I have been thinking about mentats. We gave them a Unique Resource requirement, but they are a fairly standard unit. They are a cross between a medium strength combat unit and part of a spy unit. What do you think about making them more of an economic unit? Specifically, I was thinking that each mentat unit could have a "trait" almost identical to a leaderhead trait, except it only applies to one city. You can move the mentat from one city to another like a regular unit; when it is in a city, the city benefits from the trait. When you build a mentat, you could get a popup like the one which selects offworld trade contracts, but you can choose any of:

Aggressive: Free Combat I promotion on guardsmen, melee built in the city; 2x construction speed of barracks
Charismatic: +1 happiness; +1 happiness from monument
Creative: +2 culture/turn; 2x construction speed of library, theater
Expansive: +2 health; -25% worker cost; 2x construction speed of water cache,...
Financial: +1 commerce on this city's plots with 2 commerce
Industrious: +50% wonder construction speed; 2x construction speed of refinery
Organized: -50% maintenance for this city, 2x construction speed of tribunal, weather scanner,...
Philsophical: +100 GP rate in city; 2x construction speed of university
Protective: Free City I, Drill I promotion on guardsmen, 2x construction speed of force shield, guard station

I am not sure I can implement the speed benefit for certain units/buildings, at least here is no easy way to do this for a single city, so I listed those in red. There are several trait benefits which don't make sense for a single city (Spiritual, protects against anarchy; Imperialist, increases Great General rate). Also, the Charismatic trait reduces the needed experience points for a level by 25%; this is too much work to track for units built in a single city.

Perhaps we could add some other traits, or equalize these traits with a few more abilities. For example, there is nothing which increases science production; that is an obvious one for a mentat. Perhaps +10% science output in the city, and/or a direct +5 beakers. Same idea for Industrious.

What do you think?

Interesting idea!

Thoughts:
i) mentat unit would need to have a small national limit. Maybe 4-5?
ii) remove the hidden nationality thing, that just means your allies kill them quickly.
iii) Maybe make them assassins with the FFH marksmen trait, so that they target the weakest unit
iv) I wouldn't try and mimic traits so directly, and I wouldn't try and mimic every trait (some are clearly much weaker, like +2 culture, by the time you get to mentats.
For example, you could have:
Military expert: Newly created units start with the combat 1 promotion.
Economic genius: +1 trade routes, +25% trade route yield, +25% commerce
Industrial expert: +35% hammers
Security expert: +8 espionage points, +50% espionage
Political expert: +8 culture, +50% culture

Potential problems:
a) How does the AI choose which ones to get?
b) How does the AI know to leave them in big cities?
c) How do you avoid overlap with traits? Eg a mentat who gives combat 1 to melee units is useless if you already have the aggressive trait.

I wouldn't view these as combat units. If we somehow merge in the Marksman stuff from FFH, we could put that onto some other unit. The AI for this is a challenge, but it has the advantage that the mentat would be completely controlled by a new AI routine. It is hard/impossible to modify the core part of the AI so that it can choose a new unit or an old one. But as long as the AI builds them (which can be accomplished by a high AI weight) then a new routine can choose which specialization and choose which is the best city to move them to. It is not trivial, but it would be interesting to work on.

How powerful of an effect do you want them to have compared with a specialist or a settled great person?

Ahriman's suggested types, plus perhaps a few more like Scientific expert (+25% research, or something), look good (more or less). So do the original version, although the capabilities may need to be adjusted to even them out.

If the number of types is very limited then you could either limit the number you can have to something like the number of types or you could limit it to 1 of each. If a larger number of types is used, the total number of units should probably be limited to less than the number of types unless you can only get one of each. Consider the effects of stacking multiple mentats of the same type in a city - imagine your production city with about 5 industrial experts, +35% each = +175% production just from them. Or stacking 5 of the OP's Philsophical variety for a +500% GP rate.

A mechanic you can use if you allow duplicates is to impliment a small chance for each mentat of a type for which you have more than 1 to go into the mentat freeze thing - caused by self doubt which can be brought on by being doubted by others (if you get more than one of a type then you must not fully trust their advice). Perhaps each gets someting around a (# of type)-1% chance per turn. This would cause a permanant loss of mentat abilities. Having more than one of a given type would then be a bit risky - potentially wasting the hammers used to make the one (or more) that suffers the effect.

Good points. It seems reasonable to say that only one mentat specialty per city takes effect. Similar to a limit on national wonders per city.

I like the general idea of Mentats boosting cities and Ahriman's suggested powers. The 2x construction bonuses I don't find as exciting.

1) I would prefer Mentats to be quite powerful, but be only 1 per civ. In the fiction, there is generally a single Mentat per house. For example, the Baron is pleased to capture Thufir Hawat as a new Mentat to replace Piter when he is killed. If you only get one Mentat at a time, then the choice of speciality is a more strategic choice. If you can have 4-5 at a time then the concept gets watered down IMO.

2) It would be good to have Tleilaxu 'twisted' Mentats in the game, either a UU for them or something that everyone can get controlled by a new unique resource. Not sure what their powers would be.

3) Perhaps the Military expert should give +2/+3/+4 experience to new units built in the city rather than Combat I. That gets around the stacking with other benefits issue.

Since Koma taught the AI to use the Homeworld screen probably he can help with the AI issues.

The issue with multiples was to do something from the Sapho Juice trade good. At the moment, IIRC Sapho Juice just allows the mentat assassin unit, so its pretty useless.

Also IIRC, not all mentats need or use Sapho juice, right? Does Hawat? Piter does, but I wonder if its something mostly only used by Twisted Mentats? Paul is basically a mentat and doesn't need sapho.

A possible implementation here would be to let normal houses have *1* mentat, and then Sapho juice lets you build Twisted Mentats, with a national limit of say 4.
That way, Sapho juice isn't a useless trade good.

Though ideally twisted mentats would be tied to Tlielaxu somehow.

The mentat vs twisted mentat issue should also ideally be tied into the mind training vs genetic manipulation tech paths decision.

As a Marksmen unit.... how about merging this with some ideas on the Tleilaxu Facedancer?
How about this: the facedancer is a marksmen unit, who cannot gain experience/levels as normal (like FFH golems), but automatically either steals a promotion when it kills a unit (like a FFH mimic) or just gains a promotion at random from some list.

3) Perhaps the Military expert should give +2/+3/+4 experience to new units built in the city rather than Combat I. That gets around the stacking with other benefits issue.

Agreed.

SAPHO: high-energy liquid extracted from barrier roots of Ecaz. Commonly used by Mentats who claim it amplifies mental powers. Users develop deep ruby stains on mouth and lips.

