Mixing GPPs and loving it

[slobberinbear]

I know that there is a strong argument for maintaining "GPP purity"; i.e., trying to make all GPPs in a given city of the same flavor as much as possible. In practice, I've found this very hard to do, whether I'm doing a semi-specialist economy or just wonderbuilding.

So I decided to chuck it out the window and put all my eggs in one basket.

As Sitting Bull with stone hooked up (Monarch difficulty), i've been able to build Stonehenge, the Pyramids, the Great Lighthouse, the Temple of Artemis, and the Colossus all in my capital. With a priest specialist running, I am likely to generate either a prophet or a merchant with the occasional engineer thrown in.

Because my GPPs are all in one city, I am generating Great People much faster (about 1 every 12 turns at 500 AD) than if I split up my wonders among my cities to specialize them. And let's face it -- none of the Great People are bad. Even the much-maligned Great Artists are good for a tech or starting a golden age. When I got a prophet -- boom, holy shrine. Engineer? Quick Temple of Artemis (for which I had no marble). Merchant? Lighbulbed Metal Casting and built Colossus.

Just remember that concentration of GPPs (regardless of type) can get you a ton of Great People, especially with other GPP modifiers in play (Philosophical, National Epic, Parthenon, etc.).

 

[axident]

Yup potluck is good, just make sure you get a scientist at some point for Academy. Building the Great Library helps a lot in this respect--you get +3 GPP from 2 scientists, plus the GrL itself generates +2 = total +8 GPP, all science.

 

[madscientist]

I agree 100%. That is one big advantage to industrious leaders and the core of obsoletes no cottage/bulb strat. I agree on great artists, while I do not want too many, they are great for a golden age and culture bombing conquered or border cities.

I also agree you should get at least 1-2 great scientists so running a few science specialists in the capital after building the library is a good idea.

finally, wonder spamming in the capital works even better if the GP are settled (exception artist) and running representation off the pyramids. Obsolete is correct on this point although I do not agree about only two early cities and no cottage building.

 

[Leventis]

Sometimes the harder I try to keep the GPP pool pure, the more I feel the game is ripping me off. One game I had 98% chance of generating Great Scientists in my GP farm--of course, I got back to back GA's courtesy of the NE! It almost wrecked the entire game since I was banking on using GSs to pop liberalism pre-reqs!

But in general, mixing the GPPs makes it much harder to plan ahead effectively with any real focus, or at least that's what I find. You really are rolling the dice, which, while it may be fun, can be a recipe for disaster depending on how well you are going.

I find it much better to have the usual GP farm (focusing on scientists, say), while a secondary city with high production builds some of the expensive wonders that generate GEs or GMs. That way, once you switch out of caste system later in the game, this second city will give you the odd GM and GE, which are FAR more handy then than GSs. And in BtS, should this city be heavily forested you can whack the national park there and really crank them out.

 

[axident]

I agree 100%. That is one big advantage to industrious leaders and the core of obsoletes no cottage/bulb strat. I agree on great artists, while I do not want too many, they are great for a golden age and culture bombing conquered or border cities.

I also agree you should get at least 1-2 great scientists so running a few science specialists in the capital after building the library is a good idea.

finally, wonder spamming in the capital works even better if the GP are settled (exception artist) and running representation off the pyramids. Obsolete is correct on this point although I do not agree about only two early cities and no cottage building.

I skimmed obs's strat which is pretty popular and predates him--I know it as wonderspam. But his start locations are always ridiculously good and it is infeasible to wonderspam without stone on higher difficulty levels, which is why I got bored with always having to run around trying to find stone and marble and why I eventually turned to a peaceful-or-military REX/Infiltration strategy that works with or without copper, with or without stone, with or without marble, on Emperor+. Plus it frees up a trait slot as Industrious isn't that strong of a trait unless you spend a LOT of hammers on wonders.

 

[madscientist]

I guess the only time I want a pure GP farm, and it is early, is to get a great prophet for a shrine. But usually running the oracle/stonehenge/priests early gets it.

 

[axident]

By the way one of my unintentional wonderspam games was on Emperor, no Industrious trait or stone but I got and kept a big tech lead. And there my "tandem" approach started.

