Great People

[firstconsul]

One of the grating inconsistencies in CiV remains the disparity in value of Great scientists, engineers, artists and merchants. The undisputed "greatness" of engineers and scientists stands in stark contrast with the weak artist and merchant. Will G&K address this imbalance?

 

[anandus]

We don't know yet.
We aren't fully aware of all the (changed) abilities for the Great People.

Especially the artist is a big unknown, as the general has taken over it's ability.

 

[Montov]

I hope the Great Scientist will have a 'Research Agreement' ability, where you gain science 50% of the median tech (or 75% with Porcelain tower and 100% if also the Rationalism openen, just as the current RA.

Great Engineer should provide 25 turns of hammers of the city at once, to limit is power a little bit.

Great Artist should be able to generate Golden Age and a little boost of Culture.

 

[Melchizedek]

I don't see why it's best for them all to have equal value. If you're concerned that nobody will want to get great artists, you can just increase the culture value of artist specialists by one.

 

[apocalypse105]

I hope the Great Scientist will have a 'Research Agreement' ability, where you gain science 50% of the median tech (or 75% with Porcelain tower and 100% if also the Rationalism openen, just as the current RA.

Great Engineer should provide 25 turns of hammers of the city at once, to limit is power a little bit.

Great Artist should be able to generate Golden Age and a little boost of Culture.

agree with the great scientist disagree with the great engineer its verry hard to get one early on and in the late game it isn't that powerfull... and you still have a lot of wonders so you can't pick all of them..

 

[Luckystrike77]

I'd like there to be a limit of at least 8 turns between every time you can use a GS to get a tech, same as the limit between culture bombs for GA's. This will make saving up GS's for using of alot in a row belined to something gamey to get very early (for instance mech inf, nukes, artillery or stealth) less strong.

 

[kungming2]

I'd like there to be a limit of at least 8 turns between every time you can use a GS to get a tech, same as the limit between culture bombs for GA's. This will make saving up GS's for using of alot in a row belined to something gamey to get very early (for instance mech inf, nukes, artillery or stealth) less strong.

Would definitely support a change such as this. It would make it a lot more reasonable, I think and seem less like an exploit.

 

[triheptyl]

A GS's special ability should be that expending one allows the signing of a RA. This would probably balance both the RA and the GS, making it harder to constantly have 4+ RAs going and storing up GSs to instantly tech through the end of the tech tree. There would probably have to be a global announcement every time someone spawns a GS then, so that people would know they could sign a RA.

A GA's culture bomb should do what the name implies, give you a large culture boost. Maybe half the culture of your current social policy's cost. Maybe they would need to be in a city, granting the culture boost to the city, thus expanding it's border's as well, but that seems too powerful, perhaps one or the other?

I don't see much problem with GEs, GMs, and GGs, they all serve their purpose fairly well.

I also find the Great Tile Improvements to be fairly weak. Unless I'm making landmarks for a culture victory I rarely use them, except the rare occasions where I plant an early GS or build a citadel at a choke point.

 

[Lyoncet]

I think the G&K change of requiring a DoF to sign an RA will be a pretty good balancing force. Maybe they'll still be too strong, but we'll see.

And while I agree that the GP tile improvements are generally too weak in comparison, I think it's hard to balance because while you'll get more hammers/beakers over the course of a game from an manufactory or academy than from a hurry or a bulb (if done early on, at least), the opportunity cost of having to wait so long for a return on investment means that you'll probably get a lot more use out of the instant gratification options. Maybe you'll get, say, 5x the beakers over the course of the game from building an academy than bulbing, but when you can get Rifles 20 turns earlier by bulbing, or save up 3 scientists and get it 60 turns ahead of everyone else, well you just won. Doesn't matter that by modern era you'd have gotten more gross beakers because instead you just killed everyone.

Then again, that doesn't mean the improvements are too weak – they're actually very strong, and it would be hard to make them much stronger without breaking them. Making them scale with tech was a step in the right direction, but I think additionally the scientist/engineer one-shot abilities need to be made a little less exploitable. Also, the tradeoff between immediate benefit and long-term benefit is fine to have, but as it is being able to rush a wonder or tech slingshot is just so much better because of how abusable that mechanic is. I'd recommend something like this:

Hurry Production Consumes the Great Engineer, giving the city +50% production (or maybe, say, +10 base hammers) for 10 turns.

You still balance long-term vs. short-term (vs. golden age, and vs. donating the GP in G&K), but you can't guarantee you can get whatever you want as soon as you want it, which is why hurry production is way too good. Same thing with bulbing. Instead of giving you the tech you want, or instead of just making it another method of getting an RA effect, you could have a GS add, say:

Accelerate Research Consumes the Great Scientist, giving the city +100% research rate for 10 turns.

