My girlfriend was playing Civ V today, and quite enjoying the experience. I mentioned I preferred IV in some ways, and she decided to try it out. She was quite enjoying things at first, but she ended up having an issue where her Great People started disappearing for seemingly no reason.
After a little while, she figured out they weren't disappearing, as such, so much as being automatically consumed – and in different ways, as well. Usually they were added as specialists, but they were also consumed for Golden Ages.
This suggests that the Great People were being automated in some fashion, for some unknown reason. I've never seen this happen in my own games – I never even realized it was possible. How could this happen? Is this a glitch, or some obscure feature or consequence of a feature that hasn't been documented widely? The frustration killed the game for her, so I'd like to figure this out so we could give it another shot.
Best Answer
If it's a glitch, it has never been documented and we would need it documented.
I started up a game and built some wonders. I made a save the turn before my first great person, and played around with settings.
Even with all three related options checked (units auto-promote, workers start automated, and missionaries and executives start automated), I could not get a great person to spawn automated.
Furthermore, when the great person unit is selected, there is no "automate" option.
In conclusion, either your girlfriend clicked a button she didn't know she clicked, or there's some deep glitch.
Have her start a game on easy mode just to build a wonder (Arabians start with mysticism), and see what happens. Maybe send her a save-game, or have her reinstall. I'm having a tough time rationalizing that she has some weird hardware issue that civ4 is suddenly obsolete.