Academy or bulb?

[Teadrinker]

Hi. First post.

Is it better in the early game to slap down an academy or bulb a tech?

Or maybe better expressed -- does the early game tech boost outweigh the long-term science boost?

Example: current game emperor, babylon, huge earth, i have 2 GS from leader trait and meritocracy. I can tech to steel or civil service or bide my time with +12 science...

I have China and Russia as near neighbours and expect a war soon.

 

[WeaselSlapper]

Hi. First post.

Is it better in the early game to slap down an academy or bulb a tech?

Or maybe better expressed -- does the early game tech boost outweigh the long-term science boost?

Example: current game emperor, babylon, huge earth, i have 2 GS from leader trait and meritocracy. I can tech to steel or civil service or bide my time with +12 science...

I have China and Russia as near neighbours and expect a war soon.

I don't mean to sound mean but this discussion had been had many many times. Please search and you will find your answer, personally I prefer bulbing, but there are pros and cons each way.

 

[roguepro92]

if you did NC start, settle them if game is still fairly early. which yours is

 

[chazzycat]

[deleted because looking back I was terrible when I made this comment and its bad advice]

 

[rtfischbeck]

Pretty much always bulb, unless you're Babylon and beeline writing. In which case, you can make a decent argument for settling. For your example, I'd certainly grab CS and Steel...longswords are dominant till the AI gets to late renaissance.

 

[gozpel]

If you don't want to war, then settling is most valuable. Those beakers just keep on building through the game.

Many ppl tried to see the in and outs of this strategy, but in the end it all depends on the map you rolled.

Plenty of land around you - Academy
Closed in - Bulb Steel.

You win either way.

 

[WeaselSlapper]

This sentiment on this thread is different than pretty much any other thread I've seen on this topic. Most of the highest level plays will almost always tell you bulbing is usually the way to go except in a few rare cases.

The problem with settling is one of your citizens has to work the settled tile to gain the benefit. That citizen will no longer be working a production tile or a farmed tile so in your science city that will usually cost you a citizen (not farming the tile you put the academy on or not working a farmed tile instead of your academy tile) so the net benefit isn't as much as it seems because of the opportunity cost of the other improvement that would have been built on the tile you're working to gain the science (I think the academy gives 5 science, but I could be remembering wrong) if that's the case you really only gain a +3 benefit of the academy, it's best to put it riverside so you get more benefit, and if you farmed that tile you would have gotten 2 extra food resulting in an extra citizen.

There have been plenty of in depth discussions on this topic so I do recommend you search some of them out because the math has been done and bulbing usually wins.

 

[roguepro92]

@weaselslapper

with NC and all the multipliers, early GS can give a lot more than what you can bulb at that stage of the game, unless your saving him for later.

its really matter of do you want to dominate now or stand a better chance in the future?

 

[Deau]

so the net benefit isn't as much as it seems because of the opportunity cost of the other improvement that would have been built on the tile you're working to gain the science

There have been plenty of in depth discussions on this topic so I do recommend you search some of them out because the math has been done and bulbing usually wins.

First part is so well written, opportunity cost is too often overlooked when comparing stuff.

As for why bulbing usually wins though, the long-term opportunity cost of bubling vs academy significantly favors academy beakers wise. The issue is it's very hard to compute the other gains from bulbing. Wars are won through a temporary tech lead. Bulbing offers a couple extra turns which academy doesn't. For someone going peaceful, you would then have to compute the cost between having education bulbed and having many universities earlier versus the academy gain.

So anyway, there isn't an absolute truth as to what's best. In the case of the OPs mentionned game, most competitive players would suggest you bulb steel (given you already have 4 warriors ready, 4+ iron and 1080 gold for rush upgrades) and then go offensive with the war so that your gained city will offset the overtime loss of the academy. The issue is if you had not planned ahead, by the time you finish building those units, the double bulb benefits will already be wasted so you might as well settle 2 academy and play a defensive war...or build one academy, tech CS&theology and bulb education to build universities early and work 2 scientists per city. This is very, very powerful if you don't want to use offensive wars to leverage your game up.

More often than not though babylon players throw the first GS (from writting) as an academy to plunder through the early techs and just bulb steel. Refer to "babylon steel rush" thread by Vexing. You can have close to a 40 turns tech lead with longswords which is very, very big...esp since part of it is against warriors and archers.

 

[snarzberry]

A fun question to ponder might be how many beakers an Academy would need to add to a tile to entice you to;
1. always settle your first scientist? or,
2. settle an academy in roughly half of all possible situations.

Compare this to our current situation;
3. (virtually) never settle an academy.

How does 9 sound? 12?

 

[Lokos451]

Hmmm, a bit off topic and in response to scnarzberry:

I think it might be easier to avoid a complete rebalance of the settling options, even one point increases are huge in V. Instead it might be more interesting to introduce a series of buildings linked to such GP improvements similar to the mint or monastery.

