Great People Mechanics ??

[PMac67]

Can anybody explain or point me in the direction to somewhere that explains the spawning of Great People?

I have been trying to pop out GEs or GSs to complete the SV but despite being in the info era <science> I get Great People that are sometimes utterly useless...

I thought perhaps the lowest era of the science or civic tree dictates what era the Great Person will be from assuming there are still some left of course but I still spawned GPs from eras even earlier ?

Is there a predetermined list of people in each era at the start of the game that must be worked through to get to the SV GPs ? Is it possible to skip over GPs to reach the ones in later eras ?

 

[Archon_Wing]

https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/the-mechanism-of-great-people.26276/

The GPs from within the same era are all random order, though I am not sure about them being skipped; seems to happen when someone advances really fast.

Nonetheless, you don't have to be forced into taking a crappy Great Person. If you monitor the GP menu, it tells you which one is coming up next, and you can decide to lower your GPP by not running campus grants or running the civics for GPs. You can always pass as well, as long as the other civs are getting them at a decent rate too . Once you see the one you want, have every spare city not building a space project do grants.

There aren't too many GPs that actually suck though, from what I've seen. The only one that stands out is the one that is related to a holy site, because I often don't build those.

IIRC, there's basically 3 information era scientists. If you're already at the techs you don't want the one that gives you the Information Era Eurekas (Abdus Salam) though of course depends on what your opponents are doing as you may have to work on denying it.

Keep an eye out for:
http://civ6.gamepedia.com/Carl_Sagan
http://civ6.gamepedia.com/Stephanie_Kwolek

And also these engineers:
http://civ6.gamepedia.com/Wernher_von_Braun
http://civ6.gamepedia.com/Sergei_Korolev

 

[kaspergm]

Can anybody explain or point me in the direction to somewhere that explains the spawning of Great People?

I have been trying to pop out GEs or GSs to complete the SV but despite being in the info era <science> I get Great People that are sometimes utterly useless...

I thought perhaps the lowest era of the science or civic tree dictates what era the Great Person will be from assuming there are still some left of course but I still spawned GPs from eras even earlier ?

Is there a predetermined list of people in each era at the start of the game that must be worked through to get to the SV GPs ? Is it possible to skip over GPs to reach the ones in later eras ?

It would be nice with some more information on your game, specifically: What difficulty did you play on, which era were you in, exactly which great people spawned.

A bit of general information:

• The game determines the order the great people will spawn in randomly, but still ordered by era. This means that between several games, the three Scientists from Information era will come in random order, but these three will always be the ones that come last.
• When any great person is bought, the era of the next great person will be determined by some mechanism related to the era of the civs which is not completely understood. It is known with certainty that the game can skip great people - for instance, if you recruit a GP from, say, renaissance era, and that is the first GP of that kind recruited, it can jump directly to a GP from industrial era. This will happen if (some?) players have already entered the industrial era. However, there have been very inconsistent reports on how this works - sometimes people have observed a GP from a previous era coming up, even though at least one player has advanced to next era. Other times people have observed game skipping to a new era (apparently without all GP from previous eras being recruited), even though it seems like no player seems to have advanced to the new era (I have not seen hard evidence of this). Maybe some sort of "average" era between all players determines the era of the next GP. I am not sure if game can skip an entire era wrt. GP - for instance, if it can jump from a renaissance GP directly to a modern GP, skipping all three industrial ones (one could guess answer is no, as that might explain some instances of "older" GP showing up, as reported by some players).
  
• You can pass on a GP if you don't want it, which will decrease cost by 20 % for other players. However, you can't recruit a new GP until someone else has recruited the one you passed on, so you may want to guestimate how long it will take before that happens before skipping (sometimes it's better to just recruit bad GP if you can see that you will be first to next GP also).
• If you play any advanced era start, there will only be one GP of each type for each era. This happens no matter what era you start in - even if you only skip ancient era and start in classical era, all great persons will be reduced to one from each era. The great person available (and the ones removed) are chosen randomly.

