Specialists/Great Secialists

[LumenAngel]

Actually, in C2C, even with the 3 tile range for city, mor than half your population will be some sort of specialists.
Why? because it's not just totally true in moderne era, and not totally false earlier... And because my 129 pop city need this.

The problem is, sometimes, specialists feel too generic. Mainly priests. Priest are different from others priests. And civics dont impact enough psecialists.

So, some idea to make specialists a little more "special". If I give a X bonus (Y Bonus), the X go for normal special, and Y for great Specialists.

• Spy/Great Spy. Lot of spies in my cities, but unable to fight against spy and criminality? The idea is : +1 Science, +4 Espionnage, -1 Crime, +1% Defense against Espionnage (+2 Science, +8 Espionnage, -3 Crime, +3% Defense against Espionnage).
  This way, maybe Ai will love spies specialists a little more...
  Many civics can impact spies too
  Anarchism : -1 Espionnage. Hard to spie when there are non true chief...
  Bureaucraty, Grid, : +1 Espionnage. Work for a spy is easier here.
  Meritocracy : +2 (+3) Espionnage. You have the best spies ever!
  Corpor-nation : +1 Production , +1 Commerce. Spies are her e to make sure production and commerce will go fine...
• Scientist/Great Scientist. All about science! No change here, except maybe with some civics.
  No language : -1 Science. "Ugh ugh" make sicnece harder.
  Theocracy, Intolerant. -1 Science. Scientists have to be cautious here, slowing their works
  Propaganda. +1 Espionnage. cientists are part of your propaganda too...
  Meritocracy : +2 (+3) Science. You have the best scientists ever!
  Corpor-nation : +1 (+2) Production, -1 (-2) Science. Scientists are here to make people work faster first
  Paradise : +1 Food. Scientists are here to hel this paradise.
• Noble. Important part of some society, but nearly no effet in some others... But it's true : many great people in Renaissance or earlier was noble. So : +1 Culture, +3 GP.
  Caste : +1 Production, +1 Culture. Noble can be view as the higher caste.
  Feudal, Monarchy : -2 Crime, +1 Production, +1 Food. Noble are here to represent you and to increase the production of your city.
  Marxist : No noble. Noble? Where?
  Bourgeois : -1 GP. Noble lost some power
  Proleteriat : -1 GP. Noble lost even more power
• Military Instructor/Great Military Instructor/ Great Hunter
  They are here for XP! And only XP (even with this options off). great Hunter giving 5 food totally break prehistoric era...
  Great Hunter : +4 XP to Hunters, +2 to Explorer
  Military Instructor : +1 (+2) XP to Military units.
  But civics can affect them too
  Pacifism : +1 Unhappy. Seems legit.
  Military Tradition. +1 Education. They are here for that...
  Mercenaries : +1 (+2) Gold. Because military are for money
  Junta, martial Law : -1 Crime. Because they are the Law

i stop here for the first part, if there is good echoes, I will make my idea for priest and merchant too

 

[Rwn]

I'd say first that part of the problem is to be able to actually reach 100+ size cities in the first place... Maybe the amount of food to be accumulated to grow in the mid to late game (early on it's not too bad) should be raised a bit.

Otherwise, I'd not be shocked that if a city has many specialists, most of them would have to be simple citizen "specialists". This would mean getting rid of the possibility to have unlimited specialists (priests come to mind); true specialists would remain limited in number and valuable.

Some comments on your suggestions:

[*]Scientist/Great Scientist. All about science! No change here, except maybe with some civics.
No language : -1 Science. "Ugh ugh" make sicnece harder.

Not sure that's necessary. By the time you're able to get a scientist (around Writing IIRC) you have discovered long ago the tech allowing you to have a langage (in the early Prehistorical era).

Meritocracy : +2 (+3) Science. You have the best scientists ever!

That's a bit too good... Unless there's a downside elsewhere.

[*]Military Instructor/Great Military Instructor/ Great Hunter
They are here for XP! And only XP (even with this options off). great Hunter giving 5 food totally break prehistoric era...

I don't really agree on Great Hunters breaking Prehistoric era. They aren't that easy to get and their other uses are also attractive: either a much more resilient hunter with greater capture rate (very useful to get more benefits from animals), or hunter's lodge in every city (very attractive if you haven't been able to get the right animal; the building itself gives decent bonus to each city), or even keep it for later use (golden age, slavery, etc.). Sure, the 5 is nice in Prehistoric era, but it's insignificant later on (so you essentially get a small boost early on); it don't see how it's more a game-breaking strategy than using it differently...

