Increasing Specialist Yields

[Leoreth]

I've been thinking about the long term utility of specialists over the course of the game.

I think specialists are balanced for most of the ealry and mid game. Early on they are usually even stronger than working tiles, but since their slots are fairly limited its rarely overpowered. Conversely, by the late game they are usually only interesting for GPP, but then you probably have already spawned a couple of them so the required GPP for the next great person is also very high.

So I think there should be ways for specialists to get better over the course of the game! Improvements get upgrades too after all.

For example, let's look at the scientist (+3 research +3 GPP). I think it would not be unfair at all to have late game scientists with +5 research +5 GPP. Obviously, settled great people would scale accordingly.

Where would the upgrades come from?

Technologies
Would be consistent with how improvements are upgraded. Right now, the rule is that every improvement has one tech that improves one of its yields. I could even imagine two for specialists, depending on how late the second upgrade comes.

Culture Levels
What I like about this is that it a) gives culture more purpose and b) reinforces the idea that focusing on culture is related to building tall, which is also associated with specialist economy. Unlike tech upgrades, it would also allow for dedicated specialist cities, and add more decisions to settling great people etc.

Buildings
This is sort of the same as techs but with the added ability to specialise cities.


I don't want to implement all of these since they each would require DLL changes, but I could envision a combination of two. In the scientist example above I could see +1 research coming from a tech and +1 research and +2 GPP each coming from different culture levels.

Discuss.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Huh, interesting idea with the culture levels, but that might be easily implemented by a flat +% GPP birth modifier for each level, no?

In my modmod, there is a National Wonder that provides +1 Production for every specialist of a given type (as well as its settled great counterpart). Ironworks for example provides +1 Production for Engineers, the Stock Exchange +1 Production for Merchants etc.; with the National Gallry giving a flat +1 Culture to any and all specialists. I chose the same bonus for every specialist because

a) it doesn't cause balance issues you would get from for example giving one production to engineers but one gold to merchants and

b) because citizens provide +1 production so I figured why shouldn't everyone?

The only specialists (disregarding citizens) that do not receive such a boost from a national wonder (but instead from a world wonder) are Priests and Prophets, who instead get a slightly higher base yield (+1 Culture for Priests to be exact). The idea behind this is to make Priests the best specialists in the early game but the weakest in the late game, emulating the decreasing importance of religion as time went on.

To go with the example of the Scientist, with all relevant national wonders (National Gallery and Red Cross in my modmod) in place he yields +1 Production, +3 Science and +1 Culture, and that is before civic boosts. Culture should further boost great people birth, so there's that.

 

[star15389]

I don't know if this is possible, but I like the idea of giving an advantage to having a large number of specialists all in the same city. So no change if you run 3 specialists, +1 per specialist if you have 4-6, +2 +1+1 if you have 7-9, +3 +1 +1+1 if you have 10 or more, something like that. Would make late game mega cities better relative to medium and small ones and help small civs with very rich cores

 

[Ecthy]

Not sure we need stronger specialists overall, but stronger settled Great Persons by all means! As it is, by BtS rules, there's almost no incentive to ever settle a great person, except maybe in the early game.

 

[Malchar]

Techs related to printing press or the internet could logically improve the abilities of specialists. I haven't been following the new tech tree much, so I'm not sure about the tech names.

In addition to increasing the yields, you could consider decreasing the "cost". If specialists provided 1 food, then the cost of using them would be cut in half. Useful lategame when you have a food surplus and a higher cap on the number of specialists.

In vanilla civ, the extra value that specialists have over improvements is from their great person points. Boosting that system would be one way to boost specialists overall.

 

[1SDANi]

I'd say do it by culture level, for all the reasons you explain. It'd make culture even more important and simulate how developed cities attract more skilled specialists. Honestly, I find it one of the most interactive of the suggestions, as not every civ and every city will have the same desire to use specialists, unlike with Techs where every city has the same desire to use them.

 

[Royal Tenenbaum]

Specialists should be more effective the happier the city is.
Science specialists should start causing unhappiness if the science beaker is too low.
Increasing the culture slider should increase effectiveness of specialists.
Increasing the espionage slider should increase their loyalty/decrease the unhappiness they cause
Corporations should give bonuses to certain types of specialists

Some specialists should be available more easily, early on. Easier, earlier engineers would make a lot of the game more enjoyable. There is so many times that I understand the need to slow down the commerce, such that the civilization doesn't advance too quick. But I think military should be easier to build, so that military activity is more common.

Civilian specialists should give +1 to great statesman
Using priest specialists should increase the spread of religion, whether the city is state religion or heretical.
Using statesman specialists should increase stability, up until a point
Using engineer specialists should increase yield from mines
Using merchant specialists should increase trade yield, and thus making the city more valuable for trade to other cities

 

[Ogi123]

I already pointed problem with increasing specialist yields. With current mechanics of and from lot of improvements, specialist economy is already favoured. This will only cement SE as only way to go, that's not good from balance perspective.

 

[1SDANi]

Specialists should be more effective the happier the city is.
Science specialists should start causing unhappiness if the science beaker is too low.
Increasing the culture slider should increase effectiveness of specialists.
Increasing the espionage slider should increase their loyalty/decrease the unhappiness they cause
Corporations should give bonuses to certain types of specialists

Some specialists should be available more easily, early on. Easier, earlier engineers would make a lot of the game more enjoyable. There is so many times that I understand the need to slow down the commerce, such that the civilization doesn't advance too quick. But I think military should be easier to build, so that military activity is more common.

Civilian specialists should give +1 to great statesman
Using priest specialists should increase the spread of religion, whether the city is state religion or heretical.
Using statesman specialists should increase stability, up until a point
Using engineer specialists should increase yield from mines
Using merchant specialists should increase trade yield, and thus making the city more valuable for trade to other cities

I definitely think the sliders should have more uses in both cottage and specialist economies.
Specialists influencing improvements sounds like an awesome idea IMO, a sort of hybrid economy that would require a higher amount of investment but with the right terrain could give huge bonuses.

I already pointed problem with increasing specialist yields. With current mechanics of and from lot of improvements, specialist economy is already favoured. This will only cement SE as only way to go, that's not good from balance perspective.

Yeah, I really think that specialists should give penalties too, SE are too good atm.

I think an interesting idea would be to implement Civ 6's adjacency bonuses, it would allow for cottage economies to become more powerful without making improvements OP on their own.

 

[Ecthy]

Considering how underpowered SE has been for years IMO, we might just try this thing. Let's not forget that A) Leoreth already weakened the unhealth effect of E-powered buildings, and B) people so far haven't been too diligent in simply accepting some unhealth for a part of the game and actually investing in health buildings over other tech choices. It's a matter of strategy really, and pollution has been a fact of real life since the arrival of industry.

Keep improved specialists.