So it sounds like a mental stimulant like caffeine. It doesn't make sense as a prereq for Mentats, but perhaps Mentats can be even more effective if you have the Sapho resource.

(Also, I originally intended Sapho as a unique resource for Ecaz, but this was undone by Ecaz's temporary removal from the mod. Part of the uniqueness of Ecaz was supposed to be access to a number of different drug unique resources with different effects.)

Well, if we include Sapho as a trade good from a landing stage, it still needs to be at least as valuable as the others.

Maybe it should just come free from the palace, like Fremen water debt or the Bene Gesserit one?
Alternatively, we could create several national wonders for Ecaz that provided particular pharmaceutical resources; we could have one that gave sapho, one that gave elacca (that boosted melee units somehow) and so forth for various other drugs.

One way to implement a synergy with Sapho:
If the Mentats cast FFH-style "spells" in cities that create buildings (like Inspiration or Wall of Stone in FFH), then those buildings could easily have a resource affinity.
So, for example, an industrial expert could create a building that gives +35% hammers, +15% hammers with Sapho.
A political expert could give +8 culture, +50% culture, +25% culture with Sapho.
Would requires some sdk edit though.

Somewhere earlier in the offworld trade thread, I thought it was "canon" that mentats require Sapho Juice. That is why we implemented it as a required bonus for the unit. But, a quick web search shows it doubles or triples their ability, but is not required.

I like the ideas of everybody getting one, but those with access to Sapho Juice can get more, say up to three. I'm not sure how to implement that, however. Maybe it requires two units, House Mentat (national limit 1) and Mentat (national limit 2, requires Sapho).

I had originally thought of adding levels for all these abilities. Say, "Military Trainer I" adds 2 xp to all units, "MT II" adds 4 xp. Then perhaps without Sapho Juice, you could only qualify for the level I. But these are not combat units so they will not gain experience. Also if you look at spies, they have like 30 promotions due to these levels and the promotion list in the dune-o-pedia is very long as a result.

Instead of levels, we could scale the bonuses directly by whether the civ has Sapho Juice. I am pretty sure all the effects can be done in python, and it should not be hard to additionally check whether the civ has Sapho.

I like the idea of twisted mentats. We can model that as one or two additional abilities, which are only available to Tleilax. If we come up with cool ideas for these abilities and we want to make them available to more civs, then we can add a tradeable resource to make them available to friendly civs, like water debt.

One problem will be differentiating from existing specialists and great people. In general the mentat is always mobile and does not depend on population, so you can station one temporarily in a city which needs it.

Here are the existing specialist, then a slash, then great person abilities.

Merchant: 3 gold / 6 gold, 1 water
Noble: 1 beaker, 4 culture / 3 gold, 12 culture
Priest: 1 hammer, 1 gold / 5 gold, 2 hammer
Scientist: 3 beakers / 6 beaker, 1 hammer
Techman: 2 hammers / 3 hammers, 3 beakers
Spy: 1 beaker, 4 espionage / 3 beaker, 12 espionage

Perhaps these need to be normalized a little. It seems espionage is half as valuable as the others, and culture is 4x less valuable. Still, 12 culture from a great noble is larger than most wonders; it seems a little high.

Combining the traits, with Ahriman's list, and adding the idea of Sapho providing a supercharge, here is a second proposal. National unit, limit 3. Only one mentat may add to a city at a time, even if they have different specialties. I think we should try to focus on things which *cannot* be done by specialists / great people, but I do not have enough ideas yet.

Military: +3 XP for all units built in the city / +5 XP with Sapho.

Creative: +3 culture/turn or +10% culture (whichever is more) / +6 culture/turn or +20% culture with Sapho. One key usage for this unit is to drop into a city you have just captured to immediately extend cultural borders.

Civic: +2 happiness and +2 health in the city / +3 happiness and +3 health with Sapho.

Philosophical: +5 GP and +25% GP rate / +8 GP and +50% GP rate with Sapho. This is relatively boring, and there is little reason to move this mentat from one city to another.

Scientific: +5 beakers or +10% science (whichever is more) / +8 beakers or +20% with Sapho. Great Scientists can lightbulb technologies, which destroys the unit. I was thinking of a reusable, weaker lightbulb action button. Once every 20 turns, or 50 turns or whatever, the mentat has a lightbulb action which is say 50% of the full strength Great Scientist bulb. This is an additional complexity for the AI to use "well", but simply using it as soon as available would be "good enough".

Industrial: +5 hammers or +10% hammers / +8 beakers or +20% with Sapho. Could also use weaker reusable construction hurry button like great engineer.

Security: +10 espionage or +10% espionage / +20 espionage or +20% with Sapho. Also relatively boring, just like great spy.

Financial: +50% trade route yield; possibly clone the Financial trait of +1 gold for each plot over 2 gold.

Diplomat: not sure how this would work. Should provide "can enter rival territory", and when stationed in another civ's city, provides some reaction bonus over time. Not sure how to defend against this, maybe you can't?

Instead of levels, we could scale the bonuses directly by whether the civ has Sapho Juice. I am pretty sure all the effects can be done in python, and it should not be hard to additionally check whether the civ has Sapho.

It is very important that any extra bonuses from Sapho and such be readily transparent to the player. I worry that having units with some kind of passive aura that is boosted by a particular strategic trade good will be very opaque to the player.

Splitting the mentats into 2 units is a good way to do this, and so is giving bonus yields to buildings.

Another alternative, obviously, is for the mentats to be *buildings*, rather than units. Yes, I know that sounds a little weird, but you could call them "Mentat Industrial administrator, Mentat economic overseer, Mentat military trainer" etc.
The AI understands how to choose where to construct buildings based on their output, and it understands the value of the various effects we're talking about (beakers, hammers, gold, trade, espionage points, culture, etc.).
If they aren't for fighting, and they're basically just a city unit, then why not make these national wonders?

The downside is lack of mobility, but I'm not sure how important that is.

Still, 12 culture from a great noble is larger than most wonders; it seems a little high.
Remember that culture is weak. All it does is *slightly* expand borders if you are next to neighbors, or potentially
For a non-border city, culture is nearly useless.
So no, 12 culture is not too much.
There is also an issue with spies where the AI overvalues espionage points, so its easy to accidentally have the AI auto-
Similarly, the AI overvalues hammers, so the AI has massive preferences for the engineer specialist.


Creative: +3 culture/turn or +10% culture (whichever is more) / +6 culture/turn or +20% culture with Sapho. One key usage for this unit is to drop into a city you have just captured to immediately extend cultural borders.

This is very, very weak.

