Realism Invictus

[TheBirdMan]

For Santa.
Next year I wish we could have a few small gifts for the map .

My first wish is something like "tall rough grass" for our Plains (flatland only?) - those on the slightly northern and southern latitudes. A bit like the Scrubs we have for the Deserts. No changes in Hammers, Food or Gold. Should it change anything, it could be a slightly better defense for fortified units - or sligtly better attack (ambush by recon-units???? (without really knowing for sure, I think the AI would be able to handle this without any changes)).

The next wish is 2-parted. The 1st part is a feature that looks like a volcano, to be placed on a hill-top (a la the current Hot-Springs we have for flatland only). The 2nd part here is that the possible Event with the volcanic eruption and more fertile landtiles is "moved" from the often many Mountains that can trigger this Event to the probably somewhat fewer number of Volcanoes. Of course it would be better if such a Volcano could be a part of the Mountains - but I afraid such a wish would change it from a smaller wish to something much more complicated.

 

[PKSRoman]

Many of FfH2's modmods, like MNAI, have some game options with challenge settings. One that I like a lot is "increasing difficulty". In MNAI, this raises the difficulty for all human players by 1 level every 75 turns (with a match in total taking about 400-550 on default speed IIRC, so significantly less than in RI). This is quite nice because it can allow you to start on a more even footing with the AI, allowing a bit more of a relaxed expansion, but then as the game progresses, cranks up their bonuses (and slightly reduces yours) so it remains more challenging than if you were just cruising on your same starting difficulty.

Yeah, "Increasing difflucty" in A new Dawn mod is even better because affect even AI.
It work in manner "If you are top3 you get +1 to difflucty, score check per X turn. if you below top3 difflucty goes down to standard noble level.If you are bottom 3 you can even get settler level difflucty.As I said it work both on Human civ and AI.
Say goodbye to pernament top1 empires - after time they will get so many drawbacks that they will fall eventually.

Ugh, you guys are no fun. All right, the name stays.

If you feel inspirated - maybe finally make this "Global Warming" additional option fixed?
It would be awesome, just like changing leaders every era..

No, I absolutely did not nor I ever wanted to. This is a game mod, not a scientific simulation of the world.

Wanted or not, you and this mod are awesome. Ahh i remember when I arguing with you and you said something "RI Version 3.1 its opus magnum, its impossible to make this mod better - its perferction"
I still smirk when i remind it in my head

What if, say, rushing with pop was 300% more effective?

If forced labor is an extension of slavery, wouldn't it be better to make the “labor camp” work in a similar way to a slave market, only in an improved version?
rarer occasionally revolts in towns with it, a bit bigger bonuses etc etc

See, everyone, this is a great illustration to one of the factors that was driving me to change the name. Sure, let's make half the map terrain useless because "real life"!

If global warming would work player in time could turn permafrosts in some working tiles. the same as with technology can cut jungles.
The player would have to balance the cost of warming the planet without planet overheat, because the fields would turn into steppes and deserts. (Reforestration option would be additional needed.Maybe even some eco-friendly expensive in maintamence civs who help slow down planet heating)
Still think that deserts and jungles should allow make only simplest roads, without railroads or highways - or make infrastructure development dependent on costs in , in which case, for example, the cost of build railroads/highways through deserts would be astronomical compared to normal, flat terrain.

Mauritania Railway - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://adrianguerin.com/article/magic-madness-26-hours-on-a-saharan-freight-train (many cool photo btw)
Building a railway line through the desert requires ground stabilization (shifting sands), protection against sandstorms, spare transporters, and larger, more expensive maintenance - so it shouldn`t be common to build as is in mod

https://api.adrianguerin.com/wp-content/uploads/ADRIAN_GUERIN_MAURITANIA_4-scaled.jpg

Yes, build highway or railroad in jungle or in middle of desert like on pictures is possible but expensive and inpractical as hell

 

[tebriz]

I’m curious to know what kind of starting resources other players consider decent. Specifically, which resources within your initial city’s 21-tile radius make you decide to keep the start instead of regenerating the map (without checking in WorldBuilder).

