Academies overpowered

[LORD ORION]

For reference

Academy: Yield 3 Science
+2 Science in City
Buildtime 9
2 Maintenance
Upgrades: +1 Culture (protogenetics) and +2 Science (Learning Centers)

Dome: Yield 2 Culture
+10 City Hitpoints
Buildtime 10
2 Maintenance
Upgrades +1 Energy (Biospheres)

Node: Yield 2 Power
Heal 20 health per turn to nearby units
Buildtime 10
0 maintenance
Upgrades: +1 science (Hypercomputing)

So, academies are totally overpowered, and is it any wonder that people spam the crap out of them as much as energy allows?

Does anyone believe they are NOT overpowered? *reasons?*

If you believe they are, what should happen, Nodes and Domes made as strong as Academies, or Academies taken down to Node and Dome levels? Or maybe something inbetween? (domes and nodes improved, academies reduced to new node and dome improvement levels)

 

[CivScientist]

They are overpowered. But, can one hope to consistently win an Apollo game without spamming them?

I'd vote for other improvements being made stronger (but, perhaps indirectly through virtues).

 

[GAGA Extrem]

The problem with Academies is twofold (imho):

(1) They overlap with Scientist specialists, so you more or less trade gold for some base tile yields by building them.
(2) There is simply no other reliably way (except for the aforementioned specialists) to create more science during the mid game (and I guess that's the bigger problem).

The tech for extra culture is a costly deadend, so nobody except for Supremacy players would ever research it.

Learning Centers has already been nerfed to +1 Science with the fall patch - which shifted the balance towards Industry even more. In fact: there is little reason to even get that virtue nowadays. More often than not that virtue just comes down to a 2-4% science boost.

I guess you could shift 1 basic yield from them to another tech or remove it or something - but even then everyone would spam them. Food improvements are quite weak in BE due to TR & the new growth model with increased cost for high pop, Domes are useless because everybody picks artists (plus they are placed at a suboptimal tech) and Nodes are in an odd spot as a utility/energy improvement (but let's be frank: 20 heal is pretty insane in it's own right).

The only improvement that might actually be an interesting alternative for Academies are Arrays, but their extra yield is at a *really* far off corner that nobody except for Contact VP players will ever touch.

 

[GerrardCapashen]

Academy: Yield 3 Science
+2 Science in City

Wait, are you telling me academies give 5 science total? Or am I misreading this?

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Wait, are you telling me academies give 5 science total? Or am I misreading this?

It's a tooltip error.
They grant +3 science when worked and nothing else.

 

[tedeviatings]

You would make a stronger case for academies if you compared them to better tile improvements and then showed that they are still a lot better than those. I'd prefer most tile improvements over domes and nodes in most situations. So to say that academies are better than those is really not saying too much.
I do agree however, of all the tile improvements academies and mines are probably the ones I get most consistently. Science is king, so unless it's really crappy the best science improvement will be naturally attractive.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

I don't really see nodes as something you build for the yield. You build one next to each city and near choke points where you might make a stand and that's it. The energy and science you get from them is just a bonus. So I don't think they need anything more.

Academies, I think you could go down to 2 science and people would still build then, and that 1 science could go to the Learning Centers virtue, making it +2 again. It's so small now it's hardly worth it. However at 2 science the array seems less forgettable because it give 1 science and 1 energy without costing you anything. Then it can get one more science from Astrodynamics which would make it better than the academy. It's hard to get it it right when dealing with such small numbers.

As for domes, they do need upgrading. One problem is that since Purity has the Alien Genetics leaf tech, it gets culture from biowells. If the trade is 2 food, and 1 health for 1 culture and one energy, that is not a good deal even if you really want culture. If alien genetics was a harmony tech then purity would need domes if they wanted more culture. However, considering their superfarms and still wanting biowells for health domes still seem like they'd only be built in a specialized culture city.
I thought maybe domes should vary by what terrain they are build on. There are a bunch of things in the xml for that. Things like if it has fresh water, if it's build on a hill, is it's next to a mountain, or if it's next to a city. The only real problem with it is it has competition, including the Holomatrix orbital. You've got all that space in the sky so you can get culture from that. You could use both, but then you're missing out on your farms etc.

Regarding it's HP increase. It seems like it's a good border city improvement, but your boarders will change as you acquire new cities so it won't stay a border city. Also they take too long to build to build them right before you expect an attack. Also, if you're relying on your cities high HP to survive you're pretty desperate and should build more units.

 

[Ryika]

Academy: Yield 3 Science
+2 Science in City
Buildtime 9
2 Maintenance
Upgrades: +1 Culture (protogenetics) and +2 Science (Learning Centers)

Academies are 3 Science, the +2 is just a tooltip error. Both upgrades are usually not worth getting in a standard "push to victory"-game.

+3 Science, spammable, is of course still overpowered es hell, but that's mainly because of how short the game is, how easy academies can be reached very early in the game and because of how abundant gold is.

I still think academies should come WAY later and that maintenance costs need to be reworked.

