Ectogenesis Pod
- Thread starter Ultraxus
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Esperr
King
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Is the time spent building it worth the extra city you could have gotten out? Generally the answer is no, its more optimal to just keep spamming cities.
Yeah. Not sure about those Purity Farms. They're too good. Right now, it's either that or Weather Satellites, and Vertical Farms don't require strategic resources, don't require hammers, don't edge out Solar Collectors, give +1 Energy, and hands out Purity XP. It's a little too good, IMO.
GAGA Extrem
Emperor
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I used to rush it, but I don't even bother these days (unless I play Purity - which I don't). It's a decent early game boost, but overall I now just rush Robotics for the extra trade route and Terrascape/Academy my territory instead.
aguliondew
Prince
It is useful when going purity but if I prefer generators or academy spam to farms.
Gamewizard
Emperor
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I only grab it when I know I am going purity, eventually grabbing vertical farming as well.
Esperr
King
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What do you need vertical farms for? Let alone food? How many farms does it take to equal on trade route? And again what do you even need big cities for in the first place?
How many farms does it take to equal one trade route? Does it matter? It's not like farms prevent trade routes.
While tall cities aren't as important as in Civ V they're still a plus. Besides each pop being +1 science, more pop means you can work more tiles which means more production and energy.
While tall cities aren't as important as in Civ V they're still a plus. Besides each pop being +1 science, more pop means you can work more tiles which means more production and energy.
alpaca
King of Ungulates
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They're not. The techs you need are really expensive. Researching bionics and using biowells for your food needs and the free tech from the institute for Servomachinery is better. Incidentally, Alien Genetics, the early purity tech you unlock after researching Genetic Design, yields +1 culture from biowells.
Early game, getting new cities is probably preferable. That said, the AI often doesn't build the pod early and with internal trade route boostig you can build it in a couple of turns. So I generally at least give it a stab, but it's not strong enough to beeline.
I don't need big cities. I need food surpluses. The food surpluses is what powers the Trade Route food. No surplus, no TR food. More surplus, more TR food.
alpaca said:
I haven't tried spamming Biowells, but I did give it a stab in my last PAC game. It was doing well enough when I quit, since I was leading and there was no losing the game at that point. It's not Vertical Farms, though. I wasn't getting nearly the same amount of surplus along the TRs, and Biowells take a long time to finish, even for PAC.
I wasn't even going for Servomachinery, since I intentionally wasn't going for Purity yet again.
xamlop
Chieftain
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One other reason it's not so OP is that getting your cities too big too quickly will bring health problems, so super-farms spamming is not optimal until you get the last prosperity virtues, and at that point you probably don't want to spam farms everywhere when you could build accademies or terrascapes. And in the current state of the game with internal trade routes being so OP food and prod is never a problem.
I'm NOT spamming farms everywhere. The adjusted food bins and lack of Granary-type buildings in CivBE means that you don't grow your cities quite as quickly, even with large surpluses. The Vertical Farms powered by Ectogenesis Pod will only be placed in one or two cities - the rest will have no food improvements at all - the surpluses from the core food cities will be enough to grow them fast through massive TR food with only the occasional food building to help out.
The reason I want powerful farms in that one city is so I can put more Academies in the other cities.
The amount of food going through the TR is determined by the differential in the surpluses between the cities. You can't just rely on "TR food" without engineering it, unless you're content with small amounts.
The reason I want powerful farms in that one city is so I can put more Academies in the other cities.
The amount of food going through the TR is determined by the differential in the surpluses between the cities. You can't just rely on "TR food" without engineering it, unless you're content with small amounts.
alpaca
King of Ungulates
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Well, yes, they're only 2 food rather than 3, but I think the opportunity cost of going for a quick Ectogenesis pod and Vertical Farms rather than Servomachinery made going for +3F farms worse than using Biowells in the games I played so far, which are in the preferred tech path anyways.
S.K. Ren
Prince
I've come to rely on Ectogenesis Pod to help my trade routes hit critical mass. What I mean by this is:
* Because trade route yields are based on the differential between the two cities base yields
* And trade route yields add to both cities respective base yields for these calculations
If you get enough trade routes going to a single city, you can maintain maximum yields without actually having to maintain any specific tile improvements.
Case in point: I'm running a Marathon game as African Union and my capital is Size 53 and has a food surplus of ~600. 30% of that is extra from bonuses so its more like a raw ~461. Of this, ~130 is from city tile yields, buildings and specialists. This leaves 330 extra food from trade routes. I could cut half of the trade routes going to my capital, replace all my improvements with Manufactories, and still have each remaining route provide the maximum bonus. But to get it started I needed that surplus.
If I were to cut all trade routes, stabilize my Capital so that it had 0 surplus, stabilize my satellite cities so they had 0 surplus, and then reconnect the trade routes, I would still have 0 surplus in my capital and cities.