For example, in my case, I prefer to avoid spawning too close to the poles or the equator, so I also use resources as an indicator of my general latitude. Personally, I want to have Horse plus at least one of the following food resources: Wheat, Corn, Potato, or Sheep.

Do you have similar preferences? Which resources do you consider essential for a good start?

 

[Alekseyev_]

I try almost any start but I have never had Ice/Snow in my initial cross, and would probably restart if I have too much of that or tundra. But anything else I will try, usually it will be clear within the same session whether there is a chance.

But with tundra I have to say, lacking that 1F/1H compared to grassland/plains is such a huge difference, it's really miserable to have cities there for most of the game unless there are crazy (or strategic) resources.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Hi. I notice that with barbarian civ option on, sometimes a new civ emerges 1 turn after barbarian city appears on map (huge earth map). so there is no possibility to destroy this city (you have no time to move your army to this city). maybe it would be better that a new civ can emerge not from just appeared city but from city that have at list 3-4 population , so a player or AI have time to raze city and prevent new civ, or vice versa to wait till barbarian city grow to new civ

World map scenarios are absolutely NOT designed for barbarian civ option to be on.

Might be too late to even consider for this patch

Yes, too late. Saved for later, but likely will only be revisited post-Christmas

My first wish is something like "tall rough grass" for our Plains (flatland only?) - those on the slightly northern and southern latitudes.

If you need it, why don't you simply use the current scrubland graphics for that? Surely you can add a new feature yourself.

The next wish is 2-parted. The 1st part is a feature that looks like a volcano, to be placed on a hill-top (a la the current Hot-Springs we have for flatland only). The 2nd part here is that the possible Event with the volcanic eruption and more fertile landtiles is "moved" from the often many Mountains that can trigger this Event to the probably somewhat fewer number of Volcanoes. Of course it would be better if such a Volcano could be a part of the Mountains - but I afraid such a wish would change it from a smaller wish to something much more complicated.

TBH, it's something even easier and I long wanted to implement, and you actually prompted me to do it. Since the volcano event is recurring, the game already chooses a mountain tile as a "volcano" the first time it happens - so why not place an actual visual volcano there? Will be added in the next revision.

If you feel inspirated - maybe finally make this "Global Warming" additional option fixed?

I'm not interested. Whoever wants to do that can do it as a modmod.

Ahh i remember when I arguing with you and you said something "RI Version 3.1 its opus magnum, its impossible to make this mod better - its perferction"
I still smirk when i remind it in my head

Those are not the words I'd ever use, so you're either deliberately twisting or misremembering them. What I likely wrote, specifically, is that 3.1 was the definitive RI version, and I still stand by that - all versions before it should be considered betas, and it's the "1.0 version", the first complete release. Doesn't mean there can't be any post-release improvements, even whole new mechanics (usually added by dlcs when it comes to standalone games). But yes, 3.1 is the definitive RI version.

If forced labor is an extension of slavery

It isn't.

rarer occasionally revolts in towns with it, a bit bigger bonuses etc etc

I see no historical precedent for those. Neither German labour camps, nor Stalin's Gulag ever saw any major rebellions. The one single event I can recall is the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, but it doesn't merit a whole mechanic.

 

[[Y]]

@Alekseyev_ You're right, number of cities is greater than distance typically. I think I tend to see them as more even because the number of cities gets discounted as early as Bronze Working, and I tend to defer the Forbidden Palace, but once merchant families and the palace are both in effect, yeah, it shows how much more maintenance derives from number of cities

Thanks! This helped fix a nasty oversight on my part. If you'd like to continue the save in question, replace the culprit python file with the one attached.

Thanks for the fixed file! I was enjoying the game and exploring Korea, so glad I can continue with it.

If there is a civ whose culture is the highest (and higher than the civ's that currently holds it) in the city that leads the revolt, then either that civ will come back, or if the civ in question is still alive, the city defects to it. If there isn't such a civ, a new one forms instead. Barbarians are a fallback, they are usually invoked if the game already has the maximum number of civs present (including dead ones).