Scientific: +5 beakers or +10% science (whichever is more) / +8 beakers or +20% with Sapho. Great Scientists can lightbulb technologies, which destroys the unit. I was thinking of a reusable, weaker lightbulb action button. Once every 20 turns, or 50 turns or whatever, the mentat has a lightbulb action which is say 50% of the full strength Great Scientist bulb. This is an additional complexity for the AI to use "well", but simply using it as soon as available would be "good enough"

What is the gain from the lightbulbs (which need micromanagement and extra coding) rather than just straight beaker bonuses?

Security: +10 espionage or +10% espionage / +20 espionage or +20% with Sapho. Also relatively boring, just like great spy

Very weak.

IMO, mentats should be giving major bonuses in a specialist area. They shouldn't just be dupliacting a weak ~80 hammer building, like a library.
Compare these yields to many buildings in the mod already.


Diplomat: not sure how this would work. Should provide "can enter rival territory", and when stationed in another civ's city, provides some reaction bonus over time. Not sure how to defend against this, maybe you can't?
Consider something like the "trust" spell from FFH which instantly provides a permanent +X diplomacy modifier to all civs.
Alternatively, suppose that each turn he has a random Y% chance of improving relations with a random faction (just trigger a textless event that adds a permanent modifier).

If they aren't for fighting, and they're basically just a city unit, then why not make these national wonders? The downside is lack of mobility, but I'm not sure how important that is.

My thought is that these units are like "troubleshooters" who can be moved to problem cities. For example, ever built a national wonder on one side of your civ, and then really wished you had built it on the other side?

Creative: +3 culture/turn or +10% culture (whichever is more)This is very, very weak.

Actually I don't think this is weak. When I capture a city, it is in revolt for a few turns but until I build a culture producing building, its borders never grow. So (a) it starves fast, and (b) other nearby civ's can sneak their own settlers into the gaps. Having a mobile unit to jump-start the border expansion does not seem weak to me.

What is the gain from the lightbulbs (which need micromanagement and extra coding) rather than just straight beaker bonuses?

Maybe nothing, it just seemed like a cool idea. I'd like each of the abilities to be something interesting enough to play another game for. Just +N% hammers seems boring.

Consider something like the "trust" spell from FFH which instantly provides a permanent +X diplomacy modifier to all civs. Alternatively, suppose that each turn he has a random Y% chance of improving relations with a random faction (just trigger a textless event that adds a permanent modifier).

I'd like to avoid global effects for mentats, and giving a relation bonus to a random faction seems too ... random. If you agree the ability is interesting, I'd like to find a way for the player to choose who should be targeted by moving the unit into their territory. I guess it would work similar to the way spies work, but I want to avoid overlaps between spy abilities and mentat abilities.

My thought is that these units are like "troubleshooters" who can be moved to problem cities.

Its interesting, but the AI isn't likely to use them that way.

Actually I don't think this is weak. When I capture a city, it is in revolt for a few turns but until I build a culture producing building, its borders never grow. So (a) it starves fast, and (b) other nearby civ's can sneak their own settlers into the gaps. Having a mobile unit to jump-start the border expansion does not seem weak to me.

Mentats are late game techs.
The ability to "build culture" comes way before that.
So you could easily just put a newly conquered city to "build culture" and expand out to the second level in a turn or two.

+3 culture in a city is very weak, compared to large hammer boosters or the other bonuses.

Maybe if it could also instantly end city rebellions, but otherwise....


Maybe nothing, it just seemed like a cool idea. I'd like each of the abilities to be something interesting enough to play another game for. Just +N% hammers seems boring.

I don't really find the "+X extra beaker boost every Y turns" any more interesting than "+Z beakers per turn).
It just takes more micromanagement.
Things are "interesting" I think only if you would actually use them different strategically.

If you agree the ability is interesting, I'd like to find a way for the player to choose who should be targeted by moving the unit into their territory.

I don't think that moving the unit into enemy territory is a great way to do this. Why not just make it trigger an event every X turns that gives you a +1 permanent diplomacy modifiers with a faction that you pick from a list in an event dialogue box?

Its interesting, but the AI isn't likely to use them that way.

Once I write the code, the AI will use them however I tell it. The decisions about how to use these units won't be tightly integrated with other AI decisions, but the mentats will move to the cities that need them most, and use their abilities.

The ability to "build culture" comes way before that. So you could easily just put a newly conquered city to "build culture" and expand out to the second level in a turn or two.

Hm. Perhaps you have just improved my ability to win at vanilla civ.

I don't really find the "+X extra beaker boost every Y turns" any more interesting than "+Z beakers per turn). It just takes more micromanagement. Things are "interesting" I think only if you would actually use them different strategically.

Well, I will certainly be happy to take any suggestions about ways to make them interesting. If I had a unit that gave +50 hammers once every 20 turns, I would try to send them to places I needed a wonder rushed or a unit built, and spend part of the recharge time travelling to the next important city.

I don't think that moving the unit into enemy territory is a great way to do this. Why not just make it trigger an event every X turns that gives you a +1 permanent diplomacy modifiers with a faction that you pick from a list in an event dialogue box?

That might work. Actually, that is very parallel to the hammer mini-rush. Perhaps the industrial guy could have a mini-rush action button with a 20 turn recharge, and the diplomat guy could have a faction diplo bonus action button with a 20 turn recharge. From the story standpoint, it makes sense for the diplomat to be *in* a city where they could have the diplomatic effect, ie in enemy territory, but that may be too hard.

If I had a unit that gave +50 hammers once every 20 turns, I would try to send them to places I needed a wonder rushed or a unit built, and spend part of the recharge time travelling to the next important city.

Yes, but hammers are different from beakers. For the hammers, absolutely, there is some strategy and gain from micromanaging, because with hammers it matters where you get them; a city can only build with hammers in its own cities.
But for beakers, beakers are beakers; all you need is more beakers to get the next tech, and it doesn't matter where in your empire they come from (excepting beaker buffer buildings, which wouldn't effect a lightbulb ability anyway).

A mini-hammer rush *is* interesting in a way that a mini-lightbulb effect is not.

From the story standpoint, it makes sense for the diplomat to be *in* a city where they could have the diplomatic effect, ie in enemy territory, but that may be too hard.

I'd argue that tech is such that it is relatively easy for one guy (and maybe some staff) to be doing shuttle diplomacy going around wherever he needs to go; very different from the logistics of actually moving an army (like an in-game military unit).

Yes, but hammers are different from beakers.

Based on that, an Industrial mentat is ok, but a Science mentat is boring. Is there any interesting mechanic you can think of for a Science mentat?

I'd argue that tech is such that it is relatively easy for one guy (and maybe some staff) to be doing shuttle diplomacy going around wherever he needs to go; very different from the logistics of actually moving an army (like an in-game military unit).

