Great People

[logicman49]

I must be missing something. Everyone always p[osts like they get Great People all the time. That's how you get golden ages and such. First, how come I almost never get them? Am I supposed to put a setting on? And what of specialists. People here talk all the time about reseserch specialists and don't worry about getting behind in Tech. Once I get behind I never catch up. The game I'm on I tried expanding. I had maybe 7 cities and my 2 nearest AIs had 10-12. I was losing money so fast I had to research down to 10% and then by the time I attacked them I was so far behind in tech I got creamed. What the heck am I not seeing?

Steve

[Supr49er]

Re: Great People

Originally posted by logicman49
I must be missing something. Everyone always p[osts like they get Great People all the time. That's how you get golden ages and such. First, how come I almost never get them? Am I supposed to put a setting on? And what of specialists. People here talk all the time about reseserch specialists and don't worry about getting behind in Tech. Once I get behind I never catch up. The game I'm on I tried expanding. I had maybe 7 cities and my 2 nearest AIs had 10-12. I was losing money so fast I had to research down to 10% and then by the time I attacked them I was so far behind in tech I got creamed. What the heck am I not seeing?

Steve

Once you build libraries, you can put two of your citizens to work as scientist specialists. This lets you lower your science slider.

Great Wonders increase specific birth rates +2.
For example, the Pyramids increase the birth rate of Great Engineers +2.

National Wonders increase specific birth rates +1

Certain buildings "unlock" the city specialists.
Ex.: Forge will allow you to put one citizen to work as an Engineer Specialist.

Being the First civ to Research certain technologies will give you a free Great Person. For example, getting Economics first will give you a free Great Merchant.

[Indalecio]

Using the Caste System civic is another way to unlock specialists. Creating a specialist moves one citizen from working a city square to becoming a specialist.

[Fleme]

Specialists generate GPP (Great People Points) and when you for example build a Library in a city, it allows you to turn 2 citizens into Scientists, which produce 3 and 3 GPP towards a Great Scientist. Market and Grocer allow Merchant, Forge and Factory Engineers and so on. Alternatively, also Wonders generate GPP as well and you can see which specialist points each wonder generates by checking them in the civilopedia. (examples: Pyramids generate Engineers, Oracle Prophets, Colossus Merchants, Great Library Scientists).

Going down on research isn't a bad thing if you have managed to research writing and have set up libraries in most of your cities. With just 3 people and having one food source within the city radius, you can run 2 scientist specialists which more than make up for having only 10% research spending. The Great Scientists will soon start rolling in allowing you to create academies, rush research or in some cases, settle them in your cities to further research generation.

[Fleme]

Curses! Beaten by mere minutes!

[Cartimandua]

I know this isn't as technical as the other answers, but my favorite Great Person experience is researching Music first to get a great artist so that I can drop a culture bomb on a new little city that happens to be very close to my neighbors

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Fleme
Curses! Beaten by mere minutes!

[Lord Avalon]

Having a Philosophical leader increases GP birth rate 100%.

The Parthenon increases it 50%.

[Robert]

You can manage your great people when you open your city screen (double click on a city).
They are in the bottom-right corner.
You can click on the + next to a specialist to add one.

Hoover your mouse over the specialist to reveal the bonusses this specialist will give you.

A bar will appear below these specialists indicating how long it'll take for the great person to show up.

[snoopy369]

Specialists are generally how you convert FOOD to STUFF (science/gold/culture/hammers). Any city that is a high food city can use specialists to good effect.

Basically look at each city when it's first created.

Does it have high food potential (several food resources, lots of flood plains; you can use it to 'poprush' (ie slavery-whip) stuff, and then once you're done with slavery go into using your population as specialists)?

Does it have high hammer potential (hammer resource or two, several plains hills, and enough food to support the use of these things)?

Does it have medium hammer potential (lots of hills, windmills used to get hammers from them)?

Does it have high commerce potential (a bit of food, lots of grasslands or flood plains, rivers, you can cottage everything)?

Does it have medium commerce potential? (no river)

If it's not one of the above, you probably can't do much with it and shouldn't settle it.

[joncnunn]

One thing to add to the above list of when to build cities:

Will the city site bring into your territory a resource that can be used by a corporation your planning on building or any unqiue resource not already under your control? If true, your empire can use the city even if the city itself can't do much.