Placing a Great Person on a poor tile?

[Drawmeus]

You can't look at things like that.

You can say that the improvement is giving 2 science bonus and trading 3 other yields for 3 science. Then I'd guess you would be right (although it could be 3/2 on lower yield tiles) but if you see it this way then you'd find that the bonus just isn't that enticing... 2 free science and trading 3 others for 3 science? for a great scientist?

The question is what else you can do with a Great Scientist. If all of the benefits of Great People are pretty marginal, then this might be the best of them, even if it's not that big a deal.

Not sure how marginalizing Great People will play, though. They seem to be one of the principle benefits of a small civilization, so if they're too weak, that strategy won't be viable. Granted it might not be anyway, but it'd be cool if there were at least some maps/situations where staying at 3ish cities and heavily developing them was your best option.

 

[SeismoGraf]

Why would you do that? The cattle resource lets you build a superior improvement - the pasture.
If you have two tiles, one with cattle, it would make much more sense to build a GP improvement and a pasture than it would to make a regular improvement and a GP improvement.

Sure. My misunderstanding probably comes from the word "harvest" in your proposed fix:

The simplest fix is to have GP buildings harvest any resources under them.

First, I thought the fix simply means "destroy" the resource under a GP improvement (only unrevealed resources, i suppose). So, when e.g. building an Academy over an unrevealed Uranium, the Uranium is erased from the map data.

Is that a fix, I asked myself? Such a procedure would just solve the dilemma a player faces. Instead of having to later chose between keeping the Academy or razing it to build an Uranium mine, the game deletes the Uranium resource without his knowledge. Less frustrating for the player, certainly - but at least as serious in consequences! An Uranium gone forever.

I wondered what else "harvest any resources" could mean.... ah, maybe the idea, that a GP building could harvest gold, oil, cattle or anything. So the Academy would become 2 improvements in 1, e.g. an Academy/Uranium Mine or an Academy/Pasture. This explains the remark about scholars milking cows, which unfortunately you haven't quoted - could be a funny sight.

Ok, enough explaining, better ask: What should the simplest fix do?

 

[Ahriman]

I wondered what else "harvest any resources" could mean.... ah, maybe the idea, that a GP building could harvest gold, oil, cattle or anything. So the Academy would become 2 improvements in 1, e.g. an Academy/Uranium Mine or an Academy/Pasture.

This *is* what I meant by harvest; if you have a GP improvement on a bonus resource tile, it grants you access to the resource - but it does not let you build the superior improvement (like the pasture) or gain access to the superior yields (a mine on a resource tile gives higher yields than a mine on a regular tile).

Yes, in some sense that has "scholars milking cows" or mining coal, but so what?
It means you're not punished much for putting a GP improvement on a tile that ends up having a bonus resource, but it doesn't give you any incentive to use a GP improvement on a tile that you know has a resource (since doing so would waste a bonus).

What I mean by wasting a bonus is:
A farm gives +1 food, and you can build it anywhere.
But a pasture gives +2hammers +1gold (or something like that).
A mine might give +1 hammers normally, but +3 hammers if on coal (or similar).

So, have the GP resource grant you access to the resource, but without getting any of the yield improvements from building the "right" improvement there.

Its a bit odd from a reaslism perspective, but it works well enough for gameplay.
And its better than losing access to a resource entirely because you put a GP improvement on a tile that happened to end up having a bonus resource.

 

[mjs0]

So, have the GP resource grant you access to the resource, but without getting any of the yield improvements from building the "right" improvement there.

A quick observation:
This really only applies to luxury and strategic resources since access to cows (and sheep, wheat, etc.) as resources is now meaningless in the vanilla game.

Since these food resources cannot be traded and no longer give a health bonus their only benefit is in the additional tile output, so if the GP building doesn't give this then it effectively negates them completely.

 

[Spatzimaus]

I'm not a geologist but I would have thought that it was unlikely that Oil/aluminum/Uranium/Coal would be found on good farming land.

See also: Texas? Oil can easily be found under good farmland; it only depends on what that land was like millions of years ago.

