general question about GP

[MarrySue]

Hello all,,,, i started playing civ iv for like 2 months now and everytime i play i learn new things .... still i have problems with millitary stuff and what unit should fight what unit and so on.....

my question is about Great peo-ple in general ... how do u use ur GP ? research? or use them in the city?

and what about the gp farm city everyone is talkin about ?
how do u make one ? and whats the main use of it? building wonders?units ?
would i get more hammers or more reasearch or what out of it ?


thanks

 

[DarkFyre99]

What you do with a Great Person is really dependant upon the circumstances.

Generally, I settle them early in the game, use them to lightbulb or their special abilities mid-game, and to lightbulb, initiate Golden Ages, or found Corporations (BTS) late game.

But there are far too many exceptions to that general rule. With BTS's lower-cost Golden Ages, saving a Great Person for an emergency GA, or to use their special abilities at a more advantageous time, is also attractive. And at the higher levels of play, light-bulbing is far more attractive. Learning how to use Great People effectively is a key to getting better at the game.

As for what a "Great Person Farm" is, it is a one city in your empire designed to generate a lot of Great People Points. You take a city with a lot of food, build National Epic and a lot of specialist supporting buildings, and run as many specialists as your food and health and happiness capacity allow.

 

[JimT]

I'll answer your questions in reverse order and please remember my advice is for Warlords/Vanilla (I don't have bts). in brief I use GS for academies/lightbulbs, GM for trade missions, GA for great works and the rare GE for building important wonders. I don't use GP as I capture shrine's, I don't build them.

GP (Great Person) farm (I imagine this works on bts) needs a lot of food to support specialists so your looking at food resources farms and flood plains (you won't need cottages here). You want some hammers for wonders such as Great Library (if after Great scientists) and the national epic (doubles the effectiveness).

To employ specialists you either need caste system or the required buildings for the type you want (e.g. libraraies give scientists, temples give priests). The specialists give some benefits (e.g. 3 science beakers) backed up with extra from certain civics plus the most important bit, +3GPP. The GPP points accumulate over turns to eventually give you a Great Person random chosen depending on your specialist and wonder types.

After each Great Person is created the required GPP goes up so it is best to limit to just one GP farm due to diminishing returns (and only one national epic).

Different GPs are better used at different things in different situations although as a general rule:

Great Merchants are best used for effective trade missions. Once your on the correct continent (far away and large cities helps) press the go to button while holding shift then mouse over to see the amount of coins you can get. This money is then best used for funding 100% research or upgrading units

Great Scientists can build academies (pretty useful in 1-3 cities) or at high levels lightbulbing techs for trade. At low levels you may find academies and settling their best use.

Great Prophets can be settled lightbulbing techs (particularily to found a religion) or best of all shrines which give an amount of gold each turn dependent on the number of cities with the religion (so spread it).

Great Engineers can build wonders in 1 turn, lightbulb essential techs or be settled (which works well in an industrial powerhouse with the ironworks). These are the hardest to get in the early-mid game.

Great Artists are a neccessity for cultural victories otherwise they can be best used as a great work (pre bts) which immediately stops that ten turns of anarchy in the city you just captured.

 

[madscientist]

Here is some advice. I am assuming you have CIV vanilla and not the 2 expansion packs.

Great people can be used for many things and strategies. How they ar eused depends on certains trategy one is playing in a game. Example, if you are playing for a mega capital as far as production and research, settle GPs in that city. If you running alot of specialists (SE for specialist economy) alot of people use the GP to lightbulb techs. If you are running alot of cottages (CE for cottage economy) alot of peoplke use the GP for their sepcific tasks, GE to build a wonder, GS for an academy, GM for a trade mission and cash, etc..

Now here is advice I would give for someone new to the game. Us each GP for their specific purpose with some exceptions noted.

Build an academy with a GS in the cities with the best research. Exceptions, lightbulb Philosphy (especially if noone has founded Taoism) and lightbulb most of education. Tehse will give you an advantage to be the first to liberalism and a free technology.

USe a Prophets to build a shrine int he holy city. Exceptions, lighbulb theology if not founded already. Settle if there are no shrines available or you have theology already.

Great Merchants use for the trade route. Exception, lightbulbing metal casting IF noone else has it and you have alot of costal cities. Teh reason is you can bulb the colossus wonder which is cheap and will help the economy alot.

Great Artists. Use them only for culture bombs in cities either under culture pressure from an AI or near a city you want to claim from an AI.

Just some advice on learning this.. As time goes by you can better efficiently use them in certain situations.

 

[alvan]

Here is a nice tip I discovered in my latest game. If you get an artist somewhere around drama/music. The artist will allow you to discover drama, but you dont want that, its a cheap tech. Instead try to get drama asap (when its relativly cheap) and then pop ur artist for Music. Music will give a Great Artist to the first discoverer and you should be that unless you tech horribly bad.

Plus Music gives you the sistine chapell, which is killer, and you have plenty of time to build it on ur own.

My latest game I built pyramids in city1, oracle and pantheon in city2. Now, city2 will give a GP first (prophet or artist, both nice). If you get prophet, build the special building for , take up Caste System and farm Artists in city2. If you get Artist, save him for before mention scenario and build temples and various +GS(priest) buildings and farm prophet in city2!

I always save Engineers for those close-call rush-wonders.

Im still learning, but learing fast!

 

[Arnesson]

I'm with JimT. I seldom, if ever, use my GP's for Golden Ages.
Building up a Science city with the Great Library, Heroic Epic, and eventually Oxford University, plus the Academy and 3 or 4 added GS allows you to drop the slider and still be competitive for Research (and keep your economy sound). They also can be popped for technology boosts. Philosophy and Paper are the best examples of this, since they can provide excellent trade techs and also give you a leg up towards Liberalism.
GE's can be used to pop key Wonders (E Tower, S of Liberty, Hoover Dam) or beef up the hammers in a production city that is churning out troops.
GA's are useful to pop Wonders too, but I normally use them to "culture bomb" a city on the borders of my neighbour or after taking a city from an AI.
Great Merchants are much the same as GA's. Useful to grab the Forge early, or Economics in the mid-game for example. If you are hurting for cash, they can provide a significant boost to your economy.
Great Prophets build their special temples, which is sound economically if you have founded a religion and spread it around. Beyond that, 3 or more of them added can turn an average city into a powerhouse.

What I have found is that, in many cases, their long-term benefit usually outweighs the short-term gain of a Golden Age.

 

[IDave]

I'm still a bit of a novice, but i find that golden ages are much more powerful in BTS. Build the Mausolleum and your golden age lasts 12 turns instead of 8!

And then u fit building the Taj into that and u have a 24 turn golden age. and a few games ago i got a random event where i had to build 9 colloseums and the prize for doing it was a golden age (needed statue of Zeus for that option), then i started a golden and finished the Taj during it for a golden age that lasted for 36 turns.

By the end of that i has miles ahead in techs but it was only on noble so thats not that big an achievement.