Great Scientists give a finite 'tech boost'

eazyseeker

Warlord
Joined
May 1, 2011
Messages
214
Simply put, make GS = free RA if bulbing. This would solve a lot of balance issues with them and fit in nicely with the current system. As with Scholars of the Jade Hall, they should be buffed by PT and Rationalism. If needed, remove GS from PT.

If needed, add some sort of GA buff in Piety, to make Piety competitive. I'm not so sure yet; perhaps landmark +6 culture, doubled culture bomb, or GA spawn rate increased (one of the two. having only GA spawn rate increased would be bad, as GA are that bad right now)
 
Is the balance issue with GS' really all that big? RAs are tied to your development as well, in that you're still going to get half a tech essentially. Also, RAs require a partner. Who would be the partner in this case?
 
I think a lot of the balance issues around GSs are that it is very profitable to simply save them till the end of the game and use them for late game techs. Using them for this purpose tends to be superior to all other GP except for the GE in a few cases.

I believe, however, this problem is more connected to the fact that you can rush through the game with RAs + GSes and finish the game far sooner than hard-teching would allow. For example, in standard speed a good game can be finished by turn 250 easily. An efficient game can be finished <200 turns. I feel this more than anything is what is making the GS too powerful.

If the ability to reach the modern era were delayed significantly, saving the GSes for modern techs would be far less appealing. This would force people to use the GSes for bulbing early techs or founding academies, thus reducing their raw beaker power.

It's one of the reasons why some of us have started making suggestions to fix RAs. If RAs were fixed, I feel this in turn would also be fixed.



@Camikaze: Korea seems to work by forming an insta-RA with itself. So basically the RA partner would be yourself, in easyseeker's suggestion.
 
More GS balancing suggestions.

Newest thought: GS grants you a set amount of beakers based on the game situation at the time the GS spawns. = no saving GS's for very long.
 
It should function the same way it did in Civ IV, and a to a large extend how the GE does in V.

There's a beaker rush multiplier that's set in the XML which would give you free early techs (you don't get the overflow) and as you get latter in the game it ends up only giving a percentage of the later techs. There's no need to bring the RA calculation into it or tie it to policies to make the GP usable.
 
I think turingmachine's idea is the easiest to implement and makes the most sense. Early on you can still use GS to bulb key techs and take key strategies. Getting, say, half a free tech later on is still useful but not nearly as powerful as it is now.

Considering that it would take you a lot longer to generate 2x the number of GSes, this should put a dent into their late game power.
 
I've been thinking about this too and I feel that the only way to get a free tech in the late game should come from Oxford and Scientific Revolution. Right now GS saving / bulbing in general is just a way too strong as it is.
 
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