Advice about GP farm please

[Gumbolt]

The thing about late game is I have normally had 9-10+ great people and generally I am running out of things to do with them. Playing for spaceship feels like the game went wrong somewhere.

I thought most used sushi to abuse the food?

GT for drafting is only reason i would build the GT.

Of course if you play civ 4 because you just enjoy managing an empire then just go with the parks and GT plan for a great GP farm. One idea i liked is where you keep adding merchants to the city for +1 food each time. You can get the city to size 40+. I would add GT if it didn't dilute the GM pool

 

[TheWilltoAct]

There's no doubt that the GT is a very powerful tool, BUT do you really want to a) build theatres b) build the GT itself while you could pump out tons of other stuff c) will you really run into unhappiness with a city that most likely won't outpass size4 most of the time? Seriously, the only reason for me to build GT is drafting. Maybe i'll have Kremlin+Factories+Bio some day and will whip Tanks like crazy, then that actually might be something i'd think about, but other than that?

The fact that i kept mentioning marathon/huge is simple: on slower gamespeed whip anger stays longer and the faster you get the units, the better, which makes whipping even more powerful and chainwhipping very strong.

So, although



is right without question, the way that marathon/huge differs from normal/normal actually makes my question relevant - unless someone starts to put some facts on the table.

Your post invites more questions than answers, at least to me.

Theatres are an excellent build, cheap, best culture to hammer ratio, and most importantly improves the efficiency of the culture slider.

The Globe is moderately expensive, but not overly so. I would gladly build The Great Library without any production boosting resource, and Globe is slightly cheaper.

A size 4 city in your example would be whipped to death, personally I don't stack whip anger unless the situation is urgent.

Overall I'm guessing our playstyle differs, and I'm a Monarch player working towards Emperor. If that matters.

 

[Um the Muse]

I'm not 100% sure from facts, but I would guess that GT is actually slightly weaker on Mara than Normal speed because food resources make your food surplus "spike" useful faster. Maybe the equation changes by the time that you get Biology.

-Either way, drafting from the GT is really nice:
-Theaters are worth building even without considering the GT
-If you're going to build it anyway, you might as well use it before you get drafting.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

-Either way, drafting from the GT is really nice:
-Theaters are worth building even without considering the GT
-If you're going to build it anyway, you might as well use it before you get drafting.

I'm on board with all of this.

That said, I think it's an interesting question to ask whether it makes sense to build the Globe in a game where you aren't going to be drafting?

In other words, is there a game plan where it makes sense to

1. Research Drama
2. Sink 600 hammers into the Globe
3. Turn off research before Nationalism

 

[civac]

For what it's worth: I have played a game where we had 21 from whip anger (no drafting at all) in our capital. Won that game, too. Whipping the Globe there may have been worth it.

 

[z0wb13]

the "best" GP farm depends on where you are in the game. the best endgame GP farm probably has the national epic and the national park, plus a couple of food resources and every other tile a green forest. and, you have to run caste system and environmentalism. i've tried this on a 1 city challenge and it works great.

however, the problem with this idealized great person farm is that you can't build it until the modern era. so what is the point? it only really worked because i was playing a really weird map with special rules.

great people are going to make a bigger impact on the early game. by the time you set up the globe theater, it's too late to really bulb entire techs for brokerage. instead of delaying the benefits of a pretty good city for the possibly better future city, i think it's better to just pick your highest food city (usually either your capitol or a captured one), plop your national epic there, then build farms and grow and hope you have enough infrastructure or caste system to run 5 or more specialists. don't whip, don't do anything but run specialists.

if you do happen to need 6 theaters for whatever reason, then i will put the globe in my next highest food city (3 bonuses, or more if it's a capitol). and then whip, or whatever. tbh, i almost never build it.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Here is a very limited example, which will hopefully encourage more discussion. I'm playing a game now where theaters are playing an early roll in managing happiness issues. Some special conditions apply, which prompted me down this path:

I have discovered only two civilizations after 1000 AD or so.
No one researched Hereditary Rule (myself included).
Research is powered by specialists, so I can afford to use the culture slider.

Besides that happiness resources are fairly scarce, and I've been coping with some modest war weariness. Since I have so many theatres, and a city with 2 pigs and corn, I thought Globe could be a logical step.

