Great Persons & Golden Ages reloaded

Great (sic) idea emerged in the general discussion. I think it deserves a separate thread here, don't know if this has been suggested already or not. Let me just quote:

Harvestmoon said:

...
Great Scientists should add huge % bonuses to science research in the empire for 10-20 turns, simulating a lifelong influence on the nation's research. So, popping them could either give you a tile of +Science (like the GS in CiV) or a Scientific Golden Age (we could call it a Paradigm Shift)

...hm... that was all off the cuff... extending the idea out, Generals could be popped for an empire-wide combat bonus, like a Military Golden Age (Age of Conquest). Merchants a gold boost (Economic Boom). Artists a Culture boost (Renaissance). Etc.

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UWHabs said:

Something like:
Scientific GA: +25% science
Economic boom: each tile with 1 coin gets +1 coin (like the current GA)
Renaissance: +25% culture
Age of Conquest: +15% military boost
Industrial revolution (Great Engineer): each tile with 1 hammer gets +1 (like the current one)
Prosperity (?) (Happiness GA): +25% growth rate in all cities

Click to expand...

Generally speaking, there would be more types of golden ages, and each great person would be able to induce only a golden age corresponding to the GP's nature. The length of these golden ages would be constant (say 15 turns), not decreasing with the number of already induced GAs, not prolonged by Chichen Itza - that would be OP imo. Chichen Itza would prolong only "ordinary" golden ages.

There would also be a "Great entertainer" (or "Great actor", "Great sportsmen" etc.). Maybe actually "Great happinator" is the right name He/she would be able to build a tile improvement much like landmark/manufactory (amusement park? film studios? funfair?). The improved hex would provide additional happiness (+5 seems reasonable to me) when within borders. Or he/she could be "burned" for the above mentioned "Happiness GA".

Ok, to get "Great happinator", we need a specialist slot. I would add one such slot to theatre and one to stadium. When occupied, it would provide additional +2 happiness, and also 3 great happinator points.

Another approach: Great persons would have limited life-span from their emergence - 30 turns seems reasonable to me. They could travel around the empire (duh). Now the essential part:

G. Engineer in a city = city's production tripled.
G. Scientist in a city = city's science tripled
G. Artist in a city = city's (base) culture output doubled.
G. Entertainer in a city = city's growth rate +50%
G. Merchant in a city = city's gold output doubled

etc.

Also maybe:
G. Engineer on a tile = +10 hammers to tile's production
G. Merchant on a tile = +10 gold on the tile
...
(this is to make it easier to travel from town to town and not loose the bonus during the /again/ limited life-span)

Great person could be 'burned' anytime during his/her life-span, which would lead to an empire-wide golden age of the corresponding sort, lasting half the remaining life-span of the given GP.

Also, to balance it a bit: Great person could "leave the legacy" (= build manufactory/landmark/academy) only in the first 10 turns of his/her existence


To sum it up: One could choose among
* leaving a permanent 'legacy' (tile improvement)
* short-term buff of one tile
* short-term buff of one city
* even shorter empire-wide buff

reserved

I would have a happiness great person (Great Entertainer, I guess) that would be spawned from the global happiness points. Not sure if I'd use the same scale as the other GP, or not. Really, I wouldn't mind if all the GPP were pooled just in a central location, so that your scientists in Washington and New York and Tokyo all contribute to the same pool. You wouldn't be able to make a "Great Scientist" city and a "Great Merchant" city, but oh well.

Then yeah, they'd have the ability to build a tile improvement that gives happiness when in your borders. I'd say they should be spawned from the global happiness pool, though, and not through a specialist (in the same way GG are spawned from combat and not through "military instructors" in cities).

You would need to rebalance the wonders and abilities and policies that affect golden ages, since I think if you do this you would get rid of the original golden ages. So Rationalism would give you a scientific golden age, reformation might give a cultural GA, you could change total war to give the conquest golden age, etc...

I do quite like this approach. I'm unsure as to whether it would be best to have the bonuses done in fixed numbers (perhaps changing with each era), or as a percentage. Because one problem with a percentage would be that if you had an empire producing 400 a turn, and another empire was producing 200 a turn, a great scientist would be twice as valuable to you. This could be unbalancing.