In my current game, India had two different civs spawn as rebels using the same defecting cities. I think, at least. Fog of war made it difficult to see exactly what was happening. But there were definitely two different civs there (Mughals and Transoxiana).

Not anymore as of the next revision! In a general drive towards more consistency, all distinctive units now have the same strength as their default variants. It'll lose the land tactics promo though, so the effective strength will be almost the same.

RIP Horon skirmisher dominance. Long you reigned!

World map scenarios are absolutely NOT designed for barbarian civ option to be on.

It happens on large maps in general.

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I no longer consider using a Great Prophet to build the religious temples a worthwhile expenditure. The temples generate much less gold than a settled prophet (in my current game, with presence in 13% of the world cities in the late medieval, it still generates a meager 6 gold per turn), and the increased religion spread is very intangible and unreliable. Even with the temple of solomon, only 1/3 of my cities had judaism until got access to rabbis to spread the religion manually. The two priest slots are the most useful feature, but a very double edged sword, as it becomes more difficult to get other types of great people, and the value of the great prophet diminishes as the game goes on (6 gold in the renaissance era is peanuts whereas 6 gold in the ancient era is a huge bounty).

I know you don't want missionaries to be accessible too early, but what if the great temples allowed the creation of missionaries for that religion? That way generating missionaries requires a holy city and an expended great prophet, so possible for each religion, but with very narrow and inflexible investments. It wouldn't be something that each civ can do, as at best, there would be 6 cities in the world that can create missionaries early, and only one for each.

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Would you consider switching Great Merchants from +4 to +10%? This way they're still very much weaker than Great Merchants early on, but scale much more meaningfully into the mid and late game.

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I know it's a big ask, but is it possible to get secondary leaders for derivative civs? On large maps it's very common to end up with a very long roster of living civs, and it's always the same faces once derivative civs are in play. It would be very appreciated if there was more variety to their personalities and dynamics.

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I’m curious to know what kind of starting resources other players consider decent. Specifically, which resources within your initial city’s 21-tile radius make you decide to keep the start instead of regenerating the map (without checking in WorldBuilder).

For example, in my case, I prefer to avoid spawning too close to the poles or the equator, so I also use resources as an indicator of my general latitude. Personally, I want to have Horse plus at least one of the following food resources: Wheat, Corn, Potato, or Sheep.

Do you have similar preferences? Which resources do you consider essential for a good start?

Pigs. There's nothing better for the big cross of your founding city than pigs. You can build a camp on them as soon as you discover toolmaking, without needing to chop down a forest or jungle, and the camp gets extra food from both an archery range and a smokeshop, and an extra commerce from hunter's cabin. This makes them efficient at generating food, hammers (from forest and/or hill) and commerce (from cabin and/or adjacent river). That's incredible output for a fledgling city. And since the founding city is usually the city churning out settles (at least 1, most likely), having that output available is a huge advantage, especially if you got 3-4 of them in the cross.

Second to pigs is prime timber. It generates good hammers very early in the game, allows you to construct carpenters. Founding cities also tend to be collection spots for wonders, so having all those hammers available early on makes for very competitive wonder building in the ancient era.

Other resources are relatively equal as starting resources. Good things to have but none of them will make or break the game for you, and are generally quantity over quality.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

In my current game, India had two different civs spawn as rebels using the same defecting cities. I think, at least. Fog of war made it difficult to see exactly what was happening. But there were definitely two different civs there (Mughals and Transoxiana).

If they're not respawning the previous civs, there are certain civs that are the first choices for a new spawn for any specific parent civ.

RIP Horon skirmisher dominance. Long you reigned!

They'll still be better than most, if not all, others, just not god-tier.

It happens on large maps in general.

Other moving pieces to consider too. The fewer the number of civs, the higher chance for barbarians to settle, for instance.