That makes the implementation simpler, but it raises questions about why missionaries and spies have to walk, and why spies have to walk back after completing a mission, and how shuttle diplomats travel before deep desert technology allows normal units to cross deep desert.

Based on that, an Industrial mentat is ok, but a Science mentat is boring.

If you think that it being a mobile unit that does something to a particular city, then yes, I suppose.

But on those grounds, espionage, gold, trade and others are also uninteresting.

I don't have a problem with a science mentat, its just that a science mentat could function just as easily with a % bonus, it doesn't need to be an ability that requires micromanagement every 20 turns.

Mechanics should work as simply as possible. With hammers, there is a strategic difference in only being able to activate every X turns. With diplomacy, there is a discreteness issue that means that activating every X turns is needed.
With an espionage boost or beaker boost, there is no gain in making the boost be manually activated, its just more complexity and micromanagement.


but it raises questions about why missionaries and spies have to walk, and why spies have to walk back after completing a mission

<shrug>
Gameplay. I don't find it very important.
And its much easier for a diplomat to easily fly into another city with permission to land than for a spy to infiltrate un-noticed.

If you really need a justification; then the civs have a handful of thopters left after the Great Distaster, enough to ferry some diplomats around, but not enough to really do anything else.

Also, by the time you can get mentats, you're at the level of frigate level tech and space travel.

The ability to "build culture" comes way before that. So you could easily just put a newly conquered city to "build culture" and expand out to the second level in a turn or two.
Hm. Perhaps you have just improved my ability to win at vanilla civ.

Well, I guess not so much. I took an extreme example by giving myself a huge stack outside an enemy secondary city and capturing it. It was pop 15 when I took it. It was in revolution for 9 turns and shrank to pop 10 before I could build anything. I put it on build culture with my global slider at +50%, and it expanded a couple of levels quickly, but it still couldn't get cultural control of most of its adjacent tiles for a while. After 5 turns of control I culture bombed with a Great Noble. That still didn't help. The city shrank to pop 5 with almost no nearby tiles controlled, before its water income and pop stabilized.

The mechanic I was trying to find is a "Reconstruction Genius", to stop that huge pop slide. Maybe a simple +cul/turn, or even "culture mini-bomb" does not accomplish this. Can anyone suggest some other mechanic to accomplish this?

It is harder than I thought to find abilities which do not duplicate buildings or specialists. Restating the abilities which have survived so far:

Military: +3 XP for all units built in the city / +5 XP with Sapho. Move it to military production cities near your current war front.

Civic: +2 happiness and +2 health in the city / +3 happiness and +3 health with Sapho. Move it to cities that are having temporary health / happiness problems.

Industrial: "mini-hurry" ability for +50 hammers once per 20 turns, more or faster with Sapho. Move it where you need a building or unit finished quickly.

Financial: +50% trade route yield or clone the Financial trait of +1 gold on worked plots with yield over 2 gold. Not all that interesting yet.

Diplomat: action button to give a +1 permanent diplomatic bonus against any chosen civ, once per 20 turns, faster with Sapho. I'd prefer to find a way to make the location of the unit relevant, but I haven't thought of one.

Reconstruction (was political or creative): Enables city to recover from revolution faster, somehow prevents pop slide after capture. Not sure exactly how this would work.

How about:

Spymaster: increases spy-catching ability in city, perhaps gives invulnerability to spies, perhaps gives invulnerability to spies for all plots in a radius. Has a small percent chance to generate a new spy unit every turn.

We can't find anything interesting in the science or culture areas. Simple +% bonuses are same as buildings, simple +/turn bonuses are same as specialists.

Is this getting too small to bother? What else should mentats allow?

Reconstruction (was political or creative): Enables city to recover from revolution faster, somehow prevents pop slide after capture. Not sure exactly how this would work.

The reason the cities shrink is that they don't have enough food (or, in this case, water). The main way to overcome this would be free water. The other main solution is culture, to pop the borders sooner - but as you noticed it takes a lot of culture if the city is near enemy cities (or even neutral or 3rd party cities - it's any city that has been there long enough to put a significant amount of culture into the area). Additionally, there is the issule of unhappy population - you need enough people to work the plots that you do have. Perhaps +2 water +1 happy +3 culture, with another +1 water, +1 happy, and +2 culture with Sappho (this could be too powerful -there's also the logical question of "where's the extra water coming from?"). This could actually be useful in other places as well, which is why this could also be called a Logistics Expert or or something like that.

There is also another effect that you can counter: additional rebelions due to being within the cultural range of other cities with more culture in this city than you have. Each unit has an iCultureGarrison tag that controls how much it counts for anti-reballion purposes. There is also a tag in the promotions that has an effect on this. Setting iCultureGarrison to be a relatively large value, and possibly giving the unit a free promotion with the relevent setting, would reduce the odds of additional rebellions.

Is this getting too small to bother? What else should mentats allow?

I think the Military one is decent and probably the most thematic (apart from having a Science one which we can't make unique enough). If we only had the Military experience giving version of the Mentat I wouldn't mind too much.

Well, I guess not so much. I took an extreme example by giving myself a huge stack outside an enemy secondary city and capturing it. It was pop 15 when I took it. It was in revolution for 9 turns and shrank to pop 10 before I could build anything. I put it on build culture with my global slider at +50%, and it expanded a couple of levels quickly, but it still couldn't get cultural control of most of its adjacent tiles for a while. After 5 turns of control I culture bombed with a Great Noble. That still didn't help. The city shrank to pop 5 with almost no nearby tiles controlled, before its water income and pop stabilized.

The mechanic I was trying to find is a "Reconstruction Genius", to stop that huge pop slide. Maybe a simple +cul/turn, or even "culture mini-bomb" does not accomplish this. Can anyone suggest some other mechanic to accomplish this?

It depends on the city, and its relation to other culture.

If you take a city that is off by itself, then you need a very small amount of culture to pop to the second level, and work all the tiles in the BFC. This can be easily achieved by using the "build culture" option, which is what I was referring to; you can quickly get to level 2 or level 3 culture, which will let you control any nearby tiles that do not have heavy enemy culture.

If you take a city that is surrounded by other enemy cities, with their culture, then obviously those neighbors will have very high culture levels, and so territory around your newly captured city will be heavily in enemy culture. You can reduce this somewhat by pillaging (influlence-driven war).

Your city will probably starve down a few levels because many of its water sources are now in enemy territory.

This is as it should be! There should not be an easy way to over-turn many years of cultural investment by the enemy. (except a great artist/noble culture bomb). If you take a single enemy city, you should be able to work only a few of its tiles; the rest remain enemy territory.
Otherwise culture is too weak.
If you want to be able to work the tiles, then you need to capture multiple cities.

