If you tech too fast, do you miss out on GPs?

[Hans Lemurson]

If you beeline techs to get into the industrial and modern eras, do you end up losing out on Medieval and Renaissance Great-People, or does entering an era early just give you first chance at the GPs from that era?

 

[Lord Yanaek]

I think if any civilization reaches Industrial, every remaining Renaissance (and before) GP are lost, the current one is the last one you can get.

This is particularly annoying if you want a Great General to support your medieval troops because on higher level, an AI can reach Industrial before the first classical GG is taken, and then every Medieval and Renaissance GG are automatically discarded.

Not sure at all about this, but it looks like this given how fast Modern GP appear on Immortal+

 

[Browd]

This is an unfortunate result of the AI beelining techs and civics that skip whole eras. To take an extreme example, a civ could choose to beeline Frigates (Square Rigging tech) which is only 4 techs deep (Sailing->Ship Building->Cartography->Square Rigging), but just researching Cartography will put that civ into the Renaissance Era (without having had to research a single Medieval Era tech), obsoleting whole eras of Great People in one fell swoop.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

Huh, that's annoying. Fortunately it seems that Great People get better with time.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

it seems that Great People get better with time.

Yes and no. Some early GP are useful early while later GP are better later. Early on, you don't need the +20% to Space Race projects Industrial Engineer for example.
Great General also provide bonuses only to 2 eras of units. An industrial era general will never help your medieval army. Sure it's fun if you can get the general that creates a Cavalry unit and roam the land with a gun-wielding unit while you barely should have swords, but you usually miss bonuses designed for your era by grabbing late GP early, plus they cost a lot more and you usually don't have all the buildings to get GP points early.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

This is one reason why I play with Mad Djinn's tech tree mod. With that mod jumping eras is harder and no AI will go directly from Classical->Renaissance via Cartography. So the early great people are more likely to be available.

 

[elitetroops]

I think if any civilization reaches Industrial, every remaining Renaissance (and before) GP are lost, the current one is the last one you can get.

Is this true only when someone moves into the Industrial Era? I know in science victories I have to plow through lots of industrial/modern/atomic great people before any information era great people show up, even if I've been in the information era since a very long time ago.

It would be great to know the exact mechanics for how Great People work. This would help a lot when planning a science victory, probably for other victory conditions as well.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Don't really know. It's mostly guesswork as we have no real knowledge of the inner workings of the game.

It might be that the game considers "average" era among all civilizations and since Industrial is the most common beeline for AIs, it has the most visible impact on GP.
Medieval/Renaissance era definitely disappear faster than they should but it's true that Industrial Era GP seem to stick around longer in some games.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

Medieval/Rennaisance GP disappear because Industrialization is so strong.

 

[elitetroops]

In my current game I recruited the first Great Scientist turn 78, no other scientist has been recruited, the next available scientist is Renaissance era. The early scientist really do disappear fast on deity.

 

[stormtrooper412]

They most certainly do, making themselves quite redundant. They provide eurekas for techs that if you skipped them, you will already have.

I still think the best investment is to wait out the late ones which can rush space projects