy owning my own island.

Anyway my question is...why do I have such an ungodly amt of great people. I'm not sure I understand how the new stuff works yet but I'm trying to figure it out. I'm swimming in great people (particularly writers) and can't build any more works. Is there something else I can do with them? Expending them for a paltry amt of culture seems bad to me...
 
With regards to your surplus of Great Writers - the AI governor for your cities REALLY likes to fill up the specialist slots on things like the Writer's Guild on Default Focus. You may want to check that and move the specialists somewhere more useful if you either don't care about GWs, or already (like in your case) have more than enough.

I think that is about all you can do though - they're certainly worth saving though until later eras and used to fill great work slots later as you get them, even if only using them for culture purposes if you're not going for an actual Culture victory (if you are going for a Culture victory, having a bunch of Great whatevers hanging about is really nice, since one of the more common theming bonuses is "Same-Era/Same-Civ", so once you get a wonder or building with that theming bonus, you can just pop a bunch of them all at once to fill the slots and immediately get the theming bonus as well).
 
SDEngineer said:
With regards to your surplus of Great Writers - the AI governor for your cities REALLY likes to fill up the specialist slots on things like the Writer's Guild on Default Focus. You may want to check that and move the specialists somewhere more useful if you either don't care about GWs, or already (like in your case) have more than enough.

I think that is about all you can do though - they're certainly worth saving though until later eras and used to fill great work slots later as you get them, even if only using them for culture purposes if you're not going for an actual Culture victory (if you are going for a Culture victory, having a bunch of Great whatevers hanging about is really nice, since one of the more common theming bonuses is "Same-Era/Same-Civ", so once you get a wonder or building with that theming bonus, you can just pop a bunch of them all at once to fill the slots and immediately get the theming bonus as well).
Click to expand...

Oh...I haven't looked at how they were allocated by the default...guess ill do that when I get home. As for theming...I haven't looked at that yet at all. I don't really understand what it does even after reading the readme stuff that's stickies on this site.
I will save them if they do become useful later then...though I have a comical array of them sleeping on hillsides.

Also a side note...having my capital and holy city converted to a different religion...how do I rid myself of another civs religion if he had already converted all my cities?
 
mbuna120 said:
Also a side note...having my capital and holy city converted to a different religion...how do I rid myself of another civs religion if he had already converted all my cities?
Click to expand...

Get yourself a prophet and convert your cities back. Preophets you pop are always your religion. (Captured ones are not)
 
Well crap... I've settled two prophets since then assuming they'd be his religion... In gk no civ ever converted my capital unless I was religion free myself so it wasn't an issue
 
mbuna120 said:
I am playing a game with the new civ...female leader and can build a tower thing on a cs to gain its resources (Portugal?) and I have a surplus of 5 great writers. I've also generated a few artists and a musician and several prophets and other great people. I'm playing on a continents map on empower difficulty everything random. I had to eat pacal because he refused to stop pushing his religious beliefs on me even when I asked politely... I appear to be first in score (barely) as Poland (my best trade buddy) is close on my tail. Askia is still on my continent but he's alive by my sufferance only and I might just provoke him into war and take his lands because I enjoy owning my own island.

Anyway my question is...why do I have such an ungodly amt of great people. I'm not sure I understand how the new stuff works yet but I'm trying to figure it out. I'm swimming in great people (particularly writers) and can't build any more works. Is there something else I can do with them? Expending them for a paltry amt of culture seems bad to me...
Click to expand...

There's no such thing as a surplus of Great Writers - they are the best of all the Artist types for using the secondary ability, which gives a massive culture boost. This is a straight addition to your culture counter, so counts towards new policies and CS quests. Popping them can race you through the policy trees early. Also, because of ampitheaters you'll usually have more writing slots than anything else. The National Epic - which it just so happens increases GP production so will usually be in your GW city - has a writing slot as well.

Yes, you get many more GPs because each of the three new types uses its own counter - so the GP cost only rises for that specific GP, not the others.
 
Hmm...I remember checking one and it said I'd gain somewhere around 247 culture...iirc. Now that was early on...perhaps my second one, but does that value increase depending on age?
 
mbuna120 said:
Hmm...I remember checking one and it said I'd gain somewhere around 247 culture...iirc. Now that was early on...perhaps my second one, but does that value increase depending on age?
Click to expand...

I believe, just like GSs, they give you an average of 8 turns of Culture production for your Civ. If they're like the Great Musician, this will be the 8 turns' of Culture production for the 8 turns prior to their popping.
 
mbuna120 said:
Hmm...I remember checking one and it said I'd gain somewhere around 247 culture...iirc. Now that was early on...perhaps my second one, but does that value increase depending on age?
Click to expand...

Yeah, that ability is awesome and creates a few nice new strategies. Not only does it protect against Tourism, it also allows you to speed through a policy tree, for example fast Rationalism.

I've only played the demo so far but everytime I used it, it was close to the amount of a full social policy.
 
That's crazy...here I am surrounded by powerful writers and they're just wasting away on hillsides... I guess I could be doing much better than I am but... First try with the new stuff so no worries. Thank you all for the replies!
 
Has anyone observed whether Writer output from their bulb is tied to base culture production or total culture production? I'm just wondering if waiting until a Golden Age is well underway would provide a higher yield. Seems like culture focus in all cities for X turns of a Golden Age would be a prime time to burn 2-3 off the guys to burn down a chunk of a policy tree.

- Marty Lund
 
mlund said:
Has anyone observed whether Writer output from their bulb is tied to base culture production or total culture production? I'm just wondering if waiting until a Golden Age is well underway would provide a higher yield. Seems like culture focus in all cities for X turns of a Golden Age would be a prime time to burn 2-3 off the guys to burn down a chunk of a policy tree.

- Marty Lund
Click to expand...

Bulb yields are tied to the culture output (whether base or total) the turn they are spawned. Hoarding them until a Golden Age won't do anything.
 
This does imply, though, that if you can manipulate their spawn time (e.g., by purchasing them with Faith or manipulating the Specialists in the guilds), you can effect this.
 
Hm, interesting. That means hording Great Scientists later in the game is useless. Use them immediate when they spawn if you are going to bulb, eh? They just go stale relative to the growth of your civilization's output, then.

Hm ... spawn-timing is definitely important then.

- Marty Lund
 
mlund said:
Hm, interesting. That means hording Great Scientists later in the game is useless. Use them immediate when they spawn if you are going to bulb, eh? They just go stale relative to the growth of your civilization's output, then.

Hm ... spawn-timing is definitely important then.

- Marty Lund
Click to expand...

I doubt this is true. In G+K, it was the average of science output of the last 8 turns.

I don't know if GWs use the same system though. I hope they do because it's a rather good system.
 
RealHuhn said:
I doubt this is true. In G+K, it was the average of science output of the last 8 turns.

I don't know if GWs use the same system though. I hope they do because it's a rather good system.
Click to expand...


You are right. The guy who spouted that they are fixed at point of spawn was completely wrong. I did a test on Quick with Pacal and my Great Writer bulb value went up each time my Culture Per Turn increased and rolled into the 8 turn total. You can horde Great Writers from the start of the game until the end game if you can afford the upkeep. They keep up with the times.

- Marty Lund
 
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