Theory crafting - Great People mechanics 'balance'

[RealHuhn]

What I don't like about great people is that they come too late in the game. I understand the concept of late scientists because they're so powerful but artists and especially merchants take too long to get.
Maybe add an additonal artist slot to the temple? A merchant slot to the granary?

I mean, there's a huge downside to early GP because they severely limit growth and production so it wouldn't be overpowered at all. But it could be interesting for some new strategies.

Specialist economies like in CIV 4 just don't work at all which is very sad because I really enjoyed them.
Sure, the freedom finisher is great but the game's already won/lost at that point. Same with the statue of liberty and the commerce finisher.

 

[Furycrab]

You can get GMs rolling faster than all of the other ones. (Market + Banks being faster than everything else)

However at the moment, it's certainly slower at attaining any victory since even the Diplo victory is mostly just a tech victory. Since Tech is so important for everything else, it's also questionable if it's even better at any other aspects of the game other than it being fun to have a capital bank rolling a fortune.

 

[tommynt]

GP system is the last thing need to be tweaked in civ5 - its ok as it is - LOADS of other eras to improve the game ....

 

[Furycrab]

GP system is the last thing need to be tweaked in civ5 - its ok as it is - LOADS of other eras to improve the game ....

This is where a lot of people will kindly disagree. It's frustrating how much better Scientists are at just about everything and even when you buckle down and try to focus on another aspect of the game other than scientists and the tech tree, you quickly realize how you might be wasting your time. It's making the game stale.

Some people suggested the "nerf scientists and buff the other ones approach" which is more or less a start, but I'll let you read his blog on why this approach would encourage better gameplay.

Been messing about with GMs last couple of days, I know I haven't explored every approach but I can't help that it just reinforced how useless GMs are right now...

Custom houses are almost useless, it's too easy to get almost as much gold if not more from luxury tiles. Silver or Gold will give you the equivalent of a custom house on hills and a ton of other ones will give you the equivalent on a grassland.

I also can't seem to get the Merchants pumping any faster than I would with Scientists since the University gives you two slots off the bat and you get access to the third slot faster than you would trying to get the 3rd and 4th with merchants. Which makes me wonder if you were trying to balance the playstyles they should move one slot to public schools or move some of the slots for GE/GA/GMs earlier since right now they come so late that a valid way of pumping GAs is to tech hard to museums with scientists before you even start pumping out a single artist. This change would likely be unpopular with the Techies though.


The biggest jump in gold is still golden ages, and well... well you don't need a GM to get that right now.

 

[tommynt]

so cause 1 out of 5 GP isnt great, whole system have to be tweaked?

aint going to happen anyway ...

 

[Furycrab]

so cause 1 out of 5 GP isnt great, whole system have to be tweaked?

aint going to happen anyway ...

It's not just the one, if you setup an economy to produce GEs, you'll only need the GEs as long as they come at a time where you'll get a wonder, which is kinda silly because you can get the early wonders you want thanks to things like Liberty Finisher and the Hagia Sophia, and you are more likely to get the mid game wonders simply by teching to them multiple turns earlier than you ever would by trying to get early workshops. So once again, you are better off getting quick universities and having scientists rolling.

GA have a case where they are useful for Culture victories, however in almost all cases you are better just focusing your efforts towards late game as fast as possible (once again using scientists and tech) till you have all the required techs and then crank out artists, but you aren't getting the artists really for the monuments (even if they do help) you are getting them just because you want/need the bonus Specialist culture.

So ya, Scientists are probably staling up the various play styles. The easy answer is nerf them, but that alone won't really do much to encourage other play styles.

I do agree that changes of this scope aren't something they will do overnight. However Great People could really use a comprehensive change.

 

[Nightshades]

Culture bomb would be a lot more usefull if you could conquer cities with it.
Even if it did, it would be a hard time to actually conquer a city without using 2x GA's.

Overall a rather pathetic "great" person. I only use GA's to get golden ages ($$$). The culture improvement is only really usefull if playing Babylon or if you are on a very small map.

Great merchants are rather weak too.
1k gold is nothing - you get more from a golden age. The diplomatic benefits is what makes GM good - or well... decent. But overall GM's are sub-par to GE's, GS' or GG's

 

[headcase]

Would it be too much of a nerf to make GSs only produce x science instead of a whole technology? Like they did to RAs? That would also make it more flexible, maybe too flexible\unstrategic? (Though if the amount was same as RAs, you'd still need to time it right).

