Great Person Farm 1st Time...

[BundtCake]

Hey kids,

I'm playing a normal, huge, 11 other Civs as Rome and I've scored the perfect place (to me) to try out a Great Person Farm for the first time, but I don't think it's "growing" fast enough.

I don't have a screenshot now, but I've got a city with an oasis and a boatload of floodplains on a snaking river. So I "farmed" all the tiles that I could and I keep the pop so that the level of people doesn't exceed the . Its around the 1700's and I still don't have enough population to work all the tiles, let alone to work all of the farm tiles such that I have extra food to support Specialists.

As I can I'm building any building that affect population.

Am I missing some part of the GP Farm idea?

Admittedly, this game I went for units and have a great Army of Darkness with which to crush my neighbors, but my science spending sucked, so I think I am a bit far behind as tech goes. I can't build culture yet. Although I have discovered the magic of "City Raider" promotions

 

[svv]

Well, you don't need to work/farm all the tiles. Just enough so that the farmers plus the specialists they support add up to your happiness limit. As your happiness limit increases, you can take some specialists down to work the farms to get more population.

What kind of terrain is there to farm? Keep in mind that, until Biology, a farmed plains tile only gives you two food - only enough to support the farmer on it. To have excess food to support specialists, you need to be working grassland or flood plains, and/or have food specials (wheat, corn, fish, etc.) to give the food a boost.

If you're on the coast, make sure you have work boats to work any seafood specials. Build lighthouse if you're working a lot of sea squares.

Also, make sure all your farms are irrigated. It's possible that you might have a farm on a food special, but it's still not providing full food because it's not connected by other farms to a river/inland lake. You need civil service for that.

Have you gotten to biology yet? That gives each farm an extra food, which provides a huge boost.

What kind of specialists are you trying to employ? I like putting my GP farm in a city with a shrine(s), putting Wall Street in there, and putting in a bunch of merchants and priests for huge gold even when the commerce slider is set all to science.

 

[Excl]

A screenshot would help, but your city should be exploding in population. There could be a few things wrong that I can think of.

- Switch to "Food Emphasis" in your city screen. That should ensure that your farmed floodplains are the ones with the circles around them, and getting used by the city. It's possible you put a production emphasis on the city and it's ignoring your farmed areas.

- Unhealthyness is killing you somehow. I think Flood Plains hurt the Health score, but I'm not sure it would be by THAT much. Unhealthiness eats into your food surplus and would cause a city to grow slower.

- You're using too many specialists early on. If none of your farm squares are getting worked because you have 5 scientists with a city size of 6 ... you're not going to get any extra food benefits! Don't really turn on the specialists until you've maxed out your city size.

- You accidently click "Stop Growth" in the city screen?? Kind of a longshot ... but that would definatly slow your city growth down.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I don't have a screenshot now, but I've got a city with an oasis and a boatload of floodplains on a snaking river. So I "farmed" all the tiles that I could and I keep the pop so that the level of people doesn't exceed the . Its around the 1700's and I still don't have enough population to work all the tiles, let alone to work all of the farm tiles such that I have extra food to support Specialists.

Am I missing some part of the GP Farm idea?

Maybe. You always want to have your GP farm (and pretty much every other city, for that matter) maxed out on population ( == ).

1) If you have extra happy left over, then put everybody back to work on the farms until you no longer have any extra. Then hire the specialists again. Do this every time you get more happy. With more practice, you'll worry about micromanaging the timing of these growth phases, but don't worry about it yet.

1a) Or consider whether the solution would have been to build the Globe Theatre in that city, so that you didn't have to worry about unhappy at all.

2) If you are already maxed out on happy, check to see if the happiness available in this city is on par with your other cities. It may be that you've had problems with production in your city. If you've farmed everything, you may have forgotten the quicker whipper upper. This is especially likely if you've been parked in Caste System trying to run your specialists the entire game.

3) If all of your cities are about that same disappointing level of happiness, it may be that you haven't been prioritizing collecting happiness resources (or the buildings that multiply them). Trades for resources are allowed, as is prioritizing your research order to learn about the buildings you need.

4) If you've done all that, and the city just isn't as big as you expected, the answer may be that you haven't finished researching Biology yet (which will bump your farm yield, producing even more surplus food).


Post the picture of the city management screen, it will be easier for people to trouble shoot. Also report which techs you currently have the option of researching (which will help to tell us where you are).

 

[DaveMcW]

Working any 2-food tile in a GP farm is a waste.

Working any 3-food tile in a GP farm is a waste if the city is unhealthy.

 

[BundtCake]

1) If you have extra happy left over, then put everybody back to work on the farms until you no longer have any extra. Then hire the specialists again. Do this every time you get more happy. With more practice, you'll worry about micromanaging the timing of these growth phases, but don't worry about it yet.

