(BNW) Great Person Use Question

Greetings all. Been lurking for years and just signed up recently. I had a question regarding Great People. If I have a Great Writer is it better to use them to produce a great work to put in a building for future tourism/culture or to write a treatise and get the culture amount needed to get me the next social policy?

Would this be situational?

Rifraf said:

Greetings all. Been lurking for years and just signed up recently. I had a question regarding Great People. If I have a Great Writer is it better to use them to produce a great work to put in a building for future tourism/culture or to write a treatise and get the culture amount needed to get me the next social policy?

Would this be situational?

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Yes.
If you are going for a cultural victory you generally want to convert the great writer into a great work unless you are very close to win already (in which case you might better benefit from an extra policy).

In case you don't care about a cultural victory then great works have a secondary importance. What you actually want is to improve your culture output in order to defend against a possible enemy culture invasion.

Now Great Writers will improve your culture whether you convert them into great works or you make them write a treatise, the difference is just that you get small bits of culture over time in the first case or a lot all at once in the second.

Whether it is more convenient the first or the second depends on how much turns are left before the end of the game. Early on Great Writers are better spent for creating great works, but around the middle game, that is about the time you are into the industrial era (if you don't care about a cultural victory), then make them write a treatise.

BTW this is also what people generally do with Great Scientists.

Killlbray pretty much nailed it. Regardless of whether I'm going to Culture victory or not, I usually convert early Great Writers into Great Works. The culture pop may seem nice at the time, but they'll usually be more useful as a Great Work. You still should be thinking about Tourism, regardless of victory condition.

Thanks for the info. Continuing on this, If I have a Great Writer or whatnot laying around with no building to put them in yet should I save them for that or just write the treatise to get the social policy? Do you fellow players save them up as a standard practice until such time you can use them?

Typically won't save a Great Writer in those circumstances just to get a Great Work of Writing later (when I have a building slot for the work), but will save for the next Golden Age -- +20% yield on the political treatise if you bulb after 8 turns into the Golden Age. I'll save even longer if Worlds Fair is looming (and I think I can win).

That kind of depends on your goals in the game. Like I said, regardless of victory condition, you want to build up some tourism and culture per turn. If you're trying for a theming bonus, definitely save him. If you've already got the theming bonuses, I usually pop him

I'd say to almost always go for the Great Work. They're pretty hard to come by, but you can get culture pretty generically. Even if you're not going for cultural victory, the steady culture output is great for any type of civilization, and the tourism might inadvertently give you influence over other civilizations if you monitor it well.

Here's my formal advice broken down by great person:

Great Artist: Always take the great work for CV. If non-CV take the golden age situational if you need it and are not in one currently in one (the points roll over, so don't worry about wasting it if you're close).

Great Writer: Almost always take the great work, and hold the guy back until its available regardless of victory type.

Great Musician: Always hold the guy back, and on CV, even consider holding him back if you have a slot available until you have a theming opportunity and enough musicians to trigger it, because most of the theming bonuses for music require works from the same era and same civilization.

The problem with holding back a Great Musician is that his concert tour yield never changes -- even if you boost your tourism substantially, the GM's concert tour is frozen at the level based on your tourism when he spawned. Yes, you can hold him back to get a later era theming bonus, but usually you don't want the theming bonus -- you don't even want him to spawn until you are ready to do concert tours. Best not to build the Musician's Guild, and to defer spawning GMs, until late game.

Browd said:

The problem with holding back a Great Musician is that his concert tour yield never changes -- even if you boost your tourism substantially, the GM's concert tour is frozen at the level based on your tourism when he spawned. Yes, you can hold him back to get a later era theming bonus, but usually you don't want the theming bonus -- you don't even want him to spawn until you are ready to do concert tours. Best not to build the Musician's Guild, and to defer spawning GMs, until late game.

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I usually don't even build the GM guild until late game if I'm going for CV for that exact reason.

Browd said:

Best not to build the Musician's Guild, and to defer spawning GMs, until late game.

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Situation dependent, if you have an ocean fresh water start (food cargo ships + garden) AND arts funding is adopted in the first council AND you go Aesthetics you actually can produce Musicians at a fast enough rate to get the theming bonuses for both Broadway and Sidney's naturally and still have 2500 faith for 2 Faith based tours + a natural one while hosting the Olympics at a higher level of tourism.

On the Great Writers, actually in late game I usually place them as works as well since I run out of important policies. It's only during hosting the Worlds Fair that I consider bulbing for a faster policy.

This is very helpful. Thanks everyone. I've been hanging on to GW's waiting to get a new building to house them.

Another question as I learn all the game mechanics (I usually just play for fun,) should I be building these same buildings in all my cities and putting GW's etc. in all those different cities or do you concentrate those buildings/people in one or two cities.

joncnunn said:

It's only during hosting the Worlds Fair that I consider bulbing for a faster policy.

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What are some examples of policies that would be particular important to unlock during hosting (or maybe just before?) the Worlds Fair?

beetle said:

What are some examples of policies that would be particular important to unlock during hosting (or maybe just before?) the Worlds Fair?

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Bulbing GW is just like GS, it's the last 8 turns of Culture so it's a major waste to bulb right before the fair starts and in fact it's best to wait until 8 turns after its started.

The policies available will depend upon weather it was the first or second proposal and if the world council started early or was delayed by one AI being far out of the way. (Timing of Worlds Fair tends to be best if this is the second proposal) If this is the second proposal then there's an chance that you've chosen an ideology and so can get a head start on top of the free adopters. Otherwise for that time period it's likely to be one of the later Rationalism ones for standard play.
If the World's Fair was chosen as the first proposal, there is very little chance that you'll be able to adopt an ideology before the world fair benefit goes away. However, you should have entered the Rean era by then and so can pick an early Rationalism one.

joncnunn said:

It's only during hosting the Worlds Fair that I consider bulbing for a faster policy.

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joncnunn said:

Bulbing GW is just like GS, it's the last 8 turns of Culture so it's a major waste to bulb right before the fair starts and in fact it's best to wait until 8 turns after its started.

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Thanks for that explanation JonNunn. In your earlier post, I thought you were saying that bulbing somehow helped you win the contest to host the Worlds Fair, or that getting a policy around that time was particularly important. What you were actually saying is that 8 turns after that contest concludes (presumably coming in 1st or 2nd), is an optimal time to bulb a GW. That makes sense.