How to make use of Great Persons

[BigWilly1974]

I'm struggling to get the hang of the Great Persons addition to Civ IV. So far, I'm basically disregarding their potential, and playing Prince level and just trying to stay competitive (must...break...urge...to...plant farms over cottages or I'll always be tech poor...)

I really haven't tapped the potential of using specialists, and that's part of what I'm asking for help with. When does it make the most sense to employ specialists in a city? I thought about it once they hit size 8/9 and citizens were either unhappy or unhealthy, but specialists don't seem to contribute the red cross or happiness logos that would bring the city back into normal production state.

Rather than a long diatribe...how do you all suggest I approach specialists and developing Great Persons. Up until now, my focus has been on infrastructure and I'm assuming I'm missing out.

[Fried-Psitalon]

Pick one city site that is already naturally food intense (think floodplain or multiple resources) and farm/pasture the heck out of it. Then deliberately force as many units as you can into specialist roles. (If you're shooting for Great Scientists, Artists, or Merchants, Caste System is perfect for this.) That one city, with its vast army of specialists, will provide your entire civ with its Great People. Use any Engineers you get to rush wonders in that city, further adding to your GP fire.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon
Use any Engineers you get to rush wonders in that city, further adding to your GP fire.

Can Great Engineers rush wonders? When I tried to rush the Apollo Project with a Great Engineer, the game would not allow me to.

[PBN]

They can rush wonders, they cannot rush projects (or spaceship parts). The projects in the game, I believe, are apollo project, manhattan project, and the internet. (the exceptions/projects are listed in the manual

[Arkalius]

Yeah, Internet, Manhattan project, Apollo, and the spaceship parts are not wonders, but projects and cannot be rushed by engineers.

I didn't fully tap the potential of great people in my first game either. I did get them and tried to use them well of course, but I never focussed much on getting them. My next game I think I will work on that aspect more.

[Digital_seraph]

Yeah, im an engineer for a defense contractor, and it appears only money can rush projects!

[CiverDan]

If you see fish out there..Get out those work boats! This is a very easy way to get Early Prophets. Another thing, dont be afraid to stop city growth and add a specially before the city grows again and becomes unhealty/unhappy. That extra citizen wont do a thing for you anyways in that situation.

[dewback]

The other project is SDI.

[xxFlukexx]

Yeah, what Fried-Psitalon is pretty good. In my current game I didn't really try, but my capital made so many wonders I turned it into a Great Person(GP) factory. Got it up to +127 Great Person production per turn.
Stuff that really helps:

Representation- +3 sci per specialist, +3 happies
Mercantilism- +1 specialist in each city, no trade routes is a slight hit to your cash flow
Pacifism- +100% GP rate, upkeep to military doesn't matter, just build a few military units per city
National Epic- +100% GP rate, aww yeah
Great Merchants- +1 food, +6 gold, +food lets you almost take out another citizen
Great Library- 2 free specialists, woohoo
Hanging Gardens- +1 pop, better chance of getting great engineers
Caste System- +max specialists, if you need it

All wonders seem to give +2 GP rate, National wonders give +1 GP rate.

You definetly need either stone or marble for this and Industrial to build wonders very fast, I got +127 GP rate fairly easily on noble with only stone, so higher is definetly possible.

Oh yeah, it takes 100 pts per great person up to 10, after 1000, it takes 1200 so its 200 for every great person. Haven't gone above 1200 yet.