Best use of a great engineer?

[dr_s]

I said well rounded. To me that means giving the most useful stats. I do not see gold as useful. I think we've exhausted this dicussion quite well by now however.

I think gold is more useful in the early game than you think. Pre-currency, the only [1] way to produce gold (which is required to support cities and units) is by turning down the science slider. This is effectively a 1:1 conversion of raw beakers into gold. So that early settled GP is effectively producing 5 beakers per turn (plus the two hammers), because he's allowing you to run the science slider at 100% for longer.

Post-currency is a different story, of course, because there are a lot more ways to generate gold.

[1] Edit: I should have said the most common way, not the only way. Pre-currency you could run priests or if you have COL switch to caste system and run merchants or artists.

 

[Lansky]

Can't... get... away... from.... thread....

Early prophets can fuel expansion, however nowadays 99.9% of the time my first great person is a scientist for an academy in the capital. I'd rather fund expansion with luxuries or cottages than use one of the ever so valuable early/quick great people on a few gpt.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Can't... get... away... from.... thread....

LoL. Poor Lanksy. For what it's worth, I'd rather get a GE

 

[MadmanAtW]

I think gold is more useful in the early game than you think. Pre-currency, the only [1] way to produce gold (which is required to support cities and units) is by turning down the science slider.

Or by failing to build wonders. Or even overflow tricks, but less so now that that's patched.

 

[Virtual Alex]

Settling merchants is my favorite. Although once again it's probably the least useful way to use them. I just really like the +1

 

[Hsinchu]

Settling merchants is my favorite. Although once again it's probably the least useful way to use them. I just really like the +1

"Do you like - bread?" - Eddie Izzard

Merchant Settle is the R0x0r5 for a tundra commerce city. You can actually push enough pop to run your snowtrapped gold mines AND additional merchants to capitalize on your city's commerce improvements.

 

[johnny5000]

If you need 1200 hammers for the wonder and he'll contribute 900, don't spend him. If an AI completes the wonder, you'll kick yourself for centuries to come. Wait until you have almost 300 hammers and then spend the Great Engineer so that the wonder will be completed in the next turn.

I'm not above reloading when something like that happens!

(but I know a lot of people play no cheap reloads to save themselves from their own stupidity.)

 

[troytheface]

an early wonder can lead to great engineers that can't build any wonders later if you are being out teched and during this time the minor wonders tend to be a short build.

this brings about the join, golden age, build building

Bank is the superior in a new build city

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

this brings about the join, golden age, build building

Bank is the superior

??? Aren't the national wonders the same cost or maybe a little more than a bank?

Why not found a corp?

 

[troytheface]

fractal, emperor, standard, random

under the conditions that you are being out teched building a corporation or holding out for one
could be a long wait-

the time frame i am referring to is the quick tech to Banking (or getting it in trade) and then all the other techs are further off

a new city could build a national wonder but most are pop enhance kinda wonders so in a new city you would have to wait for a courthouse or a library to build the next (forbidden palace or university) whereas Bank- expensive - get it now.

again another option under this circumstance is golden age #2 or 3 with it

A prophet popping Divine Right afor others is worth 2.7 Engineers

Tempo over all

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

love the advice. Thnx Troy

 

[Virtual Alex]

I have been thinking about this thread (still) and I think it's pretty easy to figure out. Most of the grunt work has already been done. We just need to find a conversion for :beakers:. And agree on an assumption on how many turns "settling" should account for.

Then we need to pick an approximate time frame. Say, the late BCs.

Bulb machinery = x :Beakers:
Rush G-Lib = 600 :Hammers:
Settle = +3 :Hammers: + 3 :Beakers: x 300 turns

And then you can see which one is actually most effective as far as resource vs resource.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

It's not that simple since the effectiveness of each action can only be really judged on the merit it has in the current situation of any given game. I think all the advice given thus far is good advice given one situation or another.

 

[MadmanAtW]

Virtual Alex- for the case of the GLib, for example, that fails to take into account the additional beakers from the GLib scientists for the extra turns you get them for finishing it sooner, the extra GPP, and the hard to quantify bonus of guaranteeing that you are not beaten to the wonder. It's trickier than just counting hammers.

 

[Virtual Alex]

Yes of course I am one of the biggest advocates of the 2-free scientist bonus for the 20 turns you already have the GLib instead of building it. I am also disregarding all the hammer/beaker bonuses the settled GE will gain. As well as the trade value of the bulbed tech.

This is also all 100% map and situation dependent. So yeah, it's far from simple. however getting some hard numbers down just so we know what we are dealing with would be good.

I read in a thread sometime (years ago) some well-thought-out conversion rates of food to hammer to beaker to gold and if anyone know where that thread is it might help us break this subject down.

 

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

1. Rush a wonder of importance
2. Mining Inc.
3. Bulb a good tech.
4. Settle.

-Mining is a pretty powerful corp, so I'll usually save them if I anticipate a need for a late game bump in production.
-their tech bulbs are more likely to be military techs so to me they offer the best bang for your buck there
-they have the best settled stats to be sure, but their other uses and their relative availability means I usually don't settle them.