GP Farm Help

[Chazumi]

Tried this out today for the first time. City grew crazy fast. I put on automated GP production but the comp only assigned 1 GS in a city of 12 and still growing strong.

City was 8 flood plains fish and a sheep on a hill. It was my capitol. Made research suck, should I normally do it with a different city than capitol? Made for a slow start. Just need basic GP farm help plz.

 

[Cam_H]

On the City Governor

Unfortunately I'm not the one to provide you with a technical answer to how the City Governer works from a coding perspective or anything like that. Sorry .

I'm surprised however that it assigned only one specialist. If you're after Great Scientists, the 'Emphasise ' option tends to recommend loads of Specialist Scientists when under The Caste System; that is, usually enough food for slow growth, some decent tiles such as improved resources, and otherwise heaps of Specialist Scientists.

I personally don't use the City Governor much. Handy for situations like; setting tiles back to default after a Great Person's been popped, or when you go into a Golden Age and want to minimise/remove Specialists (pre-BtS), or 'Emphasise ' can be good when using the whip, and what-not.

On the Capital and Bureaucracy

If you're planning to use the powerful Bureaucracy civic, the capital is generally not an optimum choice for a Great Person Farm. You're wanting to leverage the and bonus that only partially occurs when running Farms and Specialists. The capital's usually fine for sourcing the majority of your first four or five 'grown' s - for instance you may have picked up an early-game WoW and got a Library and run with some Specialist Scientists to offset the food resources that come with capitals, but you'll probably be better served by Cottaging up your Capital. It will probably continue to pop the odd Great Person anyway, but as before, if you're looking at Bureaucracy, then it may be worthwile considering other -heavy alternative city sites.

I'm not sure what you're after re. "Just need basic GP farm help plz."

 

[The Bowman]

The last time I used the city governor to emphasise the science option, my science in that city took a terrible downfall!

Never again since do I bother hitting that feature.

And I think I am too scared to even try the emphasis 'GPP' button. God knows what it might do!

Maybe the STOP GROWTH thing can come in handy? Does anyone even use that feature?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Stop growth sucks the big one. It just throws away any excess food. I'd rather have angries and whip them.

 

[The Bowman]

Back in the days of CIII I used to leave the city gov on all the time. Maybe that makes people boggle right now. I admit it wasn't the best, it would put your cities in anarchy sometimes even though there wasn't a need to at all!

Who remembers that?

 

[Harbourboy]

I would forget the city governor. I have never used it.

Running an effective Great Person farm is not all that complicated (in theory, that is). You just need lots and lots of food, preferably concentrated into high yield resource tiles. With access to three food resources, plus some farmed flood plains and grasslands, you should be able to run at least 7 or 8 or more specialists under Caste System. Throw in National Epic, the Philosophical trait, Parthenon, and Pacifism - and you can be spewing out Great People left right and centre.

That's all great in theory, but of course, it is often not that easy in the actual game when you have so many other competing priorities, especially at higher levels, plus you don't often get handed the perfect geography to make it work.

 

[MrG]

The best GP farm, I've found is generally a captured capital as they tend to have a reasonable balance of food resources and a bit of production.

Of course this is absolutely no good to you if you are playing a peaceful game.

In those circumstances I'd go for lots of grassland on a river (for mainly farms and a few watermills for production of mainly grassland with a few hills for mines.

Have to say I'm usually far too busy getting my backside walloped by the AI to worry about GP farms until its far to late to make much difference.

 

[Meanness]

It was my capitol. Made research suck, should I normally do it with a different city than capitol?

Yes. Your capitol is crucial for early game research because of the extra commerce from the palace and bureaucracy. I always pick a different city to be my GP farm.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Capital is OK for a GP farm if you have the pyramids and a bunch of other wonders there too (esp. Great Library). You get the science from specialists running representation.