Downside to the ruins stuff is that it relies on having a large number of razed cities in your lands.
New Greatpeople class
- Thread starter Kao'chai
- Start date
Haha, well, that's the point. Perhaps it will partially compensate you for having to fend off hordes of Monty's jags during the early B.C.'s.
Of course, if you can manage to do some early warfare yourself, you can raze a few and be sure of cashing in later on (well, at least somewhat sure...you could not open borders to be completely sure). A quechua-rushed city ruins from 3000 B.C., excavated around 1500 A.D., would be worth gobs of gold, beakers, and culture.
This would lead to some interesting decisions. If you knew, or if you suspected that a city ruins site was relatively new, you'd have an incentive to preserve the ruins for your national glory. But if you suspected that they were quite old, you could take a gamble and see what you got....
This, would require, of course, a small additional game mechanic of having the game keep track of how old city ruins sites were, or when a city was last razed on a tile. But how hard could that be to program?
(And, of course, this is in addition to the other uses of the Great Scholar: building a museum for +25% research and +25% culture for that city (perhaps the museum should require the aesthetics tech...), bulbing the bulbable great scholar techs, settling for a 5-beaker, 5-culture super specialist, or conducting a lecture circuit after researching mass media (hmmm...the more I think about it...instead of a one-time bonus for the lecture circuit, it would make more sense to be able to perform repeated actions in multiple cities with this great person, and get a small gold and culture bonus each time (like a bunch of mini-culture bombs...would be useful in preparation for an invasion--instant border pops!, like with using the "spread culture" function of spies, but even better). But, of course, you would not be able to harvest gold and spread your culture twice in the same city because your great person's ideas would not be so new and exciting. So you'd have to go around visiting new cities. You could either cap the number of visits at something like 20, upon which the great scholar is consumed (from exhaustion, perhaps), or, maybe have it so that you could go on doing this forever, and once you ran out of cities worth visiting (because the smaller cities without libraries, universities, and observatories are not going to give your lecturer much of a response or turnout), and assuming your great scholar did not get killed while conducting his journeys(!), you might want to, instead, then settle your great scholar as a super-specialist as a sort of retirement. This sounds powerful, basically getting two functions for one, but at this point in the game your super specialist great scholar is not going to be around for very long to contribute much after his lecture career is over. But you'd still get something, and it would make mass media even more of a tech to shoot for if you are aiming for culture--the ability to lecture-circuit your great scholar before settling him/her. And face it--late game great people are powerful in general with corporations. Great scholars won't have a corporation that they can found, so this is a little bit of compensation. This way, getting a late-game great scholar won't be like getting a late-game great prophet, which is just a wee bit obsolete and which you can only settle as a super specialist, unless you still have some holy cities that you can shrine.
Also, with the lecture circuit, you'd also have an incentive to not settle or use a great scholar immediately if you are approaching mass media. This also keeps great scholars relevant for the modern era because, after mass media, they won't have any techs that they can bulb, and they wouldn't be very good as late-game settled super specialists because of the payback time before the game ends (as with any settled great person), and museums might not have much time to pay off either...same thing with preserving ruins. If you are lucky, you might have some older ruins still laying around that you could excavate for a nice one-time bonus, but not guaranteed. So if all else fails, wait for mass media to lecture-circuit your great scholar. Also, if I saw my "ally" going around with a great scholar and spreading culture in my cities, messing up my cultural borders, and getting wealthy off it to boot, I might feel very tempted to close borders. Could lead to some funny situations....)
Edit: Also, I just thought: concerning excavations: the amount of one-time gold, beakers, and culture should also depend on how many libraries, museums (including the Hermitage national wonder), and universities your empire has that will enable it to use and decipher the knowledge you have. So you might build a museum with your first great scholar (because, with libraries initially giving great scholar slots rather than scientist slots, you're probably going to have a fair amount of early great scholars), wait for the old city ruin sites to mature a bit, and then with your later great scholars cash in on a better excavation.
Also: great scholars should be able to hurry the construction of the Hermitage. Not that that would generally be very useful. Just because it makes sense.
I got one - what if they could hurry any wonder that made research, or build an acadamy (not the same as the scientist one, but I'm not sure what the two would actually be). The ruins thing is a good idea, but it seems to much of a one-trick wonder to make a whole new Great Person - at most it's for a new Indiana Jones unit
Civman33
Gunship Pilot
I like the idea for a great leader, but I thought different.
GLs could make a city the capital, like whats his name said. They could spawn one great general without military victories required. And how about spawning a free settler?
... And they could be spawned every 10 turns your civ is in the lead?
GLs could make a city the capital, like whats his name said. They could spawn one great general without military victories required. And how about spawning a free settler?
... And they could be spawned every 10 turns your civ is in the lead?
Giving great scholars the additional ability to hurry any research wonder as well would be whoa-powerful, but sure, why not?
As far as the academy sort of thing, that's what the museum is. It's like an academy, but it provides +25% research and +25% culture. Great scholars can build museums.
If you're looking for an ancient equivalent to the scientific academy that you could build in the early game, then the great prophet is where you'd wanna look for that. Ancient scholars were usually solitary tutors or authors. The ones who trained the next generations of scribes were often the temple priests. Ancient Greece is the only ancient civ that comes to mind that had secular academies. So maybe have great prophets be able to produce a "scribal temple" (available with writing) that gives +25% research, +10% hammers, and +10% gold (because ancient temples also functioned as redistributive complexes and coordinated labor on large projects), and have the research bonus go obsolete with scientific method.
Or maybe change the name of the scientist building to the "institute" that would give +50% research as usual, and have great scholars build academies that give +25% research and +25% culture.
Good ideas. Which buildings would allow scholars?
Libraries would allow for 2 scholars instead of two scientists. Universities would allow for 1 scholar and 1 scientist. Observatories, 1 scientist as well. Labs, the usual scientist slot. Scientific method would also open up 1 extra scientist slot for each beaker-building. So, libraries would be upgraded to allowing 2 scholars and 1 scientist, universities would get 1 scholar and 2 scientists, observatories--2 scientists, etc. Caste system would also open up unlimited scientists in addition to unlimited scholars after scientific method. Also, the Great Library would provide 2 free scholars and 2 great scholar points, rather than scientists.
So you'd have to wait just a bit to run scientists and get the 3 beakers instead of 2 beakers and 2 culture...but in the meantime, scholars could bulb many of the same techs that people are used to bulbing with scientists in the early game (philosophy, education, etc.)
Interesting... anyone thought of doing this?
