obsolete
Deity
The Great-Engineer Farm in BC Era (and other gene-pool matters)
Of all the great persons to pop in the early starts, the GEs are the most sought after by the general public. This is for good reason, as settling or rushing, they give you very high power boostings. For example, an extra 3 beakers and 3 hammers each turn (base) is huge, but so is being able to rush a 400 hammer build like the Pyramids (in the BC era!).
Sadly, Firaxis seems to have tried to prevent farming of these engineers (for good reason). In fact, the Great Wall has also been modified to produce spy points instead of GE in the BtS expansion.
And behind this, it seems prophets are also hard to come by in the early phases. It is no coincidence that caste prevents the use of engineers and priests. Hammer producing specialists, really are held as one of the most overpowering elements in the early phases.
That said, let me reaffirm that it is still possible to get an Engineer farm up in the early stages (with a few tricks). What I want to do is go over some numbers for the most optimum farm, and then you can draw your own conclusions from this.
First, I could be cheap and simply just say, Build the hanging gardens or pyramids manually and nothing else, then you are guaranteed to pop a GE each time.
Well, yes that is technically true, however it will take quite a log time to pop out each GE, not to mention it takes a lot of hammers to be going this route consistently. What I want to do instead, is go back to the Oracle à MetalCasting slingshot system. It is more interesting because of the huge gains it can deliver, even though there is some more risk to it. By looking at this set-up, we can also look at some math numbers that apply elsewhere.
It should be noted that there isnt much talk of this strategy anymore, and perhaps one reason is that it becomes hard for may players to pull off on Immortal, but you will still occasionally see it pulled off even on deity.
So, lets assume today we roll out our random fractal map and start a deity game of our own. We have Ghandi today because he starts with mysticism (one tech less needed for priesthood), and he starts with mining allowing us to research iron-working right out of the gate. Furthermore, he is philosophical, giving us double the great person accumulation points.
We get our fast worker out, and perhaps a second one and before you know it we are pre-chopping some trees, and then chopping the oracle itself. Dont forget to research pottery though, else we wont be able to select MetalCasting as a tech!
When the time comes, we chose our Metal-Casting, and now we must QUICKLY chop some more trees as we want to get our forge up, (120) hammers ASAP. Now, you DID pre-chop some already, didnt you? That done, immediately open the engineer slot and notice we now have two separate forces fighting the great person pool. The oracle is contributing priest points, while the engineer wants another engineer. But notice, the engineer contributes 3 points, while the oracle only 2. Assuming, you chopped the forge fast enough, the engineer wont be too far behind in the race. Now keep in mind, your philosophical trait is making the race twice as fast!
Now yes, you cant guarantee you will always get an engineer this way, due to the priest pollution. However! You can statistically make yourself as an engineer favourite, and this being done in the BC era. Also, you should pop a few great people, and hence a few engineers even if you do get a priest now and then.
But lets look at what else we can do.
We research masonry, and our first engineer that pops we use to insta-rush the Pyramids. Now, we dont just do this because its a shiny building and all. Note, that this wonder also adds +2 engineer points to the pool. Not only does this dilute priest pollution, but it also helps speed up the rate at which yet another person will pop.
And then, we pop again. What do you do? Well if you had mathematics you can chop/pop-rush an aqueduct, and then BOOM, use the engineer to rush the Hanging Gardens. Again, this dilutes priest pollution even more, and speeds up the rate of the next engineer.
This set-up will give you one of the best bangs for the buck. And now, lets look at our engineer farm on a mathematical level, as there is a lot of inconsistent arguments floating around the forum. Lets solve this once and for all. In particular, there are those who think that only great person points count to the pool, and NOT the sources. It seems as though there have been changes throughout the versions and now no one knows for sure what is what. So lets look at a true to life example here.
Priest Points:
2 from Oracle
Engineer Points:
3 from Engineer
2 from Pyramids
2 from Hanging Gardens
Points wise, this is a 2-to-7 ratio.
