Any alternative to Academies spam?

[Budda]

I played on Gemini level... 2nd run of CivBE,... and I tried mass spam of farms. With all improvements they give +3 food, +1 prod, and +1 science.
The plan was to switch to use specialists in cities on the later stages... and that sounds quite powerful, though it probably requires quite few redundant and expensive technologies... And I also added academies,... just to fill more comfortable, but is a viable alternative.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Farms require way too many techs compared to Biowells to be viable. Maybe they work with purity if you rush Vertical Farming, but otherwise...nah.

Additional factors that make this strategy not work well is the significantly increased food cost for new pop, the lack of any decent specialist modifiers and the removal of Great Persons.

 

[tedeviatings]

My first two post-patch wins used fast purity farms into academies so it definitely can work. Not sure how it compares to biowells, too long ago.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

My first two post-patch wins used fast purity farms into academies so it definitely can work. Not sure how it compares to biowells, too long ago.

Well, you can win with that, sure. Question is: when and on what difficulty?

 

[tedeviatings]

Apollo and I don't remember the finishing times. I was also playing on quick so even if I remembered it wouldn't be saying much. Also I was playing AU which makes things easier generally... But then again I also was pretty inexperienced with BE which makes things harder. It should be added that I got Ectogenisis the second game (and missed it by 2 turns the first one).

I might give it a shot when I get to play my next game but that's not going to be today and probably not tomorrow...

 

[Victus75]

I'm also learning map size and type is a pretty big contributor to how the games are played out... as well as seeing how the AI interacts with each other. For the second point, an example was a game I played on Soyuz diff, as KP and pretty much using the Acadamies as route to a Purity victory (so many handicaps, I know). Very Large world and Atlantean map type. I was trucking along and toward the end, Slavic Fed (who were Friendly at the time) DOW me and took a border city I had. We were about even as far as Affinity levels, but he had way more units and was able to rush and take that city before I could send more reinforcements. I remembered he was pretty much warring with PAC off and on the entire game, and so realized he had probably built up a large military and needed something to do with it, and saw me as weak.

I restarted the game from turn 1 (same map and all) and noticed there wasn't nearly as much wars going on between AI, and I won a close Purity victory.

Game I am currently playing is on an Archipelago map and I decided to choose Continental Scanner (just to see what that was like) and WOW. Very useful as it enabled me to easily have trade routes going to any coastal capital, city or Outposts right off the bat without having to scout out terrain. Since I go Chemistry early, I went Engineering next to make sure I knew where the petroleum and titanium were on the map, not having the tectonic scanner. Another side effect of this is that it seems the AI doesn't expand as aggressively as there are plenty of decent islands to claim even late game. This seemed to apply on Atlantean maps as well.

 

[CraigMak]

As many giant cities as possible with biowell spam should outperform academy spam. It's not just an alternative but most likely optimal play.

 

[Ryika]

As many giant cities as possible with biowell spam should outperform academy spam. It's not just an alternative but most likely optimal play.

And I'm sure you can provide a strategy, victory times and savegames for that claim? Because from my experience (and from what most other people seem to say on these forums), big cities by themselves are just useless.

Starting with biowells to use that extra population and switch to academies works (may even be better than going into Academies asap on some maps), but sticking to biowells und building super-cities when there are almost no easy-to-reach %-modifiers to even make good use of the additional science you get, when science specialists are basically very weak academies, when city growth slows down SO drastically beyond 15+ pop and the game is so short that academy-spam basically wins the game before tall cities can really get rolling... I don't see how that would work at all.

 

[tedeviatings]

I'd say in single-player Civ:BE (as in no AIs nor other human players) fastest affinity victory should probably always be some kind of borderline-ICS strategy. It seems obvious to me that cities just tall enough to work all of their tiles at minimum city distance will out-science really big cities in the time frame from start to affinity 13.
After two cases of me deleting my reasoning for why I believe this I'm settling for "most people will agree and if anyone wants to know they can still ask me".

