GP Farm

[rafisher]

I'm still learning about specializing cities, so I've been reading with interest various threads on this topic. I'm puzzled by the Great Person farm. Exactly what does this do? and how does building lots of farms achieve this? Thanks.

 

[jar2574]

I'm still learning about specializing cities, so I've been reading with interest various threads on this topic. I'm puzzled by the Great Person farm. Exactly what does this do? and how does building lots of farms achieve this? Thanks.

A great person farm uses specialists to produce great people.

The way to specialize in producing great people is to maximize food production so that you can run more specialists. So a good GP farm is surrounded by at least 2 good food resources (cows, wheat, etc...)

A great person farm attains greatest flexibility under the caste system civic, which allows you to put as many scientists, merchants, and artists in a city as you want (with starvation being the only limit).

Without caste system a GP farm will need to build temples or shrines for priests, libraries for scientists, markets for merchants, theatres for artists, and forges for engineers. Then the GP farm can use those specialists to create the great people. (Obviously you don't need to build a type of building unless you are seeking that type of great person.)

 

[rafisher]

OK, so I just tried a game where I would create a GP farm: I farmed every possible tile in this one city, except for 2 hills and 2 ivory tiles. But I didn't see how this would create a lot of GP. In the course of the game, only 3 GP's were born. Is there something else I'm supposed to be doing?

Thanks.

 

[Sisiutil]

OK, so I just tried a game where I would create a GP farm: I farmed every possible tile in this one city, except for 2 hills and 2 ivory tiles. But I didn't see how this would create a lot of GP. In the course of the game, only 3 GP's were born. Is there something else I'm supposed to be doing?

Thanks.

Farming isn't enough--you farm so as to have surplus food so you can allocate specialists. Each specialist contributes Great Person points towards the total. Food in and of itself does nothing; specialists consume food but do not work tiles, so they don't contribute any. Hence the need for the food surplus.

You should also try to at least build the National Epic national wonder in the GP Farm, as it increases GP point production in that city by 100%. If you can build additional wonders there that also contribute GP points, so much the better.

Other options for Great People:

• If you manage to build the Parthenon, it increases GP point production in EVERY city by 50%.
• If you play as a leader with the Philosophical trait, that will increase GP point production throughout your civ by 100% for the entire game.
• Adopting the Pacifism civic will also do a 100% GP point increase everywhere.
• If you can get to certain techs before anyone else (Physics, Music, Economics, Fusion), you automatically earn a Great Person, regardless of the GP points you've accumulated.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

You also, of course, need to be able to run specialists, which means either using the caste system civic, or installing in this city the buildings which enable the types of great persons you want.

Here's an example of the mechanics...

So here's a picture of the city screen in the city that I've been using to farm specialists. You can see from the popup that at this time I get one specialist for "free" (I'm running the Mercantilism civic). Next to the specialists are the +/- buttons for adding and removing them. You can see that there is no button next to the artist - I don't have any buildings here that allow me to specialize artists. You can also tell, because there is no + next to the Engineer, that I'm only allowed one engineer in this city (I have a forge, but no factory or Ironworks).

I decide that I want to run another specialist....

Same city, but notice that the ocean tile south of the quarry is no longer being worked, and I have an extra citizen over on the right. What I did was click on the ocean tile, to remove the pop point that was working that tile.

Of course, I don't want a citizen (they don't do very much, and he doesn't generate any GPP points). I want to run a priest. So I click on the + button next to the priest....

Hey presto, I'm now running a priest specialist. You can see (on the yellow bar) that this increased the rate at which this city collects GP points. The priest no longer has a + next to him, so again it seems I'm only allowed to run one (there is exactly one temple built in this city).

The city governor is smart enough to optimize the city for great people....

I added the red border to make it clear which button on the governor we're talking about here. But if you turn that on, the city governor will automatically change assignments when the city grows to maximize the number of GP points that can be generated without starving the city and so on. It won't make the same choices a human being would (all it has is a scoring algorithm, where the human player works from a strategic objective), so when you have a better feel for how the whole business works you'll likely want to manage this sort of thing yourself (the governors are somewhat notorious for running the "wrong" type of GP).

 

[DarkOpus]

That's helped me out a lot as well, thanks VoiceofUnreason!

 

[DarkFyre99]

For my Great-Person farm, I prefer to emphasize food (by clicking the icon in the govenor box) and then forcing the specialists (by clicking the "+" icon with the governor on) I want. It saves a step by bypassing the generic citizen step, and when my city is growing, it insures that as a new citizen is available, he'll be working a food tile unless I reassign him.

The GP farm from my current game (not an ideal spot... but my best spot I used for my science city... and for a little culture war)

 

[Toshiro126]

Quite a city there, DarkFyre! Awesome!!

A question though, not sure if anyone knows the answer to this:

You have 3 engineers selected, but no priests in the specialist boxes. However, in the probabilities list, the chances of getting an engineer are 4%, and the priest is 19%??? Shouldn't the engineer probs be higher than the priest? or do you have great wonders or something that change the stats?

Thanks to anyone with insight on this.....

 

[Beamup]

You may have been running priests in the past, or have wonders that are contributing Prophet GPP. It keeps track of what sources you've been running for every turn since the last GP popped from that city - so the current setup isn't all that's considered.

