I still get it as well. Isn't it caused by the asset bug?
That's not the asset bug; it's just a regular bug as far as I can tell. Annoying, but at least we can get around it by just closing the game and reloading.
This just makes the whole thing unnecessarily annoying. It's very strange.
And the ability needs to ditch the renaissance era limit entirely. Playing England, it's pretty unlikely you'll not gain an admiral prior to the industrial era anyway. But even if your first admiral comes after the renaissance, so what?
Is it possible to grant a bonus for a specific GP? It would still be a weird design, but the ability could read "2 for first admiral... another 2 if you hire Drake".
Yes, it can be done for a specific Great Person. In fact, that's how Victoria's ability is set up; it checks for each individual Great Admiral that meets the criteria of being from the base game and being Renaissance or earlier.
I think calling out a specific Great Person is just too "on the nose" for an ability...maybe that's why they went about it this way? I don't know.
I agree it's just a strange way of doing the ability. It's going to frustrate players and lead to a lot of bug reports.
And to be quite frank, the ability text IS outright misleading. It specifies "
from the Standard Ruleset" right? But "Ruleset" explicitly refers to the expansions, and the ability is in fact locked to Great Admirals from
base game. But for example, Hanno is excluded, even though he is from the Babylon Pack, which works with the Standard Ruleset.
That "standard ruleset" clause of the ability implies that Hanno should work. But clearly their real meaning was "Great Admirals not added by any DLC."
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I hate to be the kind of person who pushes their glasses up their nose and says 'Well actually..." but I think it would've been a better ability if they just grant you the +2 Trade Routes for ANY Great Admiral, as you suggested, or even buffed it by making +1 Trade Route per EACH Great Admiral you get.