(Rising Tide) Fixing Academy spam

[Ryika]

@ Ryika - at the very least, the rebalancing of where the affinity is located means that it's different from how that occurs in vanilla BE (not predicting if better or worse, just different), and that was going to be back patched to vanilla. Gorb does have a point about science being king, because it's always king - looking at the (disputed) 'Best' civs in 5 shows Babylon (science bonus), Korea (science bonus), the Mayans (early science bonus on unique building), and Poland (Social Policies, but still). IF there is a way to research faster, then that is the best option, 9 times out of 10.

Maybe there just needs to be a limit to how many academies can be worked by a city? Say, 1 per every 5 population?

But nobody claimed that Science wasn't king. My argument was that if you include a way to get direct science then the empire-management just falls off very quickly. Pushing your cities as far as possible just gets lost, because you don't need them.

With academies you can have 5 Cities with 10 population each and they'll produce more science than 5 Cities with 20 population using another tile improvement. There is just no reason to push for a working empire. And because that's gone good City Placement becomes meaningless as well. It's just a stupid system in my opinion.

Limited Academies sound good, though people seem to disagree how to properly implement them.

 

[LORD ORION]

Eh, if you nerf academies like that people will just spam specialists instead. I'd rather make Academies a Knowledge-only improvement (unlocked via virtue where the current +1 science one is). Then you *might* actually have a choise between Industry or Knowledge as your primary tree.

As for Biowells, I never build them to get the health - I build them because they offer 2F without any extra techs and they can be build on forests (which saves *a lot* of worker turns). I like that a forested hill Biowell is actually a decent tile.

Spamming specialists is even better because then you'd have to build some pretty craptacular buildings.

 

[Red Menace]

Eh, if you nerf academies like that people will just spam specialists instead. I'd rather make Academies a Knowledge-only improvement (unlocked via virtue where the current +1 science one is). Then you *might* actually have a choise between Industry or Knowledge as your primary tree.

As for Biowells, I never build them to get the health - I build them because they offer 2F without any extra techs and they can be build on forests (which saves *a lot* of worker turns). I like that a forested hill Biowell is actually a decent tile.

I don't think specialists would be as imbalanced as academy spam, its a lot harder to grow cities to even use specialists besides what's maybe four science specialists compared to ten academies. you would need weather controllers (which is good it makes them more useful) to build food and need lots of farms/biowells it requires WORK in-order to make a small impact.

Spamming specialists is even better because then you'd have to build some pretty craptacular buildings.

yes you would, and you have to have the population to do so which could be hard especially when you're building super expensive specialist building instead of building food.

 

[Acken]

Removing them would fix the spam.
Bring back a form of Great People (or something else) if you want special improvements to remain special.

LORD ORION idea is also decent.

 

[legalizefreedom]

Slide academies out a ring on the web and lower the science yield by one and I think they would be pretty close.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Spamming specialists is even better because then you'd have to build some pretty craptacular buildings.

Not really. Nanopastures would be okay if you'd get them early (and if they would actually be a good building if they'd have the listed food carryover %). Considering you can use the Institute to bulb that tech you will actually end up with an only slightly inferior setup compared to Academies. One of their main advantages is that you still get the tile yield (especially food), so removing that makes them REALLY bad. The Gene Smelter is also a pretty solid building that fits in large cities to create scientist slots and give some health to offset the pop unhealth.

The more I think about it, the more I get the impression that the new AU perk could actually make a specialist economy viable.

 

[Ryika]

Considering you can use the Institute to bulb that tech you will actually end up with an only slightly inferior setup compared to Academies./QUOTE]
This... doesn't make sense? ô.o I use an Institute to bulb a 3.2k+ Tech, I don't see how you'd use the specialist slots of that building without using the quest on some 2.4k tech instead. gl making up for 800 science (+78 Science for every City that needs to build extra Institutes) that you're giving up there.

And glgl if you want to play supremacy with scientist-specialists.

 

[Gokudo01]

I think that we should solve the "acadamy" issue with affinities. What piss us off is not the academy improvement but lack choice and variety. That's why somebody said : If you nerf academy, people will start to do something else.

Let's say we bring down academy to 1 science and 1 culture.

We have those big ideologies, sorry, affinities which should help us to give a gameplay style to the players.

Supremacy : Usually don't and can't have biggest cities and supremacy player's new cites are the slowest to grow because their techs leaves them far from food until late.

+ X science from academy at lv 5(or 7) supremacy.

Purity : they have got those big cities, their tech path leads them to food and growth carried over, they should be about specialist and should get their science from them.

