(2-NS) Add a Global Pool for Great Person Points

[pineappledan]

Would this not be a massive buff to wide play?

It sure would.

The current state of things means that GPPs generated in non-core cities, and maybe in some cases outside the capital at all, don't do anything.
@Stalker0 is planning a playthrough to get hard numbers for exactly how many GPPs are generated in what cities, and how much contribution cities are actually making to GP generation right now, versus what contribution they might have made if they could contribute a portion of their yields to a global pool.

Is 1/3 of GPPs the correct amount? Not sure, but it is an intuitive starting point, since it's the smallest discrete amount that specialists' 3 GPPs can be split into.

What do I expect would be the outcome of these changes? How GWAMs from guild cities work would be minimally affected by this, first off. Re: GEMSD, I would not be surprised to find that, in aggregate, more than half of all the GPPs generated in a single game arise solely from the capital. If that is true then the remaining half, contributing at 33%, would mean less than 16% more GEMSDs in a game, and sooner. That would have knock on effect for GP-centric strategies and GP reward mechanics in general, and some of them would probably need to be weakened.

What do I think of Wide vs Tall right now? My perception is that the recent changes we have been making, such as lengthening the late eras, adjusting Tradition and Artistry policies, changes to tourism generation, are all squarely aimed at weakening tall play while strengthening wide play. You could see this proposal as part of that larger theme. BNW was indisputably a tall game, where there was almost no way to beat a focused SV or CV player who stuck to a 4 city core. It is plausible that this proposal swings things in favour of wide over tall more than is reasonable, but I think that requires real playtesting and data to know for sure, and I think we may find that the actual number of additional GEMSD -- and it is only GEMSD we are talking about, because GWAM is basically unaffected by any of this -- is rather modest. That leads us to:

Should there be changes to GP threshold scaling, or the addition of a city size modifier? I would prefer to stay away from adding a city modifier to GPs, but I think the existing cost scaling for subsequent GPs could be slightly increased to compensate. With tech, policy, and tourism modifier costs associated with the number of cities, I think we already have the levers we need to balance tall vs wide without adding new ones.
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I am aware that this proposal has some drawbacks and costs associated with the balance between wide and tall, but I see the benefits outweighing the costs.
On the realism front, It is strange that larger empires with more people seem to have an inverse relationship with GPP generation. Great people are people, after all, and shouldn't have an inverse relationship with being less likely to be born in places with more populations.
On the mechanics front, specialist slots are limited, require investment in buildings to create, and consume more food than comparable yields from tiles. At the end of the day, if you can manage to grab the same yields from tiles, you should.
- This makes scientists only situationally useful if you have no from UIs, pantheons, or otherwise
- It makes Merchants marginal, since from tiles is relatively easy to find, but another large source of gold -- trade routes -- is largely agnostic to this dichotomy,
- it makes engineers almost useless; directly inferior to mines which are easier and faster to construct, far less limited in number, and give more for less
But yields aren't all that specialists give, they also make GPPs, and that's incomparable to whatever you could get out of tiles. The problem now is that GPPs in cities that can't get enough of them to make a Great Person have no value. To give those some worth in non-core cities we could either convert GPPs into something else, or we could send GPPs somewhere where they could do some good.

 

[pineappledan]

. The complex part I'm talking about is how can the player strategize it (and not simply doing the same thing as right now).

In that respect having a global pool that all specialists can contribute to makes things a good bit simpler. You can generate Great People by working specialists, and that now means ANY specialists; as many as you can, anywhere.

 

[CppMaster]

it's the smallest discrete amount that specialists' 3 GPPs can be split into.

Does it have to be discrete?

Great people are people, after all, and shouldn't have an inverse relationship with being less likely to be born in places with more populations.

It's the other way around. The higher the population, the more chance there will be a genius.

 

[pineappledan]

It's the other way around. The higher the population, the more chance there will be a genius.

What I mean is that geniuses are not necessarily born into large glittering capitals in relatively small empires. They are born all over the place at rates consistent with wherever people are having children, and permitting some basic preconditions like not being destitute, and having some basic access to education and literacy. Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury. Einstein was born in Ulm. Tesla was born in Smiljan, Croatia, a town that even today has a population of 400 people. Mendeleev was born in Verkhnie Aremzyani, a Siberian village which no longer exists.

Does it have to be discrete?

It does not. Fractions are allowed with GPPs. I was merely saying that 33% is easiest for mental math and for ease at grasping how the pool would work, and therefore is a good place to start.

 

[nekokon]

Fully agree with the design change, but I just prefer a simpler implementation to avoid "maneuvering" around gpp threshold for smaller cities to spawn GP.
No more local gpp, all are contributed to global pool, but some limited buildings buff up the gpp of individual city so some cities with those buildings are still the main source of gpp, while none of the gpp from small cities are wasted. Much easier to balance tall vs wide just from this.

