Got all the scientists I wanted
Started as Elizabeth, chopped every tree down I could find and built 2 more cities in addition to my capital.
Built axemen until about 1AD and then took on Alexander. It took me 700 years to smack him down (which is hardly any time at all in Civ!).
He kept getting lucky, and his archers despite being slightly overmatched were killing 2 of my axemen when they should be going down dead to 1. Anyway, can't really complain, he built 3 additional cities in nice spots, so the 7 cities in total made up my Empire. I've built 1 more city, very recently, to fill in a cultural border.
Once I'd almost finished Alexander and I'd stopped building offence I put 2 scientists in every city that had a library, once they made a great scientist I took them back out. I built the great library - it is very good for science.
It increases the chance of getting great scientists - which is ok. But more importantly it gives you 2 free scientist specialists, which is very nice. Combined with national epic and Elizabeths double great person production, my capital was churning out scientists nicely. It was fine until they stopped being able to research 1 full tech per pop. After that they're almost useless.
Caste system didn't help a great deal. Most of my cities couldn't support more than 2 scientists, and all of them had a library by the point I wanted them to start producing people points.
I always have the governor set to maximum food - by doing that he won't put specialists in, I then add the specialists myself.
I've still not managed to get a great prophet out, so I built the spiritual minaret (which was obsolete by the time it was finished) and am building all the religious buildings I can in one city. It's probably not worth it just to get the Confuscionist wonder, and I'm already free religion since each different civ has their own religion.
It seems as if you can set a city down the path of producing one (or two) particular types of great people. But once it's down that path it's very difficult to turn it around.
So next game I play I'll be trying to get each city to be able to produce different types of great people.
I.e. I'll have a scientist one for academies, and when I have all I want I'll stop it producing any. One for prophets, and again once I have all the prophets I want I'll stop it producing any. And another for engineers - which I'll probably keep churning out as often as possible. Later in the game when artists are easy to make, I'll have one make artists for culture bombing.
I haven't found a use for great merchants yet - never tried sending them on a trade route, but unless it provides enough gold to speedbuild a wonder, I don't see it being much use.
It used to be with specialists that prophets would found holy buildings once I had that done they'd just join my capital, scientists would found academies, engineers would complete wonders, merchants would join my city, and artists would go wherever I wanted border expansion. But I didn't realise I could have a great deal of control over when and what I produced in the way of great people.
Game is at about 1800AD, and I''m ahead by 3 or 4 techs from the pack. Nobody likes me because I won't give them tech or stop trading with their enemies, so yet again a diplomatic victory is out. Likely I'll geta cultural victory. I always have space victory turned off. Conquest I suppose I could do - but I don't have 4 hours spare to micromanage tanks
But anyway, it was a success, I managed to get academies.
However I'm now wondering if it was really worth it. It seems that you cannot really have a huge lead in technology. I've already got all the resources on my own, just about, and I've plenty to trade for, so the 3 wonders that give you trade goods won't be much use to me, those were one advantage of being ahead on tech. It seems the game makes it more difficult to research tech if nobody else has it (or easier if someone else does have it). So having all those academies seems to just put me 3 or 4 techs ahead. My economy is perfect, I have every science and income building that my tech allows built, yet the AI manages to stay within distance of me.