I know you don't want missionaries to be accessible too early, but what if the great temples allowed the creation of missionaries for that religion? That way generating missionaries requires a holy city and an expended great prophet, so possible for each religion, but with very narrow and inflexible investments. It wouldn't be something that each civ can do, as at best, there would be 6 cities in the world that can create missionaries early, and only one for each.

I'll think about spicing it up a bit. Maybe a couple of guaranteed spreads when the shrine is built.

Would you consider switching Great Merchants from +4 to +10%? This way they're still very much weaker than Great Merchants early on, but scale much more meaningfully into the mid and late game.

You seem to have wanted to ask for something else than you actually wrote here, or I don't understand your request.

I know it's a big ask, but is it possible to get secondary leaders for derivative civs? On large maps it's very common to end up with a very long roster of living civs, and it's always the same faces once derivative civs are in play. It would be very appreciated if there was more variety to their personalities and dynamics.

It is on my to-do list already. It's just that I don't know whether I will get to this item on my list in time for the release.

 

[PKSRoman]

OOOH LITTLE MAN YOU WANNA EXPAND? ITS JUNGLE TILES, FORGET ABOUT ROADS AND STUFF AND ALL TO MODERN ERA. BUILD SLASH AND BURN FARMS AND ENJOY YOUR SMOL SETTLEMENT
(it would also prevent jungle civs to be top world civs - Incas dont tried expand to jungle and they can build nice mid-empire, aztecs and mayas - all what they afford it city states and human sacrfices)
yea i`m slowing grow to idea "No roads on Jungle and Desert tiles" - sounds funny (desert with river doesnt count to that ofc) and it will be a bit more challenging

Until the 1970s, access to the largely roadless interior of the forest was challenging, and it remained mostly intact apart from partial clearing along the rivers.Deforestation escalated after the construction of highways penetrating deep into the forest, such as the Trans-Amazonian Highway in 1972.
Challenges arose in parts of the Amazon where poor soil conditions made plantation-based agriculture unprofitable. The crucial turning point in deforestation occurred when colonists began establishing farms within the forest during the 1960s. Their farming practices relied on crop cultivation and the slash-and-burn method. However, due to soil fertility loss and weed invasion, the colonists struggled to effectively manage their fields and crops.

Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227724994_Deforestation_in_Brazilian_Amazonia_History_Rates_and_Consequences

 

[TheBirdMan]

If you need it, why don't you simply use the current scrubland graphics for that? Surely you can add a new feature yourself.

Yes, I can add a new feature. But as you know - I can't make the graphic (dds- and nif-files).
So for the last couple of years, I have used the Scrub itself on Plain-tiles too - but limited it up/down to lattitudes between 40 to 50 depending on how the map "looks". I need "something" I would like to use upto lattitudes 'round 55-65 or so, and I do not think the Scrub looks good that far north/south.

Spoiler Test screenshot from a map under construction :

I know a few hardi cacti exists on places very high north and south - but those are much smaller and more compact, not like those tall we see here - however with a second set of Scrubs without Cacti, then it would do fine.

TBH, it's something even easier and I long wanted to implement, and you actually prompted me to do it. Since the volcano event is recurring, the game already chooses a mountain tile as a "volcano" the first time it happens - so why not place an actual visual volcano there? Will be added in the next revision.

That's just wonderful news. And if it didn't happend that often, then it would be marvelous.

 

[[Y]]

If they're not respawning the previous civs, there are certain civs that are the first choices for a new spawn for any specific parent civ.

Yeah. But in this case there is a previous civ (the first civ to revolt) that isn't coming back when those same cities (or at least some of them) revolt again.

You seem to have wanted to ask for something else than you actually wrote here, or I don't understand your request.

D'oh. I meant that with a change to percent improvement, the great merchant will be weaker than the great prophet early on, but scale better into the late game. Currently they're a bit of a disappoint to settle in a city, especially past the classical era.

It is on my to-do list already. It's just that I don't know whether I will get to this item on my list in time for the release.

Good to know, thanks! No expectation on them being in the next release, or even the one after. Just something to look forward to at some point down the line.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Yes, I can add a new feature. But as you know - I can't make the graphic (dds- and nif-files).