I know that I'm being a bit vague on the whole situation. I think I'm running Heredity rule (for the + experience) and Theocracy (for the building bonus).

When I allocate a specialist does that take away one working tile from the city's BFC? I understand that I have to produce a surplus of food to sustain each specialist...

Y'know I've never even tried allocate unlimited specialists with Caste System... so much to discover.

'Cake

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I know that I'm being a bit vague on the whole situation. I think I'm running Heredity rule (for the + experience) and Theocracy (for the building bonus).

That's a problem. Hereditary Rule doesn't + experience (Vassalage does though), and Theocracy doesn't give a building bonus (but Organized Religion does).

When I allocate a specialist does that take away one working tile from the city's BFC?

Yes.

 

[ratrangerm]

Does your city have a grain resource on grassland within its borders? Having a food resource that is farmed helps to generate extra food so you can work more specialists. A cow or pig on a grassland square also helps get extra food as well as a couple of hammers.

If you have flood plains with farms being worked and have the necessary buildings for specialists available, then you should be able to work at least a couple of specialists. Working two farmed flood plains in size two means you have 10 total food and you can already put one specialist into place.

Simple solution: Get your workers off the production squares and put them on the food squares. I'm betting the city governonr is assigning people to work production squares, so take them off them and put them on food squares.

Remember, a GP farm is not where you necessarily want to build units... I used mine in my current game to build a couple of naval units, but otherwise, it's concentrating on the buildings that allow for specialists, although I managed to get a wonder built with forest chops and was able to push toward National Epic and Globe Theatre along the way.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I'm considering putting together a Vocum on GP Farms. If you've got specific questions that you would like to see addressed, send them my way.

 

[cabert]

I'm considering putting together a Vocum on GP Farms. If you've got specific questions that you would like to see addressed, send them my way.

If you do, adress the issue of "choosing your great persons".
Most games want Great scientists, but I found that with large empires, great merchants have a better output
(1600 beakers < 3000 gold when you cannot run 100% science!).
Some points that need to be adressed :
- GPP sources
- GP flavour sources
- investment return (= is it worth assigning so many specialists for so many turns to gain 1 great person). IMHO, it's not worth the effort anymore to get great scientists when the techs are costing more than 3000 beakers. ANd it's not worth the effort anymore when you need N turns to earn something you could have in less than N turns by working good tiles (cottages for instance).

About the initial question, I'll second what DaveMcW said.
IMHO a GP Farm with less than 3 food resources isn't a good GP Farm. And no, FP are not food resources.
I aim for cities working 3 or 4 tiles and having 6 specialists at least.
How to do it? Pigs, irrigated corn or rice or wheat, fish are what you're looking for. My personal "best" (nothing to brag about, i captured my neighbours capital ) was 5 seafood resources, 2 being fishes.
Almost every water tile was a seafood resource
This baby got a globe theater, national Epic and constantly whipped "specialists buildings" = library, market, .... It gave me mostly artists, although I was running engineer (from forge), scientists and merchants

 

[svv]

One thing I'm still turning over in my mind is whether it's better to have:

globe+national epic,
globe+wall street, or
national epic+wall street.

(Replace "wall street" in these combinations with "Oxford" if yoiu keep your commerce slider tilted to money, and count on specialists for science).

On lower difficulties I've really like the last, national epic+wall street, to load up on priest and merchant specialists, hopefully in a shrine city, and have it all multiplied by Wall Street. Problem with that is at higher difficulty levels it's hard to keep all those people happy without globe.

In my last game, I ended up with one city that was globe+wall street, which turned out huge money and decent gp ponts, and another gp farm (my original capital) with national epic, where I balanced wonder production and happiness improvements with specialists.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

1. Like others have said, make the city focus on food and you'll be surprised on how fast it grows.

2. Happiness problems...see if you can trade for any happiness resources, maybe change to a civic that adds happiness, put your cultural slide up and offset the cost by running great merchants

One thing I'm still turning over in my mind is whether it's better to have:

globe+national epic,
globe+wall street, or
national epic+wall street.

I can see reasons for and against.

NE: Seems like a gimmie for a gp farm. Only problems Ive encountered is usually gp farms have low production (i try to chop it out some, then whip) and sometimes it takes awhile to get the gp farm up and running...so your ne isnt doing all that much, which might suggest its better to build it sooner in a city that has maybe a couple specialists and wonders.

Globe: I think this is a decent choice, as happiness from "its too crowded" can be a pain. Ive become hooked, though, on making it a draft/whip city. And dont forget the ga points that some people see as "polluting" the pool.

Wall Street: I think this is better in a cottage city or a city with lots of money resources...bunches of gems or gold, even dye. It might also be good if you're running lots of great merchants, but that also locks you into caste system...though you can run four with market+grocer.


