Great People are More Impactful in This Game than Later Ones

Just a thought I had. I'm offering this comparison. I know there are some other effects (IE I think you can pop a great scientist in 5 for a tech boost) - but I'm going to disregard the comparatively weaker ways to use them, if you would rarely go with that (IE in 4 why would you ever not build the academy with the great scientist?)

• Great Scientists: Civ 4 (50% increase to science production in city); Civ 5 (+4 science (base level); Civ 6 (various, at most +2 science for each university + free university)
• Great Engineers: Civ 4 (finish a wonder); Civ 5 (finish a wonder or +4 production, base level); Civ 6 (various, but really nothing special, probably Leo De Vinci is the strongest with +1 culture per workshop)
• Great Merchants: Civ 4 (+1 food/+6 gold in city or +1000 or so gold for a pop); Civ 5 (+4 gold base yield or pop for city state favor and ~1000 gold); Civ 6 (various, probably the best are the ones that give you +1 trade route and a free trader)
• Great Prophets: Civ 4 (give you +1 gold in the holy city of a religion for every city that follows the religion, if you founded a religion); Civ 5 (allows you to create a religion, add a new belief, or build a holy site (if you go down the piety track this is actually more powerful than 4)); Civ 6 (allows you to create a religion)
• Great Artist: Civ 4 (+5 culture, +1 gold or +4000 culture burst); Civ 5 (produces a great work that creates +2 culture +2 tourism); Civ 6 (creates great works)
• Great General: Civ 4 (burst adds xp to unit or improves starting xp for units created in city); Civ 5 (creates great forts that claim enemy territory, improves strength of surrounding units passively); Civ 6 (passive combat boost for units of certain ages; improves siege weapons; usually has some small retirement option)

Basically, other than great prophets when used in the piety tract in Civ 5, every single type of great person in Civ 4 was more powerful than later incarnations, despite the fact that they have arguably placed more narrative emphasis on them. I'm kind of discounting the end game great people in 6 only because you've probably won or lost by the time you get to them. I've never gotten Van Braun and been like "gee that's what's going to put me above my competition."

5 also comes close if you choose the freedom ideology, which significantly buffs great person generation and powers. You could also say, though, that Civ 4 has something like the philosophical trait which doubles great person point generation. Additionally, I still feel like something like the great scientist academy is so much more powerful than even that. Also, on top of all of that, I think GP in Civ 4 have so much more utility. The great artist burst power, for example, can do so much more work - even if you aren't pursuing a cultural victory, while the great prophet holy shrine power is gamechanging even if you aren't really pursuing a religion game.

And then, looking at the merchant, there are ways in which they effect each game differently because gold is so different in each game. Gold lets you buy city states in 5, which is a big deal. But gold is what lets you expand in 4. So it's way more essential. So getting that passive gold production or burst can be the difference between settling a new city or not in 4.

In conclusion, I just thought this was all pretty amusing.

 

Since you specifically asked, top players mainly go for scientists, and then use great scientists for bulbing not for academies (save maybe one in a good capital). This is because of their higher bulb values and that several GS bulb targets are on the way to liberalism, or in isolation games for bulbing Astronomy. Looking at academies as outperforming bulbing after ~100 turns is the wrong way to think about it. Bulbing techs in the midgame gets you unique techs which you can further trade to all the other AIs and maximizes your window of tech superiority needed for easy conquest.

Also you forgot to mention the great spy, the strongest great person for much of the game

 

I forgot because I'm playing vanilla and they didn't introduce spying until the expansions lol.

Yeah that's a good point about tech trading and getting liberalism and astronomy. Also you might add getting a religion to that too. Next time I play Civ 4 I might try that, maybe play as a philosophical civ and prioritize having science specialists.

 

The other use is golden ages. Unless going for culture, that’s a much better use for a GA.

 

The value of Great People in IV varies greatly with the game level and settings. On Deity, Scientists are used for bulbing, often as part of a Liberalism run or to get a new tech to trade around. Shrines are better on big maps, so Prophets are better there. Golden Ages are much more powerful on oversize maps/large civs, too.

 

Also, Academies effectively get weaker as the game goes on since you'll have eventually used up your best specialty cities on the earlier academies, and their bonuses are percentage-based.

Bulbing feels weaker in the late-game too, but I don't know how the math works.

I've heard it said that the best use is to build an academy, then use all your other scientists as super-specialists in that city and build Oxford there. Not sure if that's "the" way to do it but it has felt pretty useful in the past at least.

 

There's certainly a lot of Gps in Civ VI that don't come close to bulbing Currency, MC, Phil, Education, Machinery, or Astronomy, or making a captured Buddhist holy city into a +25G city, putting an academy or OU in a bureaucap, or filling the CV buckets, or Corporations

Main ones that come to mind are Sun Tzu (early Great Work), load of Admirals (a free Fleet of elite ships is great), James of St George (fortifying three or four cities immediately on capture is hilarious), the ones that boost every building of a kind, Zahrawi (ultra healer), and James Young (revealing Oil early can be a massive boon)

It's the global list that makes Civ VI compelling to me. There does feel to be more of a race for certain ones in the late game. I've won a peaceful MP by sniping a GE who made me produce space race projects faster, the nearest Civ IV has to that is Sushi-Mining

 

Dear god, no. Settling is nearly always bad (and gets significantly worse as the game progresses) and personally I think an academy can compete with bulbing/GAs only when the capital is very strong.

So for me it's bulbs/GAs and post-liberalism GMs are significantly stronger than GSs.

 

Academies are often good in your capital, with its +8 commerce from the Palace and the extra commerce from Bureaucracy. That's usually where my first Scientist (Emperor level) goes. I don't play a lot of Immortal/Deity so I'll defer to sampsa on whether an early bulb and trading the tech around works out to more overall beakers than an Academy in the capital.

Multiple Academies are not optimal.

Settling ... yeah, that's seldom a great idea.

Golden Ages get better and better the bigger the map is. An 8-turn GA when you're putting out 5000 beakers and 1000 production per turn is absurdly powerful.

 

I have seen that people sometimes settle a GS to rush HBR, if you're Mongolia or your neighbours all lack metal that's a niche

If you're Carthage and want to rush Numidian Cavalry, it's probably better to make an Academy and boost your FIN cottages

Thinking on it, how is +6 beakers ever better than an Academy for this? Even on 50% research slider, two gold mines or four river cottages or a couple of scientists are enough to give the capital parity, is this strat ever optimal outside of plains cattle starts?

Civ IV Golden Ages are amazing but the city-level single pool can make them really swingy in the late game. We've all have a GS, GP, and GA sit idle for ages, and then been thwarted by rolling a 2% GA despite running seven Merchants

Argh, this thread is why I'm not updating my OS and killing native 32 bit support

 

The only situation where you'd settle a GS over building an Academy early is if you've crashed your economy to the point where you can't run the slider at all, but you need to limp your way to the key economic techs you need to be able to dig yourself out of that deficit. Which is why, ideally, one would secure Currency before going too crazy with the conquering, in order to avoid that exact situation.

 

Rarely ever settle unless it's an OCC game.

 

It is probably best to bulb math in this case. You can chop out a lot more horse archers with math.