The "Not so" Great Engineer

[Isildurs Heir]

Be careful!

I was in a Space Race race with another Civ and was running neck and neck to complete the parts. I got 2 Great Engineers within a short period of time, and thought..."Great, I can save these and rushbuild the last two parts if I get behind."

Get to the last two parts, get the Engineers to the cities building them, and go to rush build.....Oh no ......"Great Engineers can only hurry production for BUILDINGS!!!!!"

Thought I would mention it so others don't make the same mistake. Neither the Civilpedia or game manual mention the 'Buildings Only' caveat......

 

[Urederra]

Thank you for the tip. were you be able to start a golden age and win the game?

 

[phungus420]

Great engineers cannot rush projects

 

[Eyemaze]

Aye I would have used them to start a golden age.

 

[Swiss Bezerker]

yes they can,wonders and evrything(cept spaceship parts)
Have u even played the game phungus?

EDIT:man am i stupid. They cant hurry the internet the appolo program or manhattan

 

[Punkymonkey]

No they cannot rush projects such as the manhattan project, sdi, the internet and space ship parts. It's in the manual

 

[Eyemaze]

aye "projects" are in a class of their own.

 

[Al Fredo]

And...you need (at least) two unique GLs to start a golden age. Two of the same do you no good. I had the same dilemma and lost by two turns. I didn't go back to the save, but proabably could I have rushed the Space Elevator. Ah, crap.

 

[The Fjonis]

On a side note - how many turns does it generally take to create the spaceship? Like, how many shields are needed in total for the different parts? Seems to me that the space race or diplomatic UN victory would in some cases prematurely end a game, if you're heading for conquest / domination and the other civs start building UN or space ship... I guess it's part of the game, so I'm not complaining, only wondering..

 

[Mercade]

On a side note - how many turns does it generally take to create the spaceship? Like, how many shields are needed in total for the different parts? Seems to me that the space race or diplomatic UN victory would in some cases prematurely end a game, if you're heading for conquest / domination and the other civs start building UN or space ship... I guess it's part of the game, so I'm not complaining, only wondering..

If you don't want the game to end prematurely due to Space Race or Diplomatic Victory, then you can simply uncheck those from the list of allowable victories.

 

[Carver]

The engineers should at least be able to rush units, I was suprised that I couldn't rush an ICBM with them.

 

[Eyemaze]

Ouch I didn't know they had to be unique types of GLs!

 

[Suki]

No they cannot rush projects such as the manhattan project, sdi, the internet and space ship parts. It's in the manual

so what's the definition of a project in the game? why can't you rush those spesifically?

 

[Isildurs Heir]

so what's the definition of a project in the game?

Good question....I've rtfm'd, and still don't have the answer.

Only thing I can guess is that is seems to impose a "limit" on building a certain item.

For example, a Spaceship requires 3 Thrusters. If you look at the tooltip for Thrusters, it will say "Projects:3" or something like that. If you already have 3 (completed or in production) and try to set a 4th city to build, it will be grayed out. Kinda good so that you won't end up building extra ones you don't need.

 

[zeeter]

To me, if the wonder is an actual building then the engineers can help to build it. If it isn't - then they can't. It really doesn't make sense that engineers can't finish space ships or SDI defences. Those are tangible things that are actually built, in real life, by engineers. Well, maybe not the SDI defense, but if it were built I'm sure that engineers would be doing it.

Perhaps the game just doesn't want you stockpiling engineers and building the spaceship in just a few turns.

Edit: If an engineer can't build the Manhatten Project because it's based on scientific discovery and prooving theories, then why can't a Great Scientist finish it?

 

[Yzman]

I believe that the wonders are divided into projects and buildings, projects are the more abstract ones, like the ones previously mentioned in the topic.

 

[Punkymonkey]

Exactly, the ones i mentioned are the projects. The definition is bascially what firaxis wanted to make sure you would take the time to build if you wanted it. I guess it is just arbitrary.

 

[Good Omens]

so what's the definition of a project in the game? why can't you rush those spesifically?

The spaceship parts, the Internet, SDI, and (I think) the Apollo and Manhatten Projects. I always figured that you can't use Great Engineers on them because they're so large scale and diffuse, as opposed to a single building that the engineer could oversee. That doesn't make any sense for the spaceship parts, but that makes sense from a game balance standpoint.