All things being equal, I have Wall Street usually in the same city as Oxford, while globe is in a whip/draft city that doubles as a gp farm-lite, while my main gp farm gets NE. If I had to combine two out of the three...globe+ne seems the best.

 

[svv]

Wall Street: I think this is better in a cottage city or a city with lots of money resources...bunches of gems or gold, even dye.

True, IF you've got your commerce slider weighted mostly toward gold. But, if you've got your commerce slider weighted mostly toward science, then it's wasteful to put Wall Street in a city where your pop is working a lot of commerce squares. Very little commerce will be going to gold, so you'll get very little to be multiplied by Wall Street from the commerce. Worse, because your pop is busy working mines and cottages and dye and such, there will be little excess food for specialists.

When establishing a city to get what your commerce slider is pointing to, money or science, then you should build it as a commerce city as you describe. But, when establishing a city to get the OTHER goal, it should be a farm city so you can get it through specialists.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

When establishing a city to get what your commerce slider is pointing to, money or science, then you should build it as a commerce city as you describe. But, when establishing a city to get the OTHER goal, it should be a farm city so you can get it through specialists.

So you're saying you could make as much (if not more) money with wall street in a specialist city from gm+prophets with the money buildings...as opposed to cottages?

 

[svv]

Yep. It also helps to have a shrine or two in there.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

NE: Seems like a gimmie for a gp farm. Only problems Ive encountered is usually gp farms have low production (i try to chop it out some, then whip) and sometimes it takes awhile to get the gp farm up and running...so your ne isnt doing all that much, which might suggest its better to build it sooner in a city that has maybe a couple specialists and wonders.

Hammer generating specialists can help some here, as can a bunch of cash and some turns running universal suffrage. And it's not like whipping is ineffective - the city grows back pretty quick. It's only the big ticket items (like other wonders) that require a long period of "whip overflow repeat"

Globe: I think this is a decent choice, as happiness from "its too crowded" can be a pain. Ive become hooked, though, on making it a draft/whip city.

I finally gave it up - its just so broken.

Wall Street: I think this is better in a cottage city or a city with lots of money resources...bunches of gems or gold, even dye. It might also be good if you're running lots of great merchants, but that also locks you into caste system...though you can run four with market+grocer.

It's so expensive. 200 Hammers for the bank + 600 hammers for wallstreet. No production doublers, no traits to ease the pain.

 

[Preston85]

In the game i'm currently playing I put the National Epic with the Great Library, was that a good combination?

So far i've just put the GP I have got from it back into the city (after an academy).

 

[svv]

So you're saying you could make as much (if not more) money with wall street in a specialist city from gm+prophets with the money buildings...as opposed to cottages?

I just took a look at the figures from my current game. My main research/commerce city is generating 130 commerce right now, which is pretty good. I'm at 70 percent science, so the gold I'm getting in that city - all from the commerce, is 39. It's doubled to 78 because of bank/grocer/marketplace. If I had wall street in there, I'd have another 39, which is not bad.

But, my money/research city is currently generating 447 gold/turn. 7 from commerce, 16 from hammers (I'm building wealth right now), 64 from buildings (one shrine) and 62 from specialists (maximum merchant and priest specialists without caste system - I think I have 7 each, plus a number of merchant and priest super specialists). So that adds up to 149 gold, tripled because of the normal commerce buildings plus wall street. I'd lose 149 if I didn't have wall street in there. Even if I didn't have a shrine or wasn't building wealth, I'd still lose 69 just from the specialists and commerce.

So, having Wall Street in my money city instead of my commerce city is netting me 110 gold/turn. Plus there's the fact that by not having wall street in my science city, I can build another national wonder (I have Ironworks in there - could have been National Epic or something else).

 

[svv]

In the game i'm currently playing I put the National Epic with the Great Library, was that a good combination?

So far i've just put the GP I have got from it back into the city (after an academy).

Yes. Great Library generates two free specialists, which in turn generate great people points, which you're multiplying with National Epic.

The problem here, though, is that National Epic is typically not good in your commerce city, because you want farms and specialists in your National Epic city. This gives you three choices.

(1) just live with limited effectiveness of National Epic. I wouldn't recommend that.

(2) Run a "specialist economy" where you generate nearly all of your science with specialists. Farm over that city, and maybe some of your other cities, and hire scientist specialists in all of them for your science.

(3) Plan a shift in your main science city for right about the time that you get scientific method (which kills great library and monestaries). Find a city with a lot of potential for building cottages, plan to build oxford and your second academy there, and to put any later scientist great people in there.

 

[DaveMcW]

64 from buildings (one shrine)

If you can get a shrine this big, it's obvious to build Wall Street there.

With that many cities under your influence, why haven't you won the game yet?