Again, doesn't let you beeline by rushing an expensive tech, or worse, slingshotting, but it does make you choose between planning for immediate benefit vs. long-term gain. Also, that would give smaller, taller empires an added benefit that IMO they could use. At least it gives another knob to tweak. If it seems like tall empires are too good at science but really lacking in hammers, make the engineer a very large city-based bonus and the scientist a smaller but empire-wide effect. End result is wide empires get more benefit from the GS and tall empires with their huge cities get more benefit from the GE. I don't know if there's actually a real imbalance between the two, but that could be a unique way to bring them into line a little. (Not saying tall and wide should function identically, just that if they're too out of whack this could help remedy that.)

I should also clarify that I think landmarks and customs houses are pretty terrible. But so are artists and merchants in general, so that's more of a "GPs need to be given an internal balance pass" than "buff these two tile improvements" IMO.

 

[firstconsul]

The more I consider it, the more I feel the heart of the issue is being able to save up great people, particularly great scientists. They should put a HUGE upkeep on them, or flat out ban them from being usable more than 10 turns later than they appear. I really feel like this would not only be more historically accurate (great people do not all appear at the end of a civilization, the appear intermitedly over the course of its duration) but also addresses exploits such as hoarding gs for end game techs, gimmick strategies such as liberty finisher/HS/PT/ND crap. This will even increase the allure of great tile improvements, which, as many here say, are currently not competitive.

 

[gunnergoz]

We don't know yet.
We aren't fully aware of all the (changed) abilities for the Great People.

Especially the artist is a big unknown, as the general has taken over it's ability.

What are you speaking about? I'd not heard before that the GG has taken over the GA's ability? Can you please provide a link or resource confirming this?

 

[anandus]

What are you speaking about? I'd not heard before that the GG has taken over the GA's ability? Can you please provide a link or resource confirming this?

It came from here: http://videos.pcgames.de/hdvideo/8347/Civilization-5-AddOn-Gods-and-Kings-im-ueberblick
At about 3:50 on the citadel mouse-over it says:

Bei der Errichtung der Zitadelle wird die Einheit verbraucht und die Grenzen Eurer Zivilisation werden um die Zitadelle herum erweitert. Werden dadurch Felder belegt, die bereits einer anderen Zivilisation gehören, zieht das einen diplomatischen Malus nach sich.

Google translated in English:

In the construction of the citadel, the unit will consume and the limits of your civilization be extended around the citadel. Be occupied by fields that are already part of another civilization, which attracts a penalty to be diplomatic.

Edit:
I made a little screenshot (don't mind the 'PL' of 'PLAY' in the top-right )

 

[AriochIV]

However, it's not clear that the Great Artist's ability has changed in any way, so it's probably not appropriate to say that the ability has been "taken over."

 

[Truronian]

I reckon we'll see Artists become the only great people with the Golden Age ability, possibly without the turn reduction.

 

[Babri]

They can give Great Artist an ability to bulb a whole SP early on & partially late in the game. This might need some balancing for cultural victory though.

The Great Merchant would not only give gold & influence from the CS but also enhance the benefits u are getting from that CS for a period of time. That adds a lot of flexibilty, mercentile CS would give extra gold instead as temporary increase in happiness might not be that tempting except in dire circumstances. Cultural CS would give extra culture, religious CS would give extra faith etc.
That could balance them & make them as useful as GS & GE hopefully.

 

[Bob_]

I do not really understand why you all state that tile improvements are not competitive. To me the question is not "Do I improve a tile or heat instantly" but "when". If one is able to have an academy early in the game, the return of beakers over the game is much higher of course, especially since the early techs do not demand so many beakers. The choice is (early on): 200 beakers now or 5 for the rest of the game. Also I have tested to make an academy with the GS which the Babylonians get with writing and I noticed that I more or less fly through the early techs, which gave me a major advantage. There I noticed that of course academies have their point.

Same is true for Great engineers. I always want to make factories because I have a steady output from them. If I hurry a production I run into the risk that I wasted the engineer because I could ve built the wonder without hurrying. The factory instead helps me with everything I am building, which also boosts my economy because I can have additional buildings faster, not to mention the units.

So to make a conclusion, instant usage of great people seems only useful to me in the second half of the game when the return of tile improvements doesnt seem worthwhile anymore and in special cases like some of you have mentioned with rifleling.

 

[headcase]

They can give Great Artist an ability to bulb a whole SP early on & partially late in the game. This might need some balancing for cultural victory though.

Similarly, they could give a bulk amount of culture: x + (y * s) where s is number of artist slots available (whether filled by artists or not) and x & y are constant values, big enough to have the desired impact.

This can work for all 4 GPs. A rush-build is worth a bunch of hammers, plus a few more hammers for each engineer slot available. A trade mission gives more gold based on merchant slots. Instead of bulbing, GSs give a bulk number of beakers which increases with each scientist slot.

The reason for using slots available instead of slots filled is that players could just fill the slots, activate the GP, and empty the slots, so to skip the tedium of that, it would just go by slots available.

I have to concede though, it's satisfying to set up a good bee-line for an expensive tech and bulb it, so I do like that about the current system, exploitable as it may be.