What do you think of the Civ VI great people?

[LDiCesare]

Sure, but in all cases I've been in, it would have been a bad move, so I don't think it's an interesting mechanism the way it's implemented. I might actually use it if my counter was reset but I could get another great people from the same era for instance, but as it is, I think it's really fringe, and it's also bad UI because you don't know who's next, so you're passing a great person totally blindly (a little less so if you know all great people, but the user interface doesn't help at all here).

 

[kaspergm]

Well personally, I find it quite frequently a good move, although I wholeheartedly agree that the UI is abysmally unhelpful (also) in this context. It may be intentional that they want you to be in the blind with regards to whether passing is good or not, but I don't think that's a wise choice, and like you say, it certainly does not promote passing as a choice (which may be fully intentional).

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Well personally, I find it quite frequently a good move, although I wholeheartedly agree that the UI is abysmally unhelpful (also) in this context. It may be intentional that they want you to be in the blind with regards to whether passing is good or not, but I don't think that's a wise choice, and like you say, it certainly does not promote passing as a choice (which may be fully intentional).

IMO, making you pass without knowing the next one was intentional. It's a kind of "risk vs. reward" system: would you pass a mediocre one, hoping the next is better? Without knowing if this one would actually be recruited (it may be the case the current leader gets wiped out, for instance)?

But for that to properly happen, there should be a bigger pool of GP, which 3 would be randomly chosen per era (say, 3 out of 6 for each era). It'd make the game much more interesting and challenging. Or make it the choice of the current recruiter, so maybe a good one from an era might not come at all if you don't invest on getting it.

 

[ShakaKhan]

I think it's important to acknowledge that there are situations where passing is a good move, and situations where it's a bad move.

Yeah, I wasn't arguing against this point, and as I mentioned I was playing at too low of a difficulty level as I was trying to learn the ropes. I think it's a pretty safe generalization to say that lackluster great people can always be skipped on immortal or deity. On lower levels, you need to check the status of the next contender for that class of great people, especially when it's the class of great person generated by your victory condition district (or merchants)

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Yeah, I wasn't arguing against this point, and as I mentioned I was playing at too low of a difficulty level as I was trying to learn the ropes. I think it's a pretty safe generalization to say that lackluster great people can always be skipped on immortal or deity. On lower levels, you need to check the status of the next contender for that class of great people, especially when it's the class of great person generated by your victory condition district (or merchants)

I think even in Immortal or Deity, if you aim for a Science Victory, you might want to recruit all Great Scientists to reach the last ones. The AI don't build that many Campi to recruit them all (and why should they when they receive massive boosts to Science and Production?).

 

[ShakaKhan]

if you aim for a Science Victory, you might want to recruit all Great Scientists

That's what I meant by "victory condition district."

 

[RealAntithesis]

IMO, making you pass without knowing the next one was intentional. It's a kind of "risk vs. reward" system: would you pass a mediocre one, hoping the next is better?

I think it is just poorly thought out design. Having to go through all these weird 'mini-games' shouldn't be necessary. Playing the great person mini-game by taking up or passing on a great person (which depends on whether a particular great person is actually useful or not) and having to take into account how many great people have already been taken and which ones are left in a particular era and who and what GP points other civs have and are getting per turn compared to you (which figures into the issue of whether you will be inadvertently locked out of further great people in the foreseeable future) and how much they are progressing scientifically to the next era (and whether they are all beelining or not) - is all so unnecessary and a major headache we shouldn't have to deal with.

It's kind of up there with playing the escalating district cost mini-game by 'pre-placing' districts or intentionally holding back technological progress. Or the pre-patch tendency of (unrealistically) tightly packing industrial slum cities together in a certain arrangement for maximum industrial zone aoe stacking benefits.

Great person management to this level of complexity (whether it's the intended design or not) is very far removed from what should be Civ 6's core gameplay.

It's like suddenly finding a game of solitaire in Civ 6 somewhere that had somehow inserted itself into the gameplay - oh wait...

 

[kaspergm]

I think even in Immortal or Deity, if you aim for a Science Victory, you might want to recruit all Great Scientists to reach the last ones. The AI don't build that many Campi to recruit them all (and why should they when they receive massive boosts to Science and Production?).

You are aware that you don't actually need to recruit all Great Scientists in order to reach the last one, right?

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

You are aware that you don't actually need to recruit all Great Scientists in order to reach the last one, right?

Yes, you can pass them too.

