For Science! - 5+ city Academy spam guide

[GAGA Extrem]

That sounds like a more reasonable results. I'd say if you get a bit more familiar with the strategy and improve your gameplay, you should end up with 250-ish victory at some point (which I consider to be a good result for games that don't go perfectly).

 

[RedRover57]

Thanks for posting this strategy. It seems to work very well. I gave it a try and won Transcendence on turn 237 (AU, Soyuz, standard terra map and speed). I went with 6 cities that ended up at pop 12-17. But I had space around me for 4 or 5 more cities that were never grabbed up by the AI for the entire game and I'm wondering now if it would have shaved off some turns if I settled more cities but kept the pop down to around 10 each (except for my capital). Have you figured out the break point for determining when it is better to settle another city if the site is decent (and how late in the game can this be done)? The cities would have been back-fill and would not have angered the AI. But settling more cities would have delayed going into positive health (and the 10% science boost after opening Knowledge).

I only had one neighbor in my game (Brasilia) and he DoWed me early, but I killed off his army, made peace and he never bothered me again. Four or 5 soldiers were enough to defend as he didn't have any upgraded troops yet. I didn't get my first affinity level until turn 100 or so. I fought off aliens all game though since I had 5 hives to my north (3 very close). When I finally cleared them out my final city had 3 xenomass tiles in its borders and it eventually became my largest city.

I had a lot of culture and ended up with 4 or 5 additional virtues other than what you show in your guide (the increased worker speed in Prosperity was good at the end for converting academies to manufactories in my capital). My science peaked at around 400ish beakers/turn. I started the Mindflower on turn 203 - 17 turns to build and 17 turns to wait. I also had a lot of fireaxite and floatstone, so I probably could have won using any victory option. The most advanced AI only had 11 affinity at the end of the game.

I guess I will need to see how this strategy does on Apollo. Seems like it should work. But like you I also find Apollo to be too tedious on most maps. There badly needs to be a difficulty level between Soyuz and Apollo to keep this game entertaining.

Edit: A few other interesting tidbits about my game:

1. I never built a single farm.
2. I never scouted farther than my continent. Scout couldn't make it across after the aliens turned red, and later it didn't matter.
3. I only had 2 external trade routes (one station and one AI); I dropped the external route to the AI at some point when the gold and science wasn't as good as the food and hammers from an internal route instead. I didn't have a single sea trade route.
4. I had to build the fence early in my capital because of all the aliens. Waiting for Reverse the Polarity to secure some of my internal routes did delay my game a bit.
5. I never built a single special Harmony unit. Five soldiers and 3 planes was enough for alien clearing/defense. I sold a bunch of my xenomass.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Have you figured out the break point for determining when it is better to settle another city if the site is decent (and how late in the game can this be done)?

No, sadly I don't know. My guess is that the number (under ideal circumstances) is somewhere between 6 and 8, but I don't have the time (and patience atm) to verify this.

I think the most important factor is to settle your cities early to maximize the snowball effect from early development. Maybe it is more about a time factor ("settle until turn X") than an actual number.

I guess I will need to see how this strategy does on Apollo. Seems like it should work. But like you I also find Apollo to be too tedious on most maps. There badly needs to be a difficulty level between Soyuz and Apollo to keep this game entertaining.

I think Apollo will be very hard most of the time because early AI aggression in conjunction with that free affinity level and bugged affinity quests makes for a really annoying combination. You will be forced to invest into affinity techs earlier or risk being stomped by an AI that has too much of an affinity lead during midgame. All that and the fact that wars drag on forever pretty much made me avoid Apollo alltogether.

Edit: A few other interesting tidbits about my game:

1. I never built a single farm.
2. I never scouted farther than my continent. Scout couldn't make it across after the aliens turned red, and later it didn't matter.
3. I only had 2 external trade routes (one station and one AI); I dropped the external route to the AI at some point when the gold and science wasn't as good as the food and hammers from an internal route instead. I didn't have a single sea trade route.
4. I had to build the fence early in my capital because of all the aliens. Waiting for Reverse the Polarity to secure some of my internal routes did delay my game a bit.
5. I never built a single special Harmony unit. Five soldiers and 3 planes was enough for alien clearing/defense. I sold a bunch of my xenomass.

