Great Artists should grant a free Social Policy

[Fluxx]

For a couple of weeks now I have been thinking about writing this thread, now I finally got to it I hope it will have the same amount of heated discussion my Research Agreement thread has put up.

The topic name states it, Great Artists should grant a free Social Policy when their special ability is used.
To back this statement up I got 3 main arguments, and I will go indepth about all of them further in this post.

1. Great Artists are by far the weakest Great Persons of all four.
2. Cultural Victories are the slowest victory to achieve.
3. The curving and strategic depth of Social Policies is very limited currently

Now to move on to my first point.
Great Artists are by far the weakest Great Persons of all four.
There have been polls to rate the effectiveness of all GP's, or GA in particular. The general consencus is that the GA is nothing more then a timed golden age, something that all other GP's offer. Also the GA is completely out of line with the design of the other three GP's, the Great Scienist, Great Engineer and Great Merchant.
Now 'Strategic Decision Making' is going to be the key word of changing the GA.
The GS strength is obvious, he will allow you to strategically bee-line your civ to key technologies that will grant you huge benefits for getting them early. Think of crucial military technologies, or huge Economic technologies. You can build your strategy in such a way that you gain the required benefits when the time is ready.
The GE allows you to get that crucial wonder you want to get. When I get a GE, i can aim to get the required technology to build that Taj Mahal, Forbidden Palace, Sistine Chapel or Big ben that will have dramatic effects on my game instantly.
The GM might seem underrated, but it not only gives by itself a bonus to relationships with a city state, it gives you a quick big boom to your gold which you can spend on getting those couple of crucial buildings/units/city state relationships whenever you spend him.
Now if we look at the GA, you would expect it to follow the same design and allow you to choose a Social Policy at your own choosing. This will allow you for strategic decision making, and getting that SP you really want just when you enter a new age.
Instead it retains the ability of the GA in Civ IV, that back then was considered weak. In Civ 5 this ability is even worse since directly bordering an opponents civilization is very rare, you can buy terrain tiles and you can not overtake opponents cities with culture.

Now for my second argument.
Cultural Victories are the slowest victory to achieve (aside of time victory).
We have seen 1300 AD deity space victories, military conquest can be as fast as the map allows it, diplomatic victory with the right strategy can occur as extremely fast as science victory. Your science will rack up less fast since you need gold, but then again you need less technologies.
Now Cultural Victories are inherently time consuming. Because of the way the game is setup, it takes long to get Thirty Social Polices, and build that damn utopia building.
I have tried about a dozen different approaches to Cultural Victories, in a plethorea of difficulty settings. Without going indepth about the different strategies I used, it is obvious that:
The more cities you build, the more culture you require for SP's. The lesser cities I get, the less culture I acquire for SP's. You need science to get you the necesary cultural buildings, which requires hammers/gold. If you do a warlike strategy to gain more cities, you need to spend more resources in units, and you can not control puppets building decisions. Basically to obtain a Culture Victory in its current state you need to have an empire that focuses on all aspects of the game, instead of one specific aspect for one specific victory condition.
With the suggested change, players will focus resources on getting culture buildings, running culture specialists and culture wonders. Which generate Great Artists, which help you obtain that specific victory condition you try to acquire. If I focus on science, I get a GS that helps me further that goal, same with a GE and a GM.

Now to my last point and argument.
The curving and strategic depth of Social Policies is very limited currently.
This might feel like a vague statement so allow me to clarify.
In its current state, everyone here will recognize the follow scenario.
Five turns left to researching Astronomy, "you can choose a new social policy".
In its current state I can not control in any way, without making supercomputer calculations, when I get my crucial policy. Instead of going into the rationalism or freedom tree, I have to "waste" a SP point, and wait another 20-30 turns to get my next SP.
Also for strategic depth of the game it will be great if I can get half of that Freedom Tree when I beelined for the Renaissance and saved up 3 GA's.
It will allow people to create new reliable strategies to work with. Yes SP's are very strong, but a player invests alot of resources to getting up a specific Great Artist farm, that pumps out GA's reliably and on time.
In its current state, even when I aim for a Cultural Victory, I will never get the full Freedom tree before I hit the Industrial/Modern Era. The current "curve" of the game does not allow me to. Now in the face of "realism" and game quality this is a very bad design.

To conclude and summarize this extremely long thread.
Great Artists should grant a free Social Policy because it gives players more flexibility, more decision making, makes the GA actually usefull, improves the game quality, and above all actually makes sense.

 

[Civ'ed]

You... forgot the GG.
Otherwise these are very good arguments and I agree.