 

[Victoria]

When any great person is bought, the era of the next great person will be determined by some mechanism related to the era of the civs which is not completely understood.

have a look at https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/the-mechanism-of-great-people.26276/

If you play any advanced era start, there will only be one GP of each type for each era. This happens no matter what era you start in - even if you only skip ancient era and start in classical era, all great persons will be reduced to one from each era. The great person available (and the ones removed) are chosen randomly.

Are you sure about this? it seems in conflict with what @Lily_Lancer is saying

 

[kaspergm]

have a look at https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/the-mechanism-of-great-people.26276/

https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/the-mechanism-of-great-people.26276/
Great post. I didn't know about the GP era = world era +1, but that explains a lot. Is that a bug? Or something we can mod out? Shouldn't GP era be = world era? Personally, I hate how it skips so fast ahead, and then in the end, you sit with no remaining GP.

Are you sure about this? it seems in conflict with what @Lily_Lancer is saying

As good as positive. I've played several advanced start games, some for testing, others to get the achievements, and this is a consistent pattern. One GP of each type in each era.

 

[Rosty K]

It actually starts with 'World Era + 1', since there are no Ancient Era GP (so it may even just be a 'hacky' way to make sure the game doesn't try to generate ancient era GP). After that it does look like this is the way. If you think of it, 'World Era +1' usually translates into 'the Era of 1 or 2 most advanced civs', so it should give the advantage to those who are ahead (letting them recruit more relevant GP). Though missing someone like Adam Smith is hardly an advantage, we must admit...

I also had an impression that it behaved differently depending on the difficulty, but the 'World Era + 1' perfectly explains those observations of mine, just at low difficulty the 'World Era' stays way behind me all the time. So, if you are obsessed with getting lots of early GP, play lower difficulty

 

[kaspergm]

If you think of it, 'World Era +1' usually translates into 'the Era of 1 or 2 most advanced civs', so it should give the advantage to those who are ahead (letting them recruit more relevant GP). (...) So, if you are obsessed with getting lots of early GP, play lower difficulty

Playing on a lower difficulty level is a bad solution to something that shouldn't be a problem in the first place. I can to some extent agree with your reasoning that GP should follow tech leaders, but when it sometimes runs ahead (like going into an era before any player has entered it, while skipping people from the era that all players are actually in), something is way off. And the fact that you'll rush through the early eras without getting more than one GP from those and then sit the last third of the game with zero GP available shows there really needs to be done some tweaking here.

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

And, let's not even discuss how dumb it is that the same system is used, regardless of map size, number of civs, and so forth. Many game mechanics seem to break based on those factors.

 

[iammaxhailme]

"I have been trying to pop out GEs or GSs to complete the SV but despite being in the info era <science> I get Great People that are sometimes utterly useless..."

Sorry, dumb question, what is SV? Space something, I think...

 

[Rosty K]

"I have been trying to pop out GEs or GSs to complete the SV but despite being in the info era <science> I get Great People that are sometimes utterly useless..."

Sorry, dumb question, what is SV? Space something, I think...

Science Victory? So Space something, yes.

 

[Kyro]

The Era isn't as important in deciding great people spawns as much as many believe. There are multiple caps that inhibit great people spawn rates.

The first is a hard cap that prevents more than a certain number of great people from spawning from an Era except the Information Era. The second is a "queue skipper' that skips great people by moving the great people queue to the next era based on a combination of factors which includes:

The Era of the average player,

The Era of the player claiming the great person,

Possibly number of players/map size,

Possibly number of great people left in the queue, and additional factors I'm unaware of.

As evidence I have tried Tripling Civic/Tech costs and removing specific great people from the game entirely to limit down the scope of Great People generation and the game, instead of pulling up the only other great person in the queue from the same era, chooses to skip the queue entirely to the next era that no other player is in.