I'm actually in favor of the "specialist buildings harvest resources" idea. Sure, you'd lose out on the Pasture/Mine/whatever bonus, but you'd still get the minerals/oil found there.
There's actually good precedent for this. Besides the obvious one (farmers putting a small oil derrick or two on their land to harvest smaller deposits without interfering with their farmland), have you ever seen how much oil is underneath the Los Angeles basin? I read a good article recently about how many hidden oil derricks there are in Beverly Hills ("hidden" meaning they're disguised to look like clock towers, office buildings, etc.) It's actually a bit disturbing to realize how well you can hide industry if you really want to, in light of how big an eyesore industrial buildings are most of the time.

So while discovering an oil resource underneath your new general-made Citadel shouldn't let you get the production or commerce bonus of having the full oil extraction improvement, you should still get the 5 units of strategic resource. After all, the same already applies if you discover that Oil underneath a city in Civ 4; the city's tile production isn't usually improved, but you always get the resource.

 

[Alsark]

The simplest fix is to have GP buildings harvest any resources under them.

Yeah, I'm really hoping that this is the case. It would really suck to have to destroy an academy because oil appears underneath it.

 

[Ahriman]

This really only applies to luxury and strategic resources since access to cows (and sheep, wheat, etc.) as resources is now meaningless in the vanilla game

Yes, but all bonus resources (non luxury/strategic) are all visible in the very early game, no?
So, there is no issue of having a purely bonus resource appear on top of a GP improvement.

 

[mjs0]

Yes, but all bonus resources (non luxury/strategic) are all visible in the very early game, no?
So, there is no issue of having a purely bonus resource appear on top of a GP improvement.

Agreed, but since cattle were used as an example I figured it was worth highlighting the difference.

 

[SeismoGraf]

@Ahriman: Ok, now it is clear. Relatively simple fix, but I think it would not be elegant and create some confusion. A newcomer would look up the Civilopedia and find something like this: "To get access to Iron you need to build a mine on a tile with an Iron resource. Alternatively you can have a GP build an improvement on the tile, also granting you access to Iron, but without the increased yield of an Iron mine."

For a simple fix I'd rather see the unrevealed resource moved to an adjacent tile. Or, if adjacent tiles are not an option, to another tile inside the borders of the unlucky player.

 

[King Jason]

You can't look at things like that.

Yes I can; and where are you getting the number 3 from? The improvement gives 5 science, period. The Citizen you use to work it is giving you his science regardless of what other tiles he's working.

A Citizen working a farm = 1 science and 4 (Max I believe food).

A Citizen working an academy = 6 science + base food from the tile. A Huge increase.

Think of it like this; Academy's open up an additional, better, Specialist slot.

Let's say in theory, the max specialists slots for a city is 3... Well with the growth you have, you fill those three slots up... and then the rest of your population is working tiles, or becoming other different specialists.

If you add an academy to this city, it takes away the MAX yield of a tile, but not the base, and grants you significant science instead. Which is no different than if you opend up another specialist slot somehow, and then decided to alocate population to utilize the benefit.

In fact, it's even better than that since A: The Science yield is significantly higher, and B.) You still get the base yield of the tile that you put it on. So you get the food from a grassland should you place it there. Making it much better than an average city specialist. Barring the fact it doesn't benefit from specialist-enhancing policies.

 

[snoochems]

OK, I think it is a little clearer now. The GP improvement doesn't wipe out all standard resources/bonuses on the tile, it just removes any improvement on it already.

I'm a min/maxer so the idea of putting a GP on a "hidden" resource scares me. Maybe I need to toughen up (as long as the AI doesn't cheat and never gets hit by same issue). Or.... worldbuilder?

 

[homan1983]

Yes I can; and where are you getting the number 3 from?
A Citizen working a farm = 1 science and 4 (Max I believe food).

A Citizen working an academy = 6 science + base food from the tile. A Huge increase.

4+1 = 5
6+2 = 8

The difference is 3. I can't begin to understand why its so hard for you to grasp this.