A mini-culture bomb instantly ends uprising and will get you out to level 2 borders, which is as much as it should be.
A mini culture bomb ability is still very valuable, both in ending revolts and instantly expanding borders. Whereas a +3 culture per turn is very weak.


Industrial: "mini-hurry" ability for +50 hammers once per 20 turns, more or faster with Sapho. Move it where you need a building or unit finished quickly.

I would either halve it to 10 turns or double it to 100 hammers at a minium. Otherwise you are providing an average per turn 2.5 bonus hammers, which is pretty pathetic.
Or some combination of the two.

50 hammers doesn't really build anything here.

Also; the standard great engineer type bonus hammers can only be used on buildings, not units. Which is fine I think.


Financial: +50% trade route yield or clone the Financial trait of +1 gold on worked plots with yield over 2 gold. Not all that interesting yet.

A possible alternative would be to make it a spice economy specialist, that provides very large tile yields to the harvester improvement.
So you have incentives to ship him around to anywhere that you happen to get a lot of spice blows. Maybe +5 commerce to harvester (when on spice resource).

On a similar line, maybe there could be an Ecologist to synergize with arrakis paradise, that speeds up terraforming locally, and gives a small bonus of some kind for terraformed tiles.


Spymaster: increases spy-catching ability in city, perhaps gives invulnerability to spies, perhaps gives invulnerability to spies for all plots in a radius. Has a small percent chance to generate a new spy unit every turn.

Increased global countersecurity, invulnerability to spies in the city he is in, and a large % boost to espionage point yields?

A possible alternative would be to make it a spice economy specialist, that provides very large tile yields to the harvester improvement.
So you have incentives to ship him around to anywhere that you happen to get a lot of spice blows. Maybe +5 commerce to harvester (when on spice resource).

On a similar line, maybe there could be an Ecologist to synergize with arrakis paradise, that speeds up terraforming locally, and gives a small bonus of some kind for terraformed tiles.

I like these ideas.

Good news and bad news on the implementation. I have tweaked the xml so that the AI builds mentats, and I have the promotions added. None of the promotions do anything, and actually we haven't really agreed what they should do exactly.

But, I tried several things so that the human player and the AI can choose which one of the promotions to use. I tried giving the unit 2 experience points upon creation. But it seems to keep earning XP so the mentat can have several specialties. That doesn't work. I tried using a random event, like the contract buildings. But that only works because each contract is a separate building; you can't control individual promotions that way.

So it looks like I will have to learn how to build a popup myself. This is easier than a screen. The example I found (this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=296915)) says that radio buttons aren't working, which is too bad because that is the most obvious widget to use. I guess I will use a pulldown, where each choice is one mentat specialty.

One point I have noticed already is that this will be a pretty late game feature. The Mentat Logic tech which enables mentats is fairly deep in the tech tree, and in the autoplays I ran, the earliest any AI civ ever got it is around turn 320.

Do you think we should move it earlier in the tree, or is it OK to have some features only start pretty late in the game?

Something to consider; two FFH features which might or might not be doable here; you can block a unit from gaining experience (like Luchiirp golem units) and you can give units a free promotion when purchased or upgraded to (like the Mage and Archmage). These two together could potentially get what you needed.

I think its ok to have the mentat be fairly late game. Ideally it would be midgame rather than lategame, but there's no obvious way to do that without moving it to a weird tech or changing the tech tree.

But can you really give a unit different AI depending on its promotions? These different effects are useful in different situations. An ecologist is useful only if you have terraforming and fresh water. A reconstruction specialist wants to go to newly conquered cities. An industrial one wants to move around low-hammer frontline cities instantly building things. The happy/health one wants to go to to your largest cities. A spice harvester one wants to go to cities with lots of spice resources in BFC. These are all mutually incompatible.

So you have to think of how you're going to get the AI to work before deciding how to implement, I think.

But can you really give a unit different AI depending on its promotions?
Yes, that is easy in python.

I have bit another idea of mentat implementation (i think its just great haha)

First lets remeber FFH and spells like inspiration and courage. Achieving certain promotion, unit can "build" some bonus to city (in form of building), that addi9ng some stuff.

Mentat is overseer, related to homeworld in some way.

Now lets take example for Ordos (civ i am playing with now).
Mentat may have same parameters like it now (2 str, national unit), but is equal to arcane units to FFH (slowly gain xp), and have list of upgradeable promotions based on civ (mentats were kinda home world related).

So lets say List of Ordos mentat promotions aviable on lvl ups (example):
Ordos main paths : Money, Army, Espionage.
So we have:
Basic
Advanced
Improved
Great
Legendary
==================
as levels (1-5)

Then :
For military (Military Personnel Instructage
Basic Military Personnel Overseeing: Constructs Basic Military Personnel Overseeing in city which is +1 XP to military units built in city (Building like ability, which can be "casted" like courage in ffh, and remains while Mentat overseeing certain city. )
Advanced Military Personnel Training Skill : + 2 XP +5% military unit construction, replalaces any other military overseeing,
Improved : +3 xp +10% military unit construction.
....
.....
Legendary Military Personnel .... +5 xp to units, +20% faster military unit prod, +1 GP (GG )
and so on.

Infiltration:
Covert Operations Organization :
Basic +1 EP
Improved +5% Esp +2 EP and so on

Same for economic.

LEgendary should add 1 GP in certain field (if economic skill then + 1 GM)

For different races types of mentat promotions should be different (Water bonuses, Happiness+Culture (united), Hammers, GP, Science), in any combination of 3 per civ.

It will add flavour to civs.

There should be also option to assasinate mentat in city.

So far we have 7 lines of lets call it Mentat Skills, which he can use to oversee certain city (3 per civ):
Money
Army
Espionage
Water+Health
Happiness+Culture
Hammers
Science,

with 5 levels each,
Basic
Advanced
Improved
Great
Legendary

and 7x5 promotions and buildings that need not graphics to implement those

Ordos:
Wealth, Espionage, Military

Harkonnen:
Production, Military, Happiness+Culture

Ecaz:
Happiness+Culture, Wealth, Water+Health

Ix
Science, Production , Military

Atreides:
Happines+Culture, Water+Health, Military

BTl:
Espionage, Production, Science

BG:
Hapiness+Culture, Water+Health, Science

Corrino:
Hapiness+Culture, Wealth, Military.

I don't think its worth adding this much complexity to just a single unit.

I think a single trait for each mentat is fine.