 

[Strategist83]

Academies are very powerful, but this 'academy spam' strategy is overrated. It gives you lots of science but little else. This allows for fast victories against the AI but it would be a very risky strategy in multiplayer. Teching Cognition instead of Bionics means you don't get access to more Health at a time when you desperately need it. The Institute from Bionics still gives you access to three Scientist specialists which provide just as much science as the Academy - the only difference being that the Academy allows you to work the land, but with a high upkeep cost and worker construction time. Essentially, the Academy allows you to convert 2 into 2 by working a Grassland tile. The biggest downside to the Institute is the high construction cost but you save on both and by not having to build and upkeep as many Workers.

Overall, the Cognition tech and the Academy is really just of special interest to Supremacy players - just as the developers appear to have intended. Harmony players will be building the Xenonursery, so they have four Scientist slots total and not much need for Academies. Purity players will build Domes which are not far behind the Academy in terms of usefulness - these won't win as quickly against the AI but will give a more well-rounded game.

 

[tedeviatings]

This allows for fast victories against the AI but it would be a very risky strategy in multiplayer.

Well, this is a single player strategy so, yea. Maybe it's different in MP but in SP winning fast is essentially maximizing your winning chance. So maybe people should be saying "academies are too good with regard to SP" - but honestly I'm too lazy.

Overall, the Cognition tech and the Academy is really just of special interest to Supremacy players - just as the developers appear to have intended. Harmony players will be building the Xenonursery, so they have four Scientist slots total and not much need for Academies. Purity players will build Domes which are not far behind the Academy in terms of usefulness - these won't win as quickly against the AI but will give a more well-rounded game.

Now unless this is mostly from a MP perspective I really can't agree with you here. I haven't tried much harmony specialist gameplay so even though I'm not convinced you might just know better.
But purity going domes... Why? For me this really is a bottom-tier tile improvement. And not because it's bad in of itself, I'd just rather have an academy 10 out of 10 times.
Maybe you can run science specialists and work domes and have a lot of virtues and also decent science. But you can also run science specialists and work the same tiles just with academies, you'll have less virtues, less energy but a lot more science. Virtues are useful, energy is alright, science wins you the game.

 

[Acken]

As many giant cities as possible with biowell spam should outperform academy spam. It's not just an alternative but most likely optimal play.

This isn't civ5, science doesn't scale as well with pop due to the absence of +science/pop and %modifiers from buildings. Academies on the other hand make your pop scale very well with science as each new citizen is likely to give a bonus of 3 science by working an academy. You would need almost 3.5 times the size for a city without academies to outperform another with academies (3.5x1.25 vs 1.25 + 3) with apprenticeship. You can already get cities from 10 to 20 pop with academies (10 being the latest expansion) there's no way you can get city size 35 to 70

However there probably is a breakpoint where you should switch from food to academies but in my limited experience it actually comes when academies are available anyway.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Biowell spam is a decent alternative to Academies if you have bad terrain, but otherwise I usually end up with slightly higher win times when going Bionics first.
I think the biggest problem is the increased food cost for population growth. That doesn't matter all that much at lower pop numbers, so Biowells can be a great kickstarter to get a city off the ground, but at size 10+ you start to notice the diminishing returns from excess food.

Essentially, the Academy allows you to convert 2 into 2 by working a Grassland tile. The biggest downside to the Institute is the high construction cost but you save on both and by not having to build and upkeep as many Workers.

Yes, that is essentially it: Academy vs. Institute is a money/energy issue.

I used to build Institutes in all cities with my Academy strategy, but I noticed that Scientists are actually more of an emergency option than a valid alternative. The food loss from employing them is significant and usually far worse in the long run than the ~2E saved from not building an Academy. So the only reason for me to use Scientists nowadays is terrible terrain.

You need less workers by using Institutes - but you can build those workers in your high-production cities anyway, while Insitutes require local hammers (and if you have the money to buy them you might as well spam Academies).