 

[builer680]

They may be weak now, but if Artists gave free policies, it would be the only GP I'd make (or nearly so).

As things currently stand, lots of Engineers and a few Scientists are all I make, and that's not good (from a balance perspective) either. Merchants are about as weak as Artists, because they're usually more gold if you just pop a Golden Age, and use some of that to buy more influence than you would have gotten for moving him to a City State. Unless of course you happen to have a mission for it, then I guess you might as well.

But... my concept of balance just doesn't jive with Artists giving full free Policies, though it is a very nice writeup you did there Frankly, not many of the GP's are all that strong... Engineers and Scientists seem to be useful in more situations than others at least. Generals obviously are quite good if you're at war.

Merchants and Artists are definitely in need of strengthening, I can agree with you on that point. I feel kind of guilty giving such a short response to your idea, but in all honesty I'm not sure what else to say... other than, in my opinion, this would make the Artist far too strong. It would be fine to buff GP's other than Engineers and Scientists so that they're on a more equal footing, but not this much.

 

[Fluxx]

@Civ'ed I left out the GG, because it is the only great person which has a passive effect, and for all purposes behaves different then other GP's, the citadel is more of a cherrytopping then anything else.

@builer. I expected the balance argument to come up. But think about it, will it be unbalanced? To get Great Artists you would have to aim for certain techs like Theology, build a temple and a garden, and preferably monuments in every city to get a National Epic.

That is quite an investment, which could have gone to military techs like Iron Working/Currency/Civil Service, wonders like National College, or library's/granaries/markets.

Also the numbers can be tweaked, for example a Temple can let you only run 1 artist specialist instead of two.

Thank you both for your praising words by the way

 

[TheMightyQuinn]

This is an interesting idea but I think it might make Great Artists too powerful.

What I'd like to see is an increase in the amount of culture their terrain improvement (monument?) makes. At the moment I think it's only 4 culture which is less than an Opera House gives. I know there's no maintenance costs but you also have to work that tile and give up any improvement on it. If the culture produced by this improvement were doubled then the effect would be to grant you more social policies but not too suddenly.

 

[wurstburst]

This is an interesting idea but I think it might make Great Artists too powerful.

I don't think it would make them too powerful when the alternative is a free tech (GS) or a free or nearly free wonder (GE). I think it would make a nice addition to the lineup and make them about the same as the GS and GE.

The only unbalanced thing would be if the SP was truly free (i.e. didn't increase the cost of the next SP). An easy way to do that would be to give culture equal to the current SP goal. You'd have enough points to buy a SP and any leftover would go in the bucket for the next (more expensive) SP.

 

[juckie]

I do agree that the Artists are a bit low on use. But I must say, this has been mentioned more than once, or twice, for that matter.


When giving them a free SoPo per pop, you get 1/30 further on winning the game.
With popping a Scientist, this is more likely to be 1/60th or something around that figure.

So in that regard I'd rather see a 50% culture of current SoPo. Say it costs a total of 400 you get 200 culture. Not 50% of the "still to go" culture.

I'd also rather see GS being nerfed, something like x beakers towards current research, or at random. But anything except straight out beelining.


Sometimes, it's not the best way to improve the weakest link, but also about decreasing the value of the strongest link. Balance is key, not overpowering.

 

[wurstburst]

I do agree that the Artists are a bit low on use. But I must say, this has been mentioned more than once, or twice, for that matter.


When giving them a free SoPo per pop, you get 1/30 further on winning the game.
With popping a Scientist, this is more likely to be 1/60th or something around that figure.

So in that regard I'd rather see a 50% culture of current SoPo. Say it costs a total of 400 you get 200 culture. Not 50% of the "still to go" culture.

I'd also rather see GS being nerfed, something like x beakers towards current research, or at random. But anything except straight out beelining.


Sometimes, it's not the best way to improve the weakest link, but also about decreasing the value of the strongest link. Balance is key, not overpowering.

With GS as they are currently, you can go deep into the tech tree. That has a lot more power than taking the next SP. The tech tree doesn't scale costs like SP (i.e. your 12th tech doesn't cost X - it's cost varies depending on the tech chosen). Therefore the value of a GS is generally much higher than the average value of your current place in the tech tree. This make a GS choosing 1 of 60 techs better than a GA giving you 1 of 30 SP.

 

[Coase]

Can't this be easier? Just have the Great Artist give a set number of Culture Points, much like the Great Engineer gives a set number of production. Or at the very least scale it per age.