On mentats i have simple and good (seems to me) idea:

As there few types of mentats, mentat unit should have 1 ability (1 button added, works exactly like inspiration spell/building in ffh, without building graphics, mentat should remain in city, otherwise building wears off). , named like Mentat Quarter , or Mentat Overseeing or Mentat Seat.
Then depends of of type (there are few), by "casting" this ability in city it build one of (6?) buildings, depends of mentat speciality.

Each building will called like Sientific Mentat Overseeing or similar, and provide:
mechanics 1: +points +%output +GP of specialization
Example: Scientific Mentat : +4 beakers +20% science +3 Scientist GPP (mentat generating gp seems reasonable).
Economic Mentat: +4 solaris +20% income +3 Merchant GPP
numbers are for example, perhaps need tweaking/ balancing, but hight bonuses seems good for mentats/late tech/requirement of 1 offworld contract resource
mechanics 2 way: Building provide 1 free specialist in certain field and +20% to city output in that field. (thats bit different because have more synergies with SE)

So need just 1 button, 6-7 buildings that not require building graphics/icon. (only xml add), and some minor code to link type of mentat to effect of his "casting" (creating Building type that depends of Specialty promotion)

These are good ideas, similar to what we have earlier in the thread. One key difference is that I don't think you need a button. If the mentat is in the city, the effect should automatically happen. The only drawback is what happens if you have two mentats in the city, and you specifically want one of them to have an effect. For game balance, only one mentat per city is allowed; think of this as the city governor.

Iss it possible to assign those 6-7 buildings (effects) as different spells but same bulding > i mean thay will be different spell ( mentat overseeing) in some code, but effect will be same building from list. (few buildings that counts as same, but have different effects and aviable only after certain "spell" is cast)
Like they same building with different effects, and when one is built you just cant build another .
And i think implementation of button makes things easier. This also fix issues when Contract of Sapho juice being captured. Then you should not be able to cast that thing because Mentats juice which enchances his mind is lost.

Another cheat type is to create 2 buildings - 1 is mentat ovberseeing and another one for effect.

Iss it possible to assign those 6-7 buildings (effects) as different spells but same bulding.

I guess there are lots of possible ways to do it. If there is only one building type, and the code has to check which mentat type is there, then there is no real point to the building. Using many different buildings seems to mean less code, at least so far.

I guess there are lots of possible ways to do it. If there is only one building type, and the code has to check which mentat type is there, then there is no real point to the building. Using many different buildings seems to mean less code, at least so far.

I( think best way to implement it is to cheat by creating 2 building types.

Building A - Is mentat overseeing. Build when Mentat enter city. Removed when he goes out (or button cast option - whatever)
Build B - is effect , which depends on Mentats promotion. Prequisite for it - Mentat Overseeing, and it being built in same time. It is also removed when mentat leaves city.

Code should check Mentat Overseeing building when another mentat entering city.
If there is already building, nothing is being built.
If 1st mentat leaves city - then code just check for presence, and if there is mentat it should build appopriate effect. That will require each turn check.

If IfMentatPresent = true then Check Effect else { RemoveEffect, Mentat type := 0}

CheckEffect {
If Effect = false, then EffectType := MentatType, BuildEffect(EffectType), Effect := true // 1st turn of Mentat entering city.
If Effect = true, then { // if there is already effect building
if EffectType = MentatType then Nothing, // if effect matches one of mentats then no change
else RemoveEffect, EffectType := MentatType, BuildEffect(EffectType)}} //if they not match then rebuilding effect

RemoveEffect {
Effect := false
RemoveEffctBuilding}




i dont know python just used logic language , (i far as i remember basic and c++ from old times).
hope that clear enough

Considering what we are doing with Mentats I found this quote from Children of Dune ironic:

Above all else, the mentat must be a generalist, not a specialist. It is wise to have decisions of great moment monitored by generalists. Experts and specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nit-picking, the ferocious quibble over a comma. The mentat-generalist, on the other hand, should bring to decision-making a healthy common sense. He must not cut himself off from the broad sweep of what is happening in his universe. He must remain capable of saying: "There's no real mystery about this at the moment. This is what we want now. It may prove wrong later, but we'll correct that when we come to it." The mentat-generalist must understand that anything which we can identify as our universe is merely a part of larger phenomena. But the expert looks backward; he looks into the narrow standards of his own specialty. The generalist looks outward; he looks for living principles, knowing full well that such principles change, that they develop. It is to the characteristics of change itself that the mentat-generalist must look. There can be no permanent catalogue of such change, no handbook or manual. You must look at it with as few preconceptions as possible, asking yourself: "Now what is this thing doing?"

The Mentat Handbook

I think we'll fudge that one. ;)

Mmmm ... fudge ...

Good call.... gameplay uber alles and all that.

Good news and bad news on the implementation. I have tweaked the xml so that the AI builds mentats, and I have the promotions added. None of the promotions do anything, and actually we haven't really agreed what they should do exactly.


In the second Dune Wars succession game (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8756521&postcount=163) (running in 1.6.5 I think) the only mentat boost that works is the military one. Regardless of which specialisation I choose we got the military bonus. Is that because that is the only one currently implemented?

Going through the specialisations I also made some comments about which seemed more useful and likely to be chosen. Basically I think that the civic one is the least useful because I find the happy and healthy caps are rarely hit in late game what with all the resources available and the low city size.

Here are some thoughts regarding possible “specialisations” that I find interesting. First off a disclaimer, I very little idea what would be easy to code and what would not. Some ideas could be way more trouble than they are worth.

1)A organisational mentat that duplicates a forbidden palace mechanic so you could move it around to reduce upkeep costs as the empire expands.

2)Like Ahriman said, a “ecologist” mentat that could increase the terraforming rate of squares in the cities BFC. That could then be moved around as the squares finish terraforming.. Another possibility (does not fit in current mechanic as I understand it) would be to have the mentat be like a mobile well so that you could spread fresh water to parts of your empire that are outside of your cities and away from wells. This would let you go for a terraforming victory with less total land. Which is nice because it seems that currently the easiest way to terraform the planet approaches a domination/conquest victory.

3)A logistics mentat that would act like an airport. Would allow more aircraft to stay in the city as well as provide airlift capability (probably more than one unit per turn). This would be useful to move forward in a war, get it into a city a bit behind the front as a quick forward air base and then airlift defensive troops into the captured city.

Thinking about the problem of “specialisation”, what if each mentat could do any of the options, but can only implement one at once. This maintains the balance of not being too powerful, but also maintains the fluff to an extent. The idea would be that the mentat has the ability to put their massive computational abilities to help any task, but they have to focus their time on one thing at once.

Finally, in the succession game, I encountered a problem with the current mentat mechanic in which regardless of which specialisation was chosen the mentat would generate the military mentat building.

