Balance - Specialists and Great People

I've merged this mod into the renamed City Development mod, as some of the changes are starting to overlap. This mod component and thread will no longer be updated separately. I include the Buildings, Wonders, and Specialists components in separate XML files in the City Development mod for easy alteration or deletion if you only wish to use one or two of them.


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This mod was motivated by a sense Engineer specialists, Merchant specialists, and Great Artists are generally considered underwhelming. Great Scientists are considered very strong, due to a dramatic buff to their instant-tech ability from earlier versions of Civ (can get any tech, and no cap on provided).

This mod is available now in the Civ V Mod Browser (Main Menu > Mods > Browse Mods, search for " thal ").

You can see details of the mod below, or opening "Readme.html" in the mod's folder once installed. This informative readme file is updated with each version change and includes details, rationale, update history, and credits.

Many suggestions have been incorporated into this mod, feedback is welcome!

Do you ever stop doing awesome things? I'm starting to wish you developed this game in the first place!
Is there a chance you might tackle military balance? I was thinking of trying to tweak that myself but... you'd probably do it a LOT better.

my food idea took a dramatic new turn (i think)
i propose adding +x +x/ to the merchant specialist instead of developing a complicated food distribution mechanic.
K.I.S.S. right?

Thalassicus. Specialists and great people do need to be balanced and making engineers and merchants stronger was a good idea, however I don't think that you should have nerfed scientists. This is because, although being comparitively strong next to the other specialists, scientists aren't what's detracting players from running specialist heavy empires, its the comparative benefits of trading posts (and other tile improvements) over the merchant and engineer specialists. The reason that these are underutilised I believe is not because people are running too many scientists, it's because they pale in comparison to the yields from a TP or mine/lumbermill.

By nerfing scientists you're effectively doing the opposite of what the balance was intending to do, you're disincentivising people from focusing on specialists and going up the rationalism tree.

In my opinion, by leaving scientist specialists alone (and possibly later making great scientists less OP) you will be better balancing out a specialist centric approach compared to a generic TP spam and making this an interesting and important decision every game, a la Civ 4.

That having been said, thanks for making this mod (and many others) its certainly a step in the right direction.

bobbyboy29 said:

Thalassicus. Specialists and great people do need to be balanced and making engineers and merchants stronger was a good idea, however I don't think that you should have nerfed scientists.

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I second this.
Maybe +2 for artist specialist as well?

@Spendoza
Interesting idea... a specialist that partially "pays" for itself?

@evanbgood
The combat AI is so poor it's difficult to effectively balance military units... can't be 100% sure what strengths and weaknesses exist without a competent enemy. I think the only ones that are obvious are horsemen (too powerful) and ironclads (ignored by most like previous Civ games).

@bobbyboy29, killmeplease
Well, here's my reasoning. Specialists give points in addition to their yields, and when you consider both, the value of a scientist is significantly higher than other specialists, due to the buff Great Scientists received from earlier versions of Civ. In contrast, Great Merchants and Engineers are roughly the same as before, and Great Artists received a surprisingly drastic reduction in power (culture bomb cannot cancel unrest, much shorter range, no longer contributes to national culture, cannot flip cities). There's no effective way to reduce the lightbulb potential of Great Scientists directly right now, so unless Science Specialists are reduced in another way, they are still more powerful than other specialist choices.

If the -1 change is too much, would it be better to leave Scientists / Great Scientists at their default potency and further buff the other specialists instead, or to reduce scientists by -1? I felt that the yield change would be least disruptive to the game, leaving CS/Aesthetics slingshots as-is.

Yeah, the point of my post was basically to say: "leave scientists as they are, by keeping them powerful it gives people good reason to pursue the rationalism social policy tree. This in turn places a stronger focus on ALL specialists as there are limited scientist slots, thus further empowering merchants, artists and engineers as is this mod's intention"

P.S: I posted an idea for changing national wonders in your buildings+wonders thread, I understand that you're very busy atm but please give it a look, I want my National wonders back!

@thalassicus - that's right. i'm just trying to figure out a way to get some into desert cities without disrupting the balance.
so far the + bonus is looking the most promising, but i wanted to see the response to a merchant specialist boost in combination with a restructuring

here's a thought: GP cannot join cities as specialists like in CIV, right? so is it possible to have a Great Merchant (or maybe a new one, a Great Farmer? ) have a Food Bomb where x tiles around the target city get +1 food?

Spendoza said:

@thalassicus - that's right. i'm just trying to figure out a way to get some into desert cities without disrupting the balance.