(1) Same for me. It might be interesting to see if a food city might have enough early influence on TRs to warrant worker investment, but overall I feel food conversion gets that job done as well.
(2) Same here. I barely scout past my starting area. Mostly because I am lazy and can't be bothered.
(3) Station TR from the capital are pretty good if you can find a station within range, but TRs, I only use TRs to other CIVs to boost diplomactic relation during critical times.
(4) That sucks, but it happens. I suppose it did cost you like 5-10 turns.
(5) Yeah, soldiers (especially the Harmony ones) are pretty good against the AI. I usually get 5-6, depending on terrain, 2-4 air units and maybe a ship if I have a coastal city (bit paranoid after a recent AI naval sneak attack). Harmony units come way too late with this strategy to have any decent impact on the game. Although I enjoy researching Xeno-Titans after the mindflowers to get some payback to these early game backstabber AIs.

 

[tedeviatings]

I think Apollo will be very hard most of the time because early AI aggression in conjunction with that free affinity level and bugged affinity quests makes for a really annoying combination. You will be forced to invest into affinity techs earlier or risk being stomped by an AI that has too much of an affinity lead during midgame. All that and the fact that wars drag on forever pretty much made me avoid Apollo alltogether.

Oh, on most maps you can play fend off AI aggression as long as you expect it. You won't want to be 2 generations behind the AI but 1 generation or a bit less is usually quite manageable unless your land is really open.
What's _way_ more annoying to me right now is that I just lost to Huatama's Mind Flower (the only VC I ever see succeeding by the way) because it opened in no more than 2! turns. God that was frustrating, I was 3 to 4 Angels into my Exodus gate, so probably less than 10 turns away from victory myself. I'm estimating he had about 20ish cities.
I mean, early aggression you can deal with consistently but when you get noticed 2 turns before the enemy on the other side of the map finishes... All you can do is be faster yourself and this was would have been my new fastest victory already... '^^

 

[Ryika]

I actually use almost the same strategy, but with Polystralia. You don't get the free monument, but you get the 2 trade routes which allow you to send a trade route from the capital to every city (in a 5-city-scenario), giving very one-sided output for the capital, while all the other cities connect to 2 other non-capital cities (with the exception of 1 trade route) allowing them to get decent outcome and make all of them powerhouses as well, instead of having 1-2 cities "fall behind". It also allows for a scout and 1, maybe 2 workers to be produced, before the actual expansion-phase kicks in. It's probably quite a bit slower (don't think anything can beat double-Culture-start right now) and it's somewhat optimized for 5-city-play, but it just feels better for me. ^^

 

[RedRover57]

Here's an interesting strategy comparison (both games Soyuz difficulty, standard speed and terran map). This first SS is from my AU game (turn 162) using the academy spam strategy as outlined in this thread.

Spoiler :

Five affinity at this point, positive health, almost 300 beakers/turn science rate. Ended up winning Transcendence victory on turn 237.

Compare that to the following SS of a game as ARC (turn 161).

Spoiler :

In this game I went 3 in prosperity for the free colonist, 7 in Might for the free affinity level plus 40% increased intrigue (because ARC), then planned to go deeper into Prosperity. Settled 5 cities to start (keeping the pop relatively low in satellite cities; north city is off-screen), was DoWed by KP and then dogpiled by AU, took the AU capital, took the KP capital and one city on the way (plus gained Serik in the peace deal, which KP had taken from the Slavs), so 8 cities total in my empire now and the continent secured for myself (KP has 2 cities left to the south, but is no longer a threat).

Look at the difference in stats. Six affinity due to earlier focus on affinities (comparable), but -44 health and abysmal science rate (69 beakers/turn). Twenty turns later still not much better, with health still -20+ and science rate only 130 beakers/turn. I haven't played the game out yet. Will likely still win, but much much later than in the other game.

Unfortunately my favorite strategy in civ 5 (secure your continent and then win by whatever VC) is just not very efficient in civ BE.

 

[Hot_spur]

Curses. I used The Unity Project mod to play as Academician Prokhor Zakharov, because he has a great science boost, but every time I tried to go from turn 157 to 158 the game crashed to the desktop.

No more mods for me.

 

[Ryika]

Try to load an autosave from a few turns before that and do some things different, that will often fix crashes that occur when loading an autosave.

 

[Ryika]

After testing around for a few days, using this strategy and a very similar startegy that goes for biowells first, I managed to get a turn 216 Victory by using the biowell-strategy:

Spoiler :

Now obviously I "cheated" a bit by using a map that is mostly grassland. Still, I made a few mistakes in that game and I didn't manage to get that kind of result by beelining academies, the biowell-academy-mix just pushes ahead in the midgame while rather quickly closing the gap that academies get. Here's how it looked on turn 100:

Spoiler :

And then I have 400 Science on Turn 186 while waiting for mindstems to build.

