How to use Great People

MorteEterna

Prince
Joined
Nov 10, 2008
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Another thread that could be useful. Maybe there are other threads but I have decided to post a new one with all tips about great people (instead of single post or other things).

In my opinion, these can change the game but you shouldn't put all your resources on getting this. Maybe a 20-30% of your production should be put for culture/science to get free great people.

There are different great people, with several abilities:

Great Leader: This gives you the ability to upgrade all units to veteran, or to settle this in a city, giving veteran normally to new units, or elite in case you have barracks. I would suggest to upgrade all units if you are building many armies and you already have too many units to sell/rebuild. I would suggest to build many units with no barracks if you have this.

If you want to use the other ability, I would suggest to settle that in a good city, with production and food to grow. Having infiltration, march and blitz is really a huge bonus (many times you could get these). I would suggest to get guerrilla instead of medic, that is 80-90% times useless (in the modern era you should attack and conquer in one turn).

Great Artist: One of the best great people. Many times this can change really the game. One ability is to get +50% culture from a city, that I suggest to use never. This helps 1/100 times maybe in MP games and isn't useful to win a game. By my experience I know the best thing to do is to flip a city.

But, you don't have to see if you can flip a city, and suddenly pressing A. I suggest to wait with this if you are losing, and if the enemy is coming to your territory, let him conquering your cities. The first city he conquers, or when you are sure there are his units (look for the flag, the size normally), flip the city. What does happen? He loses all his units. You get the best unit of these, so you could defend against new attacks, or if that's a tank army for example, you can prepare new ones for a march into his territory.

If you are winning, you could use it to flip a enemy city with a good population (never flip one with 3-4 pop). Remember to wait with this great artist in your capital (Your starting capital I mean) or out of the city that appears. I do this because if they conquers or flip the city, it becomes suddenly a great artist settled in the city (as I remember) and not usable again (unless you use a spy).

Great Humanitarian: This gives you +50% food from a city or +1 population for every city. If you want to have few cities but really big, you can put this on the city, getting a huge population, or you should use this (as I use almost every time) to get +1 population in each city. If you are using chinese or romans for example, this really helps. If you are using zulu, russians or maybe french (+50% growth - +1 food from plains - more culture from cathedral) you can put that on the city.

Great Scientist: This could be maybe the best person of civilization if used as well. It could give you +50% science from a city or a istant technology. In my opinion you should every time use this to get a free technology, for example engeneering, university, combustion, industrialization, corporation, monarchy. Obviously you can use this for many other technologies, but these are the most usefull to get suddenly maybe (plus other technologies that now I don't say, but a free unit as tank is really usefull).

Great Industrial: This isn't the best person, and maybe this can't help you many times, but in case you need gold, you can put this in a gold city, getting +50% gold, or you could use this to get fast gold (50-100-200-400 depending on the era). I suggest to put this in a gold city, or to wait if possible the medieval/industrial era (very fast to reach).

Great Builder: This is in my opinion the best great person of this game, apart of few times (when for example you need a great artist). If you are losing, you can choose many wonders to rush suddenly. If possible you should rush East India Company, Leonardo Workshop, Samurai Castle, Manhattan Project, and many other wonders. I suggest to use this only to rush wonders (or buildings if REALLY needed, as university). The 1/2 price buildings isn't useful as getting an IBCM, +1 science/gold on water tiles, +1 attack, or free updates to every unit. Unluckly, you get great builders few times, so you should use these only to rush wonders (instead of wasting one of these for 1/2 price buildings)
 
I disagree with your usage of the Great Scientist. Instead of rushing Monarchy, which costs.. 120? science, you could settle the great Scientist. Over time, you'll be getting more then the 120 beakers that would've been going towards Monarchy.

Good guide, but you should be reading the other posts, and replying to them. We had a discussion not too long ago about Great People that you might want to check out.
 
I disagree with your usage of the Great Scientist. Instead of rushing Monarchy, which costs.. 120? science, you could settle the great Scientist. Over time, you'll be getting more then the 120 beakers that would've been going towards Monarchy.

Good guide, but you should be reading the other posts, and replying to them. We had a discussion not too long ago about Great People that you might want to check out.

The threads I have seen weren't really strategies, then I wanted to post this as other threads. However, rushing monarchy means:

-Winning the racy of monarchy (prevent the other to take the free great person)
-Getting a free great person
-Having a technology worth 120 hammers.

However, you can do this or not, usually I don't rush monarchy but other technologies as feudalism, or combustion
 
The threads I have seen weren't really strategies, then I wanted to post this as other threads. However, rushing monarchy means:

-Winning the racy of monarchy (prevent the other to take the free great person)
-Getting a free great person
-Having a technology worth 120 hammers.

However, you can do this or not, usually I don't rush monarchy but other technologies as feudalism, or combustion

theres times to rush and times to settle. if you are ahead of the pack, even by a measly turn, so that you're winning hte big tech races, you settle and start tgettig the techs faster. if theres a tech that you cn get a sweet advantage from now... you rush it. It's all situational.
 
theres times to rush and times to settle. if you are ahead of the pack, even by a measly turn, so that you're winning hte big tech races, you settle and start tgettig the techs faster. if theres a tech that you cn get a sweet advantage from now... you rush it. It's all situational.

Yes, I know, but most of the times, it's better to get the technology turns faster. Perhaps, getting industrialization 8 turns before (if you have a pretty good science you can see it just in the tech tree and rush it, with the pre-req. technologies). And I mean using it also if you are ahead, because getting 8 turns before a huge bonus like that is helpful
 
I only use great scientists for tech that costs a minimum of 6 turns to develop, and almost always techs that give you some kind of bonus.
My "normal" use of a great scientist is to develop either industralization or the corporation. With then cities, you get +50 gold/turn, which is often enogh to buy the military you need.
 
I save GP sometimes. My most typical combination is when I'm researching and I get to build the Manhattan Project. Then right there I save a Great Builder for that. Great Scientists are great for getting the upper hand on military IMO.
 
Late in tech games, I like to save a Great Scientist to use in getting Space Flight. That tech is quite a bit more expensive than the others, so it is a good investment. By then, my best science cities generally already have a great scientist.

One thing about using Great Artists/Thinkers to flip cities early in the game is that you need to be careful of where the city is. If it is too close to a capital it can be flipped back quickly. I like flips later in games. Often the cities you are offered are on islands.
 
In general my preference is to get TGL/NE finished as quickly as possible then head over to music, start a GA, switch civics, and use GSs to bulb Philo>Paper>most of Edu>Lib. I don't know of any other way to consistently start whipping Cuirs in the 600-800 AD range and attack with around 40 at 1000AD.

Map dependent and with the Mids settling all in place can be attractive too.

Manhattan Project.

Settling gives powerful production late game too.
 
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