 

[Seraiel]

There's no doubt that the GT is a very powerful tool, BUT do you really want to a) build theatres b) build the GT itself while you could pump out tons of other stuff c) will you really run into unhappiness with a city that most likely won't outpass size4 most of the time? Seriously, the only reason for me to build GT is drafting. Maybe i'll have Kremlin+Factories+Bio some day and will whip Tanks like crazy, then that actually might be something i'd think about, but other than that?

The fact that i kept mentioning marathon/huge is simple: on slower gamespeed whip anger stays longer and the faster you get the units, the better, which makes whipping even more powerful and chainwhipping very strong.

So, although

is right without question, the way that marathon/huge differs from normal/normal actually makes my question relevant - unless someone starts to put some facts on the table.

Most points have already been adressed from from others.

I think you're informed wrong on Marathon though. A whip is 30 Hammers on normal, but only 90 on Marathon, so whipping is actually not more effective than on normal. Whip anger also doesn't stay longer, it stays exactly 3 times as long as on normal so it's just scaling with gamespeed 1:1 . It's not even that chainwhipping is stronger on Marathon, it's stronger on normal because the lifespan of a unit is shorter, therefor, it's better to get out as many units as possible during a short time on normal than on Marathon.

The argumentation for the Globe is very simple:

• You'll always have some culture pressure in border-cities with friendly neighbours you do not want to / can conquer in near time. Those cities need theaters for .
• You conquer other cities, those have the "we yearn to join our motherland" , those cities also need theaters.
• Globe Theater isn't that expensive, it's only twice as expensive as Oracle, and it comes a lot later when production already is way higher, therefor, it's no big deal to build it.
• One almost never has to research Drama onesself as AI techs it really well. Anyhow, even if one would have too, it's a cheap tech that can be awesome tradegood and speeds up Music which is a desirable tech because of the free GA.

The Globe is just an awesomly powerful national Wonder, just like the HE, or the NE, don't you build those too? It's a little bit more expensive, but not much, and not keeping the argumentation above in mind.

Btw.: In none of my games I've ever had to raise the slider, don't know if this again will be referred to you as "Huge / Marathon PoV" but I always found it a very poor option. Even with Slider, my BPT / GPT are normally lower than without. I do not even ever had any problems with War Wariness, I'm guessing that you're simply loosing too many units. To generalized unhappiness in all cities from War Wariness, the Slider might be a solution, but not to specialized military buildup out of 2 cities (HE + GT) .

Sera

 

[ahcos]

Theatres are indeed good buildings, but only if you need them. And the only time i usually really need theatres is when i'm drafting.... so it comes down to GT->drafting again for me.
Btw, the difference between Great Lib and GT is that Great Lib actually does something for you, while GT won't do anything useful unless you're drafting - at least as far as i'm concerned. And even if it might be useful to build Great Lib without marble, there at least is a chance for +100% hammers on that building, a luxury you won't have for GT.

The greatest problem for me is that you can't do anything else with the city that builds the GT for a loooong time. It just takes too long to build and also takes a long time to pay back.

Edit because of crosspost:

You'll always have some culture pressure in border-cities with friendly neighbours you do not want to / can conquer in near time. Those cities need theaters for

Hm, rarely if ever happens to me. The only reason for me to build theatres is when i need borderpops and have angry citizens to whip in newly conquered cities, and when i draft ofc. But okay, i can see your point, although i fail to see the argument for GT in it.

You conquer other cities, those have the "we yearn to join our motherland" , those cities also need theaters.

They need to be whipped down, they certainly don't need theatres. And even if they do, just whip them.

Globe Theater isn't that expensive, it's only twice as expensive as Oracle, and it comes a lot later when production already is way higher, therefor, it's no big deal to build it.

But it comes at a time when you've plenty of good stuff to build beside a happyness building for happyness you actually don't need (unless drafting). Courthouses, AP buildings, Forges, Baracks/Stables to prepare your outbrake, Libraries and Universities to prepare Oxford, wonders for failgold, some soon-to-be-obsolete units for upgrading, or even wealth/research.

