Farms versus Biowells

[Ampharos]

The most popular strategies I've seen emphasize Biowells over Farms, and I was hoping that somebody might be able to tell me the reason for this. While Biowells produce +2 Food +1 Health, +1 Culture with Alien Genetics, and cost 2 Energy, Farms can yield +3 Food, +1 Production, +1 Science, and +1 Energy if you research certain Purity/Supremacy technology.

If/When Health is no longer an issue late-game, is there a reason to use Biowells over Farms? Am I just building too few cities (about 7-8), or is there something I'm doing wrong that makes Biowells preferable to Farms?

Similarly, what should the ratio be between Food-yielding improvements and Academies, and where should the two be built? My understanding is that Academy spam is ideal for winning as quickly as possible, but I'm unsure how many Academies I should have and what tiles they should be on. Currently, I've been building Farms/Biowells on flood plains and grasslands while putting Academies on plains and deserts. Thoughts on this?

Thanks.

 

[Ryika]

Biowells are quick to get, provide their full yield in the early part of the game and thus get your empire to spiral out of control much easier than purity Farms that only become really strong later on - when the game is already on its way to end. I think Purity farms are not even viable anymore (although I may be wrong on that), since the Patch cut the heavily needed +1 food for farms from the Ectogenesis Pod.

Focusing on "heavy growth" is not a good strategy for Beyond Earth though, and I'm not sure what "popular strategies" you've seen that use biowells these, but most strategies I know use neither - no biowells and no improved farms, but instead just improve the resources that are available and build a few farms to get the early growth going (if at all - depending on the food that is available in that area) and then start spamming Academies asap.

The "How many academies?"-question is easy to answer: As long as you have population to work the tile build as many as you can afford. (If you play it right that should be able to spam them on any tile that is worked (and not a resource-tile)).

Where to build your improvements: Improvements don't have a special synergy if their yields sync with the tile they're built on, so in general it doesn't really matter if you build a farm on that food-heavy tile and then an academy on plains or if you do it the other way around as long as you want to work both of these base tiles - the overall yield is the same. There are some minor factors that play a minor role in placement (Worker travel times, scenarios where you only have a few tiles that you can even build farms on (Tundra-heavy starts), being able to swap food-focused, shared tiles between cities, etc.), but overall your goal should just be to use the tiles that have the greatest base food production for whatever you want to build at that point, because you want each tile you work to provide as much base food as possible or else your cities just won't grow enough.

 

[ProphetMaster]

Biowells are quick to get, provide their full yield in the early part of the game and thus get your empire to spiral out of control much easier than purity Farms that only become really strong later on - when the game is already on its way to end. I think Purity farms are not even viable anymore (although I may be wrong on that), since the Patch cut the heavily needed +1 food for farms from the Ectogenesis Pod.

Focusing on "heavy growth" is not a good strategy for Beyond Earth though, and I'm not sure what "popular strategies" you've seen that use biowells these, but most strategies I know use neither - no biowells and no improved farms, but instead just improve the resources that are available and build a few farms to get the early growth going (if at all - depending on the food that is available in that area) and then start spamming Academies asap.

The "How many academies?"-question is easy to answer: As long as you have population to work the tile build as many as you can afford. (If you play it right that should be able to spam them on any tile that is worked (and not a resource-tile)).

Where to build your improvements: Improvements don't have a special synergy if their yields sync with the tile they're built on, so in general it doesn't really matter if you build a farm on that food-heavy tile and then an academy on plains or if you do it the other way around as long as you want to work both of these base tiles - the overall yield is the same. There are some minor factors that play a minor role in placement (Worker travel times, scenarios where you only have a few tiles that you can even build farms on (Tundra-heavy starts), being able to swap food-focused, shared tiles between cities, etc.), but overall your goal should just be to use the tiles that have the greatest base food production for whatever you want to build at that point, because you want each tile you work to provide as much base food as possible or else your cities just won't grow enough.

I agree. In fact, I sometimes replace farms with biowells. Do you ever build Domes?
In my current game, I have mostly Biowells and Academies on all my grass tiles in the capital, and yet the "Advisor" keeps telling me to build Domes to get culture to expand borders. Well, I am already at pop 12 and near max on border expansion, so I don't see where the Domes add much (apart from the added culture helping me with the Virtue tree). In this situation, do Domes make any sense? I have some new cities (pop 1) on an island, so I am thinking of using the Domes there. Right? Thanks.

 

[Ryika]

I think Domes do in general not really have a good place in the game right now (other than using them for inefficient strategies to have some fun while doing things differently). You are right, Domes aren't really that useful for the cities itself, especially in the later part of the game and because the price for virtues goes up really quickly the more you get a limited number of domes won't really get you anywhere globally.

Using them to expand the borders of a new city does of course work, but at the same time you stagger the growth of that city (because that Dome could as well have been a Farm/Biowell, or a pop working a resource tile) so the additional tiles may not even be that useful. An exception may be a city that has a lot of good resources in the third ring (or just a city bordering to a neighbor Civ, with a lot of resources on the unclaimed territory)- then domes may (or may not) give good overall package by providing some culture and allowing you to get all of these resources without spending a ton of money. Well, at least in theory. The delay until the city has grown into most of these tiles just may be to long.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Biowells have one advantage over other improvements:
They can be build on marsh and forest tiles without having to remove the features, so you save quite a lot of worker turns. That is especially good if you have a forested hill tile (because the forest bumps it to 2P).

Iirc Domes can also be build over features, but here is the thing: They are in an awkward tech position, so they usually come at a point where you don't really need their Culture anymore (either because you already have all essential virtues or because the next ones need so much culture that the +2 doesn't cut it).