No need to make anything, deleting will suffice - just open those in nifs in Nifskope and delete all the cacti. That's the simplest edit one can do.

D'oh. I meant that with a change to percent improvement, the great merchant will be weaker than the great prophet early on, but scale better into the late game. Currently they're a bit of a disappoint to settle in a city, especially past the classical era.

Nah, adding a new effect to a specialist is way too much hassle. Also, there are now additional things to do with Merchants so all in all unless you're absolutely drowning in them, you need to have more than 5 before even considering settling.

Yeah. But in this case there is a previous civ (the first civ to revolt) that isn't coming back when those same cities (or at least some of them) revolt again.

Maybe the previous civ's culture was already non-dominant by that time, at least in the city that "led" the revolt.

 

[[Y]]

Nah, adding a new effect to a specialist is way too much hassle. Also, there are now additional things to do with Merchants so all in all unless you're absolutely drowning in them, you need to have more than 5 before even considering settling.

Understandable if it's too much work. As for things to do with merchant... sort'a? There are 4 guaranteed ones (Glasswork, Automobiles, Movies, Pharmaceuticals, let me know if I missed one), but 3 of the 4 are industrial era buildings.

Maybe the previous civ's culture was already non-dominant by that time, at least in the city that "led" the revolt

Probably what happened. If that's the intended behavior, then all's good. I was surprised it wasn't the previous derivative civ coming back to life.

 

[TheBirdMan]

No need to make anything, deleting will suffice - just open those in nifs in Nifskope and delete all the cacti. That's the simplest edit one can do.

Hooly sh.t! Maybe I can do it and make it useful. Anyway - if I mess it up, then it's not worse than I can download a fresh copy of Realism and try again.....

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

As for things to do with merchant... sort'a? There are 4 guaranteed ones (Glasswork, Automobiles, Movies, Pharmaceuticals, let me know if I missed one), but 3 of the 4 are industrial era buildings.

As of one of the recent SVN commits, there are also Great Works on Economics, and you want at least one, for the civic of your choice, also by Great Merchants.

Probably what happened. If that's the intended behavior, then all's good. I was surprised it wasn't the previous derivative civ coming back to life.

I can probably relax the culture demands a bit; anything over 25% should realistically revert to old civ rather than spawn a new one.

 

[[Y]]

I can probably relax the culture demands a bit; anything over 25% should realistically revert to old civ rather than spawn a new one.

That'd be appreciated! Consistency in civs appearing is nice.

As of one of the recent SVN commits, there are also Great Works on Economics, and you want at least one, for the civic of your choice, also by Great Merchants.

I did forget about those, but not sure they really change much. They aren't guaranteed since they're not only world wonders, but civic-locked world wonders. They feel like right-place-right-time accomplishments.

If you don't mind some initial feedback impressions on those wonders, though:

• Arthashastra - Very narrow effect, and I probably wouldn't give up a great person for it. Odds are by this point in the game, most of my tiles are improved, and improving what's left faster isn't solving any problem or opening up advantages. My tiles will get there sooner or later as it is. On top of that, Craft Guilds is a relatively short-term civic, helping out during the medieval era but getting switched once I get Free Market in the Renaissance (if not to Merchant Families sooner). I think I would rather just settle the merchant for +4 GPT that'll last the rest of the game. Curious to hear other player's thoughts.
• Discourses on Salt and Iron - Feels awkward. 2 extra commerce on mines feels like it should be a huge win, but realistically, the only cities I have operating mines heavily are military production cities, and the bonus commerce there won't be leveraged effectively. The cities where I would want a commerce bonus (cities with buildings for +% to research or gold) are shifting over to windmills by now. And the military cities will be following suit soon after. So adding commerce to mines isn't very tempting compared to just settling the merchant in a city where the extra gold can be maximized.
• The National System of Political Economy - Great effect, but feels weird being attached to a civic that doesn't itself give you hurrying production. Though I guess at this point in the game, unless still running slavery, you'll be using some labor civic that does give you hurrying.
• I think this one's great, but kind of weird to have Das Kapital be created by a Great Merchant. Is there an option to rename Great Merchants to Great Economists once reaching the Renaissance?

