Using Wonders to boost GPP: A Reference

[Padmewan]

Wonders can really rack up GPP in the beginning of the game, when you don't have many specialist options (or population to create them), but can be helpful all game long. I've played a couple of games where I'd keep popping out Great Prophets towards the endgame when they are relatively useless, so with that in mind, here is some info that can help you stack the deck if you know you are gunning for a particular Great Person, broken down by Era (the names of which I forget, so I numbered them) :

Great Artists
1: Parthenon (Polytheism)
3: Notre Dame (Music), Sistine Chapel (Theology)
4: Taj Mahal (Nationalism)
5: Broadway (Electricity), Kremlin (Communism)
6: Hollywood (Mass Media), Rock and Roll (Radio)

Great Engineers
1: Pyramids (Masonry)
2: Hanging Gardens (Monarchy)
3: Hagia Sophia (Engineering)
5: Pentagon (Assembly Line)
6: Three Gorges Dam (Plastics)

Great Merchants
1: Great Lighthouse (Masonry)
2: Colossus (Metal Casting)
3: Versailles (Divine Right)
4: Statue of LIberty (Democracy)
6: Eiffel Tower (Radio), UN (Mass Media)

Great Prophets
1: Stonehenge (Mysticism), The Oracle (Priesthood?)
2: Chichen Itza (Code of Laws)
3: Angkor Wat (Philosophy), Spiral Minaret (Divine Right)

Great Scientists
2: Great Library (Literature)
6: Interet (Fiber Optics)
6: Space Elevator (Robotics)

I'm not sure I got Hanging Gardens or the Oracle right, since I can't find them on my chart, and I forgot to look up the Internet before posting. Please correct if wrong!

Stonehenge is nice, and it's good to generate some Great Prophets if you control some holy cities, but otherwise all of those Great Prophets with their holier-than-thou halos can really make you pull your hair out end-game!

Notice the only Great Scientist generator before the Modern Era is the Great Library.

Of course, you should lean on specialists as much as possible to crank out the GP's. But if you need a boost -- or if you're trying to avoid an "undesirable" GP -- I hope this helps!

 

[Padmewan]

Wow - no one found this helpful?

 

[teoks]

thanks pad, this is pretty helpful. the problem is it is pretty hard to cultivate cities which build only wonders for a specific type of GP isn't it? maybe its just me, but only two or three of my cities have enough production at the early stages to gun for the wonders, and there isn't really much time to select specific ones. so in the end i usually end up with a whole assortment lol.

since we are talking about GP, i have a question about GP generation. i know the max GP point is fixed across all cities, but does the current GP count for each city reset when a GP is generated somewhere?

 

[Heroes]

since we are talking about GP, i have a question about GP generation. i know the max GP point is fixed across all cities, but does the current GP count for each city reset when a GP is generated somewhere?

No, the city which just generated a GP gets resetted, while other cities's GPP are still growing. However, in most cases, since you maximize the GPP rate in one city, other cities don't have chance to generate a single GP!

 

[teoks]

we can get GPP from using specialists right? does the type of specialist used affect the chances of the GP type spawning?

one more question: if i had two cities attaining full GP bar on the same turn, will i get two GP or will the one the game processes first get the GP, while the other city gets pushed back for a few more turns with the higher GPP requirement?

another question: assuming that both the above cities can get their GPs in the same turn... if i had 8 cities where i do not build any wonders or use any specialists, and then i turn on caste system and put everyone on specialist jobs, i would start churning out GP like they were noobs, since all cities would generate GPs on the same turn and the GPP bar is simultaneously reset, ready for the next cycle. now THAT would be crazy...if nothing else, it would give your opponents a shock when they see you spawning 8 GPs on the same turn

 

[Jedoc]

Yes, using specialists affects which Great People your cities spit out. Each wonder and each specialist puts their own special brand of points into the pool. So if you've got two priests and an engineer, you're getting six phrophet points and three engineer points per turn. And if you switch your engineer to a priest midway through, you're still going to have a chance to get a great engineer, because those points are still in the pool. As for your other question: your second hypothesis was correct. All things remaining equal, your cities will spit out great people one after the other, with the counter kicking up to the next notch every time. In my case, my capital created a Great Artist, draining its pool and upping the threshold for the other two. Then the second city I built eventually created an Engineer. And so on.

 

[Padmewan]

Be careful when your AI is auto-managing your specialists or you may get unexpected GP's. For example, when you keep your science cranked up you'll get lots of scientists, which could possibly create a lot of Great Scientists (which is OK if that's what you want!).

 

[petey]

I tend to group my GPPs in one city, so even though another city may have some points, they never get up to having a GP. If my main city is generating 30-40 GPPs / turn and a secondary one is generating 5 or 6, then the secondary one is never going to generate a GP, even though the primary one is resetting to zero every time.

Since I'm bunching up my wonders and specialists in the primary city, it evens out the types of GPs that come out, though it does tend towards scientists, since I turn this city into my research base as well, but that works out well for me and I can just keep adding super-scientists to help it out along the way.

 

[LAnkou]

this reference is helpfull, but i wish you put improvement and the number of specialist allowed(for example, library add X scientist, forge 1 engineer)

i might try to do that but i'd rather kick the arabs....

 

[Padmewan]

Yeah, I would have liked to, too, but what precious little time I have on Civ4 not crashing is spent on gaming, so it took me a while to actually look this stuff up on the Civilopedia. The point of this guide was Wonders vis-a-vis GPP, so the specialist allowances would be helpful. Will try to expand this to cover all improvements and how they relate to generating GPP's.

 

[Reignking]

No, this was definitely very helpful. The other day I wanted to focus a city on great engineers, and I had no idea what wonders could help me. It took forever to comb through the Civilopedia...

 

[LeSphinx]

Thanks Padmewan. It's very usefull as I often played the culutal traits!
LeSphinx