Your best and most useful Great Person?

[GKey]

In OCC games, where you tend to settle great people - Great Prophets with Angkor Wat are very strong. Here I got 120 base hammers per turn thanks to that. Almost half of base hammers come from prophets.

Spoiler :

 

[jtb1127]

I like great prophets for they allow me to build holy cities. Holy cities generate awesome amounts of GPT.

 

[Utenlok]

I think scientist is most often useful, but "most useful" goes to prophet as far as I am concerned. The shrine trumps all GP uses to me. However, if you dont need a shrine there are other GPs I would rather have most the time.

 

[salty mud]

No love for the Artist? I thought je'd be in the top three.

 

[GGracchus]

Artists real use are for culture victories, and frankly I'd rather take a GS, GE, or GM.

It's surprising that GP is #2, I don't think they have much use out of shrininging except OCC as GKey described. On higher difficulties you generally don't go early religion, so I never got much mileage out of the prophets to shrine, not to mention they have a crap bulbpath unless going AP.

 

[lymond]

I'm surprised GE is getting so many votes. IMO the GM is clearly the second best GP. If you don't value trade missions, you don't understand the game.

GS - early
GMs - late

All the rest are golden age fodder. GEs are nice to rush a key wonder if you happen to get one at the right time, which is not something you can usually rely on and often a waste if you have any bonuses on the wonder.

I rate GS easily #1 due to their value in the early game.

GPs are borderline useless except for Golden Ages. Let the AIs build the shrines for you. I rate GAs higher simply due to their extreme value in at least win type of victory.

 

[GKey]

^^ Agreed mostly.

Depending of game type:

In "usual" game GS's #1 no doubt thx to early bulbs, GM's #2 cuz of trade missions.
In AW game GM's are much less useful cuz of poor bulb output.
If you go for culture GA's are priceless.
In any game where you tend to settle your Great People I value GP's as #1 cuz of highest output.

GE's are least useful except for early Mids/Machinery gambits and Mining corp.

 

[Cheps]

Scientists early game for bulbing/academies, and merchants later for trade missions (with a good GP farm you could be running @100% science for a long time). Engineers are really nice but harder to get, then it's tempting to keep him until mining inc. Others have more situational uses, unless you focus on it (e.g. cultural victory for artists).

 

[azzaman333]

Depends on when you get them.

 

[GA econ FTW]

Great Artist FTW!.......

....

(mumbling) Sorry, My Agent requires I say that to market my posting handle.....

 

[Colonel Mustard]

In OCC games, where you tend to settle great people - Great Prophets with Angkor Wat are very strong.

I agree. By far my most favourite GP - on top of the base hammers they also provide the gold to pay for a large standing army, run Pacifism and afford to keep science at 100%. Followed by the GM for the gold and the extra food to run more specialists.

 

[MeatUnit2]

But my vote is definately for the Scientist.
**snip**
Great Spies, in my opinion, are utterly pathetic. A waste of a Great Person, useful only for a Golden Age.

Wow. Just Wow.

You're not doing it right.

 

[salty mud]

Neither are a few other people, then. Not playing the game exactly how you do is obviously very wrong.

 

[Bigv32]

I think we should all just admitt this has become two different questions:

What GP is best? This I think we could all agree depends on the situation.

What is our favorite GP? My answer to this is whichever one I want at the time lol.

 

[Mylene]

GE is probably the best in small numbers (they dont come that often anyway ~~), a simple example would be building the Pyras, using scientists but getting a GE which comes out fast thanks to the GS points.
You may be able to get GLH now shortly before an AI.
No other GP on it's own has the potential to give such a big boost..

 

[Pliped]

Great Engineers ability to rush is incredibly useful imo as is the corps they can found
Spies, Merchants, Artists and Scientists all have their uses and sometimes are far more desirable than GEs but I would still have to pick the GE

Great Prophets to me are quite limited, later in the game they cant really bulb many techs as far as i'm aware and if all the shrines have been built or you never had the chance to build any then the only option is settling them which is a bonus but not compared to the other Great people.

 

[MeatUnit2]

Neither are a few other people, then. Not playing the game exactly how you do is obviously very wrong.

I'm not saying the Great Spy is the best, but to say the Great Spy is "utterly pathetic. A waste of a Great Person" seems to me overly harsh. They can go safely where no other units can go and gather information, particularly in the early game.

It probably does have something to do with the type of game I play, which is on huge maps, marathon, LoR, with no tech brokering. Spies are often very important in huge maps and long games. LoR has an enhanced spies tech tree so they become even more important.

I use Great Spies to scout, to watch choke points and to watch enemy builds. If you place one on a strategically located hill you can watch two or three enemy cities at once. The flip side to being a warmonger is to keep an eye on your opponents and the Great Spy is a good unit for that.

 

[Ambidexter]

Two Scientists can improve your research tremendously with an Academy in your best and second best cities.

 

[jtb1127]

Wow. Just Wow.

You're not doing it right.

Hey, that's how I use mine too.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Do we need to know how you use your meat unit?