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There was an idea in Food Trade thread, make wheat a strategic resource and make Granary or some other building to give +5 food while consuming wheat resource. The same can be done for cow, fish, ship, banana and deer. So a city may receive a significant food bonus.

sorry for offtoping in your thread Thalassicus

@bobbyboy29
AAhhh I get your point now! Perhaps I could further boost the other specialists, then? Could be...

• 3 - Engineer specialist (from 1)
• 4 - Merchant specialist (from 2)
• 3 - Scientist specialist (from 3)
• Great Artist golden age length increased 35%.

About the national wonders, I'll go post there.

@Spendoza
You know, I could do something like that by adding food to the Customs House, perhaps?

@killmeplease
No worries about going off topic, I wouldn't want to stifle creativity.

Thalassicus said:

@bobbyboy29

• 3 - Engineer specialist (from 1)
• 4 - Merchant specialist (from 2)
• 3 - Scientist specialist (from 3)
• Great Artist golden age length increased 35%.

Click to expand...

i like it
dont know will it be overpovered or not tough
why not to make artist to produce +3 culture instead of 1?

I could increase it to 2, gotta keep in mind culture is scarcer and has a larger impact than the others.

As for power, hmm... I'll do some calculations, check my math. This includes balance - terrain improvements mod...


Tiles still superior for yields between Civil Service and Fertilizer (especially during golden ages) but specialists have the advantage of giving Great People and not taking up a tile spot - useful for crowded city placement strategies.

18 : 6 grass river TPs
15 : 3 Grass river farm + 3 Merchant
18 : 2 Grass river farms + 4 Merchant (Civil Society)

12 6 : 3 Grass river farm + 3 River mine
..9 3 : 3 Grass river farm + 3 Engineer
12 2 : 2 Grass river farm + 4 Engineer (Civil Society)


12 : 6 grass TP's
..8 : 4 Grass farms + 2 Merchant
12 : 2 Grass farms + 4 Merchant

8 : 4 Grass farms + 2 mines
6 : 4 Grass farms + 2 Engineers
9 : 3 Grass farms + 3 Engineers (Civil Society)

I guess the problem I see with this is, with Civil Society the non-GA yields become equal to or better than any other improvement strategy, and give you points on top of that. Then they become even better with Fertilizer, or if your city has access to food resources. There's a finite number of specialist slots, but it still seems a bit much to increase them +2.

I think I'll try:

• 2 - Engineer specialist (from 1)
• 3 - Merchant specialist (from 2)
• 3 - Scientist specialist (from 3)
• Great Artist golden age length increased 35%.

Then possibly add an Artist specialist slot to Monuments or Theaters...

Thalassicus said:

@bobbyboy29
AAhhh I get your point now! Perhaps I could further boost the other specialists, then? Could be...

• 3 - Engineer specialist (from 1)
• 4 - Merchant specialist (from 2)
• 3 - Scientist specialist (from 3)
• Great Artist golden age length increased 35%.

post there.

Click to expand...

I think for the moment you should leave the yields as you indicated you would in the last post. The yields above are a bit too high and may be OP. What would be better IMO, would be to buff one of the later policies in the tradition tree too boost specialists (+1 or +1 ) that way, the specialists won't be inherently stronger but you still have an option to focus your economy around them early game. That's the only real problem with rationalism, it does make specialists relevant but not until pretty late in the game. Tradition is not overly powerful atm and a small boost to specialists in it has synergy with it's small empire focus.

@bobbyboy29
That's an excellent idea, I'll think about the policies in the Tradition tree and what possibilities there might be. It would be a fantastic way to boost Tradition, I agree it seems rather weak.

Would it be possible to remove the Great Scientist's ability to bulb a free tech and replace it with the random tech of a research agreement? That would leave them most of their potency but encourage even teching (so you don't bulb that 3 turn masonry you've been putting off) and drastically reduce the power of beelines.

sounds fine but imo + does not fit tradition.

specialist slots are very limited you have only 1 for engineer for half of the game, 2 for merchs... plus you have to have more population than under 'land' economy to run specs. take it into consideration.

Thalassicus said:

You know, I could do something like that by adding food to the Customs House, perhaps?

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Hey that sounds neat. one of the the reasons i post these ideas is to see if others are having these issues or if i just need more practice and better strategies

@killmeplease - it was? that thread is right epic as well didn't have the patience to read every page

Spendoza said:

@killmeplease - it was? that thread is right epic as well didn't have the patience to read every page

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uh... it was umm.. stated not so good in english
and i mean this thread not that

killmeplease said:

sounds fine but imo + does not fit tradition.

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Well, consider this: it would give a way for small empires to keep up with the science rate of larger ones.

The freedom tree seems like the specialist tree to me. I would leave specialist improvements there, and focus on another aspect for tradition.

The only one you might add to tradition could be pacifism and give your capital a bonus to great people production.