 

[LORD ORION]

OK

Next question on a related tangent, does anyone ever use Manufactories?
When? Late game when you have health to burn?

How does this look
Academy
+2 science / 2 energy
Can't be built on mountains (this forces some choice on food tiles: What to put on the grassland/floodplane between Farm/Biowell/Academy? hrmmm)

Dome
+2 culture / 2 energy
Can be built in water tiles (except algae / coral) (in all fairness costal cities DO need lots of hitpoints because cruisers and up can mug you in 1 turn)

Manufactory
+2 Production / 2 petrol (health penalty removed because it's derp, but still need some limit)

Game engine Q: Is it possible to make a tile development cost strategic resources?

 

[Ryika]

Manufactories are good to hammer out the victory wonders when science is no longer needed. They can be built very fast, so an army of workers can push your victory wonder from ~30 turns by default down to about 15 turns, or even less if your capital has a ton of population.

Other than that I don't see too much use for them, except for that rare city that is in a very good spot but doesn't have any production at all.

/edit: Oh.

How does this look
Academy
+2 science / 2 energy
Can't be built on mountains (this forces some choice on food tiles: What to put on the grassland/floodplane between Farm/Biowell/Academy? hrmmm)

Dome
+2 culture / 2 energy
Can be built in water tiles (except algae / coral) (in all fairness costal cities DO need lots of hitpoints because cruisers and up can mug you in 1 turn)

Manufactory
+2 Production / 2 petrol (health penalty removed because it's derp, but still need some limit)

Game engine Q: Is it possible to make a tile development cost strategic resources?

Academies are probably still a bit to strong and the main problem with manufactories is that you actually already have enough production for a "normal" city, so I don't really see them become too much more useful.

And I just realized that domes do look kind of cool when placed on water. ^^

 

[GAGA Extrem]

OK

Next question on a related tangent, does anyone ever use Manufactories?
When? Late game when you have health to burn?

They are an integral part of my current strategy. I usually place a single one for a city that doesn't have any hammer tiles of it's own. I also spam them during the late game, shortly before reaching affinity 13, to maximize production output in the capital.

Industry enhanced Manufactories are actually a really strong improvement, probably on par with Academies. It's just not as obvious/important because internal Trade Routes usually provide a significant production yield to all cities anyway.

How does this look

Academy:
I assume you mean "hills" and not "mountains". The science reduction is "meh". Makes Institute and other Scientist buildings a bit better, but ultimately you'd still spam Academies anywhere. Placement restriction is pointless, because a hill is the last place where you want your Academy anyway (floodplains are actually ideal because it makes them completely self-sufficient food and energy wise).

Dome:
Interesting idea, but could make coastal cities too strong. Together with a water refinery you'd end up with tiles that give you 2F, 1P, 2C, -1E. Would still be useless on land, though. And it is still at a bad tech location. I guess it should also get an extra yield somewhere in the virtue trees (Might?).

Manufactory:
Not sure. Would probably be too strong if you keep the +2 production from Industry. Reducing the health penalty would be okay, but removing it makes these way too powerful.

 

[tedeviatings]

Usually build manufactories once I reached affinity 13 for speeding up the finishing wonder a bit. For supremacy this also helps with angel production if you don't plan on buying them.
Aside from that I guess I could use them some more on hills when I'm massively healthy... But that comes so late anyways it probably does not matter much.

edit: 2 petroleum for manufactories? That's a lot. I barely ever have 10 petroleum so I could get 5 if I'm lucky?

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Dome
+2 culture / 2 energy
Can be built in water tiles (except algae / coral) (in all fairness costal cities DO need lots of hitpoints because cruisers and up can mug you in 1 turn)

Manufactory
+2 Production / 2 petrol (health penalty removed because it's derp, but still need some limit)

And I just realized that domes do look kind of cool when placed on water. ^^

Dome:
Interesting idea, but could make coastal cities too strong. Together with a water refinery you'd end up with tiles that give you 2F, 1P, 2C, -1E. Would still be useless on land, though. And it is still at a bad tech location. I guess it should also get an extra yield somewhere in the virtue trees (Might?).

Manufactory:
Not sure. Would probably be too strong if you keep the +2 production from Industry. Reducing the health penalty would be okay, but removing it makes these way too powerful.

Urrrg. I just thought about domes on water this morning and now everyone has the idea. I was going to try it out, release the mod and it would be a big deal! I wasn't sure if they'd look good though because it looks like there is a pattern on the ground and I wasn't sure if the ground was part of the image or if it is just lines that are put on the underlying terrain.
Regarding them potentially being overpowered in water. You would have them say remove one food from the tile, or one energy from a water tile so the they aren't as good. Also there are several improvement proporties that could limit them. Including: NoTwoAdjacent, MinRangeToCity, RequiresXAdjacentLand, which could make them not buildable in every tile.

