Great People - how do you used them?

[eris]

I find a Great Artist to be a useful part of my war machine, especially if I am collecting Vassals. I go into a new victim civ, take out enough cities to make them beg for mercy and capitulate, and then check culture borders. It often happens that there is a city that is particularly choked by opponent culture. A Great Artist can help that situation very nicely. The borders may not move back immediately if there is a whole lot of opposing culture, but with some culture being produced by the city itself somehow, the Great Artist will make a big difference sooner or later, usually sooner. It can be especially useful in one of those cities that is caught in the cultural crossfire between a couple of your allies. It can sometimes lead to the acquisition of some resource you really really wanted and wanted soon.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Great Artists are useful for that. But why not just push a little further and raze an extra city to allow for breathing room b4 going for peace/capitulation? A theater, artist specialist, and 10% culture slider will do the rest.

Rather use the GA for a golden age. If i'm popping more than 1, i did something wrong.

 

[nanomage]

you do not really need that GA to deal with your vassal's culture - they may not eat any tiles of your BFC, and even if you have unchecked "no culture flip after conquest" you can just garrison the city with enough units to prevent revolts. units are expensive and may be used for other purposes, but even more is GA.
you can always raze the surrounding cities too to get their hands away, as blitzkrieg1980 recommends, but here the point is that you agree to capitulation when you really need this war to stop and have no time/units to deal with any more cities.
you would also want to keep cities once you captured them - razing just to remove culture pressure from vassals seems a bit ... erm. i don't know how do you say in other countries, in russia it's "firing a cannon at sparrows" i think you get the drift!
as for me, GS lightbulb all the way to Physics, then AlumCo or GA
Gspy - 1st settled, later SY's
GP - 1st shrine, 2nd maybe too, others lie down and wait for GA
GE - wait for appropriate wonder unless corp is needed/available
GM - if early on then settle in GP farm, later corp later GA
artists - only GA

so it looks like i only settle the GM's, and rarely more than one

 

[bestbrian]

Different Civs, with or without Random Leaders or Personalities, can be fun and force you to approach the game differently, Rameses. I highly reccommend it, but when all is said and done it's a game, you bought and paid for it, and anyway you have fun with it is fine by me.

I was never a big Golden Age guy, and to be honest I'm probably not a total convert, but if I have the MoM (that's the one that extends Golden Ages, right?) my approach is a bit different, especially if I can string them together. Current game, built the Taj which gave me a 24 turn Golden Age (Marathon). Then I used the Great Artist that I'd saved from Music to start another one. Now, during Golden Ages you generate more GPP, so before these 48 turns are up I'll pop another GP (probably a Scientist) that I MAY combine with the Great Merchant from Economics to string out another. 72 turns of Golden Ages can be a very nice thing, to put it mildly.

 

[mica8911]

what is the most money you have made on a great merchant great trade?

 

[Supr49er]

what is the most money you have made on a great merchant great trade?

I'm pretty sure >5000 on marathon speed.

 

[Tephros]

what is the most money you have made on a great merchant great trade?

8100 on marathon. There were 3 cities that would have yielded that. All were very far away and 19-22 pop. You can check by holding shift with the great merchant selected, acting as if you're going to tell him to go to a certain city (but keep holding shift and cancel it before you let off shift), and checking what the trade mission button says.