Any alternative to Academies spam?

[Endar]

I'm playing on Soyuz difficulty.

In order to get as much science per turn as top AI I have to rush for Cognition to build academies (I usually have several science-producing cities). But this strategy is tile dependent plus it is way too boring to use the same strategy every time.

Is there any alternative?
I have been thinking about trying to max population in every city without researching Cognition at all (no Neurolabs though ). Has anybody tried this approach?

The goal is to hit 12 population asap (since at 12 city can become self-sustaining from health - if you pick health perk on knowledge tree - the one that gives 1 health per 6 population).

 

[GAGA Extrem]

For terrible (as in: really terrible) terrain an alternative could be to beeline Bionics. Use Biowells as your terrain improvements and the Institute to employ scientists. Use Free tech on Nanotechnology to get Nanopasture for 2 additional scientist slots and finish off with Transgenics for the Gene Smelter. That should give you a total of 7 scientist slots that can be fed by your Biowells, mostly regardless of the terrain you are in.

I'd guess in that case dipping deeper into Prosperity to get Hands Never Idle for +2 energy per specialist might be important. Terrascaping could also work well if you have lots of Tundra or Arctic.

 

[RealHuhn]

I agree with Gaga.

A third option would be spies although a bit more random and dependent on luck.

For maximized efficiency you need this basic setup as quickly as possible:
- Computing
- Might virtue for +40% intrigue
- Quest (+1 spy)
- Supremacy 2 and Feedsite Hub (+1 spy)
- Command Center (+1 spy)

This tech path also gives you fast artillery, technet hubs and better military through the Might tree. So you might wanna smack some heads along the way, too.

Later, you can get one more spy from a CEL Cradle (Supremacy 4 or 5).

Always switch to an expensive tech one turn before you steal science.

 

[torito]

I play on Apollo and I usually spam Biowells instead of academies, then I can build more cities to get more trade routes and outperform the top AI in science per turn. As a bonus you can easily earn over 100 energy per turn from the trade routes as well!


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[docbud]

Don't academies give you negative health?

 

[Mutineer]

no they just cost energy, manufactures give negative health

 

[docbud]

^^Ah. Thanks.

 

[Ryika]

Purity Superfarms work too, but seem to be a little slower (or I just don't manage to do well with them). If you feel cheeky, go for Arrays instead of Academies, they're slower but you can spam Miasma on the other side of the maps.

 

[ShagVT]

Always switch to an expensive tech one turn before you steal science.

Can you explain this?

 

[Ryika]

Can you explain this?

Steal science gives you a % of the total cost of the tech you're currently researching, so if you change to the most expensive tech (that you want to research eventually), the amount of science you steal is bigger.

 

[Endar]

Interesting ideas, thank you.

Never thought about playing as spymaster =)

 

[mb2bm55]

The issue with going down the might tree for spies is that on Apollo, war is rarely an option as you spend most of the game catching up to the AI. Also, there tend to be fewer aliens in my experience because the strength of the AI is just too great so they wipe out most of them.

 

[tedeviatings]

Granted, my experience is three games since the patch, so it might have been luck. But it seems to me that winning and also having good science, is really mostly about having a good early game.
The hard part usually is getting enough cities into decent positions and then avoid war while you get your economy up and running. If you can do that I feel you're chances of winning are pretty good. And if you can do that I think your tech will be sufficient. Of course this means getting academies when it makes sense, but it does not mean you have to spam them or tech them especially early.
Personally, I usually end up doing a combination of everything. Usually more academies then specialists but it's really more of a terrain thing. I've had cities with more scientists then academies.

 

[LORD ORION]

My next project is to see how well I can spam cities with +energy income and then transform into a murder empire that wins by domination in the middle game.

I dunno if it will work... but the plan
1) Early focus will be +energy and that includes generator spam (river hill gen will be ideal as it gives +3 energy +1 prod)
2) Instead of Cognition I will go Terraforming (because floatstone is +energy)
Now this is where things go radical
3) Instead of going into +health tech as is usually normal after cognition I will go
Planetary engineering for +prod on generators
4) At this point I'm going to have quite a few size 6 cities with about 35 prod each and they will each be on their way to developing to +30 to +50 energy.
5) and then.... Units...alot of units will start to flow from them. Will it be enough? If it's a water map your costal cities are going to be in real danger. Can I overwhelm and pillage your lands with a crap ton of normal units at this point? You gonna be a sad panda if all your Academies are on fire an all your workers are deleted.