Spoiler :

(You might realize the t2-AI-soldier - yes, I played on a low difficulty to be able to push through the game quickly - I did still build the soldiers I would have built on Apollo though to emulate a real (but peaceful) game as close as possible)

Now of course that was an extreme example of a very favorable location - so I took it to more neutral ground - this time it's a real match on Apollo :

Spoiler :

Rather really ground with 2 almost resource-free tundra cities, eh? But I still managed to get the same science per turn without having any external source while being save with 6 t2-soldiers (well, didn't upgrade them yet but the upgrade is available). At that point all cities have their science/health-buildings (correction: I think the bottom 2 cities are missing one because they don't have the pop to need them yet), academies are already researched and I will soon start spamming them in the nicely developed cities in the north, so from that point on this strategy should push ahead rather quickly. Gold is a small problem at the moment, but Reactors (+their quest) + a few satellites (did unfortunately not get ANY from ruins) after quickly getting the Spy Agency Tech should solve that without me really having to take excessive measures.

...so anyway... would you mind playing around with biowells some more and see if you come to the same conclusion or if it's just me playing your strategy badly? ^^

/edit: Wow, that last game became a real disaster further down the line. Everything went fine until I was at 13 affinity and realized that i didn't yet have Swarm Intelligence. Cost me 8 turns. Then, while still recovering from that I realized that I completely forgot to start spamming factories... >.< What could have been a ~turn 210 victory turned into a sad sad turn 230 victory sponsored by two massive, completely unnecessary mistakes.

Spoiler :

Well, at least that gave me some time to conquer my stupid neighbor who was horsehockytalking my all game long but didn't ever have the courage to actually attack.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

In another thread I suspected that Biowells might be a valid (or even better) option than Academies if you are stuck in a below-average terrain. So it might certainly be possible that it is stronger under certain circumstances (or even as a whole).

When I tried the "Biowells first" approach a few times I usually ended up with turn 250-270 victories. But that was before I wrote this guide, so I guess I can give it a bash.

Have you tried Academy spam on the same map? Because that grassland does indeed look declious.

Also:
What about bonus affinites in those games? I think these have a pretty big impact and represent a significant RNG factor. I sometimes only end up with one quest (due to the turn 100 bug), so that's like an extra 1-2 techs (= 8-15 turns) to win. In my very first Academy spam game I ended up with 3 quests + 1 free affinity level from a ruin, so I finished with a turn 217 victory before even improving on my play of the strategy.

edit:
Well, that first game is already useless. Started between Tundra and desert, lost 4 workers to random siege worm movement and had 60 science on turn 100. Time to restart.

edit2:
Meh, you gotta give me a basic tech order. I managed to get to 5 cities, 82 science and Academies researched on T100 - but the latter only because the Institute quest triggered one turn before I had Robotics (so I couldn't grab Nanotechnology). Finished on turn 240, but I also had two really good stations next to me (Pure Culture, pure Science).

 

[Ryika]

Yes, I also tried Academy spam on that same map (was using it for 2 days until I started that other game yesterday and forgot to create a turn 1 savegame of the map d'uh). Even used the "New Random Seed"-Option to get rid of some of the randomness No free Affinity Levels so I had to get that extra tech, no siege worms bothering me, no "turn 2 monument quest", etc.) - I actually got an affinity quest though that then provides 23 Affinity later in the game, saving me a few turns on the tech web.

Basic Tech Order is actually pretty much the same as your strategy uses for the beginning - Chemistry - Ecology - but then Bionics instead of cognition,which is the next tech to reach. (So two "expensive techs" prolong that phase where you don't have anything to build and have your cities on growth focus) - after that I get an affinity tech (usually genetic mapping no matter what affinity I go for because it allows your explorers to do some quite aggressive excavations near alien nests and even at that point the Gene Vault is often still available if no Civ beelined it and can be built in ~5 turns on your capital - if it's not available anymore and I plan on going harmony then I go for Alien Biology) and then Reactors if gold becomes a problem - or the Alien Preserve if I still have enough Energy as a buffer (Actually using the +Gold Building Quest from Generators because Production isn't an issue at that point but it provides well-needed gold that keeps me up until Solar Collectors are available - I'm okay with going into negetive EPT if I still have enough Energy saved up to not drop to 0 - and even trading away any titanium I have to get some extra EPT).

Loadout is also the same, I'm using the Free Pioneering-Strategy.

