Great Artists. Add them or make a great work?

[padillah]

I have managed to create a rather lucrative GP city (+85GPppt) And I am getting Great Artists quite a bit.

What do you do with yours? I added a couple of them to minor cities at first but then I look back and they are still at 4000/5000 culture.

I started wondering if they would be better use added to the city at +14 a piece. Even with just one that's 286 turns 'till 4000, everything after that is gravy.

And, of course, if you add two or three or four... Since I'm playing Saladin I get +100% culture (I think, or is that GPp? Or both?).

Tom P.

[Bobby Chicken]

I add them to cities in the early game, and create great works in late game or when immediate and huge cultural expansion would be great (such as in stealing a gold mine. You must also remember their +3 commerce bonus.

[Arrian]

If I have a city that would benifit from a culture bomb, I'll use an artist on a great work. Otherwise, I'll save the artist to trigger a GA. I don't want to use a great engineer or scientist for that, so if I can manage it, it's great artist + great prophet or merchant.

-Arrian

[khumak]

I always add them. Late in the game you get more culture from the bomb but I never need it late in the game so I'd rather have the commerce. In the early and middle parts of the game you get more culture by adding them, especially on epic. The only cities I ever have culture issues with are the ones I've just conquered though and if I destroy that entire civilization then my culture problem is gone.

[Velociryx]

As with most things Civ, I'd have to say "it depends." Cities on the border with a rival civ can almost always benenfit from a 4k culture bomb (and very useful to set up a pillage zone/bring a rival city adjacent to your borders for easy conquest).

Likewise, if the AI has gone and done something annoying, like sail around my cultural wall and dropped a city behind me in a location I was gonna settle, then a city build 4-5 tiles from the offending chap, coupled with a Great Artist dropped there will almost always net me that city withing just a handful of turns.

Sometimes, though, the per turn cultural boost in a city I'm looking to expand over time, it can be a godsend to add an artist.

About fifty-fifty, I'd say.

-=Vel=-

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I generally have them do a great work. If it's early enough, I might discover a tech if there's one I need...which there always seems to be. Later on, I tend to use them for culture bombs or to get a city a little closer to legendary status. Pretty much the only GP I add to a city is a prophet after all my religous centers have been built.

[Hakai]

Great Artists in War

I have to experiment with it more, but it has been my experience that adding a great artist to a city in revolt will end the revolt. As such I will sometimes save a great artist or two for a campaign in which I know I'm going to take some large cities with high culture(which seem to stay in revolt longer).

I'm not sure how adding a great artist cancels the revolt, or if it just nullifies a number of revolt rounds but it is really nice to give a newly acquired city a border boost and end revolt early.

[Nacht]

I think it's quite a waste to use a great artist to end a revolt. Just wait a few turns and you've got a city with level 3 culture.

[Cort Haus]

In most of my games I have dozens of nasty tundra tiles near my start which make bad city sites, but there are resources there which need to to be secured. A culture bomb can fix that problem and allow more productive cities elsewhere. Likewise with colonising a distant island. Enough cities to bag all the terrain and resources can get very expensive for maintenance, wheras one city with huge borders is better.