Converting to a percent, we get:
22.2 bar versus 77.7 bar
However, after taking a shot from a real life game this scenario showed the actual values as:
23% versus 77%
Hmm, its close, but there seems to be a small discrepancy. Its as though the game was rounding the priests upward, and the engineers downward.
However, lets assume that in fact, the number of sources also counts toward the probability algorithm. So in addition, we will add:
Priest Points:
+ 1 from Oracle
Engineer Points
+1 from Engineer
+1 from Pyramids
+1 from Hanging Gardens
In total, the ratio is now 3-to-10.
Converting to a percent, gives us:
23.1% versus 76.9%
Rounding to integers, we see that this matches exactly to the real world example. So, the ruling is in: POINT SOURCES COUNT!
Just keep in mind, that the extra points for SOURCES do not contribute to the gene pool (well yes, and no). You can verify this by counting up the points from the wonders and the specialists, and then observing how fast the gene-pool is filling up. The only thing the additional SOURCE points contribute to is the chances of a particular great person to pop. In a nut-shell, they only help to influence the random number generator, but NOT the speed of the gene pool bar.
Anyhow, I hope this has cleared up some misconceptions for once and for all. And maybe Ive shown some light on some tactics that still work on deity. But if you already knew it all, then perhaps we can play a game then sometime, haha!
Screenshot notes:
If your wondering, this was taken from a Deity team-game with Japan as my partner. And if youre wondering what is with all the settlers in the capital, its is simply because of this: for the test I didnt want to risk (even for a single turn) that the game would auto assign a scientist specialist in one of my slots. So I just made it continually work on settlers. Ive highlighted the numbers on the gene-pool, so you all can verify for yourself.
Also, I spent quite a few number of turns after the HG was built to make sure that the current bar was filled without any bias. No change in the pool or point sources were done since before the last spill-over.
Of all the great persons to pop in the early starts, the GEs are the most sought after by the general public. This is for good reason, as settling or rushing, they give you very high power boostings. For example, an extra 3 beakers and 3 hammers each turn (base) is huge, but so is being able to rush a 400 hammer build like the Pyramids (in the BC era!).
Sadly, Firaxis seems to have tried to prevent farming of these engineers (for good reason). In fact, the Great Wall has also been modified to produce spy points instead of GE in the BtS expansion.
And behind this, it seems prophets are also hard to come by in the early phases. It is no coincidence that caste prevents the use of engineers and priests. Hammer producing specialists, really are held as one of the most overpowering elements in the early phases.
That said, let me reaffirm that it is still possible to get an Engineer farm up in the early stages (with a few tricks). What I want to do is go over some numbers for the most optimum farm, and then you can draw your own conclusions from this.
First, I could be cheap and simply just say, Build the hanging gardens or pyramids manually and nothing else, then you are guaranteed to pop a GE each time.
Well, yes that is technically true, however it will take quite a log time to pop out each GE, not to mention it takes a lot of hammers to be going this route consistently. What I want to do instead, is go back to the Oracle à MetalCasting slingshot system. It is more interesting because of the huge gains it can deliver, even though there is some more risk to it. By looking at this set-up, we can also look at some math numbers that apply elsewhere.
It should be noted that there isnt much talk of this strategy anymore, and perhaps one reason is that it becomes hard for may players to pull off on Immortal, but you will still occasionally see it pulled off even on deity.
So, lets assume today we roll out our random fractal map and start a deity game of our own. We have Ghandi today because he starts with mysticism (one tech less needed for priesthood), and he starts with mining allowing us to research iron-working right out of the gate. Furthermore, he is philosophical, giving us double the great person accumulation points.
We get our fast worker out, and perhaps a second one and before you know it we are pre-chopping some trees, and then chopping the oracle itself. Dont forget to research pottery though, else we wont be able to select MetalCasting as a tech!
