MGL vs SGL

[Sharwood]

I owned PTW for years, and just recently acquired C3C, so obviously there are a few differences, most of whcih are minor and I've already become accustomed to. But I don't yet understand exactly what differences there are between MGLs and SGLs.

I know the obvious - SGLs are a chance whenever you discover something new, MGLs are a chance when an elite unit wins a battle - but I've come across passing mentions of other differences between them. What are they?

 

[Sweetchuck]

An SGL can rush a project in a city, like a wonder or a building (cathedral, for example). Just activate it on the city and whatever you're building will be done the next turn. They bump science also - I'm guessing that you could rush a tech, but I never used one that way. Typically, they're used to build wonders.

MGL's can rush in vanilla, I think - but they're used mostly for building armies. Click 'army' in the Civelopedia to see what an army does. You load units into the MGL and use it like a single unit. MGL's do other things, I think - but I've only used them to build armies. There's a limit on how many armies you can have, I think.

 

[Sharwood]

I know everything MGLs can do in Vanilla, as I had Gold for years. I'm wondering what they can do, besides building armies, in C3C.

 

[Sashie VII]

In C3C, SGLs can rush Great Wonders or any city-build. They cannot build armies.

MGLs can no longer rush Great Wonders, they build armies or rush Small Wonders (or any other city-build).

SGLs can trigger Golden Age of Science, though IIRC it's broken and doesn't really work.

 

[Sharwood]

What's a Golden Age of Science?

 

[Turner]

It's supposed to be where you get more science output from that city, or perhaps the civ. Something like 20% more, or 50% more. But it's broken and doesn't actually work. It shows that it's working (Like Republic becomes 15 turns instead of 20) but it ends up staying at 1 turn for quite a while before actually learning the tech.

 

[Sharwood]

How is it supposed to be triggered? Just so I can avoid accidentally triggering it, wasting a perfectly good SGL.

 

[Snarkhunter]

How is it supposed to be triggered? Just so I can avoid accidentally triggering it, wasting a perfectly good SGL.

One of the action buttons when you click on the SGL. One button lets you rush the city build, the other inaugurates the broken Great Age of Science--IIRC, it looks sort of like a beaker. If you don't click any of the buttons, you won't trigger the GAS.

kk

 

[Optional]

Another difference: you can only have 1 MGL at a time, so your elites won't produce another leader as long as you still have an unused MGL hanging around, but having more than 1 Scientific Great Leader is possible.
Edit: Compared to Play the World, AI MGL's cannot build armies anymore.

 

[Aabraxan]

Another difference: you can only have 1 MGL at a time, so your elites won't produce another leader as long as you still have an unused MGL hanging around, but having more than 1 Scientific Great Leader is possible.
Edit: Compared to Play the World, AI MGL's cannot build armies anymore.

If my understanding of this is correct, your elites cannot produce an MGL if you have any Great Leader. So having an unused SGL or an unused MGL prevents you from getting another MGL, but neither prevents you from getting another SGL.

 

[Turner]

Edit: Compared to Play the World, AI MGL's cannot build armies anymore.

That's not exactly accurate. In VC3/PTW, when the AI is loading armies one of the things it looks at is movement rate. So if it has a Knight and a Cav in a city with an empty army, it'll load one up but not the other because the movement points don't match. However, in C3C Armies get an extra MP for the first unit put in there. So if that Cav gets put in, the Army now has 4MP. Whoops...no 4 MP units to add to it. So you get an Army with 1 Cav in it. Sometimes the AI will realize it has a 3MP Knight army and add Cavs to it, but not often. This is the primary reason why AIs don't use armies in C3C. Now, if you have a mod like Rise and Rule that has a bunch of different buildings that create Armies for you, then the AI tends to use armies more. But for the regular rule you don't see armies very often.

If my understanding of this is correct, your elites cannot produce an MGL if you have any Great Leader. So having an unused SGL or an unused MGL prevents you from getting another MGL, but neither prevents you from getting another SGL.

Your understanding is correct. That's how it works.

 

[Sharwood]

Interesting, thanks for the help guys. So I should never click on the "Increase Scientific Production" button?

 

[anaxagoras]

So I should never click on the "Increase Scientific Production" button?

Correct. NEVER do that. It completely wastes the leader.

 

[1940LaSalle]

It's supposed to be where you get more science output from that city, or perhaps the civ. Something like 20% more, or 50% more. But it's broken and doesn't actually work. It shows that it's working (Like Republic becomes 15 turns instead of 20) but it ends up staying at 1 turn for quite a while before actually learning the tech.

Yeah, I found that out empirically. Being new to C3C after some time in plain vanilla, I thought it was my own inexperience. Now I know not to expect much the next time this comes up. Oh, well.