Strategies for Great Persons?

[playshogi]

I use my scientists to 1) build academy in capital 2) pop techs like philosophy to found Taoism. The 3rd one usually starts my Golden Age where I switch to caste system to try to get a Great Merchant to save for founding Sid Sushi. I usually build pyramids, so if I get an engineer, I'll rush a wonder, usually the Great Library or (rarely) pop Metal Casting with him. I no longer try for early religion very often, preferring to capture a holy city with shrine intact, but if I found Taoism then I'll build Angkor Wat so that I can run 3 GP in an attempt to get a Great Prophet that way.

[DirtyMartini]

What's the story with Sid's Sushi -- I'm usually running state property by the time I get to corporations, so I've never founded it. It's a huge food booster right? Do you use the surplus to workshop over everything and produce like mad, or to run specialists, or a little of both. How widely do you spread the corp? Just the specialist cities?By that point in the game, I'm usually running SP and hitting the happy/health caps, so the extra food has never really appealed to me that much. The only corp I've really used much is Mining Inc, but that's just cause I'm a production junkie.

On the topic of the thread:

Prophet: Shrine, Lightbulb Theology (particularly important now with the Apostolic palace -- never would have done this before BTS), The rest usually go for Golden Ages, maybe a second shrine. I rarely produce more than two anymore, but excess could be settled in the shrine city.

Merchants: I see the math behind settling instead of trade missions, but that +1650 or so gold right NOW, is often more useful than +4000 spread over the entire game. I can quickly upgrade my whole army or run deficit research for a vital tech. So, they usually go for trade missions.

Scientists: Academies (1 or 2), lightbulb philosphphy (situational), remainder get settled.

Engineers: Wonders. I'm actually willing to save one for quite a while to rush build Ironworks. In some games I will save one for Mining Inc. (the only corp I've ever used). But, like I said, I'm a production hog.

Artists: Golden ages or quelling culture problems in conquered territory. I seem to get more artists than I want.

Spies: I've tried the whole infiltrate thing, but I'm not really into using normal spies enough to make that pay off. They usually get burned for a golden age -- maybe settled.

Generals: Warlord (Medic III scout), remainder get settled in HE city and/or main naval unit producer.


I almost never use a great person to lightbulb tech (with the exceptions of Theology and Philosophy). I also settle them less often than I used to now that Golden Ages are so good.

[snoopy369]

Sid's Sushi I usually only spread to:
1. My GP generator. Particularly if I'm playing a GA game, I try to have one city that has a ton of food and has either the Globe Theatre or something to make it happy, and run as many specialists as possible (either caste system or some wonders to allow this). Sid's Sushi makes this simple... add five or six more specialists, quite nice when it takes 2000+ gps to get a GP.
2. Any city with a ton of hammer-producing tiles and not enough food. This is your Plains Hill City, where you have like 8 plains hills and only one food resource, and hopefully some iron or coal or somesuch. It would allow this city to maximize hammer usage.

Other than that I don't really spread it much; you could run a representation economy where every city got it, and you just used a ton of GS's, but i'm not sure how efficient that would be. Probably more efficient when you have not too many resources, enough to still be turning a profit or close (or pair it with a money generator). You'd also spread it to at least your top 3 culture cities in a cultural victory attempt, of course.

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
Great Spies i hate - i tell them everytime they pop, just like the incans tell me everytime i click them.

You can at least use them for GAs, so what's to hate? If you don't want them, don't run spy specialists -- you'll probably never see one.

[rah]

I don't work SPY specialists so you're right it's rare that I see them, but if I'm doing a GA game, they're great since you're not likely to duplicate them. I did my first 5GP GA the other day.

[Theben]

On the chance I actually build the Great Wall, is the only time I get spy specialists.

As far as Sid's Sushi, with the number of fish/clam/crab resources there are in a typical game (I play large maps) you can get a HUGE food boost. Keep in mind there is a substantial $$ cost in regular BtS, so only spread them where you need them, or utilize enough merchants to pay for its use in that city. Personally I feel that by the time you can build it most of your infrastructure in your empire should be complete, so maxing out merchants (and some priests) should be enough, and theoretically can build it in every city.