 

[pineappledan]

Fully agree with the design change, but I just prefer a simpler implementation to avoid "maneuvering" around gpp threshold for smaller cities to spawn GP.
No more local gpp, all are contributed to global pool, but some limited buildings buff up the gpp of individual city so some cities with those buildings are still the main source of gpp, while none of the gpp from small cities are wasted. Much easier to balance tall vs wide just from this.

I think this risks exploding tall altogether. Having some marginal contribution from satellites will move the needle, and justify some specialists in those places without nuking the system we have. I think the changes made to GPs in civ 6 are absolutely devastating, and I have no interest in a system that turns GP generation into an infinite city sprawl mechanic.

 

[crdvis16]

Am I the only one who thinks this wouldn't necessarily be a strict buff to wide?

A Tradition capital typically dominates GP generation. It's the only case in my games where I never get a GP to be born outside of the capital (aside from maybe GA/GW/GM because of guilds but even then the capital might still outpace satellites forever depending on how much sooner the capital builds the guild and what bonuses to GPP the capital has). Tradition capitals have more GPP relative to satellites from free slots, wonders, policies, or just getting buildings like guilds or gardens built faster so they are more likely to put satellites into a situation where they will never birth a GP. So if a global pool existed the Tradition's satellites would go from effectively contributing nothing to GP generation to contributing something.

Meanwhile, at least in a peaceful wide progress game where I am able to put down 6-10 cities I am usually spreading out GP generation anyway. I usually have the capital working on GDs and maybe each guild for GW/GA/GM. I'll have 1 or 2 cities focusing on each other GP type. So it might look like:

Capital working GD, GW, GA, and GM
City 2 and 3 working Writers and Merchants
City 4 and 5 working Artists and Engineers
City 6 and 7 working Musicians and Scientists
Cities 8 and 9 working the remaining extra guilds

In the above scenario no city ends up so far behind in GPP because they all have roughly equal GPP generation. So cities typically trade off birthing great people and you wouldn't say their GPPs are ever wasted anyway.

All of this is to say that satellites of a tradition capital are where GPPs are wasted the most so might have the most to gain from a global pool.

Maybe in a scenario where you've conquered yourself to be REALLY wide at like 20+ non-puppet cities you would get to a situation where this would start really being a buff? I don't typically do that myself, though- the culture/science increases from having more non-puppets get to the point that annexing more cities likely puts you behind overall.

IMO it's probably not too hard to model this out in a spreadsheet. You'd need to gather up all the necessary information and have good guesses for when certain buildings and policies typically get online. I did something similar (but much simpler) a long time ago to prove to myself that the Musician slot from the Celidh Hall couldn't produce a Musician in a city that didn't also have a Musician Guild.

 

[nekokon]

I think this risks exploding tall altogether. Having some marginal contribution from satellites will move the needle, and justify some specialists in those places without nuking the system we have. I think the changes made to GPs in civ 6 are absolutely devastating, and I have no interest in a system that turns GP generation into an infinite city sprawl mechanic.

Any reason why you don't want city scaling then ? That's a perfect solution for this, and it's already in place for other resource like science and culture so there's a harmony in the design itself (more intuitive, less work to explain even to newbie).
The scaling can even use a different formula than science and culture cost if you want to fine tune tall/wide balance later. I just don't see the downside.

 

[pineappledan]

Any reason why you don't want city scaling then ? That's a perfect solution for this, and it's already in place for other resource like science and culture so there's a harmony in the design itself (more intuitive, less work to explain even to newbie)

Because I really don't think it's necessary. As @crdvis16 points out, a huge portion of your aggregate GPP generation happens in relatively few cities anyways, and the marginal contributions of satellites, while nice in getting GPs out slightly sooner, might not actually translate into many more GPs.

I also don't want to totally eliminate wasted GPPs. Wasted GPPs is good, that means there must be a way for you to play more efficiently or do something smarter. If nothing is wasted, however, the system is totally brainless. There are no meaningful decisions or optimizations to be made other than "Do More". However the system we have now is nothing BUT waste, and that's not good either.

 

[CppMaster]

Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury. Einstein was born in Ulm. Tesla was born in Smiljan, Croatia, a town that even today has a population of 400 people. Mendeleev was born in Verkhnie Aremzyani, a Siberian village which no longer exists.

True, I was also born in a small village.

If nothing is wasted, however, the system is totally brainless. There are no meaningful decisions or optimizations to be made other than "Do More".

That's not true. There still could be better/worse decisions, like when GPP generation under certain condition is more efficient.

 

[nekokon]

Because I really don't think it's necessary. As @crdvis16 points out, a huge portion of your aggregate GPP generation happens in relatively few cities anyways, and the marginal contributions of satellites, while nice in getting GPs out slightly sooner, might not actually translate into many more GPs.

I also don't want to totally eliminate wasted GPPs. Wasted GPPs is good, that means there must be a way for you to play more efficiently or do something smarter. If nothing is wasted, however, the system is totally brainless. There are no meaningful decisions or optimizations to be made other than "Do More". However the system we have now is nothing BUT waste, and that's not good either.

