Theming bonuses seem really hard to achieve

[contrasupra]

Has anyone been able to consistently achieve theming bonuses for great works yet? I am finding this incredibly difficult, at least in the art/architecture museums. The theming bonus for art museums is for three works of the same type from different artists. The types are (I think) things like landscape, sculpture, religious, etc. Except each artist makes three works, and those works are often of the same type (i.e. a landscape artist will give you three landscapes), which completely fills a museum but is useless for achieving theming bonuses. So you fill up your slots really fast without making much progress towards actually getting the bonuses, and trading works with the AI seems a lot more cumbersome and unreliable than in Civ V, since it's all done through the regular deal screen and you have to check every single leader individually instead of having a unified interface. (Not to mention, I didn't see my own great works on the list to allow me to trade one-for-one. In fact, the AI was only ever willing to sell me relics for exorbitant sums of gold, I didn't ever see any other type of great work up for sale/trade.)

It might actually be better if artists made fewer works, so you wouldn't clog up your spots so fast (I find there are not as many slots as in Civ V either, since to have any kind of museum anywhere you need a district in that city), or maybe if there was some kind of art storage facility you could build so at least you could go all out on recruiting great people and make more works than you can actually display but would have a better chance of getting ones you could swap out to get the bonuses (and maybe lease the others to AIs?). Maybe a lot of this is supposed to come down to carefully selecting your great people and passing on ones that won't give you the right works, but that seems like a crapshoot especially if you're making GP points much faster than the AI, since then you have to wait around for someone else to recruit the artist you didn't want and just hope the next one will be the one you need. Am I missing something here? Has anyone figured out a better way to make this work?

 

[CaiusDrewart]

Has anyone been able to consistently achieve theming bonuses for great works yet? I am finding this incredibly difficult, at least in the art/architecture museums. The theming bonus for art museums is for three works of the same type from different artists. The types are (I think) things like landscape, sculpture, religious, etc. Except each artist makes three works, and those works are often of the same type (i.e. a landscape artist will give you three landscapes), which completely fills a museum but is useless for achieving theming bonuses. So you fill up your slots really fast without making much progress towards actually getting the bonuses, and trading works with the AI seems a lot more cumbersome and unreliable than in Civ V, since it's all done through the regular deal screen and you have to check every single leader individually instead of having a unified interface. (Not to mention, I didn't see my own great works on the list to allow me to trade one-for-one. In fact, the AI was only ever willing to sell me relics for exorbitant sums of gold, I didn't ever see any other type of great work up for sale/trade.)

It might actually be better if artists made fewer works, so you wouldn't clog up your spots so fast (I find there are not as many slots as in Civ V either, since to have any kind of museum anywhere you need a district in that city), or maybe if there was some kind of art storage facility you could build so at least you could go all out on recruiting great people and make more works than you can actually display but would have a better chance of getting ones you could swap out to get the bonuses (and maybe lease the others to AIs?). Maybe a lot of this is supposed to come down to carefully selecting your great people and passing on ones that won't give you the right works, but that seems like a crapshoot especially if you're making GP points much faster than the AI, since then you have to wait around for someone else to recruit the artist you didn't want and just hope the next one will be the one you need. Am I missing something here? Has anyone figured out a better way to make this work?

I'm finding artifacts really easy to theme. Each excavation gives you two options, so one archaeologist will typically be able to dig up three different things. If not, send your next archaeologist to a different part of the world and make a swap. It's much easier than V when era was a factor.

I'm having a similar experience to you with the great works of art though. Really hard to theme, and I'm not finding it possible to swap works with AIs easily.

 

[contrasupra]

I'm finding artifacts really easy to theme. Each excavation gives you two options, so one archaeologist will typically be able to dig up three different things. If not, send your next archaeologist to a different part of the world and make a swap. It's much easier than V when era was a factor.

This might be an issue with my start, because I was *super* isolated and didn't really war, so every artifact I dug up was either Rome or barbarians, lol. Also, I actually thought that they had to be from the same era, but I might be misremembering. Is it possible to reject an artifact if it's not what you need? Because that would help. God knows there are a ton of artifacts on the board, especially when you add shipwrecks as well, so maybe you're just supposed to scrap the ones that won't help you and I missed that option. And if that's the case, maybe you're better off just going all architecture museums as much as possible and not worrying about Great Artists too much.

EDIT I also had a bug where I couldn't move my artifacts around, so that obviously contributed. And I find it sort of annoying that you can't move a work for 10 turns after you first plot it. I guess you're supposed to make sure you create the work in the right district, but it just seems like it forces the player to micromanage something for no real benefit.

 

[contrasupra]

I would also like to say that the museum screen with little thumbnails of all the works in different sizes and shapes looks like a visual aid for an eighth grader's class presentation on art history.

