Are Bananas Bad?

What you are missing is that there is a limited number of scientist specialists and that you are likely to hit that cap with or without that 2 extra food. Thus, the extra science tends to be better.

Even so, I think Id rather have a different specialist, and I know this is subjective, but say if youre Korea, you would probably trade 2 science for any specialist. Or even as any random leader I would trade the 2 science for an engineer slot.
 
If its in a city where I built NC or an observatory I might drop a GS on it to found the renowned Banana Academy, otherwise I leave it for the beakers from jungle.

Ohhh Banana academy. I hadn't thought of that before, gonna try that sometime, I like it.
 
What you are missing is that there is a limited number of scientist specialists and that you are likely to hit that cap with or without that 2 extra food. Thus, the extra science tends to be better.
Two more population, whether or not they're specialists, is two more science, and two citizens that can work a tile or be any other type of specialist you want. In the early game, it's easy enough for the extra food from a plantation to give you those two population before you even build a university (prior to which, the jungle tile yields no science). After Education, it's still only a matter of time before the extra food nets you a bigger bonus than the two beakers.
 
2 food is more versatile than 2 science. of course by late game that 2 science has become 4 after the modifiers, but the 2 food will grow the city that much faster.
 
If you're ever in a discussion about science vs food and you don't bring up unhappiness, (aka the biggest limiting factor in Civ5) your argument is incomplete, at least on the higher difficulties.

On Immortal, unhappiness is always on the forefront of my mind with the harsh unhappiness penalty in BNW. So except in rare instances (India comes to mind and I'm sure there are other rare instances) I would always take the 2 beakers over the 2 food.
 
If you're ever in a discussion about science vs food and you don't bring up unhappiness, (aka the biggest limiting factor in Civ5) your argument is incomplete, at least on the higher difficulties.

On Immortal, unhappiness is always on the forefront of my mind with the harsh unhappiness penalty in BNW. So except in rare instances (India comes to mind and I'm sure there are other rare instances) I would always take the 2 beakers over the 2 food.
If you have enough food that you hit a happiness ceiling between the point where you research Calendar and Education, then you clearly don't need my advice. ;)

That doesn't tend to be my experience, though; on Immortal, I usually have surplus happiness and want to fill that gap with population.
 
Doesn't the granary impact bananas as well?

Yeah but it does that whether you improve it or not.

Worst part to me about bananas is that jungles are things you REALLY want to take use of.

It's not that bananas are bad in my eyes, I'd just much rather have had any other bonus resource in the tundra/forest/grassland/plain/whatever tile outside the jungle, and have the jungle be empty so I can get a trading post in there instead.

Bananas tend to be very low priority to improve upon to me. If I can toss a farm down at a currently worked grassland/plain instead of improving the banana, it seems much more interesting to do that for instance.

If my worker(s) reach a time and a place where they no longer have any other improvements to make, and I'm nowhere near edumacation(!!!) I'll upgrade it.
 
I think people are underestimating the impact that food makes, as I used to also leave the bananas but have come around to improving them. As a few have mentioned, if that food gives you 1 extra citizen, that citizen in the long run will produce more base science than a jungle tile.

Furthermore, +2 food generally has a more immediate impact than +2 of any other kind of yield, especially in the early game. If your capital would have +10 surplus food without the improved bananas, then +2 food is a 20% increase in your growth! In contrast, +2 science might only be a meager 2% increase to your science if you normally produce 100 beakers (since you've already got a university, this number is pretty likely). So with that +2 food, your capital will grow from 10 to 11 (126 food needed) in 11 turns instead of 13, whereas it's extremely unlikely that those +2 beakers will get you to Chivalry any faster.
 
I like to build banana academies. I think it's 4f 8s without academy modifiers and with Granary. As long as you have bronze working, that Great Scientist tears down the jungle instantly :lol:
I also like bovine academies as long as I have horses or multiple cows to still get me the stable. I also think that I can change a sole cow pasture to an academy after I build the stable, although does that lose me the bonus production on the cows but keep the mounted production bonus?
 
Yes, bananas are include in resource diversity for trade routes. Other items like cows, sheep, and wheat are also included.

The thread I linked has already answered a lot of the questions here. This topic is debatable because you can get faster growth and extra pop with the plantation to make up for the +2 science yield on the jungle.

No. Trade yield is only enhanced by either luxury or strategic resources. Bonus resources such as wheat, cattle & bananas have no impact on trade route yields.
 
Granary+Plantation= Extra Pop. Extra Pop-> Work Scientist, you get Science and GS Points so I usually Plantation Banana or Banana University
 
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