As for the GE wonder-timing problem, same thing; maybe GEs should just make a bunch of hammers, according to that city's max production potential or the era or some such, then you can keep building stuff on the same turn until the roll-over runs out. Again, maybe too flexible\unstrategic.

Also give GA the ability to produce a fixed amount of culture... yeah, all my ideas are basically the same homogenized approach

 

[MadDjinn]

Would it be too much of a nerf to make GSs only produce x science instead of a whole technology? Like they did to RAs? That would also make it more flexible, maybe too flexible\unstrategic?

As for the GE wonder-timing problem, same thing; maybe GEs should just make a bunch of hammers, then you can keep building stuff on the same turn until the roll-over runs out. Again, maybe too flexible\unstrategic.

In general, I'm less interested in nerfing GSs and GEs and more interested in buffing GMs and GAs.

 

[headcase]

Yeah, just reading through the blog post now and those are good ideas. I would prefer your system to the current one, after testing\balancing.

 

[MadDjinn]

yeah, lots of balancing

 

[Roxlimn]

What if the GA's culture bomb extended two tiles instead of one? Insane?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well to balance their 'instant abilities' I would

GE:"Instant" Wonder... ie you use the GE and you have the wonder.. regardless of cost

GM:"Instant" CS Ally/Vote...when expended on a CS, even one you are at war with, you instantly get ~300 Influence (scaled by game speed), and the CS no longer remembers if another player "Liberated them". However you Only receive Influence

GA: "Instant" Territory...change the ranges from 2 tiles to 1, and can do it at a distance of 2 tiles from your territory (possibly if it overlaps an enemy non-original-capital city, that city counts you as its original owner.)

That should balance with the Free Tech.

The Settling needs to be reworked as well. (so that it is worthwhile v. the others)
I'd say
Manufactury: 4, +6 with Chemistry, +10 with Combustion
Custom House: 4, +6 with Economics, +10 with Flight
Academy: 6, +9 with Scientific Method, +15 with Plastics
Landmark: 6, +9 with Archaeology, +15 with Mass Media


... Of course one thing that would need to be added is to increase the cost of GP with increasing numbers of cities (ie +100 per GP, +25% per city)

 

[Rinnero]

I'm quite sure that most of you read only first post in a thread at 2K forum. (if read any)
Usually its ok, but not in this case. Thing that we discuss is complicated and I couldnt write answers to all possible questions in my first post. But I DID answered 95% of them in next posts. And because my replies were huge, I didnt think It was good choice to update first post. There were also new ideas popping as we discussed the thread, so its worth reading the whole thread. You are most likely to find some or complete explanation to all questions and possible downsides of what I proposed. THAN, if you have questions left or my reply didnt explain something completely, you may ask something.

I dont want to repeat what I already explained and didnt recieve solid counterargumets, but I will have another try in key point: so called "meritocracy based system".

The biggest disagreement that I and MadDjinn have is: whether respective GPs should give more bonuses to civs with greater respective yields, therefore improving this field even more?

It does have logic, because as it was said in this thread: "Producing GAs as a Warmonger seems hilarious to say the least" (though this is not the best example because we do not choose between GAs and GGs, they are generated separately). BUT why dont you think that "Producing GSs as a Warmonger seems hilarious to say the least"? But THAT is what happens in 90% of cases. In SP even "GAs when warmonger" can be quite effective if you are going puppet cultural victory. Gameplay-wise that is NOT hilarious at all.

Also, I'll quote part of that thread not to repeat:

I think we'll just have to disagree on intent. The model I'm interested in is a meritocratic system. Do well in an area and you get better output when using a specialist in that area. It's a core model for many good systems. What you seem to be proposing is more about letting people get bigger bonuses when they aren't doing well in an area. Ie, 1500 culture is 'less' when you've got 300 cpt (3 turns gain when culture focused) than when you've got 100 cpt. (15 turns gained when not culture focused) These models don't work together. As is, I disagree with your intended model since it seems to be meant for covering over 'bad' play rather than encouraging 'good' play.

