Great Person Farm

[Staal]

In Civ 4 I remember this was quite a popular thing to do if you had a city with a lot of floodplains etc.

Is this something that the top players still bother with or are GP the happy by-product of Science/Culture/Production city specialization?

[oblio]

In Civ V you can build wonders or buildings that boost the GP generation rate. All depends on what victory path you are pursuing. Having the right GP at the right time can be very helpful. For example if going cultural, Great Artists can give a big culture points boost so maybe the more the merrier.

[Staal]

Yeah but what I mean; does anyone specifically design a city to generate tons of GPs (regardless of type) or do most GPs get produced by the Culture/Production/Science cities anyway as a natural by-product of that particular focus? I.e. if you have a successful Science City that city will produce GP scientists and not a GP Farm specifically set up to produce GP.

It just seems that the Wonders give fewer GPP, fewer buildings that allow specialists and since each category accumulates points independent (unlike Civ 4 where there was a total pool of points with a % chance of spawning a particular GP depending on that category's contribution to the total) that a GP Farm is a redundant concept. If you manage your Science or Production city properly (build correct buildings/wonders, use correct specialists) you should be producing many GP regardless.

[VicRatlhead51]

I don't think it would work all that well to design one city specifically to produce GP. It seems to work best to focus the cities to produce certain ones. At least that seems to be the fastest way to produce a steady stream. Too many specialists in one city seems to be more of a drawback than a benefit unless you're using the Freedom social policy tree of course.