Overall, the Cognition tech and the Academy is really just of special interest to Supremacy players - just as the developers appear to have intended. Harmony players will be building the Xenonursery, so they have four Scientist slots total and not much need for Academies. Purity players will build Domes which are not far behind the Academy in terms of usefulness - these won't win as quickly against the AI but will give a more well-rounded game.

I don't think that Cognition was meant to be a Supremacy tech. Supremacy can get a bit more from it, sure, but I don't see how other Affinties would close the gap if they ignored the tech.
Those 4 scientist slots are enough to justifiy ignoring Academies (and not every city has Xenomass anyway). Even with a Nanopasture (for a total of 7) your bigger cities will run out of scientist slots pretty quickly.

And tbh I am not really sure why you would ever build Domes. Imho they are a bottom tier improvement. If anything a Purity player would rather skip Biowells to get his super farms running.

 

[Ryika]

I'd say if Domes were available from the start I'd probably even build a few of them. Don't think they're bad per se, but at the time you get them Culture has already lost so much relative value compared to science that they're just not worth it.

 

[Halbbruder]

I'd say if Domes were available from the start I'd probably even build a few of them. Don't think they're bad per se, but at the time you get them Culture has already lost so much relative value compared to science that they're just not worth it.

Domes are probably the worst tile improvement in the game and I never use them. It would be nice if they received a buff and functioned like forts, for example.

As for academies, unless I am going for supremacy, I never really consider academies enough to warrant a tech diversion. I do build several of them in supremacy games but I don't spam them because energy becomes more important than science once you reach level 13 and you've sent a lasercom satellite into orbital to warn earth of their impending doom. Biowells are great as they boost food by 1, provide +1 culture and +1 health at the cost of 1 energy. I think they're pretty handy for people who prefer knowledge or might as a starting policy to maintain health and growth.

Vertical farms in some respects can replace generators, as they produce up to 5f and 3e on river tiles.

Nodes are also worth having and in a way, they replace generators and can enable you to build a kind of trench along potential invasion spots. Combined with supremacy combat style, you essentially can create an impassable barrier with infantry units and nodes.

Spamming factories, preferably on hills, seems obvious, but only if you have the health and energy to sustain them. Combined with social investment from investment, they provide as much production as titanium.

 

[Ryika]

Domes are probably the worst tile improvement in the game and I never use them. It would be nice if they received a buff and functioned like forts, for example.

Not sure why you quoted me here, I didn't say anything about what they currently are. ^^ I agree that they're pretty much useless in their current form though.

But still, if they were available from the start that would change a lot of things. Culture is SO useful at that time, because it gets you to the bonuses that you really want. Imagine being able to get the 25% production bonus right at the moment your second city is done. Or even getting the +25% from trade routes shortly after. All by getting 2-3 domes early on and later replacing them with more interesting tile improvements.

 

[Endar]

Scientist produce the same 3 that academy, but doesn't produce 2 .

However, food is almost worthless by endgame since even +10 food surplus doesn't result in population growth (
Usually farm produce 3 food by then (+1 default, +1 from Ectogenesys pod and another +1 from vertical farming/weather controller (it is highly unlikely that you will have both))

The biggest problem is that amount of scientists is limited: you have 3 from the institute, 2 from gene smelter, 2 from nanopasture and 1 from xenonursery and that's it. There are no Pyramids that will allow me to have an unlimited number of specialists through Caste System (((

All by getting 2-3 domes early on and later replacing them with more interesting tile improvements.

Yes, and that would have been very logical to have settlements under domes with closed environment at the initial stages of colonisation of the planet.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Scientist produce the same 3 that academy, but doesn't produce 2 .

However, food is almost worthless by endgame since even +10 food surplus doesn't result in population growth

[...]

Yes, and that would have been very logical to have settlements under domes with closed environment at the initial stages of colonisation of the planet.

(1) Food isn't that big of a deal later, but by the time you get Academies it is really important (and causes a ripple effect via trade routes).

(2) Yes, it would have been cool if the whole scenario was about colonizing a hostile planet - but it is pretty obvious that the devs opted for an unclaimed paradise instead (which makes sense, though, considering the story).