Ahriman
Tyrant
Really? I normally find that -25% culture isn't that big a deal, especially with the various +50% cathedral buildings out there.The culture hit is just too big IMO
Once you're out 3-4 rings, the marginal value of a bit more culture isn't really that big.
I think if we make it too low, we end up making it way more valuable than the +culture or +espionage civics.
I'd gladly cut back to -20%.
Kanly (+4xp, -10% milprod) might also be a bit too strong.
But the problem is, they stack. It is very easy to stack them up with great bursegs, barracks, military academy, the +100% milprod national wonder, in a couple of cities and be generating super-duper-elites.I wouldn't say military mentats are a no-brainer. You get +3 XP (or 1 more XP than a settled Great Burseg) - not unbalanced or game breaking.
Like you, I tend to only ever use the military one, and have a handful of military cities.I am sure other players could highlight the effective use of the other mentats using their own unique playstyle.
It's possible that the problem is not so much that the military one is too strong, but that the others are too weak?
I'm not sure I see a flavor gain. Sure, you get a trade GP from being first to an economic tech, and a spy GP from being first to an espionage tech, etc. but I don't see anything particularly flavorful about these techs that mean they should give you a great person.From a flavor standpoint, the design works well (in other words the GP received makes sense considering the technology that is being researched)
Arguably, all of them. I'm not sure I see any need for them. I don't think that they are on underpowered techs, in general, and they can tend to just reward the tech frontrunner, as shown in your play. There are lots of other things that already reward tech frontrunners (passive yield boosts, first to access wonders, etc) so I'm not sure this is necessary. And I'm not sure that the specific techs would be underpowered without them.However, for discussion, which GP do you think should be removed?
It might be nice to refocus great people more on being generating through specialists.