When the time comes, we chose our Metal-Casting, and now we must QUICKLY chop some more trees as we want to get our forge up, (120) hammers ASAP. Now, you DID pre-chop some already, didnt you? That done, immediately open the engineer slot and notice we now have two separate forces fighting the great person pool. The oracle is contributing priest points, while the engineer wants another engineer. But notice, the engineer contributes 3 points, while the oracle only 2. Assuming, you chopped the forge fast enough, the engineer wont be too far behind in the race. Now keep in mind, your philosophical trait is making the race twice as fast!
Now yes, you cant guarantee you will always get an engineer this way, due to the priest pollution. However! You can statistically make yourself as an engineer favourite, and this being done in the BC era. Also, you should pop a few great people, and hence a few engineers even if you do get a priest now and then.
But lets look at what else we can do.
We research masonry, and our first engineer that pops we use to insta-rush the Pyramids. Now, we dont just do this because its a shiny building and all. Note, that this wonder also adds +2 engineer points to the pool. Not only does this dilute priest pollution, but it also helps speed up the rate at which yet another person will pop.
And then, we pop again. What do you do? Well if you had mathematics you can chop/pop-rush an aqueduct, and then BOOM, use the engineer to rush the Hanging Gardens. Again, this dilutes priest pollution even more, and speeds up the rate of the next engineer.
This set-up will give you one of the best bangs for the buck. And now, lets look at our engineer farm on a mathematical level, as there is a lot of inconsistent arguments floating around the forum. Lets solve this once and for all. In particular, there are those who think that only great person points count to the pool, and NOT the sources. It seems as though there have been changes throughout the versions and now no one knows for sure what is what. So lets look at a true to life example here.
Priest Points:
2 from Oracle
Engineer Points:
3 from Engineer
2 from Pyramids
2 from Hanging Gardens
Points wise, this is a 2-to-7 ratio.
Converting to a percent, we get:
22.2 bar versus 77.7 bar
However, after taking a shot from a real life game this scenario showed the actual values as:
23% versus 77%
Hmm, its close, but there seems to be a small discrepancy. Its as though the game was rounding the priests upward, and the engineers downward.
However, lets assume that in fact, the number of sources also counts toward the probability algorithm. So in addition, we will add:
Priest Points:
+ 1 from Oracle
Engineer Points
+1 from Engineer
+1 from Pyramids
+1 from Hanging Gardens
In total, the ratio is now 3-to-10.
Converting to a percent, gives us:
23.1% versus 76.9%
Rounding to integers, we see that this matches exactly to the real world example. So, the ruling is in: POINT SOURCES COUNT!
Just keep in mind, that the extra points for SOURCES do not contribute to the gene pool (well yes, and no). You can verify this by counting up the points from the wonders and the specialists, and then observing how fast the gene-pool is filling up. The only thing the additional SOURCE points contribute to is the chances of a particular great person to pop. In a nut-shell, they only help to influence the random number generator, but NOT the speed of the gene pool bar.
Anyhow, I hope this has cleared up some misconceptions for once and for all. And maybe Ive shown some light on some tactics that still work on deity. But if you already knew it all, then perhaps we can play a game then sometime, haha!
Screenshot notes:
If your wondering, this was taken from a Deity team-game with Japan as my partner. And if youre wondering what is with all the settlers in the capital, its is simply because of this: for the test I didnt want to risk (even for a single turn) that the game would auto assign a scientist specialist in one of my slots. So I just made it continually work on settlers. Ive highlighted the numbers on the gene-pool, so you all can verify for yourself.
Also, I spent quite a few number of turns after the HG was built to make sure that the current bar was filled without any bias. No change in the pool or point sources were done since before the last spill-over.
arseGreatPeopleHelp. That code is rounding the probabilities of each GP down to the nearest integer, then making the numbers look right by fudging the probability of the first GP type to get a total probability of 100%.
. You're burning your first 2 GP's (assuming you do get 2 engineers, which is actually less likely than 1 each) on wonders. Granted, they're good wonders (especially the pyramids, although you're not settling those GP's yet and if you run a lot of specialists elsewhere they'll overtake your engineer farm quickly), but they won't coincide with a lot of strategies.
