Does AI really settle their great specialists?

[Kamen Rider]

For some reason, I can't seem to find anyone to kidnap. Do you they just sacrifice them for advanced tech or something?

 

[DaveGold]

If you keep your eyes open you can see the great merchants moving across borders for trade. When you capture enemy cities you can see the great people that have been settled there.

 

[Emptiness]

I think the AI favors the alternate uses of Great People (Academies, Trade Missions, rushing techs, et c.) over settling them, but the AI does sometimes settle Great People. If you plan to try to kidnap them, watch for announcements about GP births and make a note of where they appear. If the AI does settle a GP it will probably be in the city that birthed it.

If you happen to have access to Shadows, then you can move one into a city and then inspect it to see what's there.

 

[SurahAhriman]

I think the AI favors the alternate uses of Great People (Academies, Trade Missions, rushing techs, et c.) over settling them, but the AI does sometimes settle Great People. If you plan to try to kidnap them, watch for announcements about GP births and make a note of where they appear. If the AI does settle a GP it will probably be in the city that birthed it.

If you happen to have access to Shadows, then you can move one into a city and then inspect it to see what's there.

You'd be able to tell from the Kidnap icon lighting up.

The AI does occasionally settle, but usually when it can't do something else. Keep an eye out in the early game for mentions of engineers and priests being born. Neither of those normally get generated by the AI at all early, so it means one of the events. And in that early part of the game, the AI has nothing else to do with them but settle. So make a note, and grab an OB as soon as you can to go looking for what city they're in. Artists are more often used for culture bombs, but the AI will occasionally settle them.

 

[UncleJJ]

In my recent game with Keelyn, I have Loki travelling around and he's seen two cities with settled GPs. The Luchurip have 2 GEs settled in their capital with an engineer specialist from the Gifts spell. And Jonas Endain has a Prophet settled.

In other games I have occassionally captured cities with settled GPs but they don't seem as common as in BtS where I frequently capture 10 or more or more in a game when I go for domination.