What is the best use for my Great ppl?

[DarkSchneider]

I have a game now where I am getting Great People on a resonably regular basis, and I was wondering, what do you think the best use for them is. In general, do you use them as super specialists, to research technology, build wonders? Write down what you think the best use is for each. Personally, I think that Great Engineers should be used to rush projects, but right now, I am torn between that and getting an early edge with gunpowder...

[Sailsa]

I think that all the options for great people are useful and it just depends on what you are trying to do. I normally use the prophets to build shrines in my holy cities, scientists to build academies, and engineers to rush projects. However, in one game I had all my great people join 1 city and that city was amazing. It gave me plenty of science and money and could pump out anything I wanted very quickly. If you want a cultural victory then make lots of great artists and engineers to build wonders and produce great works. Three cities of 50,000 culture is not easy but is definitely doable. Especially when you are producing 500+ culture a turn in each of those three cities. If you want a military or spaceship victory then getting a tech advantage can be key and 10+ free techs over the game is a significant advantage.

[LostKing]

The Great Artist are really amazing as superspecialist. Do a great work only in desperation.

The first Great Scientist should make an academy, while the subsequent should join that city (which should also be full of apropriate buildings/wonders)

The prophets are intersting. Of course, make a shrine if you can. The specialist is also good, but sometimes, I just use them for tech so I can consentrate my research elsewhere.

So far I've been doing the trade route with merchants, it's really good for going through and upgradeing all your defeders. Not sure if it wouldn't be better to superspecialize them tho.

I haven't had a engineer- but in general I think I would use them to help along a city that has high commerce/food, but little production.

I really like the superspecialist.

[Pentium]

Scientists should always build The Academy. Ask any GOM or Idiot.

I've been wondering about this issue too, and like anything in Civ, the answer is "Depends". I guess I should try a higher level to see what's really the best in what cases, but I'm sure it always depends on the situation.

[Tidus4444]

I always go for Academies with my Great Scientists. I try to get academies in all of my core.
I do a shrine for my religious if I'm intent on spreading the religion, otherwise have it do specialists.
Use Great Artists for Culture Bombs sometimes, but most of the time just merge em. They'll produce more culture in the long run, plus the gold they generate, as opposed to the immidiate great work.
I haven't gotten many Great Engineers yet.
Merchants I usually merge as well, as their output over time will exceed the one-time use of atrade mission.

Keep in mind though, you can only have up to 6 "free" specialists in a city at one time (that includes the two scientists from certain wonders). I've actually hit this limit a couple times in my OCC games.

[jar2574]

I thought that the culture bomb provided more culture than the Great Artist Super Specialist could ever reach, unless you got the Great Artist very early. In a standard game, I thought the Super Specialist was worth 12 culture per turn. The culture bomb is worth 4000. So you need 300+ turns to equal the culture bomb. And having the culture bomb is better than a gradual build up.

Am I missing something?

[pilight]

Originally Posted by jar2574

I thought that the culture bomb provided more culture than the Great Artist Super Specialist could ever reach, unless you got the Great Artist very early. In a standard game, I thought the Super Specialist was worth 12 culture per turn. The culture bomb is worth 4000. So you need 300+ turns to equal the culture bomb. And having the culture bomb is better than a gradual build up.

Am I missing something?

There are several buildings and civics that can modify the per turn culture output.

[Shillen]

You're missing the fact that they add science as well as culture. And also the fact that certain buildings multiply culture while the pacifism civic multiplies it by 100%. In one of my games that I got a culture victory I was adding a great artist to a city and getting more than 50 more culture per turn from it. That means only 80 turns to get over 4000 worth of culture.

[SwedishChef]

I thought the Great Scientist was supposed to allow for a free tech. But late in the game (in my last game) they only seemed to offer about 1500 beakers TOWARD a particular tech.

Early in the game, the long term value of a super-specialist is probably much greater than a free tech, unless you really need that tech. Late in the game, I'd tech the tech - but if I'm only getting about 1500 beakers.... If I can put him in a city that doubles his output (and more than doubles should probably be possible with an academy built earlier) then it doesn't take an extremely long time to get those 1500 beakers...

I had a "culture bomb" experience I thought I'd mention. I had destroyed the Inca NE of my friends the Americans. Far from Rome. The American cities were actually quite distant from my new Incan cities - I can't recall the exact distance but I believe there were one or two complete rows of tiles between my city radius and theirs. But Washington and NY had pumped out so much culture that half my city radius was consumed, even at that distance, by American culture. I used a Great Artist to create a great work there and it did virtually nothing to the culture border! (In terms of overall culture, mine was about twice as strong as the American empire.) I was shocked. Of course the city's border expanded in all the other directions, but I think I only got one tile back from America.

I don't know the details of how they calculate this stuff, but that seemed a bit extreme to me. It implies you can NEVER effectively capture a city near another empire's core because you won't be able to work "your own" tiles. Your new city can never match their entire game's worth of core culture - and having your empire's culture be much stronger than theirs doesn't seem to help.

Not being able to rush a spaceship part with a Great Engineer was very annoying.

[Zhahz]

Originally Posted by SwedishChef

I thought the Great Scientist was supposed to allow for a free tech. But late in the game (in my last game) they only seemed to offer about 1500 beakers TOWARD a particular tech.

In my experience no GP will give you an entire tech in mid/late game, and since the GP scientist can build a cool building too I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same for them (how it works for me too). For later wonders great engineers won't always fully rush them either - just dump a bunch of production.

It's gonna vary but I'll have each GP that can create a building do so (prophet, scientist). I save engineers til I have a big wonder to rush (I've lost out on pentagon a few times and that's one I'd want). Extra prophets I'll usually make into super specialists in my main wonder/GP producing city for extra production and gold (usually my capital). Great artists I'll usually save for war since the cultural fallout of taking cities is brutal. I've got nice gold from sending great merchants out - gold is always nice. I rarely rush research.

[HounddogLGS]

Here's my priorities:

1. Academy
2. Shrine
3. Free technology
4. Specialist

[jar2574]

Originally Posted by pilight

There are several buildings and civics that can modify the per turn culture output.

Ahhh yes, good point. I'm an idiot.

[gorilladf]

I did a culture bomb, and was very happy with it! It pretty much combined my cultural areas together. This was early in the game. Then I used two for a golden age, and the tech discoveries flowed like water.

[m15a]

no one goes for golden ages? i haven't figured out the exact bonus of a golden age yet, so maybe they're a clear loser?

[m15a]

no one goes for golden ages? i haven't figured out the exact bonus of a golden age yet, so maybe they're a clear loser?

[Dr. Broom]

All golden ages do is add a production on each tile that produces one and the same for commerce, not worth it in my opinion.

[DarkSchneider]

I used a Great Engineer to rush my Taj Mahal to induce a golden age, but in my opinion, using two great people to induce a Golden Age in the regular fashion is simply not worth it. Think of what those two people could accomplish individually, a golden age is basically just doubling you productivity for eight turns, I think I'd rather have 2 free technologies the vast majority of the time.

[Willburn]

Anyone know if you get a free great artist if you use a great artist to get the technology music first ? (This normally gives a free artist if you get it first.)

[Aeson]

GA's boost production and commerce output. For larger empires, and/or at critical moments in the game (ie. just got that great Military tech and want to pump out as many units as possible ASAP, or are involved in several Wonder races at once and aren't getting any Engineers) they are very useful. Even the 5 GP one can be worthwhile. Not to mention getting all 5 GAs is just plain cool.

[khumak]

I could see Golden Ages being worthwhile if you have a lot of cities but if you're using a smaller core of cities you're better off using them individually IMO.