 

[climat]

Spy/Great Spy. Lot of spies in my cities, but unable to fight against spy and criminality? The idea is : +1 Science, +4 Espionnage, -1 Crime, +1% Defense against Espionnage (+2 Science, +8 Espionnage, -3 Crime, +3% Defense against Espionnage).
This way, maybe Ai will love spies specialists a little more...

1. Given that they are in your own cities, I can't come up with a reason why they should give science bonus. Could you explain your reasoning? Plus, I think it makes the specialist generic by giving them the role of another specialist - scientist. It contradicts your intention..
In that sense, I actually don't like science bonus of artists. I can understand it somewhat, though. It is a fact that artists contributed to technological progress and art trends are included in the tech tree of C2C. (But I should say that it was a little weird at first that they are in the tech tree.)

2. They may be able to give local/national stability if the revolution option is turned on. They can be "your eyes and ears" in remote cities from the capital.

I'd say first that part of the problem is to be able to actually reach 100+ size cities in the first place... Maybe the amount of food to be accumulated to grow in the mid to late game (early on it's not too bad) should be raised a bit.

It may be good to make specialists consume extra food. Many nobles, merchants, rich priests and artists were gourmets and hosted many parties. So much food was wasted in their parties and dinners..

 

[Faustmouse]

Otherwise, I'd not be shocked that if a city has many specialists, most of them would have to be simple citizen "specialists". This would mean getting rid of the possibility to have unlimited specialists (priests come to mind); true specialists would remain limited in number and valuable.

It may be good to make specialists consume extra food. Many nobles, merchants, rich priests and artists were gourmets and hosted many parties. So much food was wasted in their parties and dinners..

Both are very good aspects. unlimited specialists is actually quite game breaking (give the civics "+3 ppl can become a scientist" or so rather then unlimited. Or make a lot more buildings "employ" citizens (especially in the later game) and therefore give them a free specialist, so converting a citizen into a specialist. if you have to many of those buildings,you city would starve (well ok, it won't since food from actual citizens on plots is very insignificant).

And give them - Food would also be a very good idea!

 

[Thunderbrd]

1) Can specialists have defense vs espionage now or would that require a new tag? I like this idea for spies though don't see much why they'd have research ever - if they're stealing it that would be represented by the spy missions to do so and fueled by espionage points.

2) I agree with Rwn that the GH is not game breaking at all. However, giving him +4 Hunters, +2 Explorers would be as this means we have +6 to Hunters and +2 to Recon this way. I wouldn't like it if Recon hadn't as much an opportunity as Hunters to gain xp and this would present that as a balance problem for which there's no other source for the Recon.

3)

In that sense, I actually don't like science bonus of artists. I can understand it somewhat, though. It is a fact that artists contributed to technological progress and art trends are included in the tech tree of C2C. (But I should say that it was a little weird at first that they are in the tech tree.)

Funny, I was just thinking that the other day and how it might be an interesting thing if there were two tech trees, one for social developments and one for technological ones. (NOT going to work on that but it would be cool.)

4)

It may be good to make specialists consume extra food. Many nobles, merchants, rich priests and artists were gourmets and hosted many parties. So much food was wasted in their parties and dinners..

We'd have to be careful with this or it would cause significant problems for balancing specialist values for the ai selections. What might be easier and more meaningful is if we made them influence the food waste mechanic by adding more waste...

5) My problem with the assertion that unlimited specialists of a particular type are game breaking is this is the only way you can enact any control over what kind of GP you get. So while it may be 'immersion' breaking as it wouldn't be logical really, the LOSS of it would be more 'game breaking' in itself.

6) I do believe engineers should produce another production at this point.

7) I think we'll have a lot more to do with specialists when we can add more. At that point we will want to re-evaluate them all very carefully.

8) It would be very interesting if rather than assigning population so willy-nilly, we gave each population an ID# and assigned the work to each very specifically. Then each would gain skill in the work it had been assigned and over time do it better (and reassigning it would mean you have a number of citizens dealing with a shift in employment and having to learn new jobs). There's more to that idea but chew on it for a while... it's rather thought provocative and I think it's really one of the things Civ is doing wrong period.

 

[LumenAngel]

1. Given that they are in your own cities, I can't come up with a reason why they should give science bonus. Could you explain your reasoning? Plus, I think it makes the specialist generic by giving them the role of another specialist - scientist. It contradicts your intention..

They already give one...
Remove this would be too much

2. They may be able to give local/national stability if the revolution option is turned on. They can be "your eyes and ears" in remote cities from the capital.

true

It may be good to make specialists consume extra food. Many nobles, merchants, rich priests and artists were gourmets and hosted many parties. So much food was wasted in their parties and dinners..

i have an idea for merchant, but I think the total maybe +0 food for them.
It's can be true, mainly for noble. But that will only wake them even less attractive. Maybe add a -1 food and a +1 culture with Feudal and Monarchy...

