Late game archaeologists?

[void_genesis]

I recently played a Polynesia game almost to completion, going for a culture victory of course. I did pretty well, winning over six of the seven other civs. The Ottomans grew to be a beast at the end of the game though, smashing their neighbours and covering half the world. In the end I got close to winning but they simply grew to big. I had used up all my great musicians culture bombing them and I was basically stuck. In retrospect I should have been actively watching them during their wars and pushed back in some way much earlier (not a bad game-play requirement at all).

One thing I thought to suggest was that archaeologists turn into anthropologists once all the antiquity sites have been excavated. These late game units could track down the very small number of remaining barbarians and study them for a massive late game tourism bonus (culture at this point is usually not useful for a civ on a tourism victory path). It is historic given that we stopped hunting down "barbarians" in the latter parts of history. It is also active since you need to track them down. An exploit is possible if you deliberately keep a chunk of land free of other civs so you can farm them in the late game, but I don't imagine this would be easy to pull off.

PS- I've had the Ottomans also grow like a monster in subsequent games. Maybe they area touch too strong in the hands of the AI?

PPS- The upgrade to Galleas causes Polynesian ships to lose their ocean crossing ability, right when you might want to declare war across an ocean. Your land units can still sail anywhere, but you ships are suddenly trapped in shallow water.

 

[DrNooooo]

My impression was always that the Barbarians were terrorists or rebels in the later game, although that's probably something fans made up. Either way, I'd like to see something like this too - although I'd personally like to see it as a separate unit and without the antiquity site requirement, because of the difficulty of getting every site on Huge maps and because of Hidden Antiquity sites.

But on the note of Archaeologists, one thing I'd really like to see is having any remaining Ruins turn into Antiquity Sites once a player discovers Archaeology. Not only does it makes sense, but getting 30 culture for being the first to find a ruin doesn't mean a whole lot when you're earning 500 per turn.

 

[kingchris20]

How do you reveal the hidden antiquity sites now? The exploration policy tree was replaced with the imperialism tree...

 

[DrNooooo]

Finishing the Aesthetics tree, I'm pretty sure.

 

[kingchris20]

Yup there it is, thanks!

And I would also like to see archs upgraded to anthros later in the game, even if it is its own standalone. They could do work like trade unit or spy unit style. Send them to cities or regions to do anthropology work. You could send them to a city/region to do archeological, sociocultural, or literary anthropology work for a specific amount of turns.

At the end of those turns they might discover an ancient religious text that gives more credence to an existing religion, which could increase the religious pressure from the holy city by a fair amount. They could an otherwise ancient literary writing, piece of art, or unknown sheet music and raise tourism for the particular civ it came from and increase culture for the civ that sent owned the anthropologist.

They could also find ancient battle relics that would increase culture/tourism for the owner of the anthropologist.

The possibilities could go on

 

[Finarvi]

My impression was always that the Barbarians were terrorists or rebels in the later game, although that's probably something fans made up. Either way, I'd like to see something like this too - although I'd personally like to see it as a separate unit and without the antiquity site requirement, because of the difficulty of getting every site on Huge maps and because of Hidden Antiquity sites.

That's the same I thought. One thing that came to my mind is that there could be different types of barbarians (barbs, rebels, terrorists, pirates maybe) each with their own behaviour and units but I believe that it'd be heavy to implement.

But on the note of Archaeologists, one thing I'd really like to see is having any remaining Ruins turn into Antiquity Sites once a player discovers Archaeology. Not only does it makes sense, but getting 30 culture for being the first to find a ruin doesn't mean a whole lot when you're earning 500 per turn.

That's pretty good idea, sounds natural. I'd vote for that.