Settle one near a town, you gain access to a building with near national wonder grade mechanics. Esp if these buildings tended to involve %increases rather than flat values, they would entice players to settle even fairly late GP's. There really needs to be a little more to do with these guys!

 

[WeaselSlapper]

The one thing they could do that would make me go academy more is to allow GP improvements to sit on top of a regular improvement instead of replace it (or allow them to be built in the city itself like in 4). This would eliminate the opp cost and leave the GP improvement as pure profit making it much easier to justify without being overpowered.

 

[Martin Alvito]

The basic rules:

- Beeline Writing and settle the Babylon GS as an Academy unless you have a really good reason not to (eg: Rifle Rush). The time advantage from clearing multiple early techs is just too good, as compared to the early bulb.

- Meritocracy (if used for a GS) is strictly for bulbs. You can get a similar per turn advantage through Landed Elite and accelerated growth to caps, and put yourself in a much better position.

- Always bulb with any GS created through GPP. The game is short enough that you will never turn a profit on an Academy as compared to a Renaissance-era bulb, and you can gain even more by sitting on the GS at the cost of some per turn maintenance.

 

[Dizzy75]

I'd say it's difficult to tell as Babylon. The impact of 5-10 turns saved in the early game, when you're behind the AI, can be much greater than 20+ turns saved later on when you have a comfortable lead. Definitely agree with Marvin Alito in that it's best to think of the temporary, game-changing advantages rather than long-term, end-game advantages. In that sense, the short-term opportunity cost is often more important than long-term.

A river farm only gets you +1 food in the early game, so the opportunity cost seems fairly small and easily tradeable for 6 beakers, which just about doubles your science at that time. Techs are so cheap in that period (~55ish?) that the extra 6 beakers translates into multiple "free" techs by turn 50. If you're able to parlay that temporary advantage into a permanent advantage, then it's definitely worth it, even if on paper a bulb is a ton more beakers by the end of the game.

If you've already got your NC up and the 6 beakers only translates into a small percentage increase in research, it doesn't seem nearly as valuable. Which is a bit of a shame - if they want to make academies a serious option beyond this really narrow window, they need to buff them somewhat, or make their bonuses increase with time, like they do with CSes. I'm sure there are other ways they could do it, too.

 

[Teadrinker]

The basic rules:

- Beeline Writing and settle the Babylon GS as an Academy unless you have a really good reason not to (eg: Rifle Rush). The time advantage from clearing multiple early techs is just too good, as compared to the early bulb.

- Meritocracy (if used for a GS) is strictly for bulbs. You can get a similar per turn advantage through Landed Elite and accelerated growth to caps, and put yourself in a much better position.

- Always bulb with any GS created through GPP. The game is short enough that you will never turn a profit on an Academy as compared to a Renaissance-era bulb, and you can gain even more by sitting on the GS at the cost of some per turn maintenance.

Great. Makes sense. Thank you.

 

[Boozie]

it's best to put it riverside so you get more benefit, and if you farmed that tile you would have gotten 2 extra food resulting in an extra citizen.

I apologize because I realize this is a basic game mechanic, but what am I missing about putting the academy riverside? I understand CS with Farm is 2 food, what's the riverside acadmey advantage or is it just riverside tiles are good?

What about a scenario where I have incense and I can just plop the GS down on top of that and I still get the resource and I lose the 1 gpt from the incense improvement? Does this 1 gpt get boosted by factors later that I am losing out more?

Will an academy collect undiscovered resources after you research them if they are on the same spot?

 

[vexing]

the benefit of riverside is just +1 gold.
great people improvements only connect strategic resources, not luxuries (ie you'd lose out on the incense in your example), and yes they work if you've not yet discovered the resource.

 

[Boozie]

great people improvements only connect strategic resources, not luxuries (ie you'd lose out on the incense in your example)

Whoops. Thanks for the help.

 

[qemist]

The basic rules:
[...If you're not Babylon, bulb bulb bulb..]

So the GS mechanic is broken. Snarzberry has suggested one way to fix it: give the academy more science. That might make GS more OP. Another possibility would be to give the GS a finite life (say 3 turns). That would break the GS saving strategy (described by some as "abuse") beloved of deity players. Or the value of a GS bulb could be reduced, say to the median beaker count of the techs available at the time of his creation.

 

[Martin Alvito]

So the GS mechanic is broken.

I've been saying that since the initial release.

Giving a GS a finite lifespan won't fix the problem. Trust me, I can end run that. It will help, but it's a Band-Aid. Upping the value of an Academy won't work either. Raise it too much and you break Babylon in half; anything less fails to make the Academy competitive after the first 20 turns.

Reducing the returns of a GS to something derived from the turn counter could help. Using median beaker count will do little; while the GS is relied upon to exit the game for Diplo/Science, altering the mechanic will nerf their potency by about 1/3 at best, and by less in most cases.