Small mod project - More abilities for Great People

[Optimizer]

I am about to release my first Civ 4 mod.

The mod will give more abilities to Great People, making them super-versions of existing units.

Great Engineer (Super Worker)
* Can build terrain improvements at 400% speed of a Worker.

Great Merchant (Super Explorer)
* Has movement rate of 4.
* Can climb mountain peaks (which have a movement cost of 4.)
* Has Sentry.
* Always gets something from huts.
* Has combat strength of 6 (with no attack).

Great Scientist (Super Medic)
* Has Medic III - can heal units really quickly.

Great Prophet (Super Missionary)
* Can rush-build Cathedrals (even in foreign cities). Cathedrals now spread their religion like Shrines. Their culture bonus is removed for offset.

Great Artist (Super Spy)
* Has all the abilities of a Spy. (This might seem weak, but getting Spies long before everyone else is a great advantage.)

Suggestions? Will any of these be too unbalanced or useless?

[Impaler[WrG]]

Great Prophets as Super Missionaries seems more apropriate

They always spread the religion which is your state Religion or if thats not doable they can spread any religion which has been founded.

When they go off in a City they dont just affect that single City they "hit" every City beloging to that Civilization and get something like 25-33% probability to add religion to every city that dose not already have it.

[Optimizer]

The problem with making the Prophet a Missionary is that a Missionary is consumed when he spreads the religion.

[Nishdog]

Would it be possible to give a Super Specialist a probability of adding production points or rush building certain types of buildings in a city?

For example, if you get a Great Scientist and you decide to add it to a city as a Super Scientist, it has a 1% chance of creating a University (assuming you have the tech required to build a university and you already have a library in the city). The 1% probability should get reset after each turn so that it's not like a new building gets added every 100 turns...that could be too unbalancing.

Or if that isn't possible or isn't desired, maybe Superspecialists can aid in the production of buildings/Wonders of its type. So if you're building a cathedral, each Prophet you've added to the city would provide an additional +1 Hammer per turn towards its production on top of the production bonus it already provides.

Another idea to throw out there came from me reading a thread on promoting workers. Let's say you have added a great engineer to your city. Perhaps an added bonus of doing that would be that workers would complete tasks faster when working tiles in its city radius (or better yet, within its cultural sphere of influence).

I'm not much of a modder, so if anybody out there decides to integrate any of these ideas into their mod, please let me know so I can check it out. Thanks.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Well if you dont want the Prophet consumed thats rather simple to do, just make it a kind of like a worker and his "improvment" can only be built in Cities lacking your state religion. When the Improvment is completed it fires off a Python Scrip that is effectly the same as a Missionaries atempt to spread religion, the imprvoment self destructs but the Prophet is unconsumed.

A prophet would then act as kind of traveling Super Missionary who can keep converting and converting like a Pink Bunny. I think 8 turns seems a reasonable amount of time for this improvment to take.

Also I realy like the idea for the Enginer I find them to be of very limited use

As for Merchants being Explorers that dosn't seem to realy fit well. I am thinking of some kind of "international investment" thing that will provide a continuous supply of money. This could be as simple as creating a Building that pumps out money each turn forever or adds 2 Trade routes to a City (thats probably better as it will scale over time)

[rjwoer]

Doesn't this throw the balance of the game off a little? Are these meant to be similar to Great Artists, Scientists, Engineers, Merchants, and Prophets? If so, why aren't they consumed when undertaking a certain action? Maybe I'm missing something here.

. . .

Ok, I think I get it now: You are talking about adding these abilities to the existing Great People units? Not about actually creating new units. But these abilities don't consume the Great People themselves? I guess I can see how that could work without throwing off the balance. Still though, it would drastically change the feel of the game and usage of Great People. I'm not sure I'd want to implement it in my games.

(Hope I'm not being a buzz kill. This is just my individual opinion. I like the fact that you are looking to adjust Great People: I would like to see one or two new actions for each that consume the unit. I can't imagine walking my Great Engineer around and having him build farms, for example.)

[Impaler[WrG]]

Dose anyone think haveing a Great Spy would be cool. Has abilities of regular Spy but way more powerfull. Possibly dose some of the stuff that spies SHOULD be able to do like steal tecnology. Can create Q Labratory building that makes spies cheaper to build and gives them promotions.

No idea how one would go about getting one of these to be born, perhaps yet another kind of specialist "Agent" generates low level information on your oponents and offers some protection against enemy spies.

And ofcorse Great Spies skin is spiting image of James Bond (the original Connery not these new jerks they have playing him now)

[Optimizer]

I thought of adding a new religious building, called the Mission, which spreads religion like the Shrine, but I do not know how to limit it to the owners state religion, still allowing it to be built in any city.

The solution might be allowing the Great Prophet to rush Cathedrals, and add religion-spreading to Cathedrals (possibly removing some other ability for offset).

I made the Merchant an Explorer mostly because many people on the Merchant list are explorers. Some of these were indeed merchants too.

[Bill3000]

The problem with a Great Spy is that you'd still have a probability to lose it.