+ X science from specialist at lv 5(or 7) purity

Harmony: they can be about Super population, they are not only genetically modded to adapt themselves to the new world but to be "super human too"

each cities generate X science from each citizens at lv 5(or 7) harmony.


Now you have 3 different ways to develop your science and which don't directly compete each other.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

This... doesn't make sense? ô.o I use an Institute to bulb a 3.2k+ Tech, I don't see how you'd use the specialist slots of that building without using the quest on some 2.4k tech instead. gl making up for 800 science (+78 Science for every City that needs to build extra Institutes) that you're giving up there.

And glgl if you want to play supremacy with scientist-specialists.

Well, if that bulb means that you get an extra 20 science per turn from the Nanopasture slots, you should be able to compensate for bulbing a cheaper tech. Ofc that requires Academies to be neutered (and the suggestion to have 2S no yield Academies seems pretty close to that).

 

[omniclast]

As for Biowells, I never build them to get the health - I build them because they offer 2F without any extra techs and they can be build on forests (which saves *a lot* of worker turns). I like that a forested hill Biowell is actually a decent tile.

Just wanted to point out that building Biowells on forest takes longer than building them on open ground. Not sure if it's exactly equivalent to cutting the forest down first and building on flat ground but it's close. It's definitely worth clearing the forest first if there is grassland underneath.

In terms of build time (which matters a lot with late-game improvements), vertical farms are vastly superior to biowells, especially since you can have many of them built before you get the tech. The tradeoff though is VF is a lot more out of the way than Biowells if you're not playing Purity, and the health does actually matter a lot if you plan to have any more than 5 cities.

The choice of primary midgame food source is actually pretty interesting to me. Biowells and vertical farms/gene gardens are mutually exclusive and roughly equivalent, but each with their own benefits/drawbacks. (Sadly farms and Weather Controllers aren't really on par because the tech path to them is so useless, and Supremacy will end up health starved and have to go for biowells anyway.)

Would that any of them were worth building instead of Academies. Lots of ways to grow but only one way to get hard science.

 

[Ryika]

Well, if that bulb means that you get an extra 20 science per turn from the Nanopasture slots, you should be able to compensate for bulbing a cheaper tech. Ofc that requires Academies to be neutered (and the suggestion to have 2S no yield Academies seems pretty close to that).

Well, sure, on a level close to nerfed academies, that may very well be true. I thought you meant on a level close to current academies.

Just wanted to point out that building Biowells on forest takes longer than building them on open ground. Not sure if it's exactly equivalent to cutting the forest down first and building on flat ground but it's close. It's definitely worth clearing the forest first if there is grassland underneath.

Yes, it's a value of 400 for both.

 

[omniclast]

I find it interesting how in MP the problem solves itself because you just can't play optimally. If you try a 4-city academy spam build against another human you will get absolutely murdered -- there is no way they will let you get away with having a minimal army while you beeline for your VC.

It tempts me to believe that the problem could be fixed if the AI targeted higher science players to stop them from snowballing, or something like that. (Or maybe if there was some kind of science bonus for conquering high science cities? An incentive to gank people who are getting really far ahead in science w/o adequately defending themselves?)

I generally don't think you should be able to get away with a minimal army on early game Apollo; forcing you to defend yourself means you have to spend effort in production and military rather than just dumping it all into get academies --> beeline to VC. (If you want a sense of what that's like, try Apollo, small, pangea, stagger starts off. It's hard enough that winning actually feels like you've accomplished something.)

 

[Acken]

But then people would cry that they cannot manipulate the AI and that it makes no sense that their buddies don't let them win !

 

[omniclast]

My human buddies don't let me win...

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Well, sure, on a level close to nerfed academies, that may very well be true. I thought you meant on a level close to current academies.

Err... No.
*Maybe* with AU if they can get +3 specialist yield quickly (if that's even possible with their T3 trait). Otherwise: NOPE.jpg

 

[Gali]

As a player who does not like anti-player ai I would disagree with Acken. People don't like blatant anti-player bs such as Shogun 2's realm divide. Having Ais turn on you in explicable and preventable ways is different. People hated backstabs in CiV when every AI did it all the time. Once it was toned down and tied to personalities it was fine. Same with Aggression. I like peaceful play but was in favor of the BNW fall patch that upped AI agression becasue it tied it to civ personality. I disliked the G&K system because EVERY NEIGHBOR ATTACKED BY TURN 70 be it gandhi or Monty. Now I know if I build up they're not coming and it depends on my neighbors so its not the same thing each game. For BE make Bolivar more aggressive and have Fielding and the latest sponsor target the score leader agressively with covert ops. Have Hutama and Lena try to make coalitions or bribe/supply a more agressive civ to fight you. They could also choose to cut trade/agreement ties with a runaway as an embargo. The new message system would be a way yo warn the player and let people who don't check forums or code know the rules.