The problem is that the Atomic Era ones cost 960 GPP each (1245 for the first one from Atomic if the world era is behind Atomic Era). Also, the combo Kwolek + Sagan needs at least 2640 points, if you get lucky and get both of them first and everyone is aorund the Information Age.

I've never seen the AI generate that many points in a reasonable amount of time, unless yours have been skipping a lot of eras.

 

[TomKQT]

Great Generals are obscenely good. The most important is the extra movement (which they didn't have in Civ V). Secondly, they STACK. Not only does the +5 combat strength stack but the extra movement stack. It is terrifying when you have 5 movement Crossbowmen (with +15 combat strength) due to having 3 Great Generals.

I know about the extra movement, but still stays what I said earlier - I'm not bothered with great general, because it's not usually needed to have the bonuses. My huge problem with GG compared with CivV is that a GG in CivV affects only units from specific eras. In the end I realized that the work required to move GG with my army while also checking whether he is still active and whether I can upgrade a unit or not etc. is simply not worth it, because AI is not good in battles at all. There is so much micromanagement in Civ6 (most of it given by bad UI design) that I didn't want this additional one.

But I honestly didn't know that the boneses stacked. I would say this was a bug, I think only one general should be able to affect a unit at the same time. Especially considering the +1 move is crazy when it allows stacking.

 

[lindsay40k]

I like the mechanic in principle but in practice it's a bit prescriptive and feels like it's neglecting non-Eurasian cultures. Off the top of my head, I'm surprised at the omission of Crazy Horse, Pachacuti, Xi Ling Shi, and Hemon.

 

[Pietato]

Great Musicians are so annoying. They need a retire ability, or another building to house them.

 

[Kyro]

I'm going to quote myself on the topic of Great People in different contexts from another post titled "Major Flaws of Civ 6".

Great People and Pacing

a: The early game and mid game ends too early because the AI advances too quickly. More than Half of the Great people don't exist because they don't have a chance to spawn because eras end too quickly. What is the point of having great people as an integral concept "throughout" the game eras when in actual fact we're just competing with the AI for a limited few after the renaissance?

I find it ridiculous that the faster the players progress, the less great people are available. Why is the game punishing faster progress by limiting and skipping great people based on eras?

b: Some great people are just plain overpowered and their abilities favour very different victory conditions that their type would suggest. (Not necessary a bad thing but the better great people for a certain victory should not be more accessible to a Civ going for a completely different victory type)

Eg. Mary Leakey. Artifacts in all your cities generate 300% of their normal Tourism

First of all I'd just like to say that +300% is just absurd.

Secondly, who is most likely to get her? Science based Civilizations since GPP for Scientists come from Science Buildings.

Thirdly, who most likely wants/needs her? Cultural Civilizations who most likely aren't as well equipped to compete for her.

Am I the only one who sees how incredibly mismatched these abilities are?

The last two great Merchants are so overpowered for cultural victories they make Great Artists look like children.

Not to mention there are Great People who have very weak abilities compared with their peers from the same era. They by existing take up the chance for the drastically better ones to spawn and more often than not the era just passes without spawning the ones you were waiting for. They're all great people; why are some greater than others?

c: Great People and Theming Bonuses

Let's face it Great Artists/Musicians don't contribute much to Cultural Victory at all.

Great Musicians are very rare. Great Artists are better but the issue lies with theming their works.

It's extremely difficult to theme an Art Musuem and incredibly easy to theme Artifacts. Yet their themed output is the same. The ease of Artifact theming and collection nullifies any advantage of earning great artists and makes them redundant. It really looks like it is designed in such a way that Cultural Great People don't provide much of an advantage so that players who didn't get them can still catch up and that really defeats the point of trying so hard to earn them.

Who decided that theming bonuses should only apply to Artworks and Artifacts? The lack of theming bonuses for Writing and Music makes them very underpowered.

Also, it would appear that Cultural Wonders were created without Theming Bonuses so that they don't offer significant advanatges.

It's funny how a Hermitage/Broadway fully stocked with Great Works produces less Culture and Tourism than a themed Archaeological Musuem.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

I have to completely agree on Great Art being very hard to theme, and Artifacts being better to use. However, when theming Artifacts, you may have a couple of unthemed museums, because you can't really control from which age they come from. At least with Great Art, you may use Wonders to store Art until you're able to theme them, so you don't lose that much. You can also keep them there if your museums are already full, until you build another.

