Voremonger
Warlord
Proposal: As part of France's unique ability they receive 50% total progress towards Great Artists, Great Writers, and Great Musicians upon city capture in their capital. I propose to instead grant one free Great Artist, Great Writer, or Great Musician upon city capture (in that order, repeating).
Rationale: France's UA revolves around conquering cities and as such suffers from the typical issue where it can be very strong or weak depending on how strong they already are: if you're already strong and are able to capture a lot of cities then you can snowball, if you're weak you get nothing and stay weak. However, in France's case I find this to be particularly noticeable because you essentially need to conquer an even number of cities to properly get the benefits. If you conquer just one city that will be way worse than conquering two cities at which point you would suddenly get three Great People. Conquering exactly three cities also feels bad though slightly less so.
There is also the issue that France's UA has an anti-synergy with the regular generation of cultural great people. If you for example conquer only a small number of cities before researching acoustics you will have gotten only the first few Great Musicians "for free" which you would have gotten relatively quickly anyways; the total number of great musicians that you receive in such a game will essentially be the same. Conversely, if you conquer a large number of cities prior to researching acoustics the points needed for Great Musicians will already be extremely high so it's questionable if you'll ever get even a single one via specialists.
The point of my proposal is to make France's UA better in cases where there is only moderate success in terms of capturing cities. If they simply receive one free great person per city capture then conquering an uneven number of cities would not feel as bad. Also because free great people don't increase the points required to gain them via specialists conquering a low number of cities would always result in additional great people and not interfere with guilds. Asymptotically in cases where France would go off to conquer something like 20+ cities the new UA would be worse since you would only be receiving one great person per city instead of 1.5 great people per city but in those games France would be handily winning anyways.
Because the palace starts with a slot for art France should receive a Great Artist first. Slots for writing unlock next, which is why the second great person should be a Great Writer, followed by a Great Musician. To keep the proportion of great people roughly equal this pattern should then simply repeat in perpetuity.
Rationale: France's UA revolves around conquering cities and as such suffers from the typical issue where it can be very strong or weak depending on how strong they already are: if you're already strong and are able to capture a lot of cities then you can snowball, if you're weak you get nothing and stay weak. However, in France's case I find this to be particularly noticeable because you essentially need to conquer an even number of cities to properly get the benefits. If you conquer just one city that will be way worse than conquering two cities at which point you would suddenly get three Great People. Conquering exactly three cities also feels bad though slightly less so.
There is also the issue that France's UA has an anti-synergy with the regular generation of cultural great people. If you for example conquer only a small number of cities before researching acoustics you will have gotten only the first few Great Musicians "for free" which you would have gotten relatively quickly anyways; the total number of great musicians that you receive in such a game will essentially be the same. Conversely, if you conquer a large number of cities prior to researching acoustics the points needed for Great Musicians will already be extremely high so it's questionable if you'll ever get even a single one via specialists.
The point of my proposal is to make France's UA better in cases where there is only moderate success in terms of capturing cities. If they simply receive one free great person per city capture then conquering an uneven number of cities would not feel as bad. Also because free great people don't increase the points required to gain them via specialists conquering a low number of cities would always result in additional great people and not interfere with guilds. Asymptotically in cases where France would go off to conquer something like 20+ cities the new UA would be worse since you would only be receiving one great person per city instead of 1.5 great people per city but in those games France would be handily winning anyways.
Because the palace starts with a slot for art France should receive a Great Artist first. Slots for writing unlock next, which is why the second great person should be a Great Writer, followed by a Great Musician. To keep the proportion of great people roughly equal this pattern should then simply repeat in perpetuity.
would be more suitable on a civ with more explicit GA synergy to amp it up. It's a little too feast or famine if left on its own.