I don't think I share the same sentiment about "wasted" gpp. You can't really make any different decision that isn't gamey to optimize it.

From a gameplay PoV, player already makes a decision whether to use specialist or not depend on their needs, and it's simply "if I want GP, I should use more specialists", and the game design should be as straight forward and not "if I want GP, I should use more specialists but only in specific cities where gpp are not wasted or halting gpp generation somewhere so that it can spawn somewhere else". It's straight out gamey and not strategic. If you want the decision to be impactful, just put more penalty on working specialist to make it clear "I want to do this even with the downside".

If you think the marginal contribution from satellites aren't as significant to require a city scaling, why would you worry about ppl spamming cities and take on tons of other penalty simply to get a bit more gpp ?

 

[pineappledan]

If you think the marginal contribution from satellites aren't as significant to require a city scaling, why would you worry about ppl spamming cities and take on tons of other penalty simply to get a bit more gpp ?

Should there be changes to GP threshold scaling, or the addition of a city size modifier? I would prefer to stay away from adding a city modifier to GPs, but I think the existing cost scaling for subsequent GPs could be slightly increased to compensate. With tech, policy, and tourism modifier costs associated with the number of cities, I think we already have the levers we need to balance tall vs wide without adding new ones.

It remains to be seen, but it’s just as likely that a city modifier would end up penalizing wide -- rather than compensating tall -- relative to the current system. That would certainly be the case for GWAMs, which are limited to 3 cities regardless of the size of your empire. Maybe your proposed modifier would only work for certain GP types, but how is That not an extra complication?

Colour me unconvinced. Having some size-agnostic mechanics is also good for gameplay.

 

[CrazyG]

I like this idea a lot. As is even with a lot of experience under your belt its hard to know if you'll get a great person in a new city by the game end. I support anything to add transparency.

I think Dan's ratio of 1 point local 2 points global is a good starting point. It'll need some testing to see how good this really is (I'm looking forward to some Babylon scientist spam). For tall vs wide concerns, if tall is weak just directly help out tradition seems like a solution?

 

[nekokon]

It remains to be seen, but it’s just as likely that a city modifier would end up penalizing wide -- rather than compensating tall -- relative to the current system. That would certainly be the case for GWAMs, which are limited to 3 cities regardless of the size of your empire. Maybe your proposed modifier would only work for certain GP types, but how is That not an extra complication?

Colour me unconvinced. Having some size-agnostic mechanics is also good for gameplay.

I don't get your point. This whole proposal 100% will buff wide play no matter how you implement it, thus my suggestion with city scaling is to get it back on balance. I don't know why you want to compensate tall instead. That's like trying to change 2 values at once and trying to find a new balance instead of keeping 1 the same and make changes to the other so that the balance is similar.

 

[pineappledan]

I don't get your point.

If you implemented a city scaler for GPs, then the most predictable result is that GWAMs -- the 3 GP types that are nearly unaffected by a global pool -- will just get harder to make for wide civs. The number of Guild slots you have is capped at 6 in 3 cities, no matter how big you make your empire. Thus, a city scaler doesn't counteract a buff to wide as far as 3/7 GP types are concerned, it's just a direct and unmitigated nerf to wide for no reason.

Maybe it counteracts some buff to the remaining 4 GEMSDs, but we need actual game data to know by how much.

 

[nekokon]

I assumed that's the intended side effect since wide empire doesn't care much about having limited amount of GWAM in exchange for other non-limited GP type, a deal which I would take any day.
Without scaler your part global part local pool would still be a net buff to wide's all non-limited gpp, which you would nevertheless have to implement more changes to buff up tall (and this is a must since unlike how wide empire is ok with less GWAM, tall empire is NOT ok with less GP for other type, comparatively).

 

[AndreyK]

I don't like idea of only global pool and I don't like idea of scaler. I think things like limited GWAM are already existing mechanic that hurts wide and buffs tall game.

 

[ma_kuh]

I have two thoughts to add:
Practically speaking, this is a buff to both tall and wide. It's fair to mention the relative buff between the styles, but it the end both game plans will be receiving more GPs.
If going wide for GEMSD and going tall for GWAM becomes a little more incentivized with this change, I don't necessarily see that as a problem. Much better to have a system with clear direction than a system where "more is always more" for everything. It gives identity to the different clusters of great persons.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

This makes me wonder how many GP points are wasted running all those Merchants from the City Governor.
It also makes me concerned about the AI Great Diplomat spam.

 

[pineappledan]

This makes me wonder how many GP points are wasted running all those Merchants from the City Governor.
It also makes me concerned about the AI Great Diplomat spam.

According to @Stalker0 's tall game where he meticulously logged GPP generation vs GP births in a small empire, a ton. It's safe to say that in a wide game more than half of all GMerchant points you generate don't do anything.