Mayan Great People

[HarryLime]

So I decided to play my first game as the Mayans, who are pretty awesome. But I noticed one thing about their special ability.

I got through about half my great people based on the Mayan calendar when I noticed I wasn't producing any Great Scientists even though my universities were full. When I checked it out, I saw that I needed 800 great person points before my next Great Scientist. I was 55 turns away from my first GS in my capital, which contained a garden, The Leaning Tower and the National Epic. So that means that the Mayan great people you periodically get count as generated great people, not free ones.

This is a double edged sword because instead of being able to control the great people you get and focusing on scientists, you are forced to chose one of each great person, even though you get them more frequently in the early game. I'm only up to the end of the renaissance, so I'm not sure how this is going to affect the rest of the game.

It could also have something to do with the fact that I'd generated 3 great prophets through faith. Does anyone know if this ups the necessary great person points in your cities?

 

[prince_caspian]

FREE in the 14th June patch and G&K no longer carries the connotation it used to, ie. "free" GPs will increase the cost of the next. Not sure about the great prophets though, maybe an increase in faith costs I think.

But you can think about this positively, as least your specialists don't have to "work" so hard to get GPs. So "free" has become even better

 

[homerj]

No, great prophets are generated directly through faith. A free great prophet though, will up the faith cost of generating your next one. But if you're generating a good chunk of faith, they only go up 100 each time so it's not really as huge a hit.

 

[Light Cleric]

Yeah I posted this as a bug from the June 14th patch but it seems like it was intended to "balance" the Mayan UA. It feels like it takes what would have been an insane UA and makes it actually pretty bleh. Liberty and the Hagia Sophia behave the same way, so if you used both of those along with your UA, good luck generating Great People. Did you pick up one or both of those as well?

 

[HarryLime]

Yeah I posted this as a bug from the June 14th patch but it seems like it was intended to "balance" the Mayan UA. It feels like it takes what would have been an insane UA and makes it actually pretty bleh. Liberty and the Hagia Sophia behave the same way, so if you used both of those along with your UA, good luck generating Great People. Did you pick up one or both of those as well?

I picked up everything! Every great person generating wonder I could get my grubby little hands on! I was going to be Pacal, wise and cultured producer of Great People. Looks like my Mayans will have a glorious early age and have to become feared warmongers in the twilight of their empire.

This is actually a good thing. I'm playing on Emperor and my religion completely dominates my continent, I have more happiness than I know what to do with and I was beginning to think this game was too easy and the Mayans were overpowered. This seems like a good nerf.

 

[homerj]

Yeah I posted this as a bug from the June 14th patch but it seems like it was intended to "balance" the Mayan UA. It feels like it takes what would have been an insane UA and makes it actually pretty bleh. Liberty and the Hagia Sophia behave the same way, so if you used both of those along with your UA, good luck generating Great People. Did you pick up one or both of those as well?

Well, you're still getting all great people earlier. Is it AS GOOD as just getting them without the increased cost? No, but it's not awful either.

I think a lot of the reason why was to tone down GP generation as a whole. Science victory was about a GP farm where you could bulb your way through the tech tree, and Culture was just about how many landmarks can you build. Science now is about raw beakers per turn,

Culture is more interactive with the new city states. If there ever was a boatrace victory condition, the old way of culture was it. Build culture buildings, spam GAs, and click "next turn" 200 some odd times. Then pray no one DoW's you. Doing CS quests no longer has the pure gold aspect of getting culture from city states, and faith and culture go hand and hand, so a lot of religious believes and buildings also give culture.

 

[Light Cleric]

Well, you're still getting all great people earlier. Is it AS GOOD as just getting them without the increased cost? No, but it's not awful either.

I think a lot of the reason why was to tone down GP generation as a whole. Science victory was about a GP farm where you could bulb your way through the tech tree, and Culture was just about how many landmarks can you build. Science now is about raw beakers per turn,

Culture is more interactive with the new city states. If there ever was a boatrace victory condition, the old way of culture was it. Build culture buildings, spam GAs, and click "next turn" 200 some odd times. Then pray no one DoW's you. Doing CS quests no longer has the pure gold aspect of getting culture from city states, and faith and culture go hand and hand, so a lot of religious believes and buildings also give culture.

I have not been able to play today(stupid long work day when G&K comes out) but I was going by the OP's statement of "you are forced to chose one of each great person". Perhaps there was some miscommunication somewhere but that sounds like you can't select the same GP type multiple times in a row? If that's true then it becomes pretty unimpressive. If not and you CAN pick the GP, then it's still a solid UA.