You can also tie it to difficulty. Make it top two difficulty AI more aggressive and casuals don't care. Also you can increase alien aggression at the same time. Also I would tie victory aggression to affinity. Players would care less if Harmony and Purity Ais were angry at their supremacy win. It would also give more of a strategic choice to affinities based on neighbors. With affinity points spread around and a hybrid style available you can afford to wait a bit longer to choose an affinity. For Hybrids it would depend on what affinity victoryyou were going for to choose which affinities turned on you.

I'd solve alien aggression by having them treat human cities as nests and not attack improvements or workers near them. Then make them more aggressive against humans including civilians outside 2 tiles. Outposts would not count as a safe zone for this system so you have to defend your city plants. Maybe make that 3 with the fence. That protection goes away at yellow aggression and more aliens spawn and seek out cities at red. The aliens are live and let live but territorial unless you mess with them at which point they treat it as a war. That would reinforce the feel of a pocket of civilization in a dangerous world without having any start near a nest be unplayable. Aliens are far more difficult to get rid of than barbs. Look at that live stream start within 3 tiles of a net. If aliens acted like barbs that player would be crippled and it would really screw up balance in MP and with ai in SP.

For academies i say make them a knowledge virtue reward. That would really buff knowledge and specialists as it would give specialists back their job. Move the virtue that gives specialist energy yield to knowledge and it becomes very strong for tall play. The PAU at least might be able to make that work.

With the obvious uber powerful affinity techs distributed the problem might be partially fixed. The problem was that affinity not only got you victory but also military as well due to the way upgrades work. In CiV you only got defensive melee units on the science side so at least you couldn't beeline as much. A more distributed affinity techs might delay the affinity levels enough to leave the player with lower upgrades making them a more inviting target and hurting their ability to resist.

 

[Manannan]

If you're just going to tweak yields energy probably isn't the one to tweak. It's way too easy (as far as I remember anyway) to end up with infinite energy and more than enough science to win at a fairly early turn time. Trying to turn that into infinity-1 energy + more than enough science anyway probably won't get you too far in terms of balancing the game or even in making the player adapt their play style. If anything would it not be smarter to add a -1 food yield to academies? Growth isn't a hugely limiting factor in BE, but surely making the player prioritize at least some +food improvements before going ham on the academies would be something of a step in the right direction. Forcing some diversity of tile improvements/yields and some thought about how to manage a city is probably superior to just forcing the player to build a node/array/generator to go with every couple of academies while watching basic resources provide all the prerequisite food and production.

Who knows, maybe if they ever made trade routes work half reasonably (jk, that won't happen any time soon) you could see players actually take the time to specialize cities, having "growth" (read: ultra high food yield) cities specifically to send food via ITR to science (or money, or culture, or production) cities. Also while I'm dreaming maybe they'll invent a time machine and go back in time to delay launch of BE until such a time that they actually had a half decent civ game to release.

 

[Galgus]

@Gali

With Alien aggression, you seem to think needing to build one or three military units would "cripple" players.

If anything it is far too easy to not have an army early on.

 

[Endar]

Just buff scientists.
Make scientist produce 3 science instead of 2 (and maybe buff to 4 from some virtue) and make more scientist slots available (e.g. Institute have 6 scientists slot instead of 3).

Scientists are viable even now, its just not as good as Mass Academies.

The more working strategies the better. The problem with BE now is that you have only one right approach - spam ass many Academies as you can, other approach is just inferior.

That's just like in civ 4 when you can either have a lot of houses-hamlets-towns, or have plenty of scientists and merchants (that however required to get Cast System asap).

 

[VCrakeV]

Just buff scientists.


Make scientist produce 3 science instead of 2 (and maybe buff to 4 from some virtue) and make more scientist slots available (e.g. Institute have 6 scientists slot instead of 3).





Scientists are viable even now, its just not as good as Mass Academies.





The more working strategies the better. The problem with BE now is that you have only one right approach - spam ass many Academies as you can, other approach is just inferior.





That's just like in civ 4 when you can either have a lot of houses-hamlets-towns, or have plenty of scientists and merchants (that however required to get Cast System asap).

Sure, let's get 3 science from every scientist *before* bonuses, and double the scientist slots...