Think of it like this; Academy's open up an additional, better, Specialist slot.

Why not just look at it as +3 science? i mean potato potato its still the same thing... except it doesnt produce GPP.

I have a feeling this back and forth is becoming pointless because i keep repeating myself. I hope this time its clear and we can just leave it at that (in fact lets just leave it at that even if you still don't grasp it).

Have fun with Civ 5!!!

 

[EmpireOfCats]

Wait a moment. If it's an improvement, that means that you can have more than one, doesn't it? I'd need a pencil and some paper to figure it out, but that should mean you can built pretty powerful research cities, doesn't it?

 

[Pragmatic]

How often do we receive Great People? It sounds like it's more common now.

 

[pi-r8]

I don't have the source but we've known for a bit that bulbing simply gives the player a technology, not beakers.

I'd love to see a source for this, from anyone. If it's true than bulbing sounds extremely overpowered. Why bother with a piddly 5 beakers per turn when you can get 5000+ beakers instantly? In fact, if you save up all your early great scientists, you could slingshot directly from the mideaval period right into the modern age.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I'd love to see a source for this, from anyone. If it's true than bulbing sounds extremely overpowered. Why bother with a piddly 5 beakers per turn when you can get 5000+ beakers instantly? In fact, if you save up all your early great scientists, you could slingshot directly from the mideaval period right into the modern age.

Don't have sources, but remember the same.

I think putting early scientist on tiles is a good idea, since it will result in more than one tech through the game. but surely later scientists should be spent on direct research only.

 

[pi-r8]

Don't have sources, but remember the same.

I think putting early scientist on tiles is a good idea, since it will result in more than one tech through the game. but surely later scientists should be spent on direct research only.

I doubt that the game will last for 1000 turns, which is how long it would take for an academy to be worth as much as one 5000 beaker tech (and a lot of the late game techs in civ 4 cost more than that). I know we don't really know how much techs cost in this game, but with the shortened tech tree they can't be TOO cheap.

I guess it might be worth settling 1, just to get through the early techs faster. Other than that, definitely save them all for bulbing.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I doubt that the game will last for 1000 turns, which is how long it would take for an academy to be worth as much as one 5000 beaker tech (and a lot of the late game techs in civ 4 cost more than that). I know we don't really know how much techs cost in this game, but with the shortened tech tree they can't be TOO cheap.

I guess it might be worth settling 1, just to get through the early techs faster. Other than that, definitely save them all for bulbing.

1. Without the slider, science output is going to be less, so the techs should be cheaper.

2. 5 beakers are before any building multiplicators. With Library and University it will be more.

 

[SeismoGraf]

A player has a Great Scientist and now evaluates the option, to use it for an Academy tile improvement:

Pros:

• 
  Get an Academy tile improvement yielding +5 science on a chosen tile

Cons:

1. Opportunity cost of not using the GS for something else (golden age, bulb)
2. Opportunity cost of not having a different, regular improvement on the tile
3. Risk of building on a unrevealed strategic resource (e.g. Coal, Oil, Aluminium, Uranium)
4. Possibility, that the benefits of the Academy improvement get denied (temporarily) in case of war, even if the city does not fall

The first point is obvious and usually the first consideration. In Civ4 a GS would have his Academy building (respectively be settled) in the city itself. So points 2 and 3 are new disadvantages, which we have been discussing a lot in this thread. Point 4 seems minor, relative to the other three.

Even without having analyzed in-depth, the disadvantages of an Academy tile improvement look really hefty. Is there any confirmed or new info on using GP for tech-bulbing?

 

[Mallipeep]

There are many simple fixes for unrevealed strat source

a) have the GP reappear after getting a resource discovered under them ( NO WAY I WANT MY ACADEMY ON A COAL MINE) --- that would make those buildings extra worthwhile cause you could get tons of bonuses off it, and then if youre lucky pop a tech later on.

b) make strat resources just not appear where GP buildings are, and appear on a nearby tile ( if the resources are placed at map generation which might not be the case anymore?)