 

[DeutschDachs]

It's been really easy for me. All my artists seem to give me religious art so by the time I got my 3rd different artist I was able to theme 3 museums and I'm one more away from having 6 themed now

 

[contrasupra]

It's been really easy for me. All my artists seem to give me religious art so by the time I got my 3rd different artist I was able to theme 3 museums and I'm one more away from having 6 themed now

Interesting. It really is just luck of the draw on which artists you get, then. In my game I got Michelangelo, which gave me the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel (not sure what type that was - maybe fresco?), Pieta, and David (both sculptures). Then I got a Chinese landscape artist and someone who made three religious works, so I was totally screwed, haha. Did you select for the religious artists by passing on others, or just get lucky?

 

[ExemplarVoss]

Archaeology is quite easy. The best way is to spread out and get things near different city states, and prioritize their artifacts over barbarian ones. It cuts down on duplication immensely.

For art museums, you really have to push great artist growth as much as possible (for the most part, I find the archaeology museums more reliable), and rely on wonders for art spaces

 

[contrasupra]

Hey speaking of this, can we talk about archaeologists for a minute? You can only build them where you have an archaeology museum, but how many can you have at once? They don't seem to have charges or get consumed, right? Because I swear one of mine disappeared during my game - I had to put excavation on hold to get some more slots, so I put him to sleep somewhere and then when I was ready to continue he was nowhere to be found. Maybe he timed out or I made another one that overwrote the first one? The same thing happened to me with a great engineer, he had two "contribute to wonder" charges so I used the first one and then parked him somewhere while I got ready for another wonder, and then he was gone. Are there restrictions about this?

 

[contrasupra]

Also, what happens if you earn a GWAM if you are out of slots and potential slots, or just don't want the great work for whatever reason? I liked being able to pop them for another purpose in Civ V...

 

[Browd]

Each archaeologist you create is tied (for lack of a better word) to the archaeological museum in the city where he was created. Send him out to scavenge for artifacts -- each one he digs up is automatically teleported back to the museum he came from. When he has collected 3 artifacts, he disappears.

On the Great Engineer, perhaps you misplaced him (I'm serious - sleeping great people can be hard to see on the map). Choose any unit, click on its title/name and scroll through the pop-up unit list to see if that GE's still around.

 

[contrasupra]

On the Great Engineer, perhaps you misplaced him (I'm serious - sleeping great people can be hard to see on the map). Choose any unit, click on its title/name and scroll through the pop-up unit list to see if that GE's still around.

Yeah I did that but he was gone. I think I earned another one in the meantime, so maybe that made him vanish?

 

[Browd]

Also, what happens if you earn a GWAM if you are out of slots and potential slots, or just don't want the great work for whatever reason? I liked being able to pop them for another purpose in Civ V...

Unfortunately, GWAMs don't have a secondary use, so your only choice is to store them away until you have available slots for the Great Works they will provide.

 

[contrasupra]

Thanks for the tip on the archaeologist though, that sounds like exactly what happened. I needed another museum because hers was full, so she disappeared and I just didn't notice.

EDIT her name was Bambi, which made me think of Bambi the entomologist in the X-Files. I like to think it was a homage even though that doesn't make a ton of sense, lol

 

[Browd]

Yeah I did that but he was gone. I think I earned another one in the meantime, so maybe that made him vanish?

It shouldn't make him vanish. Perhaps you did use both charges and just forgot?

 

[contrasupra]

It shouldn't make him vanish. Perhaps you did use both charges and just forgot?

I don't think so but truly anything is possible, haha. I found my great admiral all by himself running into the ice on the other side of the world and I had no idea how he got there, so I am obviously no expert at Civ VI yet

 

[Sebmono]

I'd like to just add my voice into agreement with these experiences; really liking what they did to great people overall, but A) not having a secondary use for GWAM seems unnecessarily constraining (and also just reinforces wide as the best playstyle - in my culture victory game as France with only 5 cities I ended up having Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe, and two musicians just chilling pointlessly in the chateaus along the riverbanks, lol), and B) the interface makes it impossible to trade great works. In the diplomacy screen I can even tell what type, era, or civ the other aides great works are, how am I supposed to know what to trade for? Am I missing something there?

 

[zyx]

Does anyony know whether the number of Great Artists is determined by the number of civilizations or mapsize? Because I have been playing a lot of duel maps and had 3 Great Artist each, which made themeing impossible.

 

[lamaros]

Yes they're awful, especially on higher difficulties.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/great-artists-arent-so-great.602939/#post-14535458

 

[lamaros]

Does anyony know whether the number of Great Artists is determined by the number of civilizations or mapsize? Because I have been playing a lot of duel maps and had 3 Great Artist each, which made themeing impossible.

No I think it's dictated by how fast you go through the tech tree. Which is why it's almost impossible to theme on deity.

 

[Promethian]

The reason you would get a lot of religious artists is because almost all the early era artists are religious. It is much easier to get theming if you start early. I think this is intended to encourage pursuit of a culture victory the entire game over shifting gears later on.