The most standard use of the first GP is to set up an Academy. This is only worthwile if your capital can actually be cottaged and generate commerce (the infamous Bureaucracy capital needs land tiles and food specials).
The next GPs (all standard talk, here) are usually used to bulb towards Liberalism, which is then used to get a
Renaissance military tech, which is then used to conquer half the map.
This, the bulbing, is because the Great Scientist tech preference is heavily geared towards that target. Scientists also offer the most beakers on bulbs.
If in doubt, you can refer to this very useful post :
https://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/references/great-people-tech-preferences/
Take an Empire pulling 300 beakers per turn and having the gold to sustain research : a great scientist bulb will save 6 turns of research if no beakers are wasted.
For this reason, it's usually advisable to self-tech the smaller techs and bulb the larger ones.
A couple of Great Scientists bulbing into Education and Liberalism itself would then save 10+ turns towards a tech target. That's a lot. Say you've bulbed Philosophy as well and you've saved 15+ turns.
It all goes in a beeline theory. You beeline what you want and trade your way around to backfill techs. So, of course, it's more effective on Deity than it is on Chieftain, because you need to be able to backfill.
So, Liberalism beeline. The main bulbs are :
- Philosophy : it's worthwhile as a trade bait AND for the Pacifism civic : if you get one more GP from Pacifism, the bulb was essentially free (not really but kinda...). If Philo is up for trade or you don't want Pacifism, you can skip Meditation and head straight to ;
- Education : Universities and Oxford are great for PHI characters. Although if you're going to rush, it's likely only the capital gets a University. Sometimes double bulbed, kind of a waste ;
- Liberalism : a hard bulb to set up because oftentimes Printing Press will take priority. You need to have Compass and lack Machinery to bulb into Lib. This can be done on Deity, where you have a lot of margin, as far as trades go but on the lower levels it's probably better to have Machinery earlier and make use of Macemen.
Around those techs, the other bulbs are :
- Printing Press : useful for a heavily cottaged Empire and a pre-requisite to
Rifling.
- Chemistry : the improvement on workshops is likely irrelevant at this point but is a pre-requisite to
Steel.
The other classical military tech that is gotten with Liberalism is
Military Tradition. It requires the least scientists, since you can't bulb into it.
Going Liberalism --> Nationalism or Liberalism --> Military Tradition is almost equal on beakers. So, if you want to build the Taj Mahal, you're almost surely better off Libbing Nationalism.
Sidenote on Mil Trad : since it doesn't require as many bulbs as the other targets, many players try to pre-build mounted units, generate Great Merchants, run trade missions and upgrade ;
Sidenote on Steel : upgrading Trebuchets to Cannons comes very cheap, as far as the gold to power upgrade is concerned, so that's a standard move as well.
On the way to Liberalism, there's also Paper : don't bulb it. It's too cheap.
Other scientist bulbs could be :
- Mathematics for a Construction rush. Usually only done with a PHI character ;
- Engineering for a Trebuchet rush. Very marginal, requires to leave Fishing aside. Also best with a PHI character (Suleiman fits) ;
- Astronomy. Usually reserved to isolated starts, bulbing Astronomy before unlocking Paper (i.e. no Bureaucracy). Researching Civil Service and using Liberalism to bulb Astronomy is a perfectly valid alternative.
On multiple academies :
Usually not advisable. How much extra is the Academy going to generate ? Let's say it's 30 beakers per turn (requires a bloody good spot already) :
If we compare it with a 1800 beakers bulb, it would take 60 turns for the Academy to pay off. Not worth it.
The reason the capital usually gets an Academy is :
- it's early, so the building has time to pay off ;
- Bureaucracy ;
- it's early, so there are no expensive techs to bulb.
Golden Ages :
Are good. And they usually get you extra GPs as well. So, using a GS to trigger a Golden Age is perfectly fine. If you get two in return... (See Philosophy bulb.)
Overall :
You need to decide what you want to do with a GP before you produce it. This is why many players don't like "pollution" in their gpp pool. Because they don't like uncertainty.
Sometimes, you need to alter your tech path to fit your GP production.
GPs also have increasing costs. You can only produce so many. So, a strategy that is devised around gpp needs to claim land at some point. Or else, it will reach a plateau and no new GP will be born.
This is a reason why the high end of most GP use is military.
Shhhh... someone's at the door.
Old Dude!