Also I would like to point out (and criticize) the design philosophy behind such a measure. Basically the Devs are doing so to double impose the scarcity of great people to make them "valuable". I find the idea of tying value to rarity rather than practical usefulness absurd. That's also the reason why so many great people are weak.

The fact that only 1 player can get a particular great person is rarity enough, there's no need to add more on top of that. There is no fun playing a game built around scarcity instead of abundance. One is a negative, survival-based/punishment approach that strangles out fun, the other is a positive, reward-based approach that is actually fun.

If you want to increase the number of great people in the game the only thing you can control is to make sure you don't progress to the next era yourself before claiming a great person, which is often counter-productive.

 

[PMac67]

Thanks for all the replies and advice People ! I have read the following link a few of you posted which explains the mechanics in great detail. A fantastic post by the original Author !

https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/the-mechanism-of-great-people.26276/

It would be nice with some more information on your game, specifically: What difficulty did you play on, which era were you in, exactly which great people spawned.

I was playing on emperor/continents/standard and I realize now that because the other Civs were so far behind in tech I was recruiting from the era most of them were in. I wiped out 2 Civs on my continent and left another with one city standing. When the game ended 1 Civ was in Renaissance, 3 were in Industrial and 1 was in Atomic. Most great people available to recruit were 'Modern' so yes the world era average was Industrial i guess, or Modern if it's World era average+1

I had to recruit all the crappy useless GPs because passing on them would mean either I would not get another before the end of the game or the game would just be seriously elongated while i wait for Carl Sagan to arrive and build all the space parts on his own Lolz...

I'll probably go to Immortal or Deity next time, Ironically it may be easier to win 'Faster' SVs than on lower levels

 

[antimony]

SV might indeed be faster on higher levels, if only because it's much cheaper to take over cities/districts than build.

Because you end up recruiting all the Great Scientists at Prince, it's better to shift the focus from just science to science + gold, and start projects faster rather than build universities everywhere. On the positive side, you get tons of science boosts from Galileo, Darwin, etc.

 

[Half Nelson]

https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/the-mechanism-of-great-people.26276/

"If you monitor the GP menu, it tells you which one is coming up next".

How do you see that? I can't seem to find that information on my version (latest build with all DLC but no mods) but would certainly like to!

 

[iammaxhailme]

Science Victory? So Space something, yes.

Oh, right. Haha dumb me

 

[Archon_Wing]

There's an button for great people on the top left.

 

[Half Nelson]

There's an button for great people on the top left.

Apologies, I misunderstood your first post:- by "next" I thought you meant the one after the one in the frame. Thanks for the reply.

 

[WillowBrook]

If you play any advanced era start, there will only be one GP of each type for each era. This happens no matter what era you start in - even if you only skip ancient era and start in classical era, all great persons will be reduced to one from each era. The great person available (and the ones removed) are chosen randomly.

I just completed a modern-era start and I got more that one atomic-era person for several types.

Every category started with a modern-era person, and the second one was atomic for most or all categories, but at least the admirals and scientists got a second atomic era person.

I should note that I was playing on king, so the AI tech rate was rather slow - they were all still in the modern era when the third scientist and admiral appeared (not sure about other types).

 

[kaspergm]

I just completed a modern-era start and I got more that one atomic-era person for several types.

Every category started with a modern-era person, and the second one was atomic for most or all categories, but at least the admirals and scientists got a second atomic era person.

I should note that I was playing on king, so the AI tech rate was rather slow - they were all still in the modern era when the third scientist and admiral appeared (not sure about other types).

Ok, may be worth looking into. I know positively that I did some games on advanced era starts on emperor and there was only ONE engineer and ONE scientist from the information era - because the ones that helped with science victory were simply not in the game, and it was not because someone else recruited them (I actively checked the log). I've also been doing culture where I noticed there was only ONE artist from each era. Again, I checked very specifically, because art theming makes it important to get the right one. On the other hand, I'm not sure about writers, musicians, generals and admirals, because with those it's less important which one you get. Also not positive about merchants, although I think there was only one from the eras I checked.