 

[CivScientist]

My next project is to see how well I can spam cities with +energy income and then transform into a murder empire that wins by domination in the middle game.

I dunno if it will work... but the plan
1) Early focus will be +energy and that includes generator spam (river hill gen will be ideal as it gives +3 energy +1 prod)
2) Instead of Cognition I will go Terraforming (because floatstone is +energy)
Now this is where things go radical
3) Instead of going into +health tech as is usually normal after cognition I will go
Planetary engineering for +prod on generators
4) At this point I'm going to have quite a few size 6 cities with about 35 prod each and they will each be on their way to developing to +30 to +50 energy.
5) and then.... Units...alot of units will start to flow from them. Will it be enough? If it's a water map your costal cities are going to be in real danger. Can I overwhelm and pillage your lands with a crap ton of normal units at this point? You gonna be a sad panda if all your Academies are on fire an all your workers are deleted.

I'm curious to hear if this works or not. It would definitely provide an alternative strategy to academy spam.

It seems like your plan could possibly, maybe be somewhat feasible...maybe. The only issue that jumps out at me is a lack of strength per tile. Even if you could defeat any army an Apollo level AI throws at you just due to the sheer size of your low tech hoardes, it probably would be near impossible for a few hundred turns to take established cities.

Maybe the strategy here then is to just slow down every opponent and keep them away from victory until you can stroll down the tech tree to orbital lasers and planet carvers?

 

[Endar]

Okay, maxing population works on Soyuz.

I have tried to get maximum possible population and good production in every city (I spammed manufactories only around 2 cities though). Every other city was able to produce basic health and science buildings by itself.
Affinity - Supremacy.
Virtues - Knowledge than Energy/Production.
Have not built any generator.

What really bothers me is extremely low speed of the population growth. It was something like +30 food in my capital and with 18 population the next citizen was born in 19-or-something-like-that turns.

I must admit I have not optimized that strategy yet so I will not write full report =)

 

[Ryika]

Growing REALLY big will probably only work with a lot of "Food kept after growing". You can get 10% from the Cloning Plant Building Quest (-> Requires workable Xenomass), 10% from the Cel Cradle Building Quest, 5% from the Acclimation-Quest (not 100% sure but I think that's a harmony-Random-Quest) and 15% from the Nanopasture (Tooltip says 30%, but that number is wrong, game files say it's 15%) and 10% from the Biospheres Tech for a total of 50% if I didn't miss any. Most of them can actually be gotten reasonably "early", at the time when Growth starts to slow down significantly, but getting all of them soon enough seems to be a rather big commitment that will probably not play out very well.

 

[Endar]

The big problem is that you want to have a lot of buildings in each city and you wan them fast, but it takes a lot of production. Clinic Pharma Lab Cytonursery Vivarium Cloning Institute GeneSmelter Nanopasture OpticalSurgery and other science-specific buildings (all high-tier buildings cost a lot and you can build them only in production-focused cities).

Maybe it would be a good idea to have a dedicated energy-producing city/ Hm...

 

[Angrydurf]

I've only done a few post patch games but it looks like for the general case Academy spam is the way to go. With a particularly targeted set of tiles in outpost distance form your start other strats can make up for not spamming academies (and with the right tiles even give you better production) but really you don't win on production unless you're pushing for domination.

I think the real issue seems to be that all the win conditions are basically predicated on the same thing expand through the tech web to the tech needed for your condition and techs that you need for your conditions affinity. Virtues are basically a debate of which best supports getting the science you need to get your techs and affinities.

The only real different play is domination where you still need to push tech/affinity since winning even against dumb AI is hard with under-powered units but might virtues and production for more units start to shine more than pure tech. Moreover you want to be able to pivot when you begin your military push to high production from the science game so specialists are a more secure way to be able to switch focus than tiles that would need to be rebuilt (plus manufacturies health penalty is bad when growing through conquest)

 

[MaoC]

On Soyuz there's plenty of options. I pretty consistently win with going Might early on and being really aggressive with spies/aliens. Towards the end if you're behind anyone you can just DoW them and blitz their wonder to net yourself some turns. I'm having absolutely zero luck with anything but academy spam on Apollo though.