* Because trade route yields are based on the differential between the two cities base yields
* And trade route yields add to both cities respective base yields for these calculations
If you get enough trade routes going to a single city, you can maintain maximum yields without actually having to maintain any specific tile improvements.
Case in point: I'm running a Marathon game as African Union and my capital is Size 53 and has a food surplus of ~600. 30% of that is extra from bonuses so its more like a raw ~461. Of this, ~130 is from city tile yields, buildings and specialists. This leaves 330 extra food from trade routes. I could cut half of the trade routes going to my capital, replace all my improvements with Manufactories, and still have each remaining route provide the maximum bonus. But to get it started I needed that surplus.
If I were to cut all trade routes, stabilize my Capital so that it had 0 surplus, stabilize my satellite cities so they had 0 surplus, and then reconnect the trade routes, I would still have 0 surplus in my capital and cities.
Are you sure about this?
S.K. Ren
Prince
Yeah. It's kinda cheap but that is how it works. Now the game doesn't count percentage modifiers when it makes these calculations but the trade routes themselves add to the raw yield. I know this because I'm still seeing the trade yields for food increase as I add more cities to my empire. I think I'm up to +17/18 Food per route to my capital or something like that.
As far as I can tell, trade route output does not add to surplus calculation, at least for food, and almost definitely for hammers.
Easy way to test it is to get a large, food neutral city (a capital transitioned from foodbasket to Academy Center), send some powerful Food routes to it from food/hammer centers, and then try to send out a TR to Specialized Cities. The resulting TR usually has no food or nearly no food whatsoever, both cities have nearly little or no surplus.
alpaca:
Whelp, I tried the Biowells. Super-expensive. Expensive in population, Worker time, tiles, and Energy. The best thing about the Biowells is that spamming them really allowed me to basically just expand everywhere. The worst thing about them is that very nearly every other tile that's not a Biowell had to be a Generator in order to cover the costs!
Biowells being 2 food and on Bionics with a hefty build time has several implications:
They are exactly as good as Ectogenesis-Farms for food, but cost 2 Energy more per tile. They come later, and can't be spammed as quickly unless you're PAC and you invest a crapton of hammers and maintenance on Workers.
They're half as good at food as Ecto+Vertical Farms. A 4-food Grassland generates 2 surplus for TR calculations, but there will rarely be that many empty Grasslands to take advantage with Biowell spamming. Most will be plains and Forests - the Biowells don't cut down the Forests, and cutting down Forests would take even more time. An Ecto/Vert Farmland City in the middle of a lot of Forest/flatland with Grasslands underneath will reliably generate a massive 3 food per tile, plus 1 energy - half a Generator.
The main issue with Ecto/Farms is growth - since they don't generate Health, you will almost always need to resort to building Health buildings in some amount. In my Biowell try-on game, I teched Health buildings only to find that I didn't need to build them at all!
If you have any advice on how to make up the Energy shortfall, that'd be great. Even with Organics, I was carpeting the land in Generators. I didn't have much room for Academies or Manufacturies.
Easy way to test it is to get a large, food neutral city (a capital transitioned from foodbasket to Academy Center), send some powerful Food routes to it from food/hammer centers, and then try to send out a TR to Specialized Cities. The resulting TR usually has no food or nearly no food whatsoever, both cities have nearly little or no surplus.
alpaca:
Whelp, I tried the Biowells. Super-expensive. Expensive in population, Worker time, tiles, and Energy. The best thing about the Biowells is that spamming them really allowed me to basically just expand everywhere. The worst thing about them is that very nearly every other tile that's not a Biowell had to be a Generator in order to cover the costs!
Biowells being 2 food and on Bionics with a hefty build time has several implications:
They are exactly as good as Ectogenesis-Farms for food, but cost 2 Energy more per tile. They come later, and can't be spammed as quickly unless you're PAC and you invest a crapton of hammers and maintenance on Workers.
They're half as good at food as Ecto+Vertical Farms. A 4-food Grassland generates 2 surplus for TR calculations, but there will rarely be that many empty Grasslands to take advantage with Biowell spamming. Most will be plains and Forests - the Biowells don't cut down the Forests, and cutting down Forests would take even more time. An Ecto/Vert Farmland City in the middle of a lot of Forest/flatland with Grasslands underneath will reliably generate a massive 3 food per tile, plus 1 energy - half a Generator.
The main issue with Ecto/Farms is growth - since they don't generate Health, you will almost always need to resort to building Health buildings in some amount. In my Biowell try-on game, I teched Health buildings only to find that I didn't need to build them at all!
If you have any advice on how to make up the Energy shortfall, that'd be great. Even with Organics, I was carpeting the land in Generators. I didn't have much room for Academies or Manufacturies.
