Great People (Civ5)

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Great People (GPs) make a return in Civilization V. They are exceptional historical figures with special abilities, which appear in your civilization when you develop a particular aspect of the gameplay sufficiently. Be wary! All Great People are considered civilian units and, as such, they are defenseless on the battlefield! They are instantly destroyed if an enemy unit enters their tile (with the exclusion of the Great Prophet, who meekly allows himself to be captured by the enemy). Consider well how you position and move them, especially when it comes to the Great Generals and Admirals, as they are always in the heat of battle. Always stack them with a strong military unit.

How to Earn Great People

Most Great People are earned through accumulating a special resource, the Great People Great Person Point (GPP). Each type of Great Person has its own kind of GPP, which accumulates independently of other GPPs. Great Prophets are earned by accumulating Faith Faith, and always appear in your capital. Some wonders make Great People appear when they are completed, and some Social Policies give you free Great People as well. They aren't completely free though, see below for more details.

Great Person Points for Great Artists, Engineers, Merchants, and Scientists accumulate in cities, and when a city accumulates enough points towards a particular Great Person, (s)he is "born" in that city. These points are earned by Specialists, as well as several Wonders and Social Policies. There are also enhancers that will make cities generate GPPs faster, as seen below.

Great Generals and Great Admirals, on the other hand, are generated by engaging your units in combat. Because of the more general nature of the GPP accumulation for these Great People, you can't predict in which city they will appear, except that the Great Admiral will always appear in a coastal city.

Enhancers

Enhancer	Effect
Freedom	+25% Great People Great Person generation in all cities. (only in Vanilla and G&K)
Hagia Sophia	+33% Great People Great Person generation in all cities. (only in Vanilla)
Leaning Tower of Pisa	+25% Great People Great Person generation in all cities.
National Epic	+25% Great People Great Person generation in this city.
Garden	+25% Great People Great Person generation in this city.
Coffee house (Replaces Windmill)	+25% Great People Great Person generation in this city.
Candi (Replaces Garden)	+25% Great People Great Person generation in this city.

GPP Scaling

As a rule, after the generation of a particular Great Person, the next one requires double the amount of GPPs. For example, if your first Great Merchant required 100 GPPs, the next one will require 200. On Standard game speed, the first Great Person is generated at 200 Great People for Generals, Admirals, and Prophets, while all other Great People only require 100 Great People for the first one.

Several Great People are "pooled" together, meaning that producing one will elevate the requirements for all of them:

• In Gods & Kings, this was the case for the Great Artist, Great Merchant, Great Scientist, and Great Engineer.
• In Brave New World, the culture-oriented Great People are separated from this pool, leaving only the Great Engineer, Merchant, and Scientist pooled together, while Great Artists, Great Musicians, and Great Writers develop separately.

Great Prophets

As mentioned earlier, Great Prophet spawning is not governed by GPP, but by a separate recursive formula based on Faith Faith:

X + ([N - 1] * 100)

The X above represents the amount of Faith Faith that was required for the last Prophet; the N represents which subsequent number this Great Prophet will be. The initial value of X is 200. Therefore, the first Great Prophet requires a minimum of 200 Faith Faith (200 + ([1 - 1] * 100) = 200), the second requires at least 300 (200 + ([2 - 1] * 100) = 300), the third requires at least 500 (300 + ([3 - 1] * 100) = 500), the fourth requires at least 800, the fifth requires at least 1200, and so on.

In addition, Great Prophets do not spawn automatically upon the accumulation of the aforementioned amounts of Faith Faith - they are given a percentage chance to spawn each turn, as governed by the following formula:

Percentage = 5 + (Faith - Cost)

As an example, if your Great Prophet was to spawn at 200 Faith Faith, you would have a

• 5% chance of a Great Prophet spawning at 200 Faith Faith.
• 55% chance of a Great Prophet spawning at 250 Faith Faith (5 + 250 - 200).
• 100% chance of a Great Prophet spawning at 295 Faith Faith or greater (5 + 295 - 200).

Great People Abilities

Most Great People abilities are one-time-use, which means that the Great Person is expended once an ability is used. Exceptions to this are the "aura" abilities of the Great General and Great Admiral, which work automatically, boosting the Combat Strength of nearby troops at all times; and the Spread Religion of the Great Prophet, which can be used 4 times before the person is expended.

