Great People

In Civ 6 you will inevitably recruit some Great People to your cause. You do this by accumulating Great Person points of the appropriate type, which in the first instance come from Districts and Buildings in those Districts. For example, building an Encampment will give you one Great General point per turn. then for each building in the Encampment you get an added one point per turn. So an Encampment with a Barracks or Stable, plus an armory, plus a Military Academy, is good for four Great General Points per turn. In addition, you can get points from certain Wonders, or from certain Policy Cards.

There are many kinds of Great People in the game:

• Great General
• Great Admiral
• Great Engineer
• Great Merchant
• Great Prophet
• Great Scientist
• Great Artist
• Great Writer
• Great Musician

But do not think that these are generic resources, each one is an individual from history that may have specific effects. Others can be pretty generic, such as Great Prophets. But Great Scientists, for example, range from Euclid in the Classical Era to Carl Sagan in the Information Era. Euclid gives you a Eureka for Mathematics plus one random technology from the Medieval Era. Carl Sagan gives you 3,000 Production towards a Space Race Project. So you can see they have very individual effects. Like most Great People you can get the effect by moving the Great Person to the appropriate tile, and in the case of a Great Scientist that is usually a Campus district, and then clicking the button to retire them and get the reward. Don’t worry about knowing which tile is appropriate, the game interface will tell you by making a white outline around a suitable tile. There may be more than one, but in most cases that does not matter. For example, if you have three Campus districts, all three will be outlined, but moving your Great Scientist to the nearest one is fine. There are exceptions, though. For example, Galileo Galilei grants +250 Science for each adjacent Mountain tile. You might have many tiles with adjacent Mountains, but you would want to find one with the most adjacent Mountains to maximize your gain.

Eras also factor into this. The first Great People start to appear in the Classical Era, and each era has certain Great People who become available. To get one you need to accumulate the needed Great Person points, but that price goes up each era, so a Great Merchant from the Classical Era like Zhang Qian might only require 60 Great Merchant points, while Stamford Raffles from the Modern Era might be ten times as much. And Era factors in for Great Generals and Great Admirals because they can provide combat bonuses to neighboring units, but only in their own era or the one just after it.

You can see how you are doing vs. your competitors in recruiting Great People by clicking the button on the upper left and opening the Great Person screen. Here you can see your progress for each type of Great Person in terms of the Great Person points earned for each type. But if you look underneath you see an amount of Gold and an amount of Fatih. You can purchase a Great Person using either of those resources if you have enough to spend. But you can only purchase the one that is on the Board at that time. And this is where some strategy comes in. Once you have enough points, you will be offered the opportunity to recruit the Great Person, but you can also pass and keep your points. If you do so, once someone else recruits that Great Person, another one of that type will go up on the Board, and it might be one you really want. And you still have all of your points. Of course, the cost has gone up just a bit, but you have a good chance with all of the points you saved. But you are in competition with the other players, so someone else might get that person before you get a chance. And similarly, you might want to purchase a Great Person you really want so that you are not at the mercy of the accumulation of points that might fall short of a competitor.

Finally, note that you can only recruit Great People if you meet the requirements. Most Great People start to become available in the Classical Era, but Great Engineers don’t appear until the Medieval Era, Great Artists don’t appear until the Renaissance Era, and Great Musicians in the Industrial Era. And you cannot recruit a Great Admiral unless you have a Coastal city or a city with a Harbor.

Great General

When you first earn a Great General you will probably want to use it to help your units. It does not actually fight in itself, but it provides +5 Combat Strength and +1 Movement to all units within 2 tiles of the Great General. And it can do this for units from the Era of the General and for the following Era. So if you recruited Boudica, a Classical Era Great General, she can provide this to units from the Classical Era or the Medieval Era. But all Great Generals can provide a Retirement Bonus. If you do this you get the bonus, but the Great General is removed from the game. And Boudica’s retirement bonus could be attractive in some circumstances. If she is retired any adjacent Barbarian units are converted to being your units. But in general, once a Great General is obselete, you should retire them to get the bonus. Also, note that Great People cannot be killed.

Great Admiral

These are basically the same as Great Generals. But obviously they cannot travel on land. They can move into the City Center of any Coastal City, and from here they can be transferred to any coastal city or harbor.

Great Engineer

These are used for their Retirement Bonus. This is usually adding Production to a Building, a Wonder, or a Project. Some of the Great Engineers have multiple charges, which means they can be used more than once before they are completely retired. They are particularly important for a Science Victory since several of the later Great Engineers have significant bonuses for the Space Race projects needed to win a Science victory.

Great Merchant

The retirement bonuses for these people are directly or indirectly financial. They might give you an additional trade route, or add to the Gold you get for each Trade route, or other improvements to Trade route gains.

Great Prophets

Great Prophets are how you can establish a religion. These are a little different from the other Great People in that you can only get one, and you are not necessarily guaranteed even that since the number of Great Prophets is always less than the number of players. So if your strategy requires having your own religion, you should go after it early by building a Holy Site as one of your first Districts. Or alternatively you can build Stonehenge and get a free Great Prophet if one is available (if none are available, you get a free Apostle instead). Or if you really want a guarantee, play as Arabia as they are always guaranteed a Great Prophet. If they haven’t earned one already, they will automatically be given one once the others have all been recruited.

Great Scientists

Great Scientists provide boosts to your Research in various ways. One common way is by triggering Eurekas for techs you have not yet researched. Eurekas are things that reduce the amount of research you have to do to earn a given tech. You can earn Eurekas in other ways, but getting them from a Great scientist is a nice little bonus. But there are other benefits. Isaac Newton, for instance, can be moved onto a Campus District and activated to grant an instant Library and University. That alone would make it worth building a Campus District just to take advantage of it.

Great Writers

Great Writers produce great works of writing that add to your Culture and Tourism. Each Great Writer has 2 charges which can be used to produce a Great Work, but to use one you have to have an appropriate place to put it. Any Theater District with an Amphitheater will provide 2 slots, so any one Amphitheater will be filled up by one Great Writer. Your Palace, located in your capital city, has one slot for a Great Work, which could be of Writing, Art, or Music. In addition, certain Wonders also provide slots.

Great Artists

Each Great Artist can be activated three times to produce Great Works of Art as long as you have a slot available. A theater district with an Art Museum provides three slots, so again one Great Artist can fill up one Art Museum. The slot in the Palace could be used for a Art work if it has not already been filled. And the Wonder the Hermitage provides 4 slots.

Great Musician

These produce Great Works of Music, and they have 2 charges. These works also have to go into appropriate slots. Any Theater District with Broadcast Center offers one slot, so a Great Musician can fill up two Broadcast Centers. And the Palace can hold one if it is not already filled. And the Wonder here is the Sydney Opera House, which has three slots.

More on Great People

If you need to gain more Great People of a specific type, you can do a project in one or more cities that converts your production into Great Person Points. If you have the appropriate District in your city, you can do a project. For example, in a city with the Encampment District you can do the Encampment Training project which will give you more Great General Points. Or for Great Scientist points you can do the Campus Research Grants project in a city with a Campus district. The price you pay, or course, is that you are not building anything else while this is going on. You can also gain points from Wonders, from Policy Cards, or from the Governor Pingala.