What I found to work well when you are pressed for hammers is a "tandem" wonderspam approach where one city builds most wonders (probably capital under Bureau) and the other builds spillover + National Epic. A third might take spillover from the spillover sometimes. This way you have a MUCH easier time keeping a monopoly on wonders. I did eventually get stone after conquering 2 neighbors, but by then the game was mine anyway. At least it made my West Point cheaper.

 

[BronzeAge]

Building the Great Library helps a lot in this respect--you get +3 GPP from 2 scientists, plus the GrL itself generates +2 = total +8 GPP, all science.

While you are right that the points go toward science, it is not a total of 8 for science generation, but 3. The value 8 is only for generic POOL points, which is different than your PROBABILITY pool. A lot of people don't understand this, but if you do already know it, then you are way ahead of the pac.

I skimmed obs's strat which is pretty popular and predates him--I know it as wonderspam.

I agree that wonderspam is nothing new as well. Just about everyone tries to wonderspam I think when they first start out in Civ. I'm sure many get it to work also on the beginner-levels. What is different is that Obs' was able to make this work on levels that were agreed to be impossible to pull it off on.

A lot of the methods used to do that were/are very unorthodox, but I've noticed a lot of people tend to be adapting some of them now. Who would have thought someone would make use out of a prophet specialist economy?

Lately I have been trying to find some ways on improving the output of the hammer-economy. With the changes in BtS, there should be a few extra tweaks to make hidden somewhere.

 

[madscientist]

Obsolete's technique was wonderspamming but he settled all the GP (particularly engineers/prophets/scientists) which further turned the capital into a production monster. He never Bulbed and I think used one great scientist for an academy. My point is the extra hammers from settling just feeds into more wonders, which feed into more GPs.

His starts were insanely good, I agree. But I have gotten an occasional great start and done a similar thing. You do not need to be industrious (it helsp though) or a resource but you need to NOT be on the coast, you need hills and food, and most importantly forrests for chopping to get this spam monster started. I actually got it going with Washington of all people but never finished the game because BTS just came out.

 

[axident]

Obsolete's technique was wonderspamming but he settled all the GP (particularly engineers/prophets/scientists) which further turned the capital into a production monster. He never Bulbed and I think used one great scientist for an academy. My point is the extra hammers from settling just feeds into more wonders, which feed into more GPs.

His starts were insanely good, I agree. But I have gotten an occasional great start and done a similar thing. You do not need to be industrious (it helsp though) or a resource but you need to NOT be on the coast, you need hills and food, and most importantly forrests for chopping to get this spam monster started. I actually got it going with Washington of all people but never finished the game because BTS just came out.

Unlike you bulb freaks, I almost always settle stuff and almost never pop scientists, so obs's approach is ancient news for me. The thing is that popping isn't really necessary even at higher difficulty levels unless you think that winning Lib will somehow automatically make you win. No. You need hammers as well as tech and beakers, and settling does both. And with BtS it's even easier to win Lib without any bulbing. And yes you can wonderspam on the coast.

 

[axident]

While you are right that the points go toward science, it is not a total of 8 for science generation, but 3. The value 8 is only for generic POOL points, which is different than your PROBABILITY pool. A lot of people don't understand this, but if you do already know it, then you are way ahead of the pac.



I agree that wonderspam is nothing new as well. Just about everyone tries to wonderspam I think when they first start out in Civ. I'm sure many get it to work also on the beginner-levels. What is different is that Obs' was able to make this work on levels that were agreed to be impossible to pull it off on.

A lot of the methods used to do that were/are very unorthodox, but I've noticed a lot of people tend to be adapting some of them now. Who would have thought someone would make use out of a prophet specialist economy?

Lately I have been trying to find some ways on improving the output of the hammer-economy. With the changes in BtS, there should be a few extra tweaks to make hidden somewhere.

Okay I guess I don't know about the probability thing, are you saying that the only one of the specialists count towards probability? Is there a thread on this? I don't want to hijack this one.

Agreed on by whom? The bulbing at higher diff levels consensus if there was one, would be incorrect. I never bought into bulbing and always did well anyway.

 

[Percy]

Two things to consider:

GP points, and GP probability. GP points are as advertised. To calculate the GP probability, however, it is the number of sources that count.

Example:
I have the Oracle: Great Prophet source. I let it work alone for 10 turns, so i have 10 sources out of 10 that are for a Great Prophet. Now, i keep the wonder, but i assign 2 Scientist specialists. After 10 turns of that, i will have:
10 Great Prophet sources (from before) + 10 Great Prophet sources (from the 10 turns) + 20 Great Scientist sources (because of the TWO scientists for 10 turns), which means there's a 50/50 to spawn a Great Prophet or Scientist.