The one-use abilities can roughly be divided into two categories:

• One-time, short-term benefit, which boosts something, for example a one-time boost of Culture Culture (Great Writer), one-time boost of Science Science (Great Scientist), etc.
• Long-term benefit, in the form of either a Great Tile Improvement, or a Great Work. The net gain of a long-term ability is definitely smaller than the short-term ability gain, but over many turns it may prove to be much more useful.

Most abilities may only be used in your own territory.

Strategy

Earning GPPs is pretty much straightforward - you assign the relevant Specialists, which will earn GPPs for the Great Person you want. If you fight a lot, you'll earn Great Generals and Admirals; if you have good Faith Faith accumulation, you'll earn lots of Prophets. Because of the pooling of the rest of the Great People, however, some forethought is required.

Different empires follow different paths of development, and have different use of Great People: a scientifically-developed nation needs more Great Scientists; a commercial empire - more Great Merchants. But if you're earning the GPPs for the wrong kind of Great Person, it will pop out, increasing the GPPs required for the Great Person you actually want! Also, any Great People received as bonus from Wonders or Social Policies do count towards the GPP scaling!

In short, when assigning specialists, give some thought as to what sort of Great People your empire needs the most - assign many more Specialists of this type, and few, if any, of the other types. In Brave New World, the artists are all earned separately from the relevant Guild building - they aren't pooled together with other Great People anymore. So, you don't have to worry about them. But pay attention when producing Great Merchants, Engineers and Scientists.

A very important decision, apart from what Great People to try to earn, is how to spend them. In general, it is better to use the long-term benefit ability, especially at the start and middle of the game when the accumulated benefit will really make a difference over time. Short-term abilities, however, can be used to gain a strategic momentary advantage which could also have potential long-term benefits!

For example, you could use the Great Engineer's Hurry Production ability to construct an important World Wonder; the Great Scientist's Hurry Research to discover a critical technology ahead of the competition (which could in itself have many advantages); or the Great Musician's Concert Tour ability to deliver the final tourism blow on a stubborn adversary. Always think carefully before deciding how to spend a single-use ability, because you won't have a chance to reconsider later.

List of Great People

See also: List of historical figures in Civilization V

The following table lists the abilities of the various Great People. In addition to those features in the table, all Great People can be used to start a Golden Age in vanilla Civilization V. This ability, however, is unique to the Great Artist in Gods & Kings and Brave New World. Check their individual pages to see all sources for that particular Great Person.

Great person	Improvement	Abilities
Great artist	Landmark (vanilla and ; none in )	Culture bomb (only in vanilla) Start a Golden Age Can create Great Works ()
Great musician	None	Concert tour (+ Tourism Tourism) Can create Great Works
Great writer	None	Write a political treatise (+ Culture Culture) Can create Great Works
Great engineer	Manufactory	Hurry production (+ Production Production in a city)
Great general	Citadel	Combat bonus to land units within 2 tiles Can steal land when creating a Citadel ( and )
Khan	Citadel	Unique Great Person for Mongolia, replaces the Great General Moves faster and heals adjacent units
Great merchant	Customs house	Trade mission (+ Gold Gold; Influence Influence with a City-State)
Merchant of Venice	Customs house	Unique Great Person for Venice, replaces the Great Merchant (and the Settler) Generates +100% Gold Gold and +100% City-State Influence Influence from a Trade Mission Can puppet a City-State
Great scientist	Academy	Discover technology (only in vanilla) Hurry research (+ Science Science; and )
Great admiral	None	Combat bonus to naval units within 2 tiles Can repair adjacent naval and embarked units
Great prophet	Holy site	Found (and enhance) Religion Can spread Religion (up to four times)

Added in the Gods & Kings expansion pack.

Added in the Brave New World expansion pack.

Civilization V [edit]
Gods & Kings • Brave New World
Lists Buildings Civilizations Unique abilities Improvements Leaders Promotions Resources Social policies Technologies Terrain Units Unique units Wonders Natural wonders
Eras Ancient Classical Medieval Renaissance Industrial Modern Future† Atomic‡ Information‡
Concepts City-State Culture Espionage‡ Food Gold Great People Happiness Natural wonder Production Religion‡ Science Unique ability Unit Unique unit Tourism‡ Victory Cultural Diplomatic Domination Science
Miscellaneous DLC Mathematics Modding Major Patches Scenarios Soundtrack Steam Achievements
† Only in vanilla Civ5 ‡ Only in Gods & Kings and Brave New World