If i find myself in a position where i want GT, i usually build it in a city that has pretty much nothing else but alot of food. This also means: little hammers. So, it takes even longer ~ And if i whip the GT, i lose alot of precious population that could've been used for thousands of things.

tl;dr: it's not too expensive, but it just comes at a very bad time

One almost never has to research Drama onesself as AI techs it really well. Anyhow, even if one would have too, it's a cheap tech that can be awesome tradegood and speeds up Music which is a desirable tech because of the free GA.

Can't find an argument for GT here. Apply that argument to Aesthetics and you'll always find yourself Statue of Zeus because Aesthetics has great trade value (??!).

The Globe is just an awesomly powerful national Wonder, just like the HE, or the NE, don't you build those too? It's a little bit more expensive, but not much, and not keeping the argumentation above in mind.

Comparing GT to HE and NE really is way out of line. HE+NE are easily the two most powerful NWs there are, GT doesn't even come close to it - i'd set it on par with Moia statues at best, although i build Moia alot more than GT.

Long story short: GT only when you plan to draft. I'd really love to be convinced otherwise, but haven't read any rock solid argument for GT+Whip-only so far.

Even with Slider, my BPT / GPT are normally lower than without. I do not even ever had any problems with War Wariness, I'm guessing that you're simply loosing too many units.

It's the production that matters. If your HE suffers from +4 unhappiness and can't produce 1 unit per turn, you're certainly better off raising the slider. When your satelite cities won't grow anymore because they're unhappy, you're losing even more production. With a Bureaucracy capital, you might not lose commerce, but you'll lose tons and tons of production. That's what the slider is for from my pov.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I think you're informed wrong on Marathon though. A whip is 30 Hammers on normal, but only 90 on Marathon, so whipping is actually not more effective than on normal. Whip anger also doesn't stay longer, it stays exactly 3 times as long as on normal so it's just scaling with gamespeed 1:1 .

Unless I'm gravely mistaken, you are overlooking the "premature whip penalty". Normal speed you must use two turns per whip to get reasonable efficiency - you can't take advantage of extra food to whip faster. On Marathon, times and food get 3x multipliers, but the penalty does not - so if you have enough extra food to grow on turn 5, you get an advantage in time.

It's not even that chainwhipping is stronger on Marathon, it's stronger on normal because the lifespan of a unit is shorter, therefor, it's better to get out as many units as possible during a short time on normal than on Marathon.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Given that Marathon increases the relative value of units, which I think is unchallenged? and that whipping increases unit production, I find it really hard to believe that whipping units is stronger on normal speed.

Perhaps I don't understand the distinction you are making when say "chainwhipping".

 

[Seraiel]

@ VoU: On normal speed, you whip less in normal times and more once you have a tech-advantage. That's when the "chain-whipping" (whipping every 2 turns) occurs, because one needs the units asap because the advantage will soon be gone (normal speed) . On Marathon, one has a longer timespan until the advantage is gone, therefor, one doesn't have to "chain-whip" as much. That's why the GT is even more powerful on Normal speed than on Marathon.

@ ahcos: The GT on the lvl of Moai Statues?

I wish Zero would speak up here. You're underestimating the GT by far! (Moai is decent if it's in the HE-City, but GT is OP if one has a city with 2+ strong sources of Food. ) I'm not even willing to say it's a matter of playstyle, though that might be the closest consens. I'm just gonna say, if you'd know what I already have done with the GT, you'd not be writing such things, in Replay #3 over 50% of the army with which I conquered the World came out of the GT city, 30% came from the HE City and 20% from various other cities including IW city.

 

[vranasm]

interesting how thread about GP farming quickly derailed into discussion about globe theatre and marathon issues

As for GP farm... your aim should be to get ~4 great scientists up to 500 AD, 1 for burea cap academy, 1 for philo bulb, 2 for edu bulb

what is above is just above and usually leads to sparing them for golden ages, trying to get mixture for corps. Trade missions for some good upgrades etc.

So all this "let's look at some awesome national park great person farm around 1700 AD" is something I in most of my games even don't see since I try to end games before 1550

So from my perspective you should concentrate how to get 4 great scientists before T130. There is couple of techniques that could help you in this.

Building great library and pairing it with NE is one of those.
Running Caste+Pac after getting Philo with 2nd GS and starting golden age with Music's great artist is another good technique.

The diminishing return of bulbs fades after Edu very quickly.