The military-only mentat problem is not only 1.6.5, it's also in 1.7.0.6.

The military-only mentat problem is not only 1.6.5, it's also in 1.7.0.6.

Thanks for letting us know. There are several steps in using a mentat; can you tell me how far along you can get?

1. When you build the mentat, you should get an "event" type popup where you can select the speciality from a list.

2. When you see the mentat unit in the game, it should have a promotion with an icon that matches the specialty. For example, the finance mentat has a promotion icon which looks like a little stock market graph.

3. When the mentat starts a turn in a city, there should be a building in the city with the specialty name, such as "Mentat Financial".

4. The effect listed in the hover help, such as +10% gold, should take effect in the city.

How much of this is working for you?

Do you have logging and python exceptions turned on in your civilizationiv.ini file? The most likely problem is that one of these steps is generating a python exception, and you aren't seeing it because these debug aids are not activated.

1 and 2 are working fine. 3 and 4 work but it's always mentat military despite having chosen other options.
Also, when you annex a city, if there is a mentat building in there, it seems to general a "mentat generic" building.

I have received zero playtest feedback so far on Mentats.
I guess it's that Mentats come so late in the game that I rarely ever get the chance to build or come across them much.

One solution of this is to think about integrating the Mentats with the holdover generic "Great Person" mechanic from Civ4. Mentats are a big part of the Duniverse and deserve some more gameplay visibility/presence from the start, while keeping the generic "Great Prophet", "Great Engineer" etc seem a bit of a duplicative mechanic, not as flavorful & out of place. Perhaps Mentats could arise rarely at the beginning from GP points, and late-game tech could unlock the capacity for focused training (maybe through a Build :gp: ability, analogous to unlocking of Build Research and Build Culture.) The Sapho Juice resource could then easily give a +% to :gp:, as in FfH, and this would also permit "Capture Mentat" as an Infiltrator ability to seize a settled Great Person.

Also, one thing I've noticed is that when checking in Worldbuilder, the AI often gets far behind in not taking as much advantage as me of stacking multiple big percent bonuses (ie Great Scientist -> Academy etc) onto the focused Spice Corp commerce to make quick super-science cities. For me, it seems like the time I make spice corp and Landsraad and plop Great Scientist -> Academy on them is the time I start pulling effortlessly far ahead (and I'm pretty bad at Civ :p). So, another reason to think about doing some redesign of the generic gp for this mod.

I think the mentats need to be much more powerful (like double the effect they have right now), but at the same time, much more expensive (like 5 times as much), so that there's actually an incentive to build them. And yes, having them earlier would help also (almost makes them like a mini-national wonder that gives benefit early on if you build them, but also takes away your production from something else like military and other buildings).

Making them more expensive is a good idea. Not only increased price but also upkeep.
Now I suggest limiting Mentats to 1 per civ and giving them 2-3 effects. That way they are really valuable and you don't want to risk to lose them.

Might be also be easier to do if their effects are Mentat only unit promotions like FFH2 does for some units.

Bonus if the Harkonnens get a Twisted Mentat that cannot take effects to increase happiness.

These ideas are interesting, thanks!

Are there any units today that cost specific upkeep? I'm not sure how to do that, but it sounds interesting.

Is one mentat with 2-3 effects better than 2-3 mentats with one effect each? I think if each has one benefit, you have to plan your cities a little more instead of creating one supercity with everything.

The mentat effects are implemented as unit promotions already.

We had thought about twisted mentats, but we did not find enough different effects for them. In the books, it is actually the Tleilaxu who perform the twisting, but then any house could "purchase" one. So we would probably make these units produced by Tleilaxu but perhaps tradeable to other civs, like Reverend Mothers or some of the Fremen and Ixian units.

It is more fluffy to have only one Mentat per house.
They are supposed to be outrageously expensive and incredibly useful, since there are no computers as such. I was thinking they should give civ wide effects.

I was under the impression that Harkonnen expressively ordered a 'twisted' Mentat, in lieu of a normal one. I also understand that they have no ethics and are quite sadistic.

It is more fluffy to have only one Mentat per house. They are supposed to be outrageously expensive and incredibly useful

What effects would you suggest? If they are the same for every civ, then there is no interesting decision to make.

I was under the impression that Harkonnen expressively ordered a 'twisted' Mentat, in lieu of a normal one. I also understand that they have no ethics and are quite sadistic.

That is correct. What effect would you suggest this should have in the game?

What effects would you suggest? If they are the same for every civ, then there is no interesting decision to make.

But the effects you have right now are the same for every civ?
By simply limiting them to 2/6 instead of 3/6 you increase their effect.

You could just take effects from any other unit and offer them as Mentat upgrade.
Also why not let upgrades do stuff like:

Combat Master: +10xp for Mentat unit combat upgrades to them then into fearsome battlefield units

Civ wide Mentat upgrade effects:

Propagandist: +1 happiness
Spymaster: +5% espionage
Broker: +5% income
Engineer: +5% production
Logistic: -5% unit upkeep
Researcher: +5% research
Artist: +5% culture spread

That is correct. What effect would you suggest this should have in the game?

I am not really sure beyond them giving no happiness choices to pick.
Perhaps allowing them to sacrifice pop to speed up a project in the city the Mentat is in, regardless of slavery civic?
Allowing for more war exhaustion?
Slowing pop growth in exchange for more production?

But the effects you have right now are the same for every civ?

Sorry, that wasn't very clear. Currently you can build three mentats, each with one specialty, and they must go into three different cities. So you should plan out which three cities will get them, and what specialty is best suited to each city. This requires some difficult decisions. Are you proposing that each mentat should have one specialty but it affects all cities, and each civ should only be allowed to have one mentat?

Also why not let upgrades do stuff like:

These seem very similar -- actually identical in many cases -- to the existing Mentat abilities. Did I misunderstand something? In the promotions tab of the civilopedia, you can mouseover all of the mentat specific promotions (the orange color ones) to see the effects.

Are you proposing that each mentat should have one specialty but it affects all cities, and each civ should only be allowed to have one mentat?


Close. Two effects, that may or may not affect each city, based on one unit.
But now that you mention it, it might be a better idea to have the promotions be like this:
One part of the promotion is "hands on" for say, combat/spying/diplomacy, and the other is civ wide.
Example:
You decide that the Mentat is going to be your spy master. The unit individually gains a large bonus to all spying it does, but it also increases spy defenses by 5% as long as the unit lives.
Different upgrades could be:
Weaponmaster: +10xp for Mentat combat upgrades, +1xp all units produced everywhere.
Philosopher: +city happiness, +production speed of all missionaries/temples

That way you have to balance protecting the unit with using its special/in hotspots.

