Why can't Great Engineers be used on global projects

I recently read a book about the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago (The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, if you wanted to know). The author identifies director and architect Daniel Burnham as the key figure in overcoming several challenges in order to complete the project in the scheduled time, which was very tight.

With this in mind, what is the reason (game balance or otherwise) that Great Engineers cannot be used to aid production of the global projects, such as the World's Fair, proposed in the World Congress? It was surely a conscious decision by the game developers, so I was just wondering why.

If it were possible, how could it be implemented? Obviously the Great Engineer would not complete the project if expended. Perhaps it would provide and extra, say, 200 production if used, or maybe the amount would depend on the city's size or production total.

Just curious. Thanks for your thoughts.

From a developer standpoint, they changed how the WC could assign projects through voting, however, the developers did not change anything with the Great Engineers. They are essentially the same as from plain civ5, just with new ways to get them.

"If it were possible, how could it be implemented? Obviously the Great Engineer would not complete the project if expended. Perhaps it would provide and extra, say, 200 production if used, or maybe the amount would depend on the city's size or production total."

^this is what I mean. They would have to change the coding for the GE to get this to work. Not saying they couldn't, or that they shouldn't, but it wasn't intentionally blocked by the developers.

GE's do actually generate fixed hammer totals, so that could be added. It's probably more that 1-2 empires spawning a GE at the right time would more or less block out other civs from participating.

I find that the projects favor wide empires a bit over tall as all the wide's total production is higher than a tall empire. No need to add another thing in favor of tall strategies.

religion, money, and hammers all favors wide empires.

fallout3dc said:

From a developer standpoint, they changed how the WC could assign projects through voting, however, the developers did not change anything with the Great Engineers. They are essentially the same as from plain civ5, just with new ways to get them.

"If it were possible, how could it be implemented? Obviously the Great Engineer would not complete the project if expended. Perhaps it would provide and extra, say, 200 production if used, or maybe the amount would depend on the city's size or production total."

^this is what I mean. They would have to change the coding for the GE to get this to work. Not saying they couldn't, or that they shouldn't, but it wasn't intentionally blocked by the developers.

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Engineers don't actually automatically finish products, they implement a certain number of production just like great scientist produce a certain number of beakers.

The reason why Engineers aren't able to be used on WC is for balancing reasons. Anyone who has a Great Engineer at that time will win the WC, and the only Civs that have a realistic chance of beating them is one with another GE. Too many hammers, especially if this is around when mid game is starting, late game it would probably be fine.

Actually, that'd be hilarious. Spam GEs as much as you can, hoarding them until a project gets elected, use as many as it takes to get to 51% in one turn, then continue normal empire business.

DeletedSettler said:

Actually, that'd be hilarious. Spam GEs as much as you can, hoarding them until a project gets elected, use as many as it takes to get to 51% in one turn, then continue normal empire business.

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Just this (while I actually wonder why you won't use it for wonders)

If you can do that, it would make multiplayer being bloody GE spam too.

What I mean though is that GE can not be used to gain instant research and wealth as that is how the world fair is calculated, not as a specific building. Even if they could though, it really wouldn't be worth it. A GE from my experience is useful to save for any wonder, but the 3 projects are really easy to get first if you focus on them.