 

[Alekseyev_]

@Alekseyev_ You're right, number of cities is greater than distance typically. I think I tend to see them as more even because the number of cities gets discounted as early as Bronze Working, and I tend to defer the Forbidden Palace, but once merchant families and the palace are both in effect, yeah, it shows how much more maintenance derives from number of cities

For me, even when running autocracy/monarchy for -25% number cost, and not having merchant families or a forbidden city yet, number is always the bigger factor for me. might be a playstyle thing, I often reach the stage where the home area is fully developed and just building science or gold, the military strong enough to not have a problem with defence, and then... the only thing to do is expand.

Would you consider switching Great Merchants from +4 to +10%? This way they're still very much weaker than Great Merchants early on, but scale much more meaningfully into the mid and late game.

I think that would change a fundamental thing about great persons: Settling them is generally the worst use of any of them, but a permanent +10% gold per merchant would be so strong, it would quickly turn a city into a super city. That's something you don't want, I think. I think merchants with the +1 food, +4 gold are not great, but they are free income forever, so that's still not bad. At least they keep getting more value later on, when priests get nothing after the middle ages. The free food is really their biggest benefit, as it gets you part of an entire citizen with all its yields. And unconditional, permanent free food is not found anywhere else.

Arthashastra - Very narrow effect, and I probably wouldn't give up a great person for it. Odds are by this point in the game, most of my tiles are improved, and improving what's left faster isn't solving any problem or opening up advantages. My tiles will get there sooner or later as it is. On top of that, Craft Guilds is a relatively short-term civic, helping out during the medieval era but getting switched once I get Free Market in the Renaissance (if not to Merchant Families sooner). I think I would rather just settle the merchant for +4 GPT that'll last the rest of the game. Curious to hear other player's thoughts.

Fully agree. But I do actually like that the economic works do something different than the civic for 4/6 of them.
I think it is too weak as it stands, and have an idea for a very simple buff I will get back to later.

On the other ones: Salt and Iron is great! I have to disagree a lot with [Y] here, at least for me I tend to have all % buildings in all cities, and even without those, extra commerce is always extremely welcome. And it makes all those production tiles serve double duty.

I love the hurry cost one. Perfect stage in the game as well, since you might just have started colonising new lands after unlocking oceangoing ships, and want to hurry many core buildings in your new cities to get them up to speed, while also having a good economic backbone to afford it in the first place.

Wealth of Nations... hey it's Hanseatic League II . It also takes what the civic does and adds further onto it, which could be seen as desirable or as undesirable depending on the point of view. Definitely very strong as it will be useful no matter what.

Das Kapital is now much better than before. Definitely worth going for. I'm now very curious to try some agrarian + industrious leader and go craftsman hammer maxing with forced labour and planned economy and many farms to feed them.

Now the sorry one: Keynes. It adds to what the civic does very well already (health and happiness), but while WON does the same, in its case it doubles one of the primary effects, and that being one with immediate return. But for Welfare State, surplus happiness and health don't do anything at all until your cities reach these tresholds. And it's only increased a little amount while the civic already does a ton. I propose the following change: Move the +1 happy & health & -1 epidemics all to Arthashastra, (optionally keeping the worker rate as well) which seems a suitable place for such a thing according to its description, and the very same effect would have a much more valuable impact if given to that civic and coming at that stage of the game. And then give Keynes an effect unrelated to the existing Welfare State effects. One potentially very strong that came in mind when reading its effect was a reduced inflation rate. But I don't know if inflation is global or per player. If it is per player, just a low percent less could mean a lot by the time the Welfare State civic comes around.

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I have a very minor request for the topic of mod polish: Could the Israeli Fortress be given a unique button? I think it's the only unique building (not distinctive) that has the same button as the building it replaces.

