What tiles to build great person improvements on?

When I want to settle a great person, I'm always a bit in a dilemma where to settle him.

To settle him on a 'rich' tile that supplies food/hammers/gold of itself or to settle him on a 'poor' tile to make that tile worthwhile.
I tend to do the latter as good tiles will have additional bonuses when improved with improvements and techs.

But I'm not completely sure if that's a good way to go about it.

The great person tile is often one that will be worked on *anyway* to get the extra research or whatever, so maybe it's a good idea to put it on a rich tile?

What are your thoughts on this?

A desert hill in range of Petra if you have a choice Otherwise, I'm with you and settle them on poor tiles. If fact, if I know I'm probably going culture I like having a few poor tiles. Otherwise settling GAs on rich tiles is just painful.

I try to settle them somewhere that has food but not next to a river. If you can get the food to counter the citzen working the improvement then it is like a free tile. I also try to put it somewhere that 2 cities can work it, if you need to you can focus the original city to something else for a few turns while it's closest neighbour can reap the rewards.

you want to do tiles you'd be working anyway. consider this: you could put a manufactory on a desert tile and it ends up as only +1 production vs working a mine. put it on a hill instead and it's +3.

given that, the best tiles are the tiles that gain the least from normal improvement, so the best possible are a sheep or nonriver wheat; vs pasture/farm you're only losing 1 and with fertilizer 2 food.

Would it be the best to plant a great person on a stratigic resource since they can connect them?

stepic said:

Would it be the best to plant a great person on a stratigic resource since they can connect them?

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No. Hammer improvements are the best, you don't want to replace them.

Horses are the exception, since pastures upgrade to 1f1h instead of 2h.

Of course if you run out of population, it's better to replace a strategic resource than work nothing.

Sure, if you have the chance put them on a strategic resource. But mostly it just saves time. They add nothing special over say, a mine, other than their normal bonuses. Settling the right GP on the right SR can be useful. Now, if they connected all resources (like with CivUp), that would be better - but that's one they decided not to include I guess

Do remember that GP improvements yield nothing without citizens working it.
So its better to settle it on good tiles, to make a super tile that will surely worked.
Sheep and wheat is the best!

If its GE I settle it on sheep or deer, deer probably being the best.

If its GS I try to go for 2f1g river tiles, as it makes the tile into a super well rounded tile that I feel like the free gold makes up for the food loss.

I dont settle any of the others, I never do cultural civ so GA's are just Golden age food.

Esperr said:

If its GS I try to go for 2f1g river tiles, as it makes the tile into a super well rounded tile that I feel like the free gold makes up for the food loss.

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That's -2 food at civil service, that probably is OK, if you're going wide, however if you're going tall settling on grassland with no access to river is probably better, no? Though, I suppose as long as you have enough river tiles for farms left it's better.

Xile said:

That's -2 food at civil service, that probably is OK, if you're going wide, however if you're going tall settling on grassland with no access to river is probably better, no? Though, I suppose as long as you have enough river tiles for farms left it's better.

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Meh, I figure if its on a river theres more tiles for feed, plus the over science bonus will make up for the one citien I lost on that tile.

On bonus resources to not interfere with potential strategic resources. I like wheat, for example, if available.

As others have alluded it depends quite a bit on how big the city is/will be. Bigger city = settle crappier tiles, Smaller city = settle a good tile.
Though usually you'd settle only in big cities I suppose so I think it typically depends on how early you settle. Size 5 or size 15? The bigger the city has already become the more you "can afford" to work a worse tile. For exmaple I would probably not typically settle on river grassland as the farm bonus from civil service there is good to have but if it's early and your city is relatively small and you have a decent amount of river tiles it could be quite good to have an extra +1g every turn.

I think the only hard ones to choose are the memorial, holy site, and academy. The manufactuary and customs house are easy -- just put them where you'd normally put a mine or trading post (non-jungle). The citadel, well that's from land grabbing and choke points and I'm assuming that not the great tile improvement you are thinking about.

The other three: I like bonus resources like sheep and wheat because it guarantees that an undiscovered strategic resource isn't under it in addition to giving more food and/or hammer than normal. If that's not an option (EX - you have Gods of the Open Sky, stable, and four sheep around), I settle a vanilla grassland tile because it doesn't have to be supported by a high food tile such as a farm or fishing boats. If there just so happens to be an undiscovered strategic resource under it, at least it's immediately available.

This probably goes without saying, but build academies next to the city that will have the national college and/or an observatory. Build customs houses next to your capital if you go for commerce. Build memorials around the city you will want the hermitage in later etc ..... As for the manufactuary's city, I always choose a very high production city for wonder building or military production. It can be tempting to put it near a low-production city and make it a mid-production city, but I find it's better to just purchase infrastructure buildings like watermills and workshops, and have them slow-build science/culture/money buildings.

I'm confused why people are so concerned about settling GP on undiscovered strategic resources. The GP improvements are supposed to grant you access to strategic resources, so it shouldn't really make a difference. In fact, settling GP's is the fastest way to connect strategic resources (tied with settling on the spot, though that might not always be possible if it's too close to the nearest city).

It's always worth to lay a gp improvement on a strategic resource

Usually I always choose to place GP improvements over strategic resources,unless I get "God of Open sky" Pantheon . When there's no strategic resource to connect,I place them in hill tiles in highly developed cities or in grassland/plains if I place them in a underdeveloped city . Also,I'm quite impressed that most people favor burning a Great Artist in Golden ages,rather than using settling a landmark with them .

Grassland tile. With no fresh water.

Since they have to be worked I often don't see much of an advantage in using them on tiles - if you have a 30+ city then you might have a worthless tile or 2 to use them on, but if you have a good tile then you'll probably want to use a worker to improve it.
Strategic resources are possible exceptions but it probably depends what your aims are and what you might lose. I suppose you can always use a worker to replace them later if you wanted?
Probably matters a lot if you're playing a long game as well but generally I doubt you would be any worse off if you burn through them for golden ages and their specials.

non-riverside grassland is ideal in many situations.

settling them on bad tiles is bad idea, it will make mediocre tile.