Great people generation workshop

[Anarcomu]

I've proposed this in the Congress Proposal thread, but it has since been eaten by the flow of the discussion, so I'm making its own thread for visibility :

Rework how GPP are generated/accumulated (comes with a Tradition and building change).

Problems :
Specialists in key cities awards GPPs. In tradition games, this is mostly the Capital. Satellite cities never really contribute to GPs since they never produce enough to spawn a GP on their own.
Adding a global pool would partially solve this issue, however it will favor wide play a lot more than tall play, where tall play is meant to be the GP strategy. Plus wide can already afford to buy more GPs with faith anyway.

Proposal (numbers subject to change) :

• Base GPP generation rework :
  • GPP are now produced on a common pool instead of individual pools
  • Specialists only produce 1GPP as a baseline (but things can increase that)
  • Each city founded increase required GPP (except Prophets - for now) by 10%
• Tradition rework :
  • Scaler changed from "3%growth per policy" to "1 more city does not count toward expansion penalty, per 2 policies (including opener)".
  • All buildings providing specialists to the capital also add +2GPP to relevant specialist.
  • Civil servants gain +2GDP with the state treasury.
  • The Throne Room (finisher) adds an additional +1GPP to all specialists.
  • Those bonuses, of course, only applies to the capital.
• Summary of Tradition rework :
  • You produce GPP as fast as before in the capital until finisher (3GPP per specialists).
  • Your first 3 cities (excluding capital) no longer contribute //// maluses from number of cities. No maluses if you stay on 4 cities.
  • Finisher boosts your GPP production to 4 per specialists.
  • Satellites cities fully contribute to GPP (at a slower rate).
• National Wonders changes :
  • Some National Wonders now boosts relevant generation in their city :
    • Oxford University : add +2 GSP to scientists in the city, add one scientist slot.
    • Printing Press : add 2GDP to Civil servants in the city, add one civil servant slot (total 2).
    • Ironwork : add 2GEP to engineers in the city, add one engineer slot.
    • East India Company : add 2GMP to merchants in the city, add one merchant slot.
    • Writer/Artist/Musician guild : add 1GWAMP to relevant writers/artists/musicians in the city (since you can get a total of 3 in the empire).

Note : this also warrant rework for GPP% increase, especially the one from Austria's UA.

 

[ma_kuh]

What I like about this direction:

• Global GP pools mean that working specialists in non-GP heavy cities still contribute to overall GP births, which would be great to get in!
• It applies empire size to GP costs, making it more in line with tech and policy scaling per city. (I think it should be 5% to match the existing rate, but the idea is sound.)
• Tradition gets a direct incentive to keep to fewer cities. With the current setup the only "bonus" to keeping on fewer cities is not watering down the capital yields.

Concerns I have with this direction:

• Having a completely global pool means that new GP will spawn in one of two ways: either they spawn from the capital always, or they spawn in a random city in your empire. Neither of these feel as good as having a city slowly build up and get their own GP birth every once in awhile.
• If Tradition is going to remain a truly "tall" strategy, then it needs to maintain a scaling source of Food, or eventually the scaling will be such that Progress/Authority cities are only a few population behind, and Tradition's non-wide strategy will not be paying off. I think this part needs more fine-tuning.
• I think you're overestimating how much "better" a global pool will be for wide play, and if it is, you already have access to the key for balancing it: a cost increase based on city count. Also I don't think GP spam is "meant to be" a Tall play benefit, outside of the natural synergy with Tradition.

I liked the previously-proposed suggestion a little better overall. It solves the issue (satellites don't contribute meaningfully to GP births) with a simple change. It failed last time due to a lack of sponsorship.

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

Problem: The way the Great people are generated means that smaller cities have no way of ever generating a Great person, because the threshold for GPs contantly grows on empire whenever one is born in your major cities. Specialists in these cities never have the GPPs they generate go towards...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[Anarcomu]

Thank you @ma_kuh for your answer. Looking at you concerned, and taking inspiration from another thread, I think I could make some changes and precisions :

• If you want the possibility for GP to spawn outside the capital, I can propose this : cities still produce local GPP those effect is only to determine where the GP is born. On spawn, a city have as much chance as what it accumulated locally, to spawn the GP. A city which contributed for 75% of all GPP will have 75% to host the GP birth.
• The Congress Workshop thread brought an elegant switch to the scaler : instead of giving +1 science in the scaler, the opener gives +1 science/2pop in the capital. Then, instead of removing the %food from the scaler, I can remove the science.
• I could change the base value of specialists to 2GPP instead of 1GPP, if it is deemed more balanced.

 

[Stalker0]

This was already not sponsored in a previous congress, so unless you have a sponsor lined up who wants to do this not sure its worth discussing again. I would start there before we dig in deep.

 

[Anarcomu]

Fair point, any dev willing to sponsor any sort of proposal implementing a global GPP pool then ? I bet you won't @Stalker0 ; however, do you remember if it was because it was impossible or something ?