What do you do with Great Generals?

[Dinner]

I find myself not putting them at the head of armies and instead telling them to join cities. In fact I will usually keep stacking them all in my unit producing city (which ever has high hammer production I will specialize by putting the heroic wonder in it, etc...). All of them keep joining the same city and sometimes I'll get four or even five in one city so that every unit produced in that city gets 6-10 experience as soon as they are made.

What do you folks do with Great Generals?

[Ming]

My first is usually a Healer/melee unit. That early, a few extra experience points per unit is nice, but it's more a matter of the number of the units. After that, like you, my best production city becomes a military production city (not that other cities aren't cranking out military as well) It will usually get Heroic and West Point, as well as more generals in the future. However, I will build additional healer generals as my number of SoD's increase.

Later, I may also spare a few GG's for a costal city, so that I can build faster transports if I'm playing on a world where quick sea travel is needed.

[Theben]

1st is usually in my Heroic Epic city b/c at that stage I'm probably not running Vassalage or Theocracy and I want to be able to build either CR II or Com I/Cover swordsmen. I try to get 2-3 in a given military city but not more than that, as the chance of building more than lvl 4 units is highly unlikely. One or 2 in a port city is good... adding a drydocks puts you in a good position to build COM 3 ships.

I'll want 1 or 2 Generals leading an army as healers and if I get a lot perhaps a military academy in a military city that's not HE or Ironworks.

That said, captured AI capitals will often have 1-5 settled GGs in them.

[trev]

Generally all generals are settled in my capital where I build the HE and run beauracracy most of the game along with representation, particularly if I build the pyramids. Nearly all other great people are also settled here with cities generally biased towards generating engineers or prophets. This way I end up with a very high production city producing well promoted units.
In my current game units from my capital are built with 29 exp points and with a charismatic civ that is 6 promotions. Makes for a lot of very powerful armies, garrisoned infantry regularly see off tanks etc andwith a few wins under their belts I have a substantial number of units over 50 exp points winning battles comfortably against a more advanced AI.

[rah]

One healer for each SOD, settle the rest in military cities. I'm with thebs on limiting the number for a city. But every now an then I'll pour them all into one city. And yes, AI caps with 5 GG, juicy.

[Hauptman]

Depends on wich civ im playing, and thus how many will i get throught the game. Imperialistic types (double GG), and charismatic, I'll plop the first into my cap then the rest into my heroic epic city. By the end of the game those units come out shiney. Non special civs, usually spread 2 or 3 around to my most productive cities then start making generaled units.

However, with the Japanese, 98% of them will get attached to Samurai. I play jap games very diferent than any other civ. Its all about racing to Samies and then marching non stop with a super army until gunpowder. Conquest drives my economy. I've gotten general units with well over 200xp.

[wodan11]

Often depends on whether I'm planning to run Representation.

Second, is how I intend to make war. By spamming tons of units? Then settle is good. By technological superiority with few units? Then warlords are good.

Remember also that warlords keep XP as well as upgrade for free.

[Sarco]

My first goes to a unit (if i had a bit of luck in the beginning, my woodsman III-warrior) and becomes a healer.

I used to settle more, but I'm changing to attaching in order to be more mobile on the attack.

[Theben]

I've discovered it's better to have 2 separate units in a stack for the Woods III/Medic III combo. Only 10 exp required for the Woods unit and it increases its attack strength (thru 1st strikes) and only 10 or 17 for the Medic III general.

[Dinner]

My first goes to a unit (if i had a bit of luck in the beginning, my woodsman III-warrior) and becomes a healer.

I used to settle more, but I'm changing to attaching in order to be more mobile on the attack.

I've never really understood why people go for the woodsman upgrade. Yes, +20% woods or jungle defense sounds nice but human players always chop down virtually all the forests ASAP so what is the point?

[Felch]

There's a healing bonus at the third level.

[trev]

I think the decision what to do depends a lot on the type of map that is played. In sp games lately I play marathon pangaea huge maps, emperor level which tends to lead to long sustained wars right through to the spaceship era. I settle them in one city with HE etc so that I can build super units from scratch, currently I am building units with 35 exp points, so with 16 generals in the city, and the power of the modern armour now and mech infantry which I will tech for within several turns is beginning to overwhelm the opposition.
Generally being a little behind in tech in this game, it has been a real struggle at times, particularly the latest war which has been truly global, Willem declared on me with vassals, I had 4 vassals, later Liz joined against me with 1 vassal. After 200 turns of constant war, the power of my units is finally turning the corner, and I and my vassals now have a net gain of about 12 cities and rising steadily after initial losses of about a dozen cities, all of which have been regained. Alexander deserted Willem and now is my vassal too.
With smaller maps, and maps with more landmasses the benefits gained from settling GG's would be significantly less and other options for their use should be considered.

[fed1943]

Just one medic III healer, all others in HE city.

(My ideal healer is a chariot, the extra promotion to make it faster).

[wodan11]

I've never really understood why people go for the woodsman upgrade. Yes, +20% woods or jungle defense sounds nice but human players always chop down virtually all the forests ASAP so what is the point?

I played one game where there was a bunch of forested hills between me and my enemies. It wasn't good territory for a city... no resources and no water. And I didn't feel like invading (was doing a "builder" type strategy).

The hills and woods promos were terrific. I was amazed at how well I could fight while the enemy just floundered.

[Ming]

I've never really understood why people go for the woodsman upgrade. Yes, +20% woods or jungle defense sounds nice but human players always chop down virtually all the forests ASAP so what is the point?

I love going the woodsman path with my initial unit if it's a warrior. Once it gets to WoodsII, it can start moving 2 squares through jungle and woods, making it a faster explorer. Then with any kind of luck, if you can get him to WoodsIII, you have your first good healer to go with your first SoD. Otherwise, yeah, I'm not a big fan of giving it to units.

Plus, they become deadly early in MP games. If the human player isn't paying attention, you can strike unmanned cities from the angle on a single turn if there are woods or jungles. I've seen people eliminated early because of this one...