 

[PoweredBySoy]

Not to hijack, but I have a question.

I've just started using this concept of the GP Farm. And so far, it works great. But while having a GP Farm, is it even necessary to try and make Great People in other cities? Since after every GP created, the cost to discover the next one increases. It seems to me that since the GP Farm is cranking them out so fast, the cost of discovering the next GP is too high for any other city to maintain.

Every once in a while a GP might pop from another city, but for the most part the 2 or 3 specialists I have just aren't enough. Not when I'm running ~10 at my Farm.

Does this make any sense?

 

[futurehermit]

there is a good thread, which i don't have a link to unfortunately, that goes through in amazing detail the answer to your question^^^ and the answer is that it is not a good idea to try and run gp in multiple cities.

 

[ChicagoCubs]

In an ideal game would you have a GP farm for each type of great person, or do you just have one farm and micro manage the type that you want?

 

[Beamup]

As a practical matter, the fact that there's only one National Epic means that you can only have one good GPF. So you're more or less forced into having one and microing to get the GP you want. It's possible to have multiple specialized farms, but generally impractical.

 

[Nestorius]

Ideally you want your healthiest fastest growing city with high food resources to be completely farmed and windmilled, not cottaged and have the National Epic, Globe Theater, and a ton of wonders (for GP points), so you can have a huge amount of specialists. You just need one city like this; more than one is redundant.

Of course, how many games are you going to find such a prime spot that isn't your capital or has already been cottaged and is a science city by the time you find it would make a good GP city?

 

[Toshiro126]

Originally Posted by Beamup
It keeps track of what sources you've been running for every turn since the last GP popped from that city

Ah, good to know! Thanks, Beamup.

 

[PoweredBySoy]

As a practical matter, the fact that there's only one National Epic means that you can only have one good GPF. So you're more or less forced into having one and microing to get the GP you want. It's possible to have multiple specialized farms, but generally impractical.

Okay. That makes sense with what I'm seeing in my current game then. I guess Mercantilism isn't as useful as I thought - as far as GP are concerned. Sure, it gives me a Specialist for GP points... but it's not likely that the city will every produce one. Not with my Farm raising the costs so high.

 

[davelisowski]

Of course, how many games are you going to find such a prime spot that isn't your capital or has already been cottaged and is a science city by the time you find it would make a good GP city?

Other civ's capitals... war works wonders.

As for GP Farming, I personally prefer to limit the type of GP generated in each city. So I'll typically have two GP farms, one to crank out engineers and scientists, and the other to crank out artists. The other ones generated are just bonuses. I'll usually get about 15GPs in a game (marathon). I stick with Merchantilism forever, until I can get a huge boost in $ from free market (~1800s). Pacifism is a must for GPs, even at war.

I hope this makes sense.

 

[jayron32]

Okay. That makes sense with what I'm seeing in my current game then. I guess Mercantilism isn't as useful as I thought - as far as GP are concerned. Sure, it gives me a Specialist for GP points... but it's not likely that the city will every produce one. Not with my Farm raising the costs so high.

Yes, but it is STILL producing a free specialist IN THE GP FARM, which is all you want. Still, you may want other financial civics to drive your strategy in other ways. However, the higher civics on this track (like environmentalism) don't seem to provide much benefit vis-a-vis this free specialist. Couple this with the Statue of Liberty, and you can get 2 free specialists. Quite good actually.

Of course, how many games are you going to find such a prime spot that isn't your capital or has already been cottaged and is a science city by the time you find it would make a good GP city?

Of course, that's the key to ALL of these strategy articles. A perfect GP City has the following characteristics:

All floodplains save for and 2 hills with a metal resource (iron, copper, coal, etc.) and multiple food resources (cow, wheat, rice, etc.) on green grasslands. Mine the hills, farm everything else. Oh, and every square has a forest on it, to chop the early wonders. Once the mines get up and running, you can use it get the later wonders. Plus, save all your cash to rush wonders where you gan.

But you NEVER get this city. In half of your games, you might not even see a city CLOSE to this. Sometimes, you play a game WITHOUT a GP farm, because one is just not feasible. The trick is RECOGNIZING a potential GP farm and MAXIMIZING its potential once you know you have one.

Oh, and since each GP increases in cost, having more than 1 GP farm is counterproductive. And since this city isn't doing much for your production or commerce, you want to use other cities for those purposes. Any city site that is good for a GP farm is EQUALLY as good as a commerce center (just cottage everything you would otherwise farm, except the food resources) so just turn any other potential GP farms into cash centers.

 

[DaveMcW]

Any city site that is good for a GP farm is EQUALLY as good as a commerce center (just cottage everything you would otherwise farm, except the food resources) so just turn any other potential GP farms into cash centers.

Not really. In a GP farm you want 4 food bonuses. In a commerce center you want 16 cottages. It's possible to have a site that fits one but not the other.

 

[Beamup]

Consider, for example, if you had a site that was mostly tundra and water, but had 3 seafood tiles, rice, and wheat. It could be a decent enough fishing-village commerce center (not as good as a cottage center), but would make an outstanding GPF.