Great Engineer

[Mezz]

Looking to figure out the best path to maximize my great engineer output. I know Masonry-Pyramids will help to generate one but after that im not sure the direction to take. Most of the wonders I see help with Priests, Scientist and Artist. Any suggestions on which Techs/wonders to build to help produce the most great engineers in a city?

 

[Sian]

Early Metal Casting and a Forge goes a long way.

 

[Nares]

Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, Hagia Sofia and running a engineer specialist via a forge are the only early sources of GEP I know of.

 

[Agramon]

The Oracle-MC-Gambit gives two nice and early GEs. Usually one is used to rush the Pyramids ;-)

 

[Mezz]

Sorry, im awful with these accronyms... MC? whats the Gambit? and im assuming GE=great engineer.

How does a forge help produce great people? I thought it was 25% hammer and -1 heath. amoung some happy for resources

 

[Windsor]

MC = Metal Casting. Forges also give a engineer slot in addition to the hammer bonus, +1 and +1 from gold,gems and silver.

If you (with a philosophical leader) take Metal Casting from the oracle and then chop out a forge in another city within 6 turns(I belive it's 6 turns) and run a engineer in that city you will get a Great Engineer before the oracle gives you a great prophet. The Great Engineer can be used to rush the pyramids.

 

[MkLh]

MC = Metal Casting. Forges also give a engineer slot in addition to the hammer bonus, +1 and +1 from gold,gems and silver.

If you (with a philosophical leader) take Metal Casting from the oracle and then chop out a forge in another city within 6 turns(I belive it's 6 turns) and run a engineer in that city you will get a Great Engineer before the oracle gives you a great prophet. The Great Engineer can be used to rush the pyramids.

It's easier with a non philo-leader. With philo and normal speed you need some serious micro tweaking to get it work. I doubt rushing the Pyramids is a good use for an early GE though. With Chinese leaders bulbing machinery is quite powerful.

 

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

this is a serious gambit, and I have a hard time making it work. Gave up on it at prince, let alone emperor, where I'm playing.

 

[sherbz]

personally id never build the hagia sofia, no matter how bad i wanted a great engineer. Its such a massive waste of hammers. I think its possible to get hanging gardens and pyramids up until emperor/immortal, depending on your start and civ. Personally, i just run an engineer in my GP farm, and hope i pop one before mining inc comes along.

 

[dirtyparrot]

this is a serious gambit, and I have a hard time making it work. Gave up on it at prince, let alone emperor, where I'm playing.

I think that you can get it done if you have excellent early commerce tiles. I expect that it possible on Emperor still, albeit with a good amount of luck. You might be better off building the Pyramids (and bulbing Machinery if you play unrestricted leader with Sitting Bull).

 

[MyOtherName]

If you turn off espionage, then the Great Wall effectively gives great engineer points in a city that generates only engineer points.

 

[Gliese 581]

You can pull off the MC gambit at any level, although you're never guaranteed success on high levels, the question is, is it worth it?
If going for all the GE points in order to settle GEs (for example in a OCC) I would prefer Oracle-> MC, permarun engineer specialist, build the pyramids manually, trade for maths with MC and build the Hanging Gardens then try to obtain Theo for Hagia Sophia and AP when necessary to avoid losing those wonders to the AI (I wouldn't go Theo for HS alone).

 

[z0wb13]

If you turn off espionage, then the Great Wall effectively gives great engineer points in a city that generates only engineer points.

i don't think this is right. you still get great spy points, which is arguably more useful than a great engineer.
===============================================================
any GEs that you manage to generate early (<90 turns) is going to rely mostly on luck; you can't just run a forge engineer, guaranteeing a GE, and expect to get it until after all the cool early wonders are built, namely the greatlighthouse.

so what i'm driving at is that the utility of an early GE is questionable. others have mentioned rushing the pyramids, and besides this i would rather have some other class of great person. settled GE's are not as useful for me at this early stage of the game. buildings and units are relatively inexpensive, mining comes early, and generating is more of a concern.

settled values

Spoiler :