These seem very similar -- actually identical in many cases -- to the existing Mentat abilities. Did I misunderstand something?

Yes similar ones exist already.
I was using them as basis for examples as civ wide effects instead of per city.
I was thinking that if you affect everything, you have to be more careful with effects.

After I went to bed I realised that Great Persons could actually be seen and used as Mentats, making a dedicated separate unit superfluous.

There is a lot of back-and-forth discussion about that earlier in the thread. I specifically want effects which can *not* be done by Great People, to avoid this overlap. One key difference is that mentats are mobile. If you have a need for production on one side of your empire, and later a need for production on the other side, you can relocate the mentat. Also, mentats are trained and "purchased" from offworld, so it makes less sense for a city to generate them over time.

I think I prefer the current system to some of these others. A mentat with a single effect can be used more efficiently (by both human an AI), and I like them being mobile single-city boosters. This helps make them different to many other booster types (wonders, great people, etc.)

And I like the flexibility where you get to choose what the bonus is for each specific mentat.

I couldn't think of a good way of differentiating twisted mentats. The one lean towards this I tried to incorporate in the design is that the mentats tech can be reached through either Mind Training (normal mentats) OR through genetic manipulation (twisted mentats).

Another thought:
We could change the great scientist and/or the great spy and/or great trader into mentats (that create permanent mentat buildings like an academy).

Well in the book, mentats were involved in runnings of entire house, not just a particular city.

What is there was only one mentat unit which would have some small civ-wide effects and similar effects but stronger on the city where he is placed.

They can also be made useful by giving some sort of benefit when placed in a stack of units.

Another idea might be to give Mentats a "mission" which would alter the effects he has (don't know how easy it is to do).

In the books Mentats are superior by combining all available facts and calculate the actions that need to be done on the one hand, and calculate the most propable actions of the enemies on the other hand.

So, in my eyes, each mentat should give a noticable amount of espionage points each turn.

The thing with the calculated prediction is more difficult to reflect...
I'm not sure if this can be implemented but let me explain my idea:

A mentat could propably tell his master if an attack will fail or not, and could also think of some genious flight plans if something goes wrong...

So, would it be possible to give the mentat the ability to give another unit a promotion which is similar to the Immortal-promotion of FFH2: if it dies it gets revived in the capital at once (without the promotion).

To keep it close to the mentat, I would make this promotion to last only for one turn, so it has to be renewd each turn...

According to what have been done in FFH2 the thing above should be doable.
The only thing I'm not sure about is, how you could guarantee that this special promotion is alway only given to ONE unit, even if the Mentat "casts" his ability on a whole stack of units...


My 2 cents ;-)

I have a suggestion to improve the way mentats work. In Fall from Heaven there are spells like "Hope" that create a building in a city as long as the unit is in the city. If you set something like that up you can have each new mentat get a free promotion which is the ability to create a building and blocks the other abilities. For the juice you just need to add the effect to the building (like the steel works gets 50% production from iron and coal). Seems like a simpler way to handle the whole thing to me.

Actually, that is exactly the way it works. When a mentat is created, you chose one promotion. You can see that the graphics for the mentat promotions are different, if you look at the dune-o-pedia tab for promotions. When a mentat enters or leaves a city, an invisible building is created. You can see this if you look at the list of buildings in the city screen, when a mentat is present.

Is there some effect you can think of, which is not happening today?

Actually, that is exactly the way it works.

Actually NOT exactly. There is not a button on the mentat to create the building, it sort of spawns by its self. Also there are two buildings one for juice and one generic. For me I got a mentat from my home plant of Ix and got industrial on it. At first nothing seemed to happen so I moved it around from city to city and I still saw no change. At some point later I noticed that a build had appeared in the city it was in, but it was the wrong one.

There is not a button on the mentat to create the building, it sort of spawns by its self.
Since there is no reason why you would ever want to not push this button immediately, wouldn't having a button just be mindless busywork micromaangement?
Besides, with the ability happening automatically, then the AI also gets the advantage from it more easily.

at first nothing seemed to happen so I moved it around from city to city and I still saw no change. At some point later I noticed that a build had appeared in the city it was in, but it was the wrong one.
Sounds like a bug.

For me I got a mentat from my home plant of Ix and got industrial on it. At first nothing seemed to happen so I moved it around from city to city and I still saw no change. At some point later I noticed that a build had appeared in the city it was in, but it was the wrong one.

If you can make this happen again, please send a save game that shows the problem. You can attach it to a post in this thread. If you do, please mention exactly which build and patch you are using, such as 1.8 or 1.8.0.1.

Since there is no reason why you would ever want to not push this button immediately, wouldn't having a button just be mindless busywork micromaangement?
Besides, with the ability happening automatically, then the AI also gets the advantage from it more easily.

I agree with you, but as it is the whole process is scripted and if it does not work you have no recourse but to live with it.

If you can make this happen again, please send a save game that shows the problem. You can attach it to a post in this thread. If you do, please mention exactly which build and patch you are using, such as 1.8 or 1.8.0.1.

If it happens again I will.

I looked at the XML and to merge the Mentat Industrial into a single building you just need to add:
<BonusYieldModifiers>
<BonusYieldModifier>
<BonusType>BONUS_SAPHO</BonusType>
<YieldModifiers>
<iYield>0</iYield>
<iYield>5</iYield>
<iYield>0</iYield>
</YieldModifiers>
<YieldChanges>
<iYield>0</iYield>
<iYield>5</iYield>
</YieldChanges>
</BonusYieldModifier>
</BonusYieldModifiers>
Unless I missed somthing. I admit my ability with XML is somewhat limited to copying and pasting.

I looked at the XML and to merge the Mentat Industrial into a single building
This is a good idea, but it only works for a few of the mentat effects.

It could work for extra hammers or happiness or health, but not for extra free unit XP or some other mentat effects.

The delay in the effect is not related to the mentats I think. I reported a while ago that I did not get the wonder effect of the Guild Research Center. A few turns later I did. I have also noticed frequently that spice silo's take a few turns to take effect, but not always. :crazyeye:

The Sapho Juice seems random too: in some of my games I get the bonus without the resource. And I never got it by attaining the resource.

Some very strange behaviour which will be hard to find in the code because I have failed to see a pattern in both issues just yet.

That is puzzling. The code which adds the effect is triggered when the unit is built. Frequently, some screens such as the city screen may not update until the first time you click the "end turn" button. But I cannot imagine any way that the effect could appear only after 2+ turns. If possible, any save game you can create, which shows a wonder or mentat built last turn, and no effect showing up, will help us to track down the problem.