Manufactories, I haven't build much since the patch. Before I would always have one city with lots of them because health didn't matter and I could spread that production around via trade routes. Now I'd just be spreading the ill affects of poor health.
I don't think removing the unhealth would be the best fix though. I think removing the maintenance would be better. Why? Because you pay maintenance whether you work the tile or not, but (un)health only takes effect if you work the tile. So if it had no maintenance then you could build some of them around and not work every one of them all the time. Save them for wonder building or whatever.

 

[LORD ORION]

Dome: Interesting idea, but could make coastal cities too strong.

Regarding them potentially being overpowered in water.

OK, can't build in oceans only coasts.

 

[Angrydurf]

The issue to me is less that academies are numerically superior (which they are a little with the right virtues/techs/quest choices) but that they are spamable science production and science is basically > all in BE.

All the win conditions are really a science race. Domination least so but seriously you don't go winning domination when down significantly on affinity or without the good unit techs.

 

[tedeviatings]

The issue to me is less that academies are numerically superior (which they are a little with the right virtues/techs/quest choices) but that they are spamable science production and science is basically > all in BE.

All the win conditions are really a science race. Domination least so but seriously you don't go winning domination when down significantly on affinity or without the good unit techs.

Everything you say is right, still the same can be said about Civ V. At least I'm not aware of people complaining about Civ V requiring you to have good science for almost every victory condition. Which leads me to believe the problem is not that science is too important.
Rather it's the existence of one strategy so powerful you can use it to win about any kind of victory condition. It's not important if it's about science or culture, it's that every game plays out roughly the same and that's just not so fun. I think that really is the issue here.
It might be better if the strategy would be "difficult to pull off correctly" or something to keep you busy. Or maybe there should be a victory condition in which academy spam is not good. At least worse than some other strategy that plays reasonably different.

 

[Ryika]

Everything you say is right, still the same can be said about Civ V. At least I'm not aware of people complaining about Civ V requiring you to have good science for almost every victory condition. Which leads me to believe the problem is not that science is too important.
Rather it's the existence of one strategy so powerful you can use it to win about any kind of victory condition. It's not important if it's about science or culture, it's that every game plays out roughly the same and that's just not so fun. I think that really is the issue here.
It might be better if the strategy would be "difficult to pull off correctly" or something to keep you busy. Or maybe there should be a victory condition in which academy spam is not good. At least worse than some other strategy that plays reasonably different.

I'd say the problem isn't that science > all, but the problem is that we now have a science improvement that can relatively easily been spammed. That's the difference to Civ 5 and that's what unfortunately makes other strategies almost useless (when playing for efficiency). The funny thing is... if you think about it this way, then it seems to follow that the ACTUAL problem isn't even the improvement, but the fact that energy is (relatively) abundant. If we had appropriate building maintenance for example spamming Academies would be far less effective. Also overhaul the costs of Terrascapes and Manufactories and that might already be enough to allow different strategies to be on a somewhat similar level.

 

[Angrydurf]

Well unlike Civ 5 victory in BE does require a pretty full exploration of the tech web. I mean hte web Vs. tree dynamics are hard to directly compare and BE is a way faster game which means relatively full science exploration happens sooner. However, in Civ V if I won via something other than science (particularly before BNW) the win could be achieved in modern era. BE each win condition requires researching to the end of one area of the web and key techs from other regions as well as enough Affinity techs to hit affinity 12 and be able to build your related victory wonder.

Science was useful for other win conditions but not absolutely required. Energy is also pretty easy to come by and TR in BE are potent enough still even that industrial or economic development can mostly be left to trade which makes academies spamable. But to me I end up feeling more like there isn't a victory to go for by focusing mostly on culture or diplomacy/economics. All the victories the biggest benefit you can get is going for science or rushing domination at difficulties low enough your not sorely outmatched early on.

 

[Acken]

It's a bit hard to comprehend.

 

[Alkaid]

I'd say the problem isn't that science > all, but the problem is that we now have a science improvement that can relatively easily been spammed. That's the difference to Civ 5 and that's what unfortunately makes other strategies almost useless (when playing for efficiency). The funny thing is... if you think about it this way, then it seems to follow that the ACTUAL problem isn't even the improvement, but the fact that energy is (relatively) abundant. If we had appropriate building maintenance for example spamming Academies would be far less effective. Also overhaul the costs of Terrascapes and Manufactories and that might already be enough to allow different strategies to be on a somewhat similar level.

Pretty much this. I agree it's not really the science focus overall as much as there's not much in the way of options to gather science or much competition from other gold-costing improvements to use them instead of academies.

I don't even think academies are really overpowered, but rather the other improvements need to be buffed up, as well as other science-boosting options. Improving the knowledge tree and things like Lasercom Satellites would offer more viable alternatives to using academies. That would also help the issue of most people just focusing on prosperity and industry trees plus improve the helpfulness of the Satellite mechanic if you have another good option to put into orbit.

Also making Terrascapes, Manufactories, Domes, and Arrays have either different costs or provide slightly different yields, they might not be something you totally shaft in favor of more academies 90% of the time. Even something that would make it be like, OK, you'll have less science choosing x improvement but you'll get a different yet competitive benefit instead. Right now for most of those improvements that's rarely ever the case.