Start game with 1 great person, which kind and what to do?

What do you gain by settling a GE ?

- saves 6 turn on the first worker : 9 turns build instead of 15.
All actions executed by that worker will come up 6 turns earlier : farm corn, pasture pigs, mine gold, etc.
Then you grow your city a bit, need a workboat ? get a workboat.
- saves maybe 3 turns on the first settler : 10 turns build instead of 13 (arbitrary number).
Those turns saved on the settler are added to the turns saved on the worker : the first settler comes out 12 turns later if you don't have the settled GE.
- saves maybe another 3 turns on the second settler : 3rd city is settled a full 15 turns earlier than it would be otherwise. If the 3rd city is going to produce a settler, that settler also comes out 15 turns earlier.

---> Settled GE gives 150H in the capital over the first 50 turns. But since the capital is going to produce units that, in turn, produce food, hammers, commerce (settlers/workers), then the global benefit is actually much higher. Because it spreads over the map.

---> Settled GE on turn 0 gives the biggest bonus to set up your base, the core of the Empire you'll use to win the game.
Setting up you base is what the early game is all about.
It's a lot stronger to speed up the base's development than to activate a bonus (admittedly stronger) once the base is set up.

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Think : worker stealing. Saves hammers, helps improve the land faster, powerful.
Settling a GE gives the same kind of benefits.

 

Does anybody know how culture flipping works? Could you run your settler right next to an AI and immediately culture bomb your city to flip their capital? That would be fun, even if not the optimal way to play.

If you play on Deity, you might even be able to flip both of the AI cities.

 

They changed the culture mechanics in BtS, so culture bombing won't lead to culture flips. But the culture from the close city could cripple the AI by stealing some good tiles from its capital.

 

Start with a Great General. Attach him as a Warlord to my initial Settler

Seriously? Great Scientist, build an Academy in the capital. That means you go from about 9-10 beakers on T1 to 13+ beakers, which is huge. Faster cultural pops can’t hurt either.

 

You can flip cities with a culture bomb, or rather have the AI gift you their city. It's a quirky mechanic which is checked exactly 4 turns after the AI had acquired a city. If at that time you own at least half of that city's BFC and all requirements for liberation are fulfilled (closer to your capital than any other capital, not at war, city not threatened etc.), the AI will contact you between turns and offer you the city as a gift.

This trick was used succesfully by Izuul to beat this rather tricky map: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/prince-zara-in-the-corner.544889/

 

Outside GE (Settled GE+2 or 3H center tile + 3 H forested plain hill + max hammers Workboat for Coast FIN Fish->Settler would be massive start if could find early Copper for example )
For fun... could take Great Spy... Scout map without barbs problem, can see if there are early rush chances and little later take best tech Civ, infiltrate and steal some techs or whatever

 

Well, they're not going to gift you thief capital!

 

Settle GE, by a mile. You'll get your worker out twice as fast. You'll spit out your fogbusters. You'll get BW, AH, and if necessary Archery well before barb Archers show up. You'll easily get a Granary online in between settlers. Your Mids will still be a piece of cake. Your library will be quick. You'll get alpha before Mansa. You'll rush a neighbour and get their own settled GP. Would make an exception in multi, where it'll be a race to Mids. But the AI doesn't save GPS for bulbs and rushes, do they? So yeah, give me that bonus Uranium mine yield.

Settled GSpy might be interesting, though.

 

I'm old and stubborn and figured there was no way a settled GE would beat rushing the mids.
So I started a few Immortal games and test both.
As far as I'm concerned, no contest, settled wins almost every time.
Learn something new every day. That's why I still love this game. And the people here that keep reminding me that an old dog can learn a new trick.

THANKS TO ALL