The point is not to make it easy for everyone, but to allow civs with moderate science not to fall too much behind. For example, one civ gets 250spt, the other one 350spt. If “+50% turn during 10 turns” ability is used, that gives 1250s and 1750s respectively, making strong civ even stronger. Instead I believe its better to make GSs (and therefore RAs) a bit alternative way to get science, that only partly depends on spt. (partly because current era depends on spt) So that you could at least not to fall too far behind, but still be weaker than scientifically strong civ. In the example I made, the second ability that fits that idea should give instant 1500-1750s. In that case, weaker civ will still fall behind in time, but not that much. Also, though you get more science total with first ability when you have 350spt, its still sometimes better to use instant ability not to wait 10 turns.

Exponential growth of numbers when one multiplies the effect of other can create situation with only one best choice (so that when you have both high science output and a lot of GSs you gain huge science: having 20% more spt and 20% more GSs will result in (1.2*1.2=1.44) 44% more science).

There is a reason why all multipliers in Civ V are applied to BASE value. Otherwise all these +50% +50% +50% bonuses can lead to extremely large numbers. And having another +50% when there are already some of them is much better than first +50% when there are none of them, forcing you to go deeper into one (scientific, considering that science is usually the best bet) way.

Right now GS is not only the usual/best choice, its also the most gaining choice. You are in industrial - what is better: 450g+30inf, 12-30culture/turn, 500 production (wonder rush), or 3000science? In standard development (in MP) you are 80% to choose 3000science. But what if we are to choose from 1500c, 1500s, 750g+30inf or 500p? That is less obvious choice. That system clearly counters “science is always safe bet” theory. If I have 300spt and 150cpt, I’d rather choose 1500c, but I may also consider to grab 1500science to get key tech (mech inf, for example) 5 turns earlier, or even 750g if I really need to buy a unit in emergency.

I'll add one more thing: Actually I'm not against such deep specializing "meritocracy" model, I'm against it being implemented in CivV in current state.

It would be so nice to be able to win properly going cultural, or into money -> really different gameplay. BUT this dont work in CivV! (if you are to change only GPs). For example, if you were to choose to double one of four yields: culture, production, gold or science. What would you choose?... That is the answer...

If you choose to have double culture you just wont survive, the same goes for money. Production is possible choice for rush (especially if Liberty production rush), but if you wont achieve anything at the beginning, the one with double science will beat your armies with stronger units.

CivV will need great changes in other fields to make cultural civ competetive with scientific. (for example twice stronger policies will make having 5 more policies almost as good as 5-8 more techs, maybe )

Flat bonus will allow to boost areas you are bad at to medium level (in MP that is usually culture), or it still can help you to go deeper into something if you really want to do this, ignoring anything else. If you don’t generate something much, that doesn’t mean you play bad. That means you chose that as your strategy.

The Settling needs to be reworked as well. (so that it is worthwhile v. the others)
I'd say
Manufactury: 4, +6 with Chemistry, +10 with Combustion
Custom House: 4, +6 with Economics, +10 with Flight
Academy: 6, +9 with Scientific Method, +15 with Plastics
Landmark: 6, +9 with Archaeology, +15 with Mass Media

Thats what I proposed at 2k thread. Your late game techs are probably more relevant to real life. And higher numbers certainly wont hurt late game choice in settling/bulbing, but I didnt calculated this in depth, so in this case I wont say that exactly this or that number is better

Late-game increase of yield of all settled GPs will make settling in late game a decent option even if there is only 50 turns before end of game. +3c, +2g at solar power plant, +3s, +2p at nuclear power plant. And the other increases in mid-game should be +2-3 (not +1-2, and including landmark)
That would make bonuses from settling as:
Early / mid / end (in brackets with freedom finisher)
- 6 - 9 (15) - 12 (18) science/culture
- 4 - 6 (10) - 8 (12) production/gold

Its better to separate instant and over time bonuses, so that the goal will be almost similar but with different flavor. And you’ll need to think through difference and decide whats better (make these options so that its not obvious what to choose during as long part of game as possible)

Of course one thing that would need to be added is to increase the cost of GP with increasing numbers of cities (ie +100 per GP, +25% per city)

I noticed that and tried to attract to this everyone's attention, but everyone ignored it.

By the way, when I choose whether to annex city or not, it says that puppeting it will not increase cost of social policies AND great people. But it doesnt seem to increase anything anyway. Is this a bug? If so, a major one. Because even 15% increase in GP cost will benefit tall empires (tall empires have been nerfed because of -50% reduction in increase of policy cost for each city, and tall empires' faster GP will help them in scientific race)