 

[juckie]

With GS as they are currently, you can go deep into the tech tree. That has a lot more power than taking the next SP. The tech tree doesn't scale costs like SP (i.e. your 12th tech doesn't cost X - it's cost varies depending on the tech chosen). Therefore the value of a GS is generally much higher than the average value of your current place in the tech tree. This make a GS choosing 1 of 60 techs better than a GA giving you 1 of 30 SP.

If you would read more closely, you could see the most important line I wrote:

I'd also rather see GS being nerfed, something like x beakers towards current research, or at random. But anything except straight out beelining.

And what you're doing is -exactly- the point of error a lot of people have. You focus on the overpowered stuff, not the average.

With about 20 Artists you could win with this setup. And get 10 from culture.
That's not that hard too reach. But 20 GS's don't win you the game straight out.
They get you far, very far. But not building 1 project and win, far.

Like I said before, balance is key. Don't make something stronger because it's weak. Make something weaker because it's too strong, -then- upgrade all the other thing to the same power level.

 

[Fluxx]

If you would read more closely, you could see the most important line I wrote:

And what you're doing is -exactly- the point of error a lot of people have. You focus on the overpowered stuff, not the average.

With about 20 Artists you could win with this setup. And get 10 from culture.
That's not that hard too reach. But 20 GS's don't win you the game straight out.
They get you far, very far. But not building 1 project and win, far.

Like I said before, balance is key. Don't make something stronger because it's weak. Make something weaker because it's too strong, -then- upgrade all the other thing to the same power level.

Great Scientists were as strong in Civ IV. You could not choose a specific tech, but the techs that you could get were strong enough to allow you a huge variety of other tech trades. Also I think there were less techs in the entire tree, and GP generation is weaker in Civ 5 then in Civ IV.
Now GS are by no means in my opinion OP as you state it. Also I doubt much people would agree with your opinion that they are.

Wurstburst actually made a very valid point, SP's increase cost exponentially. If I get two SP's within the first 10 turns it doesnt mean I am already 1/15 on my way to victory. GA's should give you all the remaining culture you need for the next Social Policy, and thereby increasing the cost to get the next.

Last, if you want to make an argument, do not use extreme nonsense numbers as 20 Great Artists.
You will never obtain such a number in any game. If you focus completely on Great persons you might be lucky to hit 10 in an entire game. 5-7 Great persons average a game is more normal.

 

[juckie]

Great Scientists were as strong in Civ IV. You could not choose a specific tech, but the techs that you could get were strong enough to allow you a huge variety of other tech trades. Also I think there were less techs in the entire tree, and GP generation is weaker in Civ 5 then in Civ IV.
Now GS are by no means in my opinion OP as you state it. Also I doubt much people would agree with your opinion that they are.

Why compare with another game, as this is not Civ IV. And please don't doubt or speak for other people's mind. That kind of weak assumptions are based on little except a few opinions read. There are plenty of mods (+respective users) who nerf GSs.

Wurstburst actually made a very valid point, SP's increase cost exponentially. If I get two SP's within the first 10 turns it doesnt mean I am already 1/15 on my way to victory. GA's should give you all the remaining culture you need for the next Social Policy, and thereby increasing the cost to get the next.

Technically you are, because the 30 SoPo's are still 30 in number. We can use the same invalid point for techs. With researching 2 techs, you're on 2/60. Maybe on 100 out of 20k beakers, but in the end, you have n out of x.
It's just for easy math comparison, I won't do numbercrunching on this, it's way too variable for it. Give me the numbers, then we talk about details.

Last, if you want to make an argument, do not use extreme nonsense numbers as 20 Great Artists.
You will never obtain such a number in any game. If you focus completely on Great persons you might be lucky to hit 10 in an entire game. 5-7 Great persons average a game is more normal.

Just 10? 5-7 on average? Haha!
When you take the Freedom tree and Patronage tree, you get 50% GGP bonus, and have CS's spawn a tiny number of them. Maybe even when it's just 1 Artist. The Louvre adds 2 as well.
Maybe 20 is a lot, but 15 should be attainable. If you focus well, that should be more then enough. With Democracy and a Garden, this looks decent.

You know, what... I'll give it a try. Want any specs to give me? Beyond normal speed and pangea map. Siam would love this.

 

[Fluxx]

Sure, play on emperor/immortal difficulty and let me know the date when you hit your 5th GA, and keep posting dates till your 10th Great Artist.

Note that a wonder like the Louvre can be changed to only 1 GA, and temples can have 1 specialist slot instead of the current two.

If you would be so kind, make a couple of screenshots so we can discuss this after you are done with your game.

Do note that the Patronage last SP gives random GP's, including a Khan and a GG, and you got absolutely no control over what you are getting.

 

[snarzberry]

I specialize in playing cultural games, especially occ deity, so most of my thinking is skewed towards that kind of game.