 

[sahbaz]

Just a small suggestion (and I think others have mentioned it too):

It would be great if the United Nations and Apostolic Palace features could be enabled without requiring the Diplomatic Victory condition.

Right now, I enable Diplomatic Victory and edit the Civ4VoteInfo.xml file to remove the “vote for victory” option.

The problem is that the AI still behaves as if it can win a diplomatic victory, which causes some odd gameplay.

So, it would be nice to have an option to use these features with any set of victory conditions.

 

[Alekseyev_]

The problem is that the AI still behaves as if it can win a diplomatic victory, which causes some odd gameplay.

What do you observe?

 

[[Y]]

For me, even when running autocracy/monarchy for -25% number cost, and not having merchant families or a forbidden city yet, number is always the bigger factor for me. might be a playstyle thing, I often reach the stage where the home area is fully developed and just building science or gold, the military strong enough to not have a problem with defence, and then... the only thing to do is expand.

Playstyle can certainly play into it. Maybe also how far into the game we play. I kept an eye on it and earlier in the game, distance was the bigger factor, but as the game went on number of cities eclipsed it, and presumably would continue to do so as the game continues even further.

I think that would change a fundamental thing about great persons: Settling them is generally the worst use of any of them, but a permanent +10% gold per merchant would be so strong, it would quickly turn a city into a super city. That's something you don't want, I think. I think merchants with the +1 food, +4 gold are not great, but they are free income forever, so that's still not bad. At least they keep getting more value later on, when priests get nothing after the middle ages. The free food is really their biggest benefit, as it gets you part of an entire citizen with all its yields. And unconditional, permanent free food is not found anywhere else.

At first I was thinking 5%, but looking at my cities in the late medieval, even the best of them were only outputting 90 GPT, if even that. In that case, 5% would be the same as a normal merchant now, so I went with double. But thinking on it again, it's probably appropriate for the late medieval to be the point in time when it matches current behavior (even if current behavior is worse than great prophet profit), so 5% is probably a fine number.

The food is nice, but it also doesn't scale. Getting one free food is nice in the ancient and classical era, but after that, unless the city is having a difficult time food wise, it isn't making a big difference. And odds are the financial city will be one with lots of food to begin with.

(also, unconditional food is found on the grocer, and never particularly impresses me. )

I think part of the reason I want to see an improvement is the comparison of great merchants with great scientists. Great works of science are abundant (6 or so per era?), offer +40% science in the city, and have a useful ability on top of that. Merchant great works are fewer, and offer a decent ability but with little to no gold output on top of that. 4 of them are limited buildings and so guaranteed to be available, though as mentioned above, aren't available until industrial era. Great works of science are just so much better and unquestionably impactful.

 

[AspiringScholar]

Without any denial that they are lucrative and potent bonuses well-competitive against many opportunity costs, a key and unique drawback for Great Works of Science relative to any other great person usage is that they expire, and do so on the basis of a shelf-life which ends up being a modest fraction of the whole game. Their concomitant bonuses are also often quite compelling, and for this reason it's often the best use of a Great Scientist, but, scaling the question of opportunity costs back a bit, there is also the weighty factor of "Great People Pollution" inherent to Civ 4 to consider as well: choosing to prioritize and go for scientists will make it harder to get any other desired category of great person; increasingly and permanently, since your pool of GPP is immutable and experiences no reset - so, while it makes sense that as long as we're talking about what can be done with an individual great person, it's more relevant to consider that the use of any of them entails an opportunity cost against not just the actions that can be done with that one, singularly, but against the use of the full range of this entire game mechanic, throughout the whole timeline.

Contrarily, the economic great works are permanent, which is to my mind a huge advantage. Likewise, settling the scientist never expires, nor does establishing the academy. As one who often crests and finds a stride later in the game, I also find that the key resources produced exclusively by the Great Merchants to have enormous value, and deliberating for scientists only creates a drawback at this stage of the game, when technological advantages can indeed outstrip "hard power" when one lacks any bottleneck of an increasingly complex network of critical resources, raw or finished.