Antoni Gaudí

Ability
Developing an urban building technology cost you 1 science less for each other type of urban buildings you have.

Your best urban building of each type produce 1 extra culture.

Gaudí in History
Antoni Gaudi was an architectural genius who changed the face of Barcelona and architecture forever. Although unknown and unappreciated in his time, his unconventional creations made him one of the most famous architects in history. As a kid, Gaudi was very good at geometry and loved nature. This inspired his specific organic style of architecture - many of his buildings resemble mountains and some floors of his structures were designed as lilypad clusters.

His best-known creation is La Sagrada Familia - a grandiose temple, unlike anything the world has seen before. The project was so huge that Gaudí lived on-site, and from an early stage of building this monumental construction, he knew that he would never finish. This, however, never troubled Gaudi. He knew that after his time, others would pick up the project. La Sagrada Familia remains unfinished even to this day, but it should be completed in 2026, which marks 100 years from Gaudi's death.

Designer's Note
Gaudi was added to the game to strengthen the urban buildings and reward their variety. He encourages you to develop new types of buildings, and if you do so, you may get a nice cultural boost for it. You may also use his bonus to upgrade your existing buildings, but then, Gaudi’s true power does not shine that much.

During playtesting, this card changed a lot – there were many versions of the actual effect of the card, some too strong, some too weak or situational. My favorite was a nicely thematic version where you (beside other bonuses) scored points for how advanced is your unfinished wonder when Gaudi leaves play, but well, it was rather subtle and the text was too long and complicated. Even now, people need to read the text twice to fully understand how exactly the discount works, but it was finally a version that seemed to be nicely balanced and fulfilling the purpose.