 

[madscientist]

Unlike you bulb freaks, I almost always settle stuff and almost never pop scientists, so obs's approach is ancient news for me. The thing is that popping isn't really necessary even at higher difficulty levels unless you think that winning Lib will somehow automatically make you win. No. You need hammers as well as tech and beakers, and settling does both. And with BtS it's even easier to win Lib without any bulbing. And yes you can wonderspam on the coast.

I agree to a certain extent. I will bulb philosophy with a GS and theology from a GP (if I do not need a shrine). Philosophy founds Taosim, is along the road to liberalism, and gets a high return as far as trading (OK, no so much in BTS as warlords). Theology get you Christianity and more importantly first crack at the AP (for the minimu to keep it out of an AIs hands). Otherwise I have not bulbed anything.

I have not used a GE to rush any wonder in BTS except for the space elevator.

GS I use for academies or settle. GA Is use for a golden age or culture bomb. Great spy scotland yard, settle, or espionage mission. GM I settle.

All that said, I must be honest that I tend to horde one of each specialists, it is not uncommon for me to have saved a GA from music, a popped GE or GS (or physics), and the economics GM. I then see if any corps are needed or helpful. I I have no or fringe oil suplly after scientific method, I beeline Physics and save the GM. If I have a big coastal empire with lots of seafood and rice, I will save the GM.

Anyone else hording great people for corps or late golden ages?

 

[axident]

I think it's interesting to hear others' approaches and your approach seems to have some great benefits if you have compliant trading partners.

However, I would submit this approach instead:

1. Don't trade if you can help it, unless it's some crappy tech and you are about to lose monopoly power over it anyway. Else you accelerate the pace of teching for EVERYBODY. Snaaty pointed out rightly that Deity level means fast AI teching no matter what and that it's more beneficial to try to slow down the AI than try to out-tech it. Instead, infiltrate and extort.

2. After my Wonderspam thread's lessons, I realized that I actually do NOT want shrines or religion or whatever at higher difficulty levels until I know what the AP religion is. Heck I don't even want the AP itself; I just want to know who's going to build it, so I can switch to that religion for the +2 hammer bonus. The exception is DR because Spiral is powerful in conjunction with AP/Sankore/Sistine. But at high enough difficulty and with enough AIs, you probably will end up capturing Spiral and not building it. By the way, this approach saves you the services of prophets that would otherwise go to shrining. Make the AI waste its prophets on shrines and then take the shrines.

3. Yeah I generally settle my GEs too. I think I popped a GE for Sistine once since I was getting culturally punished by China. (Post-Sistine I pushed back so hard on China that I annexed 3 of its cities.) It was an Emperor game, I axe-rushed 3 neighbors early, spied, and generally had one hell of a game. I relocated my capital so my capital became a HE/WP coastal city cranking extremely highly-promoted privateers, which slowed down the AI teching and meant lots of dead caravels. Good times.

4. GAs I agree are Golden Age fodder. I infiltrate and Academy my first spies and scientists. Merchants I almost always settle if running Rep, since +1 food is sort of like +1/2 specialist. Prophets I usually settle. Especially after seeing how worthless founding religions and shrines are, beyond maybe one early religion/shrine.

5. I've toyed with corps but you are probably far more experienced in that realm. Otherwise I save GPs up for golden ages if they are crappy ones like artists and spies. Heck I'm about to pull off a 4-GP golden age in my Dutch Domination game with a spy/GA/GE and one yet-to-be-determined GP.

I agree to a certain extent. I will bulb philosophy with a GS and theology from a GP (if I do not need a shrine). Philosophy founds Taosim, is along the road to liberalism, and gets a high return as far as trading (OK, no so much in BTS as warlords). Theology get you Christianity and more importantly first crack at the AP (for the minimu to keep it out of an AIs hands). Otherwise I have not bulbed anything.

I have not used a GE to rush any wonder in BTS except for the space elevator.

GS I use for academies or settle. GA Is use for a golden age or culture bomb. Great spy scotland yard, settle, or espionage mission. GM I settle.