As for globe theatre... If you're creative and/or have access to dyes it surely is interesting to build theatres everywhere.

Theatres are very good warmonger tool too btw, gets often overlooked. The question if to selftech Drama or not is very interesting one and depends a lot on the map you're playing and resources you can get.

Important notion here is that Drama opens music too and doesn't need polytheism. So the cost of Literature x Drama is hard to evaluate without a concrete map to look at.

And of course it's completely possible that for the reasons of difficulty you won't tech Aesthetics at all.

 

[ahcos]

@Seraiel: I'm sure that you're convinced of the GT, all i'm saying that i am not. I also had games where i conquered the world with alot drafted Rifles or so, but again: i drafted. I did not build the GT for whipping.
Regarding AZ, just in his recent video he built the GT in his HE city, and from my pov the GT was a pure waste. 10, 12 turns for GT where he could've pumped more highly promoted units? While the city might have had 1-2 angry faces? And even if it had been more, -> slider 10% -> war over quicker -> next war over quicker. It's not like the GT contributed to his victory, by the time he built it the game was more or less already won.

I'm open minded to be proven wrong, but i just can't see it right now...

 

[Htadus]

In other words, is there a game plan where it makes sense to

1. Research Drama
2. Sink 600 hammers into the Globe
3. Turn off research before Nationalism

Yes. There is type of game where you do not need to go farther than Nationalism. It is the hardest type of game to play particularly with 1 or more mongers in the game. Culture. The difference is that it is Nationalism that players typically get for free from Liberalism.

The diference is that with The Mids based Rep powered Artist still keep the science moving alone in rather rapid rate.

The early globe city with NE will give plenty of of GA's to complete the game sooner. I have experimented putting the GLib in that city with mixed results.

I am about to test that idea again except I am going to add MoM, SoZ and Parth into that city along with the GLib. May be this way the number of GS that show up will reduce.

 

[ahcos]

Erm, stopping with a culture VC in mind before Nationalism? ... ... hint: hermitage ... ... Taj Mahal ... ...

 

[Htadus]

Erm, stopping with a culture VC in mind before Nationalism? ... ... hint: hermitage ... ... Taj Mahal ... ...

If only you read what is written and undersood.

You can turn off science just before Nationalism when completing Liberalism and getting it for free.

It is very common practice. So nothing new here.

 

[rah]

As for GP farm... your aim should be to get ~4 great scientists up to 500 AD, 1 for burea cap academy, 1 for philo bulb, 2 for edu bulb

I've seen the 2 for edu bulb in a lot of places. Since the first one usually covers over 2/3 of the turns needed why use the 2nd to just reduce it a few more turns when you could save it and use the full beakers on a different tech. (keep in mind I'm usually playing mp with tt off)

 

[vranasm]

I've seen the 2 for edu bulb in a lot of places. Since the first one usually covers over 2/3 of the turns needed why use the 2nd to just reduce it a few more turns when you could save it and use the full beakers on a different tech. (keep in mind I'm usually playing mp with tt off)

it actually is pretty good question ;-) and as usual the correct answer is 'it depends'... can you afford to run couple of turns to finish edu (strong research base, enough gold, AI's far away, close to Lib etc)?

On highest difficulties it's over 50% but I wouldn't say it's 2/3 of the cost. The beakers provided by GS is "static" (base value is if I remember righ 1500 beakers + something for population), but the cost of Edu goes up with each difficulty.

Then there is the question of "how quick I get out OU if I am establishing empire for it"... OU is ton of beakers if you're set up and snowball is strong in Civ.

Other thing is that the only good thing that is somewhat worth the usage of GS in bulb is Printing Press, then you basically want to use your great persons for golden ages.

I had games where I used both methods....generally it is not worth waiting with Edu after you pop 2nd GS, but finish it normally, but if I already have 2 great scientists (if I by some miracle do better then usually) then I surely would double bulb.

Edu opens Lib (obviously), but what is more important you're still on the way towards MT+gunpowder and 5 turns difference can mean having or not having first vassal with Cuirs.

 

[rah]

Thx, that's about what I expected. (I like the PP bulb option usually)
I have double bulbed it before but I REALLY hate wasting beakers, so unless there's a pressing reason, I don't.