GE: 3 3
GSpy: 3 12
GPr: 2 5
GS: 1 6
GM: 1 6

i would say that most likely, and more usefully, GPrs and GSs are the best candidtates for settling early, the being enough to cover the expense of another 1.5 cities.

bulbing machinery? maybe if you are playing china, otherwise watermills and windmills are kind of weak.

i'd wait until the renaissance for GEs, when the wonders are better and there are more sources of the correct available.
================================

i just tried on monarch using qin, and got really lucky on turn 81 (9% chance after running an engineer for a few turns). to do this i spammed wonders, taking metal casting from the oracle. but i still would need to hook up iron to take advantage of chokonus, plus hunting/archery, and i still don't have writing, and i have almost no units to speak of. so bulbing machinery seems like a moot point. all i have is a bright/shiny capitol begging to be sacked.

perhaps this could be done faster with a philosophical leader. or if i delayed generation correctly, as this was my second great person. but it all seems so pointless. if you are playing for this gambit, then you are probably using an industrious leader, so the GE *best use (rushing wonders) is something that you already get a bonus for anyway.

better to generate a GE in the industrial era, when they can be used to found the corporations. or some prohibitively-expensive medieval wonder, i like the mausoleum (MoM, although technically this is a late classic age example). and as others have mentioned, on harder difficulties you need to be trading for techs and working diplomacy to win, not stubbornly chasing after crossbows a few turns early.

anyways, attached save might not work. my customassets are all snafu.

 

[MyOtherName]

i don't think this is right. you still get great spy points, which is arguably more useful than a great engineer.

How would a great spy be more useful than a great engineer with the "no espionage" option?

Anyways, try it yourself and see. To make it even more dramatic, just build the great wall in a city and then the pyramids -- but make sure the pyramids don't complete until after the great person bar fills up.

 

[z0wb13]

How would a great spy be more useful than a great engineer with the "no espionage" option?

Anyways, try it yourself and see. To make it even more dramatic, just build the great wall in a city and then the pyramids -- but make sure the pyramids don't complete until after the great person bar fills up.

@MyOtherName: ahha. i took "If you turn off espionage" to refer to the slider.

ita vero petitio principii inest. besides finking out a cheaty way to generate a GE, there still isn't a super compelling reason to do so, imho. early settled great spies have an intersting use, discussed elsewhere.

MkLh and dirtyparrot suggest using sitting bull of the chinese, variously. and if you turn off tech trading, and play on marathon, that would be awesomeness.

but in a normal/standard game, even if it was easy to do, how many turns is any GE gambit going to take? not that this is the end all assessment, but even if you can get 2 GE by turn 81, then what?

 

[Baldyr]

How does a forge help produce great people? I thought it was 25% hammer and -1 heath. amoung some happy for resources

I believe that you're missing something here. Great People aren't generated by buildings Wonders - that's more of a side effect or bonus from completing Wonders of the World. The bulk of your points should come from Specialists in your cities. Mouse over the different Specialists in the City Screen to see how many points they add per turn.

So, lets forget about Wonders for now, because they mostly just throw any attempt at getting a specific of balance. Every Great Person is represented by a Specialist type, with the exception of the Great General (which is generated by combat). For every Specialist you employ in a city points are generated for the corresponding Great Person type. So to answer your question: running an Engineer specialist (and only an Engineer) will eventually generate a Great Engineer. If you're also running a Scientist, the next can either be a Great Engineer or a Great Scientist. Add another Scientist and the next one will likely (2/3 chance) be Great Scientist. And so on. You can both see how many points you have already accumulated, what the target limit is and what the odds are for the different types, by mousing over the bar at the bottom half of the right side panel in the City Screen.

What Wonder do in this context is add free points for whatever flavor the Wonder itself has. So if your trying to, say, get as many Great Scientist out as possible, a religious Wonder present in that city might just ruin your plan and give you a useless Great Prophet instead!

There's a lot more to say on this subject, so if you're serious about micromanaging your you probably should read the manual and some guide on the subject.