I'd say first that part of the problem is to be able to actually reach 100+ size cities in the first place... Maybe the amount of food to be accumulated to grow in the mid to late game (early on it's not too bad) should be raised a bit.

Or not. In Transhuman, with smaller cities, you would'nt be able to build anything...

Not sure that's necessary. By the time you're able to get a scientist (around Writing IIRC) you have discovered long ago the tech allowing you to have a langage (in the early Prehistorical era).

But the science bonus from language civics not worth the revolution turns early game (at least, with some traits)


And about meritocraty, yes, I forgot to put it : with my ideas, all bonus would be reduce by 5%. In Meritocraty, it's not better building, it's better specialists.

I don't really agree on Great Hunters breaking Prehistoric era. They aren't that easy to get and their other uses are also attractive: either a much more resilient hunter with greater capture rate (very useful to get more benefits from animals), or hunter's lodge in every city (very attractive if you haven't been able to get the right animal; the building itself gives decent bonus to each city), or even keep it for later use (golden age, slavery, etc.). Sure, the 5 ;food is nice in Prehistoric era, but it's insignificant later on (so you essentially get a small boost early on); it don't see how it's more a game-breaking strategy than using it differently...

Great Hunter make me able to leave starvation before anyone, give me a nice food bonus per turn, so I can have my 2 size city first.
If I put in to boost an hunter, THIS hunter would need to kill/capture each turn a animal with a 5 (food + production total value). And seriously, that never happen unless you are in an arctic place with lot of mammoth

 

[BlueGenie]

1) Specialist spies can have + reasearch due to analyzing reaports coming in from ohter countries. Spy research does not ahve to be with being IN that country for the spy specialist at all, as long as espionage comes home for analysis.

6) I feel Engineers do not have enough hammers at all as it is already, especially since they are among the hardest to actually get some of (barring any unlimited additions).

Cheers

 

[Rwn]

5) My problem with the assertion that unlimited specialists of a particular type are game breaking is this is the only way you can enact any control over what kind of GP you get. So while it may be 'immersion' breaking as it wouldn't be logical really, the LOSS of it would be more 'game breaking' in itself.

Well, if you don't want a particular GP, there's always the option not to assign the corresponding specialist... Sure you lose the specialist's advantage over the base citizen specialist, but there's no free lunch
You lose GP points when you do that though, so a workaround could be to give "neutral" GP points to citizens.

8) It would be very interesting if rather than assigning population so willy-nilly, we gave each population an ID# and assigned the work to each very specifically. Then each would gain skill in the work it had been assigned and over time do it better (and reassigning it would mean you have a number of citizens dealing with a shift in employment and having to learn new jobs). There's more to that idea but chew on it for a while... it's rather thought provocative and I think it's really one of the things Civ is doing wrong period.

That'd interesting for sure. Even citizens assigned to work in the city radius could gain experience based on the terrain/improvement they are working on. But I really wonder whether something like that could really be programmed, it sounds quite a step from the current mechanics...

I liked also the suggestion from another topic that some powerful buildings could require specialists to function properly. Actually, each (non-obsolete) wonder could require that, instead of limiting the number of wonders per city.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@LumenAngel

I like many of the ideas in your first post. I agree that specialists are one of the neglected parts of C2C and should have more interaction with civics.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I liked also the suggestion from another topic that some powerful buildings could require specialists to function properly. Actually, each (non-obsolete) wonder could require that, instead of limiting the number of wonders per city.

Interesting idea. Not realistic unfortunately. In a small city a population specialist counts as hundreds of people in a large city that same specialist is thousands. In both cases a that is a lot of people on wonder maintenance.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Well, if you don't want a particular GP, there's always the option not to assign the corresponding specialist... Sure you lose the specialist's advantage over the base citizen specialist, but there's no free lunch
You lose GP points when you do that though, so a workaround could be to give "neutral" GP points to citizens.



That'd interesting for sure. Even citizens assigned to work in the city radius could gain experience based on the terrain/improvement they are working on. But I really wonder whether something like that could really be programmed, it sounds quite a step from the current mechanics...

I liked also the suggestion from another topic that some powerful buildings could require specialists to function properly. Actually, each (non-obsolete) wonder could require that, instead of limiting the number of wonders per city.

Giving a neutral GP pt for citizens would be an interesting way to cover that concern provided that there are ways still to get a decent amount of specialist assignments for each type. I think we might be a little overboard on allowing priests (not right at first but later on.)

