Which "free" great people are actually free?

[KrikkitTwo]

So "Next on counter Free" is

Brandenburg
Piety
Faith
Babylon
Venice (optics)

 

[Browd]

One I'm not sure about is the free GS from the International Space Station "Silver Medal." I can't recall ever playing a game that required the ISS, but my guess is that the ISS GS would also increase the GS/GE/GM counter.

 

[bcaiko]

The Devs really should be using two different keywords instead of "free", since "free" has two contradictory meanings as it is now.

Completely free Great People should be listed as "free".

Great People who appear but increase their respective Great People point cost should be listed as "instant."

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The Devs really should be using two different keywords instead of "free", since "free" has two contradictory meanings as it is now.

Completely free Great People should be listed as "free".

Great People who appear but increase their respective Great People point cost should be listed as "instant."

"Instant" is an excellent word for the 'sort of free' great people.
(also by delving into the code, they could improve Liberty+Honor.. making their Great Persons truly Free)

 

[shaglio]

The Devs really should be using two different keywords instead of "free", since "free" has two contradictory meanings as it is now.

Completely free Great People should be listed as "free".

Great People who appear but increase their respective Great People point cost should be listed as "instant."

I second this motion. All in favor, say "aye."

 

[kaspergm]

"Aye!"

 

[sendos]

Aye.

As for the groupings of GS, GM's and GE's and GWAM's, I don't understand the process. Why are they grouped and why does an individual Great Person from these categories affect the spawn cost of other great people? I also thought the GWAM's were separate because you get the first 2 of each GWAM within about 30 turns of each other (standard).

 

[Browd]

The GWAMs are all on separate counters. Only Great Scientists, Great Engineers and Great Merchants are on a common counter.

 

[bcaiko]

The GWAMs are all on separate counters. Only Great Scientists, Great Engineers and Great Merchants are on a common counter.

Really? I didn't realize that. I always figured they were on the same counter like GSEMs. Clearly I don't play Culture games often.

 

[Browd]

In G&K, Great Artists were on the same counter with GSs, GEs and GMs. Changed in BNW, when the expanded list of GWAMs was introduced and the one-guild-per-civ limit was imposed.

 

[Arachnofiend]

In G&K, Great Artists were on the same counter with GSs, GEs and GMs. Changed in BNW, when the expanded list of GWAMs was introduced and the one-guild-per-civ limit was imposed.

I wonder if a similar system could be imposed to limit scientists. You have one building with science specialists (National College?) and the scientists that are spawned can be bulbed or employed at the current specialist buildings. Maybe they could come up with a "Great Advancement" like pasteurization or whatever. Artifacts could be used instead because scientists love that stuff.

There'd have to be strict era limits because coming up with stuff related to very late technologies early in the game would be kinda dumb. Plus earlier stuff typically doesn't have people that can be directly attributed to its creation. Yeah this idea doesn't really work

 

[MattZed]

Aye, for what it's worth.

I've always wished the Mayan GP would actually be free. Except for an early GS/GE/GM/GPro, (or maybe a late GPro when the costs are too high to faith-buy) the free GPs don't really do much that wouldn't happen already. What we have now is the equivalent of Poland's free social policies increasing SP cost, which wouldn't be much of a UA at all. (although that would definitely make the "Poland is OP" crowd happy)

 

[Doktor Vic Tim]

The Maya has one of the best UB in the game. Twice the faith AND +2 science!

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

The Maya has one of the best UB in the game. Twice the faith AND +2 science!

It looks good but remeber shrine is basicly underpowered for its cost and get much better with piety.

Its far from the best UB in my opinion

 

[Doktor Vic Tim]

Since it's one of the very first UBs you can build (Stele being THE earliest UB), you get to reap its benefits from beginning to end. And a little bit of extra science helps negating the % penalty upon founding new cities.

Might not be THE best, but it's certainly up there.

 

[LoneRebel]

Aye.

Based on Browd's post earlier, it seems that which of the "free" GPs are actually free and which are merely instant seems to be more or less arbitrary and follows no discernible reasoning, leaving memorization as the only way of knowing and remembering which is which. It'd be nice if Firaxis clarified the distinction between the two.

 

[kaspergm]

Talking about the counters, it would be really nice to have Scientists, Merchants and Engineers decoupled. No reason to have them coupled anymore - even more so if they freeze the science/hammer yield of the scientist/engineer to the time they person is born.

I wonder if a similar system could be imposed to limit scientists. You have one building with science specialists (National College?) and the scientists that are spawned can be bulbed or employed at the current specialist buildings. Maybe they could come up with a "Great Advancement" like pasteurization or whatever. Artifacts could be used instead because scientists love that stuff.

There'd have to be strict era limits because coming up with stuff related to very late technologies early in the game would be kinda dumb. Plus earlier stuff typically doesn't have people that can be directly attributed to its creation. Yeah this idea doesn't really work

Yeah, I made a suggestion about making this a part of science victory a while ago. Great Scientists, Great Engineers and Great Merchants could all make "great theories" (in Science, Engineering and Economics respectively) and then you could collect these in your libraries and universities. But I guess that's a subject for a different discussion.