Great People Improvements?

[Zaimejs]

I was just wondering if anyone has read or posted about possible improvements to great people? Right now GS are the only ones I use frequently. GA seem pretty useless other than golden age, and same with GM. GEs are nice, but very rare.

Does anyone use the tile building option with GPs? I don't take time to do the math. The only time I did that was when I was doing the 1000 science in one city challenge. I was turning GS into tiles left and right.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I doubt it, since there's nothing technically wrong or needing in improvement.

1. Great Artist
- Their Culture Bomb is an excellent way to annoy other civs and snatch something from them.
- Their Landmark is obviously excellent for Cultural Victory
2. Great Scientist
- Free Tech, though people complain it's over-powered, it's still excellent.
- Their Academy is obviously a good way to speed up your science progress
3. Great Merchant
- Great Merchant are useful for a quick influence boost without spending a dime, in fact you, get money AND influence, which is helpful for a Diplomatic Victory.
- Their .. improvement (what the hell is it called? Custom House?) is excellent way for any victory that requires quick cash, I, usually purchase all of my army, and I need a lot of cash for that.
4. Great Engineer
- Hurry Production. Obviously excellent if you're slightly behind on Technolgoy but need the Wonder, Hurry it to 1 turn and you got yourself it. Very rarely have I wasted Engineer because somebody was about to finish it the next turn.
- Manufactory is excellent way to fasten up your Cultural and Science Victory, because it makes Utopia Project quicker to build.
5. Great General
- Their Improvement, I never build it, I find it useless, I rarely get dominated by anybody else...
- Their bonus, it is a good way to get an upperhand, but I rarely ever focus on getting them, unless I go for Domination.

I think that's all of them.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I would also add that the GM super ability gives you free influence in city-states as well as cash.

 

[Glassmage]

Great Prophets have any landmark improvement???

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

as yet unknown.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I would also add that the GM super ability gives you free influence in city-states as well as cash.

Changed

Great Prophets have any landmark improvement???

I'm presuming it might be something Faith related (something that gives you a +4 or +2 faith per turn if worked)

 

[Louis XXIV]

Great Merchants will probably be better because buying City-States has been reduced, so the influence this way is a good thing.

I think Great Artists need work. I've never used a culture bomb in my life. For someone going for a culture victory, it would, of course, be likely to provoke a war. It would be nice if it at least gave a set culture boost.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I agree, Great Artist are the least useful. With the exception of Landmark, and playing on lower difficulty (where you just don't care if the AI ahtes you) it's not wise to bomb.

Artist need something relating to Policies. like a Free Policy or something. Artist and Scientist could give a boost to Culture/Research instead of Free Research (or Policy (which doesn't exist btw))

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

What i found really interesting is the way the Civ board game expanded on great people in its first expansion - it gave each one a unique ability on top of the generic type of great person ability.

Ie. Each individual (eg Leonardo Da Vinci) comes with a certain benefit that can be used once, weaker than the main consumable great person power, that could be used if you created their tile improvement instead.

I think that would make it a lot more attractive to take the tile, particularly for GS, and some of these powers could be very varied and useful in a number of situations you may need an edge in - eg Wright brothers great engineer - hurry production of X planes in the city their tile improvement is worked by (depending on how much is perceived to be balanced)

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

What i found really interesting is the way the Civ board game expanded on great people in its first expansion - it gave each one a unique ability on top of the generic type of great person ability.

Ie. Each individual (eg Leonardo Da Vinci) comes with a certain benefit that can be used once, weaker than the main consumable great person power, that could be used if you created their tile improvement instead.

I think that would make it a lot more attractive to take the tile, particularly for GS, and some of these powers could be very varied and useful in a number of situations you may need an edge in - eg Wright brothers great engineer - hurry production of X planes in the city their tile improvement is worked by (depending on how much is perceived to be balanced)

It could work in a similar way the beliefs work.

There's a pool of great people, you pick the one you need the most, and voila.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

It could work in a similar way the beliefs work.

There's a pool of great people, you pick the one you need the most, and voila.

Indeed so.

I think i'd prefer it if it remained random though. It differentiates the systems a bit and rather than shaping your empire, it is to a certain element shaped by the great people it spawns. After all Italy didn't choose Leonardo da Vinci to be born over Thomas Edison.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Indeed so.

I think i'd prefer it if it remained random though. It differentiates the systems a bit and rather than shaping your empire, it is to a certain element shaped by the great people it spawns. After all Italy didn't choose Leonardo da Vinci to be born over Thomas Edison.

That's true. But then again, not every category of great people have a lot of possible customization.

Engineers could specialize in building categories (Units, Air Units, Naval Units etc)
Scientist don't have that much, they could speed up research.. maybe slow it down for others? Free Tech, Boost Tech :/..

It's limited.

 

[CivilizedPlayer]

I'm going to echo the sentiment already here about Great Artists: they need work. They're built by focusing on culture, but if you already have culture then culture bombing isn't really crucial. They can give you some extra tiles, but most valuable tiles are usually already claimed, and the hatred generated by stealing them usually isn't worth it. And furthermore, the whole idea is silly as all get out. Leonardo Da Vinci's great accomplishment in my last game was... to give me a plot of land and some horses? GA's need to do something that makes sense.

My idea: how about they start an cultural golden age for x turns (around 10)? It would work pretty much the same way as a regular golden age, which would make the mechanic pretty easy to get used to. All cultural buildings and tiles provide double the regular culture for those turns. It would be a logical boost, just so long as it's balanced.

 

[MaximusK]

Allow GA to throw a party/festival that would give a one-time cultural boost dependent on the era your in or the distance you have to the next policy. So you could either party to finish the policy or get a nice bump after finishing a previous one. Another idea is to get temp bump to happiness that would slowly diminish w/ turns.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Allow GA to throw a party/festival that would give a one-time cultural boost dependent on the era your in.

Agreed, they need to help Policy in their Ability. This could also open up and give Scientist a boost rather than 100% of a Free Tech. Which is weird because I don't mind Free Tech at all xD

 

[Pax_Romanus]

Festival giving a culture and happines boost would be nice, maybe a rework so us warmongers could have a few more of them, too.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I actually noticed that, in Civ 4, you never had "specific" Great People spawned, you always had a variety, but in Civ 5, depending on how you play, you get specific people.

 

[The Garibaldi]

I wonder what the great improvements will be for the two new great people types: Great Prophets and Great Admirals. Perhaps the Great Prophet will have an improvement like the monument, called a "holy site" which adds +6 faith. For the Great Admiral, I believe that their improvement will be similar to the GG's citadel but on the ocean.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

That's true. But then again, not every category of great people have a lot of possible customization.

Engineers could specialize in building categories (Units, Air Units, Naval Units etc)
Scientist don't have that much, they could speed up research.. maybe slow it down for others? Free Tech, Boost Tech :/..

It's limited.

It's not limited, they don't necessarily have to have bonuses according to their exact category. For example marie curie could be a great scientist, and her perk could be that you get +1 uranium (i know not the perfect example), christopher colombus could give naval units +1 sight etc.

The perks don't need to be related to their great speciality, they could reflect what they themselves were good at which is not always reflected by the category they are put in.

 

[Mercade]

So what about the Great Admiral (GAD?). Their special ability could be a combat boost just like the Great General gives. And second? The Minefield Improvement that gives a defensive bonus and hurts nearby enemy navy in the same way a Citadel does?