 

[legalizefreedom]

Farms for grassland and flood plains. Biowells for Forest on Plains.

Depending on how the city is fairing health-wise and how many it has already, I will put a few biowells on plains or crap tiles.

If a lot of plains, I'll make an occasional terrascape and 2 generators for each to pay for them.

 

[Fins]

Since we talk "strategies" here, and specifically, "farms or biowells" question, - my answer would be:

Farms.

Points given by all the gentlemen above are sure solid, academy spam is boringly popular way to do things "right" (i don't question its popularity, though i do question the method itself; but, offtopic). In the scope of this topic, though, i understand i should compare just two said improvements: biowells and farms. Without considering other options (other improvements).

Now to answer questions asked in the 1st post.

1. If/when health is no longer an issue, - there is no reason to use Biowells. Quite the opposite, there is the reason not to use them when health is not an issue: maintenance cost for each biowell, last i checked, is 2 energy per turn, while for farms it's 0 energy.

2. 7-8 cities is quite OK. As for what you could possibly do "wrong" - i guess it's +health virtues. You need either Magnasanti and good production in your cities (read = tons of internal trade) to make lots of buildings; or you need at least two other good (scaling up as you develop) +health virtues. That's "ASAP". Considering effective difference between -40 or lower health colony and +25 or higher health colony, we can see that the difference is huge when all changes are considered together. Virtues allow to make TONS of health out of things you "do anyways" (basically, you build things "anyways", it's either industrial development, or huge and active all the time army (Might tree), or even if you know what you're doing - both to some degree). And both Might and Industrial virtue trees have strong +health virtues (especially the latter), so virtually you get tons of +health "for free" from those virtues (in terms of _tile_ development, i mean). In my opinion, realizing this massive +health boost which brings your colony from much negative health into far positive (which boosts "everything" much) - is the primary priority in developing one's virtues. May be you're not doing this? If so, perhaps try. That said, i mean to "hurry up" to some most powerful +health virtue(s), but i don't mean being "scared" by being in negative health while you expand _before_ you got those mighty +health virtue(s). Instead of spending time building biowells which could keep you in good (above -5) health for a few dozens turns, it seems much more efficient to expand and grow despite unhealth - by the time you solve your health problems with virtue(s), that expansion and growth created a larger "base", i.e. more city and higher population, which with now-good health boosts all things further massively and quickly.

3. Ratio between Academies and +food improvements: no such thing exists, i think. No constant ratio. It depends on present resources and terrain, and how trade developes, on per-city basis. It also varies with time: the closer you are to the victory, the less sense there is to have any extra food if you can "replace" it with more +science, since the less turns remains till the end of the game, the less "use" you'll have from extra growth, results of which will have less and less time to "work" for you. This is for usual higher-difficulties gameplay "just gotta make a victory" game, of course; long plays aimed at much gameplay after "one more turn button" are of course different.

To sum up - i think, forget biowells entirely, do significant effort to get to Magnasanti (best case for health) ASAP, possibly even without taking a free settler from Prosperity in the start of the game, and just spam academies on most tiles, doing farms here and there as much as any specific city requires to stay growing quite fast early, still grow somewhat mid-game, and just stay not starving late-game. Replace farms with academies when appropriate to keep this general "deceleration of growth" as you approach end-game.


Everything above is just my (far from expert) opinion, of course, and could be incorrect; i hope it's useful, though.

 

[Ryika]

You seem to be under the impression that you want to keep Farms/Biowells around, but that's not the case. If you go for biowells early on you will usually replace most or, if the land has a lot of food all of them with additional Academies later. You need that food to grow, not to keep your population up.

 

[ProphetMaster]

You seem to be under the impression that you want to keep Farms/Biowells around, but that's not the case. If you go for biowells early on you will usually replace most or, if the land has a lot of food all of them with additional Academies later. You need that food to grow, not to keep your population up.

I use Biowells to keep health positive to get the 10% bonus. For example, 10% of 200=20. So, you would need to build 7 Academies to offset the health cost. Right? I would do it late in the game when I have a health surplus margin to afford it.

 

[Ryika]

Well, if you use Knowledge then yes, that's probably valid. I'm mostly using Might with the Affinity-Bonus + Free affinity Level these days, it's just faster than Knowledge, especially if you go for faster Settlers instead of Artists and thus just don't have enough Culture to go really deep into the second tree.

 

[ProphetMaster]

Well, if you use Knowledge then yes, that's probably valid. I'm mostly using Might with the Affinity-Bonus + Free affinity Level these days, it's just faster than Knowledge, especially if you go for faster Settlers instead of Artists and thus just don't have enough Culture to go really deep into the second tree.

Also, if Africa is your leader, you would lose the 10% food bonus. I have started putting some emphasis on getting city pop up to 10 ASAP in order to cash in on the second trade route to the city.

I only use the Might tree if I am planning an early war, although I think I will start using it more if I have alien nests impeding my early expansion. That is a problem.

 

[Acken]

When ectogenesis pod was good I certainly had love for farms.
Now ? Meh. Afai remember the only food bonus of farms is now a deep purity tech. Quickly diminishes your options.

Also remember it's rather invalid to look at the max yield of an improvement. It takes too long to grab all these +1 bonuses.

 

[michaeljhuman]

I like vertical farming as an option for good energy income, which means farms. Admittedly I have to practically beeline to vertical farming, but it's a good early purity tech. This is when playing on quick speed, contact victory, soyuz difficulty. I have won by turn 170, so seems pretty good, but I admit I have not tried biowells that much

On desert tiles, vivarium, terrascape, with terrascape improvement policy yields 4 food I think, so not a bad option