[Blaupanzer]

Rah, that's 5 GAs, If you didn't build the Taj Mahal. Most impressive. Hope you beeline for the Mausoleum with that much at stake (75 vice 50 turns of GA bliss).

[Ming]

I'm sure he built the TM

I really love it when you have the wonder and you get a free GA via an event. It sure surprised me when I got one the other night.

[rah]

Yeah I had a similar event so I had a total of 7 GAs during that game. Around Taj i did two so I had one stretch where I had a 36 turn GA. SWEET. By the time it was over the AIs had no further chance.

I doubt I'll ever to do a 6gp ga. 5 was tough enough and used my great spy.

HAS anyone ever done a 6gp ga?

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by rah
I don't work SPY specialists so you're right it's rare that I see them, but if I'm doing a GA game, they're great since you're not likely to duplicate them. I did my first 5GP GA the other day.

The city governor is very likely to assign spy specialists. I don't know if that's just because I like to use the maximize production and commerce buttons (at the same time) as my default for most cities.

[snoopy369]

6 is tough. I've done 5 a few times, the basic strategy is:

1. Build GW early. This gives you a Great Spy every so often, and if you build it in an otherwise non-GP city, it's a pure great spy.
2. Build GE works in one city. That way you get a GE frequently.
3. Use Caste to generate GS in your #2 GP city (high food/high specialist), and GM/GA alternately in your #1 GP city. Use the occasional GS for academies in the GS city and your top cottage city, if there are extra.
4. Get one city with Artemis and a few priest specialist wonders. This gets you priests frequently.

Try to avoid using the 'rare' GPs (usually for me, Engineer and Spy, as they're the smallest number of specialists) until you're in the late GA's. Usually my first GA is a spy, but then after that it's Scientist/Merchant, Sci/Merch/Artist, Sc/M/A/Sp, Sc/M/A/P/E, then all six (i've never gotten that far, but it's theoretically possible). Add in the TM and you have 6*12+1*8 or 80 turns of GA (even not using the first GA during a mausoleum period) in a normal game... sweet. If you haven't won the game by that point, you're not going to.

The best thing about that strat is it is not wonder heavy. The only wonders you need are:
In one city (your Spy city, no requirement)
Great Wall (easy in SP)
Supplement by using a spy specialist or three later in the game, or building your spy NW here
In another city (your E city, high hammers)
Pyramids (moderate)
Hanging Gardens (easy)
Any one other GE wonder
In a third city (your P city, high food/hammers)
Temple of Artemis (moderate)
One or two other GP wonders, or several cathedrals for specialists
In a fourth city (this can be your GM/GA city, super high food)
Parthenon (easy if you don't forget to get the tech!)
Mausoleum of Mausollos (easy)
Taj Mahal (easy)
National Epic (of course)

In a fifth city (GS city, high food):
Great Library

That's all that's needed for a seven-GA game... I may have one or two of the GP-generating types wrong but you get the idea. You can easily generate plenty of GPs this way, your GM/GA and GS cities should be generating about 100-120 and 60-70 GPP, respectively (National Epic for the first, or move it to the GS city if the GM city is too much better) ... so by the point you have:
1+2+3+4+5+6 = 21 GPs, plus one or two random ones that you don't need, used for academy and such; that means by the end, 2400 GPP or so is needed for that last GP. At 120/turn, that's only 20 turns...

[snoopy369]

BTW, I'll usually get the following:
GSp(1), GSci(2), GSp(4), GSci(Acad), GM(2), GSci(3), GE(5), GA(3), GM(3), GSci(4), GA(4), GSci(Acad), GP(5), GM(4), GA(5), GSci(5), GSp(6), GM(5), GP(6), GSci(6), GA(6), GM(6), GE(6) for my 23, if I'm perfect (I've never gotten to the 6th, but I rarely finish games). Usually you can assume one or two extra, particularly GA/GM, and if there's a bit of GPP pollution, a bit worse than that... but it's quite possible.