I suppose that the specialist assignment slot represents how the building can employ or train additional citizenry to support itself in this role. Some buildings might 'employ' a citizen, yes and I think that's been vastly overlooked as a possible resource, perhaps because it's not granular enough. I'd think EVERY building would employ SOME of the population, even if it's not all that much, maybe even a percentage like (1% of population employed) thus for every 100 population it employs 1 full citizen. That would be a representation of buildings that end up being many buildings across larger cities. A city doesn't have one Convenience Store, it has one Convenience Store for every so many citizens and thus it would always employ a % of the citizenry.

Then you'd have buildings that employ X amount of citizens represented in a percentage OF ONE population. A city probably only has one major cathedral of a given religion - it might employ 10% of one population (with the option of employing far more as a priest specialist thus offers a priest specialist slot.)

This method would work if the employment tag were made granular and the total of population employed was tallied up. You'd have cities with 20 population with 15 in the field and a total of (example)5.63 (always rounding down so: 5) population employed in buildings. Then some free specialists which represent those people who are employed otherwise but manage to make a significant contribution as an x type specialist in their personal endeavors. Cities would grow to eventually have all their land slots used and building employment needs met and thus have citizens who dedicate their lives to working in the city as industry leaders in various fields (specialists).

But unfortunately at the moment our building's employment tag selects a whole population thus is really only valid for buildings that one can imagine would employ a LOT of people. Most buildings would feel over-estimated in this regard if it employed even one full population.

The good news is that such an adjustment to the population employment mechanism wouldn't be terribly difficult, though a standard sized project that would take a week or two to program, a week or two to debug, and a week or two to setup in the xml.


Now, the other concept of having each population tracked is quite interesting too... I'm not sure how big a project it would be really but it could end up a little memory heavy. Perhaps not tooooo bad. It would take a bit of UI work for sure and more than a little AI work (though it might not be too terrible in this regard as much of the evaluating structures are already in place and it would just take a bit of rearranging so that each population evaluated itself quite independently, adding to that evaluation a measure of how 'experienced' it has become with various tasks - it would lend itself to do that more considering I'd assume it would be better at it.) That'd probably be a standard 'large' project, something around a month to program, a month to debug and a month to setup in the xml. (By comparison, the Nomadic Start project is looking like it might be this or larger itself.)

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

You would need a individual person tracking for Nomadic Start. I am thinking that there a population point would be a person. So that one person would be the fire carrier another would be the shaman or healer.

Which brings up the point on the Specialization tech. Either it is far to late in the tree or it means something different to what I think it means. Either way you should not have specialists available before that tech as it stands.

 

[LumenAngel]

Giving a neutral GP pt for citizens would be an interesting way to cover that concern provided that there are ways still to get a decent amount of specialist assignments for each type. I think we might be a little overboard on allowing priests (not right at first but later on.)

Care, there was a bug when you should have a GP but only with neutral points

 

[Thunderbrd]

Care, there was a bug when you should have a GP but only with neutral points

We'll have to trigger it to fix it.

 

[LumenAngel]

next part

• Engineer/Great Engineer. Some production, and even some science. The low production bonus from engineer is not a problem with the massiv %production bonu s late game. But because the main is production, it have to be the biggest value. +2 production, +1 science (+4 production, +2 science).
  One more science for the normal to make him worth it and 1 more production and 1 less science for the great to make it more about production than science.
  Corpor-nation : +1 production, -1 science. be productive, no originality...
  Meritocracy : +1 (+2) production. Just the best engineer.
  Pacifism : +1 culture. make it with more style
  Ecotopia : -1 production. Produce less to pollute less
  Cororate agriculture : -1 production, +1 food. Because enginer will work for the food megacorporation too.
  (keep the +1 science bonus from technocraty)
  
• Artist/Great Artist. Artist are about culture. I dont uderstand why artist have a science bonus and great artist a gold bonus... + 4 culture (+12 culture)
  because artist can make art for a dictator, a church or anything else, there are always artists to produce art.
  Bourgeois : +1 culture. Good patronage lead to more culture.
  Corpor-nation : -1 (-2) culture, +1(+3) gold. Artists make money! And culture is a side-effect
  Oral tradition : +1 education. Your artists is your main way to knowledge
  Post labor +1 (+2) culture, +1 crime. Decadent artist about some really strange street art...
  Propaganda +1 (+2) espionnage. Artist is a strong part of your propaganda.
  technocraty -1 (-3) culture, +1 (+2) science. because mario them with giant Tesla coil is the new art... At least, for some people