An early GA is already worth a SP to you. Just not a 'free' one. You have to work a tile, and wait some time. In my style of play shooting for a cultural victory, I generate my first two GA's when the Louvre is constructed after approximately 130 turns (deity cont/pan standard settings). Each landmark in a culturally designed city produces 12 culture per turn. 4 plus two 100% base modifiers. That landmark worked for the rest of the game will produce 1500 - 2500 culture, depending on how long a game it is. This easily covers the average cost per SP by each Landmark which is worked from this point onwards. But it isn't free, you have to wait a long time and you need to work the tile. Also, the more cities you have the less the landmark is worth.

Late GA's quickly become weaker for a cultural victory and this is why I agree in principal with OP's idea - that GA's should be modified/buffed. In Civ 4 you had a choice between settling your GA or culture bombing. Bombing provided 4000 instant culture and settling provided a set small amount per turn. Early on it was better to settle and there was a point when it would become wiser to bomb. Your ability to sense/work out when that point occurred was one of the skills that made you a good culture player. 'Settling' is now represented on the map itself by landmarks, but there is not another option to weigh it against visa-vi the culture bomb in Civ 4. There should be, and this is what OP is getting at, but I think an entire free SP is too strong and would outweigh the landmark in all situations. I assume by 'free' you mean that it doesn't increase the cost of future SP's as with other free SP's in the game.

Perhaps something like a percent gain of the current SP would work? 50% of your fourth SP is not a lot of culture, but 50% of your 24th is.

 

[Vrock]

...In Civ 4 you had a choice between settling your GA or culture bombing. Bombing provided 4000 instant culture and settling provided a set small amount per turn. Early on it was better to settle and there was a point when it would become wiser to bomb. Your ability to sense/work out when that point occurred was one of the skills that made you a good culture player.... Perhaps something like a percent gain of the current SP would work? 50% of your fourth SP is not a lot of culture, but 50% of your 24th is.

I agree, this would be a great strategic addition to the game.

Do I want that next SP asap?
Do I want to a little bit of culture per turn for a long time?
Do I want to sit on a GA to pop him for culture instead of a timed golden age?

This change would add depth to the game, which is always a good thing.

 

[Wargizmo]

My only problem with this idea is that it would make small city empires even weaker than they are already, currently when you take dozens and dozens of cities there's the tradeoff of not having many social policies, by allowing great artists to grant social policies you remove one of the only advantages of having not many cities. I agree that the current great artist ability sucks, maybe it should just give you a bunch of culture, rather than granting a full policy.

 

[Camikaze]

Add me to the 'overpowered' list. The idea makes sense, but it would be worth more than a GS. You need more techs than you need social policies to win the science and cultural victories respectively.

Perhaps an alternative would be to let a GA give a boost to culture? i.e. an automatic +500 culture or something (era dependent)?

 

[Knut_Are_M]

i would just recommend them to boost Landmarks for all great persons.
there are barely anyone that use them.
In general you cannot win a cultural victory by building landmarks+ culural buildings because you wont have the military to defend yourself.
Just 1 thing. a temple cost 120 hammers on quick, and gies 3 culture per turn for 3 gpt.
Well it is not a good trade.
a landmark gives 4 culture when worked, but costs 1 hammer or 2gpt or 2 food.
considering the cost of a great person is it really worth it?
a great engineer gives 3 hammers per turn at the cost of 1 hammer or 2 gpt or 2 food, is it worth it?
a typical wonder gives you a 100 turns of free hammers instantly if you rush a midgame wonder.(300-400 hammers). so on 1 way you have 300 free hammers instantly or you can get 3(2) hammers a turn and wait a 100(150) turns before you go even.

a free policy is too powerful, but 1 way to make culture victory viable is to boost culture buildings and landmarks in general.

 

[UWHabs]

If the landmarks could be placed on the same tile as another improvement, that would be fair.

As for giving this, the only issue is that then tiles would be fixed forever, and there'd be no way to "reclaim" them. Unless if you added the current culture bomb to the landmark - so it gives 4 cpt AND claims all adjacent tiles.

If you do that, and have the GA gives you X culture (and change the scientist give you X science, depending on turn/age/current level), that would be fair. As it is, even going for a cultural win, landmarks are still weak. Honestly, it might even be better to waste an artist for a golden age just to get that little extra production to build stuff faster.

 

[alpaca]

No, this would be much too powerful for large empires whose main (only) weakness is social policy speed. I could see a fixed amount of culture points capped at a max of one policy and maybe with a slight increase with cities (but less than the cost goes up), and in fact that's what I will implement at some point.