But I can hardly say that the other types are underpowered. Great Writing is plentiful throughout the game, both slots and Great Writers, and after Printing they give double tourism. For Great Music, there's a policy that triples their tourism, and you'll probably have enough slots late game. It's not like you need to build much after Museums, so channel that production into Broadcast Towers (granted, their cost should be lower, they're so damn expensive).

Maybe you could enable Writing theming when you research Printing, instead of double tourism, though.

As for the seemingly irrelevant Great People, I usually rush to Computers after Humanism, so I'll have a number of Campi generating GPP towards Mary Leakey. For Scientific players, well, you deny a good chunk of tourism from cultural players. It forces you to decide whether to save points for better people, or play defensively. And congratulations if you manage to get the last Great Merchants before victory. In my opinion, they come way too late to have a significant impact.

 

[kaspergm]

Brilliant post, I just have to ask:

The last two great Merchants are so overpowered for cultural victories they make Great Artists look like children.

How good are these? I normally look at them and thin "meh" ... I mean, sure, they will provide some tourism, but normally not more than +50, at best +100 or so in normal games. Does that make a huge difference very late in then game?

Anyway, I think your point about Artists vs. Archaeologists is incredibly important. It's so easy to get and theme artifact that I normally only bother to build art museums for the role-playing of it.

Also, like I said in another thread, we should have different kind of writings - some writers should give plays (for theatres, like Shakespeare), some should give novels (like Tolstoy), some should give scientific texts (like Machiavelli? Need more of those), and then there should be theming bonuses.

With regards to the era skipping, this part just needs to go. Instead, there needs to be more than 3 from each era, and game then randomly picks 3 from each era at the start of the game, but you need to advance through all of them. This will make it different between games but avoid the stupid situation where all great persons are claimed and still a third of game remains.

 

[Magil]

How good are these? I normally look at them and thin "meh" ... I mean, sure, they will provide some tourism, but normally not more than +50, at best +100 or so in normal games. Does that make a huge difference very late in then game?

Don't just look at the base tourism value. It's modified by things like trade routes, open borders, techs, etc., so it can be a fairly substantial amount. Computers alone will double whatever number you see there. If you still haven't won from Tourism by then it's likely a pretty large boost that's quite helpful.

 

[ShakaKhan]

there needs to be more than 3 from each era, and game then randomly picks 3 from each era at the start of the game, but you need to advance through all of them.

If this change is confirmed, it is absolutely essential that they first have the great people, at least those from the same era, more balanced. Otherwise, you're well on your way to a victory condition but OOPS! you were going for a science victory but the game decided no Sagan or Kwolek. Note this is still doable, but would add numerous extra mind-numbing turn clicks, which at that stage of the game could add up to quite a bit of time.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

I think they should make something like 5 GP from each era and 3 of them are available to be chosen, at the choice of whoever gets the pick. Cultural players might want Mary Leakey while Scientific players would use Albert Einstein, for example.

Don't just look at the base tourism value. It's modified by things like trade routes, open borders, techs, etc., so it can be a fairly substantial amount. Computers alone will double whatever number you see there. If you still haven't won from Tourism by then it's likely a pretty large boost that's quite helpful.

By the time you recruit the last Great Merchants, the game should only last a few more turns, but it might provide that little push. Unless you've been focusing on Great Merchants, but then you should have focused on Writers and Musicians anyway.

 

[Magil]

By the time you recruit the last Great Merchants, the game should only last a few more turns, but it might provide that little push. Unless you've been focusing on Great Merchants, but then you should have focused on Writers and Musicians anyway.

My playstyle is to spam Commercial Hubs in every city, which is pretty much as far as "focusing Great Merchants" goes. I think that is something I do for every victory condition.

I agree though that that late in the game it's probably going to amount to maybe 1-2 visiting tourists per district, but that can help push your victory a few turns earlier. Which isn't always something you can do via other means by that point. And in the unlikely event that you are somehow behind in Tourism, it will make a big difference over time.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

My playstyle is to spam Commercial Hubs in every city, which is pretty much as far as "focusing Great Merchants" goes. I think that is something I do for every victory condition.

I agree though that that late in the game it's probably going to amount to maybe 1-2 visiting tourists per district, but that can help push your victory a few turns earlier. Which isn't always something you can do via other means by that point. And in the unlikely event that you are somehow behind in Tourism, it will make a big difference over time.

By focusing on Great Merchants, I meant also going for Commercial Hubs projects and patronizing them. Like we do with Sagan and Kwolek when going for a Scientific Victory.

Well, Cultural Victory might be a backup plan too (maybe after having your religion wiped out when going for a Religious Victory?), I hadn't thought of that.