This is why I want to be home playing or have a laptop that can actually run it to play at lunch.

 

[HarryLime]

I have not been able to play today(stupid long work day when G&K comes out) but I was going by the OP's statement of "you are forced to chose one of each great person". Perhaps there was some miscommunication somewhere but that sounds like you can't select the same GP type multiple times in a row? If that's true then it becomes pretty unimpressive. If not and you CAN pick the GP, then it's still a solid UA.

This is why I want to be home playing or have a laptop that can actually run it to play at lunch.

Yeah, you can only pick each type of great person once.

 

[homerj]

I have not been able to play today(stupid long work day when G&K comes out) but I was going by the OP's statement of "you are forced to chose one of each great person". Perhaps there was some miscommunication somewhere but that sounds like you can't select the same GP type multiple times in a row? If that's true then it becomes pretty unimpressive. If not and you CAN pick the GP, then it's still a solid UA.

This is why I want to be home playing or have a laptop that can actually run it to play at lunch.

Ah. No, you can't select the same great person twice. I played as the Maya last night, and it was a pretty solid UA even with the restriction. I think also, it's the only ability outside the liberty finisher that lets you choose--Santa Sophia now being just a great prophet.

 

[Light Cleric]

Ah, I didn't realize they changed the Hagia Sophia as well.

I guess we'll have to see how it plays out then. Hopefully culture is more important as you said; I always hated it(and most peaceful play) because it was the longest and most difficult victory type on higher difficulties. The point I was making was it apparently still lets other civs still spam those lovely GS parking lots. Although getting your second GS earlier is great, it sucks that your future generated ones are probably going to get cut off by other great people while the Lord of Stampys or whoever your neighbor is keeps going.

That's all the theorycrafting I'll do, kick me in the teeth if I got something wrong. I'll wait till I actually get to play in a few hours

 

[fenwayb]

No, great prophets are generated directly through faith. A free great prophet though, will up the faith cost of generating your next one. But if you're generating a good chunk of faith, they only go up 100 each time so it's not really as huge a hit.

huh? as far as I've seen, the cost doubles with every GP...

 

[homerj]

huh? as far as I've seen, the cost doubles with every GP...

Great prophets aren't GP points, they are faith. Once you hit the threshold that goes up 100 every time, you have a random chance to get one, with the chance going up every turn you don't get it. If you were referring to great prophet generation, I really thought I remembered it going from 200 to 300 to 400. I'm going to play soon, I'm going to check that. The Civilopedia doesn't say.

EDIT: GP may be reffering to great prophet or just great person.....we're going to need some new abbreviations here.....

 

[Calouste]

Ah. No, you can't select the same great person twice. I played as the Maya last night, and it was a pretty solid UA even with the restriction. I think also, it's the only ability outside the liberty finisher that lets you choose--Santa Sophia now being just a great prophet.

The old Hagia Sophia ability has moved to the Leaning Tower of Pisa IIRC.

Still, Maya ability is not that bad. You can be pretty sure you can found a religion with the Prophet, you get a wonder of your choice with the Engineer, a science boost, a Golden Age etc. The one thing you probably don't want to do is try to generate GPs normally, that seems a bit of a waste. Do the Maya have a Jungle start bias? You can get some nice science of them, and wait with the Scientist until you have Universities running for a bit.

 

[homerj]

I'm in the middle of a game now with the Maya. I got my great prophet and founded a religion. Next great prophet chance is at 300. So they do go up every 100 per great prophet and not double.

EDIT: no they don't it went 200,300,500,800. So there's some growth to it. Perhaps (n+1)*100 + last or something.

 

[miked1991]

It seems that the benefit of the Mayan UA is that you can generate plenty of GP without having to run any specialists. Your cities are going to struggle to generate any GP so forget about that and concentrate on running all the best tiles around your city whilst other civs are trying to maintain enough food & production whilst also running 2 Scientists in a pop 6 city! You don't have that problem.

 

[pspboy7]

Every "free" great person will increase the cost of getting the next one folks, no such thing as truly free. Otherwise you would pop 100 GS before Statue of Liberty!

 

[lampuiho]

Every "free" great person will increase the cost of getting the next one folks, no such thing as truly free. Otherwise you would pop 100 GS before Statue of Liberty!

I think they should fix it seeing how free policy don't increase the culture cost of the "next" policy.