If you're particularly interested in Golden Age generation, Dominae wrote a great thread on this a while back, I don't recall exactly when but probably 4-5 months ago...

Edit: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=169309

[Yosho]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini
What's the story with Sid's Sushi -- I'm usually running state property by the time I get to corporations, so I've never founded it. It's a huge food booster right? Do you use the surplus to workshop over everything and produce like mad, or to run specialists, or a little of both. How widely do you spread the corp? Just the specialist cities?By that point in the game, I'm usually running SP and hitting the happy/health caps, so the extra food has never really appealed to me that much. The only corp I've really used much is Mining Inc, but that's just cause I'm a production junkie.

Yeah; Sid's is a huge producer of both food and culture (the culture is a really nice side benifit, especally in border cities). It's amazing; that size 10 city next to a desert that could never grow any bigger suddenly becomes a stable size 15 city, which means a ton more, well, everything. I usually just work all the squares around a city untill they're all full, then make 5-6 specilists per city. It's crazy how much it helps you. And the big thing is that it runs off of seafood; if you want a lot of seafood, it's easy to get, on some maps anyway; any maps that have a fair number of islands or small contentents tend to have vast amounts of fish and crabs, and it's not hard to settle a bunch of little islands for extra seafood if you know you're going to be going for Sid's.

I'm also a huge fan of mining inc; I think that that and Sid's are the two best corps in the game. I'll gladly turn some of my money into a LOT of hammers using Mining Inc; it's a much better investment then buying stuff in Universal Sufferage is. You do have to be careful how you spread mining inc, it's easy to accidently bankrupt yourself, but between how early you can get it and how powerful it is, it's just a huge advantage.

Edit: If have sid's, though, and enough seafood to make it worthwhile, I'll spread it to all my cities ASAP, no hesitation. You're basically trading a few gold a turn for several more population, and while it can get a bit ugly for those few turns before the population expands under the new food source, once it does it's pretty much always amazing. It's basically a builder's dream; you have to build happiness buildings and economic buildings and health buildings like a crazy man and get all the resources you can just to keep up with your own growth, but if you manage it it's as good as increasing the entire size of your empire by 50%, and you get a vast economic advantage and production advantage over everyone else.

[Fleme]

I didn't quite understand the power of SS until recently. I just finished a game in which I had randomed Frederick (Emperor difficulty) and was wondering how my game would go. Good starting pos with both nearby Stone and Marble so I headed for a Specialist Economy and fueled by early wonders, given the Philosophical Trait and all. I hadn't randomed the germans before but was quite pumped about both the UB and the UU. (More about the UB really). So the game went on and finally I'm at the point in which I can build Assembly Plants but when I get them there are very few cities that can make use of the 4 Engineer cap they offer. Shortly after I'm able to found SS and yea, that really does do the trick. I ran 5 engineers in nearly every city I had and they were all fed by SS. That accompanied by Mining Inc there weren't any cities in my empire that couldn't produce a Panzer in 3 turns (or faster!) and this was on Marathon Speed. Now, if it wasn't for SS I couldn't have fed all those engineers and get the extra 10 hammers (that naturally is multiplied).

Won Domination, before 1800 AD. SS is by far the best corporation of them all - so make sure you save up a Merchant and get that corp. Personally I couldn't think of playing without Mining Inc. and SS.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by Seedle
Generals: First one on a unit for super medic. I tend to find settling better than making academies, because by the end of the game, most cities crank out units in 3-5 turns anyway, and the extra promotions count for more than a few extra units. Also, although I agree settling is better, I like making a Great General unit of each type just for fun.

Oh, I disagree with that. It's certanly better to get an acadamy in your west point city then to settle a general somewhere; a lot more experenced units is better then a few more experence points on some units. And even after I do that, I would never settle a general in city that I didn't already have an acadamy in;50% more units is just better, IMHO; after all , then I'd expect at least some of them will survive long enough to get a few more experence point on their own, right?