All that said, I must be honest that I tend to horde one of each specialists, it is not uncommon for me to have saved a GA from music, a popped GE or GS (or physics), and the economics GM. I then see if any corps are needed or helpful. I I have no or fringe oil suplly after scientific method, I beeline Physics and save the GM. If I have a big coastal empire with lots of seafood and rice, I will save the GM.

Anyone else hording great people for corps or late golden ages?

 

[madscientist]

I am a Monarch BTS player, and not that good at it. The corps are pretty powerful once you get them going, particularly the Mining inc and Sids Sushi. I ahve not had the need to use a GS for standard ethanol or the aluminum tech yet, but came very close. Used the Sushi corp to culture steal oil and aluminum in my lone Monarch win.

So what I say goes up to Prince at least, maybe Monarch.

 

[MestreLion]

Two things to consider:

GP points, and GP probability. GP points are as advertised. To calculate the GP probability, however, it is the number of sources that count.

Example:
I have the Oracle: Great Prophet source. I let it work alone for 10 turns, so i have 10 sources out of 10 that are for a Great Prophet. Now, i keep the wonder, but i assign 2 Scientist specialists. After 10 turns of that, i will have:
10 Great Prophet sources (from before) + 10 Great Prophet sources (from the 10 turns) + 20 Great Scientist sources (because of the TWO scientists for 10 turns), which means there's a 50/50 to spawn a Great Prophet or Scientist.

Not true, but very close, IIRC. Yes, the probability pool is different than the gpp pool, but, also, values are weighted per turn. Using your exemple, that is:

10 turns with Oracle only = 100% GP odds for 10 turns
10 turns with Oracle + 2 Scientists = 33% GP, 67% GS odds for 10 turns

Total: 20 turns
( 100*10 + 33*10 ) / 20 = 66.5% Great Prophet
( 000*10 + 67*10 ) / 20 = 33.5% Great Scrientist

So, for having 100% for so many turns, the odds of a GP are much higher. No matter how many scientist sources you add in a given turn, it will count only as a single turn.

 

[axident]

Not true, but very close, IIRC. Yes, the probability pool is different than the gpp pool, but, also, values are weighted per turn. Using your exemple, that is:

10 turns with Oracle only = 100% GP odds for 10 turns
10 turns with Oracle + 2 Scientists = 33% GP, 67% GS odds for 10 turns

Total: 20 turns
( 100*10 + 33*10 ) / 20 = 66.5% Great Prophet
( 000*10 + 67*10 ) / 20 = 33.5% Great Scrientist

So, for having 100% for so many turns, the odds of a GP are much higher. No matter how many scientist sources you add in a given turn, it will count only as a single turn.

In other words BronzeAge is full of crap like so many smug people who think they know more about civ than they do?

 

[MestreLion]

In other words BronzeAge is full of crap like so many smug people who think they know more about civ than they do?

Nope, thats not what i said. I would never be that rude to anyone on the forum. He does have a merit for pointing out that GPP *raw points* (for GP generation) are much different than the GPP *sources* (for odds of GP type). In your exemple, hes right to say there are only 3 "points" (sources) towardsr GS, not 8.

And I added a new layer by saying the odss are "normalized" per turn, not per sources.

Besides, my quote was on Percy, not BronzeAge.

 

[axident]

Nope, thats not what i said. I would never be that rude to anyone on the forum. He does have a merit for pointing out that GPP *raw points* (for GP generation) are much different than the GPP *sources* (for odds of GP type). In your exemple, hes right to say there are only 3 "points" (sources) towardsr GS, not 8.

And I added a new layer by saying the odss are "normalized" per turn, not per sources.

Besides, my quote was on Percy, not BronzeAge.

Comment retracted and apologies to BA then though I find his own post to be rather condescending. GrL counting as one source is still better than nothing; there aren't that many wonders that give GS points at all.

 

[Indiansmoke]

I agree to a certain extent. I will bulb philosophy with a GS and theology from a GP (if I do not need a shrine). Philosophy founds Taosim, is along the road to liberalism, and gets a high return as far as trading (OK, no so much in BTS as warlords). Theology get you Christianity and more importantly first crack at the AP (for the minimu to keep it out of an AIs hands). Otherwise I have not bulbed anything.

I have not used a GE to rush any wonder in BTS except for the space elevator.

GS I use for academies or settle. GA Is use for a golden age or culture bomb. Great spy scotland yard, settle, or espionage mission. GM I settle.

Fully agree