Help me understand great person progress

[McBean]

Specifically, what changes the amount it takes to get a great person. In my current game, Siam was beating me to every wonder I wanted. I wanted the Porcelain Tower and I knew Siam would probably be going for it as well. When I started the tower I was about 4 turns from a GE (180ish/200). When the four turns were up I went into the city screen to find out what had happened and now it shows I need 300. I was like WTH. Sure enough Siam gets the tower a few turns later. This irked me as it would have been mine had the GE been born. I guess I need to better understand what it takes to get a great person.

BTW, this is my second game on king. Boy what a difference one level makes in difficulty. As of now I don't expect to win but at least it's going better than my first attempt. The first game I raged quit and deleted the saves out of frustration. After reading a little here about the king level I decided to go with continents and a quick 4 city build to stake of my area. I'm also finding that keeping my military around the middle of the pack or slightly better helps. William is the only one left on my continent and he's not very friendly (calling me the puny one, wont trade, etc..) so my luck might change for the worse soon. Oh well, we'll see how it goes.

 

[fuzzatron717]

You might want to do a production focus and build wonders where there is the most production. For great people build gardens national wonders like the national epic.

Edit sorry thought this was in the BNW forum sorry mods.

 

[McBean]

You might want to do a production focus and build wonders where there is the most production. For great people build gardens national wonders like the national epic.

Edit sorry thought this was in the BNW forum sorry mods.

I've been trying to build the wonders in my capital, which has the highest production rate of any of my cities. I have been set to production focus most of the game. I had been getting my food from some maritime city states but that's about to change with Siam filling up the patronage tree. Granted, I should have built or bought a couple production enhancing buildings early on (water mill, stable, forge) but I don't think that would have made the difference. I'm currently building Ironworks.

Really I just want to understand why what it took to get a GE changed right when I should have gotten it. I started the Tower based on getting that GE.

 

[fuzzatron717]

Those small production building can make a huge difference now I can't remember exactly but if I am not mistaken building new cities can raise the price like social policies but again I am not 100% sure.

 

[McBean]

Those small production building can make a huge difference now I can't remember exactly but if I am not mistaken building new cities can raise the price like social policies but again I am not 100% sure.

I may have annexed one of my puppeted city states (playing as Austrra) prior to that GE being born. Is that what could have changed the GE cost? I'll have to go back to see when I actually annexed that city.

 

[Montezuma II]

Did you earn a different great person? Price increases every time you earn a GP, but progress stays the same.

 

[Unresolved]

The Great Scientist, Great Artist, Great Engineer, and the Great Merchant all share the same 'pool' for lack of a better term. If you generate any one of those, the price of each one will rise by 100. The Great Prophet, Great Admiral, and Great General work on different counters.

 

[McBean]

The Great Scientist, Great Artist, Great Engineer, and the Great Merchant all share the same 'pool' for lack of a better term. If you generate any one of those, the price of each one will rise by 100. The Great Prophet, Great Admiral, and Great General work on different counters.

A Great Merchant was born in a different city around this time. Is this 'pool', as you call it, per city or for all cities? Again, I'll have to go review what happened so I know for the future.

 

[Unresolved]

It's for all cities.

 

[McBean]

Alright! That Great Merchant must have been the culprit. It was born 5 turns after the Tower was started. This was around the time I expected the GE. Good to know about how the GP cost is affected by the others. Will watch out for this in future games.

 

[Enonwnn]

The Great Scientist, Great Artist, Great Engineer, and the Great Merchant all share the same 'pool' for lack of a better term. If you generate any one of those, the price of each one will rise by 100. The Great Prophet, Great Admiral, and Great General work on different counters.

Further to this, if you expect to see two Great People to appear in the same turn, but from different cities, you will only recieve the one from the city which was built first. The other will suffer from a +100 point addition.

However, if you expect to see two Great People to appear in the same city on the same turn, they will both appear. Since two Great People appear, the cost for all others will increase by 200. It is possible to time it so a Great Merchant, Great Scientist, Great Engineer and Great Artist all appear on the same turn, so long as they are all from the same city.

"Free" Great People from the Liberty finisher, Louvre, Porcelain Tower, etc will also increase the cost for Great People in your cities. Sometimes it's best to forego certain wonders; for example, if you want to be cranking out Great Scientists, it might be best to not build the Louvre as to not suffer a +200 point addition to future Great Scientist costs. On the other hand, those Golden Age turns may help you more than the Great Scientists.

 

[compwiz1202]

Yes, so you could have either pumped up Engineer slots in the city you wanted the GEngineer in, or taken out Merchant slots if you had any used in the city the GMerchant was born in.

I think I got three in the same city in the same turns once, but never four.

And I forget, do "free" GAdmirals, GGenerals, and GProphets add to the counter? I know anything from faith or battle XP, only affect those counters and not the GPersonPoints counter.

I wish there was a way to avoid certain GPeople like you can avoid growth. When I play Babylon, I like to just get GScientists, but I still would like to get the other bonuses from wonders. And once I get the +2 science for specialists, I like to put some in buildings other than science ones. Sometimes if my GScientist points per turn are crazy enough I can avoid most of the others, but some usually sneak in eventually.

 

[kirbdog]

Great Generals and Great Admirals are entirely off the counter.

Great Prophets I believe are *on* the counter if chosen as a free person with something like the Maya bonus but definitely *off* the counter if purchased with faith or if acquired with Hagia Sophia (although the latter operate on their own "faith counter" specific to Great Prophets).

Great Scientists, Great Engineers, Great Artists, and Great Merchants are all *on* the counter if they are acquired by a city earning points. They are also *on* the counter if they are acquired with a wonder such as Tower of Pisa, Porcelain Tower, the Louvre, or Hubble.

However, they are *off* the counter if they are purchased with faith, so pump that faith! Faith is simply awesome because you can get 2-3 great people of one type, plus some of the other types, if you get your faith generation high enough. Not only do they not increase the GP counter, but they all have independent "faith counters."

While you can pop different specialists of the same type on the same turn, and thus reduce the total costs of the specialists, think carefully whether this is really what you want. A common situation is to get a Great Engineer from wonders at least once in your game. If you make it cheap, you might get another great engineer later in your game. Do you really want that, or is it interfering with your GA or GS production?

Moral of the story: get all your scientists from cities before building Hubble, get more scientists from faith. Alternatively, time Louvre to pop after getting at least 1 artist from each city, and of course get more artists from faith. And if you are playing the Maya, the only way to pick your bonus Great Person without increasing your GP counter is to go for an Admiral or General.

 

[Novalia]

Puppets will sometimes screw you up if they have a market and decent enough food to work it.