For A.I, Player or both?

[pinhead0079]

i was reading on civilization wiki about great people and it says quote

"Different empires follow different paths of development, and have different use of Great People: a scientifically-developed nation needs more Great Scientists; a commercial empire - more Great Merchants."

so i have the question does this apply to A.I only, my civ i'm playing as or to both of us? if i'm playing as a more science victory oriented civ like idk Poland or Babylon will my civ be influenced to go for scientist automatically or is it up to me to dictate the GP's completely. i have a feeling this might be a stupid question so be gentle.

 

[Barghaest]

The AI doesn't really emphasize a particular GP. If you set the governor to work on GP he will fill as many available slots for specialists as possible. If you spy on AI cities you will see there's no theme or purpose to the GP generation in them. They don't pair wonders for same GP, they'll work any specialist in the town (sometimes haphazardly working a few turns then switching to food/production leaving the GP bar stagnant) and they tend to use their GP foolishly.

GP is another area where AI suffers horribly vs a human opponent.

 

[Arachnofiend]

The quote is advice on strategy-bad advice, at that. Your Great Person generation is dictated entirely by which specialists you allocate (Scientists for Universities/Public Schools/Research Labs, Merchants for Markets/Banks/Stock Exchanges, and Engineers for Workshops/Windmills/Factories) and the great person points attached to different wonders.

You should be trying to generate almost all scientists regardless of your victory condition with maybe one or two engineers in there. Merchants only if you're Venice.

 

[pinhead0079]

ok cool thanks that question has been kinda bugging me in the back of my mind lately, too bad about the A.I not being to good with GP's though...

 

[joncnunn]

I believe the quote by OP is describing the AI flavors.

Best play by far is indeed fill all science slots and unless you are playing Venice you don't ever want a Merchant due to it increasing the cost of the next Scientist.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

In the perfect game, you'd end up with more specific great person through the game. So yes, you are more likely to benefit from each great pesron depending on which victory you are heading towards.

 

[EK834]

Merchants only if you're Venice.

And that only if you play a Venice game in which you can afford to fall behind or at least not take a good lead.

In most CV (and of course SV) games as Venice you also want as many GS as possible. Very tall Puppets will provide MoVs along the way whether you want or not anyway. Many Venice players prefer not to go beyond 2-3 purchased puppets and grow them very tall instead.