Build Order actually varies a bit though, I'm getting Trade Hub -> Trade Convoy -> Worker -> Worker -> (Recycler if City is about to grow ->) Settler -> Trade Convoy -> Settler -> Trade Convoy etc.

I think the main difference is what I do with these workers: I Focus on getting all the good food tiles improved asap as well as any good production tile I might have (ignoring hills without luxuries). I also don't build roads at that time and instead get them at around turn ~70, shortly before I start mass-producing additional workers that spam biowells everywhere.

If possible I try to quickbuy a Recycler in every new city as soon as it finished and start building the trade hub, but that usually only works out if I get at least one Solar Collector or have a ton of resources that their base yields + Commodization push me ahead.

I then build the Vivarium with priority after the production buildings are established, followed by pure science buildings as long as I have a buffer to -20 health (which can be reached surprisingly fast when going for more than 5 cities) and then health + science buildings, while squeezing out some military units at that point and using food focus afterwards.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Hm, that tech order and most of the other stuff is similiar to mine, so the difference must come from the two extra workers. Although I still wonder how that actually translates to a full tech worth at T100. Maybe it is also related to the ressources around the capital?

I'll give it another spin for both strategies. Maybe two extra workers also speed up the Academy spam.
Some more questions: What are you using the free tech from Institute for? When are you grabbing Cognition? Which map type did you use?

 

[tedeviatings]

Well, I can see why it might not be a bad thing growing your cities before you start the academy spam. What I'm wondering is how you handle AI aggression. Maybe I'm just playing too damn greedy but I usually get DoWed for forward settling at one point and that's where I'd imagine starting off with two really expensive techs could literally kill you.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Below Apollo a handful of Soldiers is enough to fend of early AI aggression. If things get problematic upgrade to Marines.

I usually place my soldiers 1 tile in front of my cities, dig them in and use them as meatshields to delay the AI as long as possible while the city takes down enemy units. If possible use chokepoints to delay the AI and spread out to slow the flanking units via Zone of Control. As long as you can prevent the AI from performing an encirclement on your cities you should be fine.

------

Regarding the Academy spam strategy:
Currently thinking if it is better to only get "Foresight" from Knowledge and then instead go 4 virtues down into "Might" to grab that free affinity level. Should come around the time you finish Nanorobotics, so it would save ~6-8 turns. Even if the other 3 virtues are mostly pointless at that point, it might still be better than the Knowledge stuff...

The Biowell rush worked well in my game (win on turn 227 this time, good terrain but mediocre RNG). Now gotta verify the same map with Academy and two early workers.
Overall I am still not 100% convinced that getting Bionics first is the better move, though. Maybe it is somewhere in the middle? Use early workers to improve ressources and spam farms in the meantime. Get Cognition, built some Academies, but once you have Bionics build 3-4 Biowells per city and then resume the academy spam.

 

[Ryika]

Hm, that tech order and most of the other stuff is similiar to mine, so the difference must come from the two extra workers. Although I still wonder how that actually translates to a full tech worth at T100. Maybe it is also related to the ressources around the capital?

I think having a source of titanium in the capital or at least in your first city is pretty much necessary to get enough production to get everything running smoothly. If I don't have any, then I lack behind quite drastically with both strategies. Other than that I find that the resources don't really matter THAT much, though I found that delaying the settlers (again by having too few production or just sending them around too much - OR having a station land on your head) has quite an unexpected impact on my overall progress and will usually lead to having ~20 less science. Not being able to establish all trade routes directly also is a death sentence for a good turn 100 benchmark (luckily it seems as long as there isn't too much miasma around you can use roads to redirect your trade routes). And of course, after dropping below -10 health full-manual mode in all cities is pretty much necessary, because the automatic system will start ignoring good food tiles from that point on.

I'll give it another spin for both strategies. Maybe two extra workers also speed up the Academy spam.

I actually played around with that a bit too but the few runs I had basically lead to me not having enough gold to really run the additional academies that I got due to the higher population. ^^ Very limited testing though, so it might still work with some refining.

Some more questions: What are you using the free tech from Institute for? When are you grabbing Cognition? Which map type did you use?

I didn't really find anything expensive that I want to get quickly so I'm actually just using that free tech for Nanorobotics most of the time, because it's the most expensive thing I get overall. I don't build any Institutes before I have Nanotechnology so it doesn't trigger before that and afterwards I'll usually just get one so the tech will trigger eventually. I'm not sure when I really grab Cognition, but it's usually finished around turn 100, a bit later if I feel forced to get affinity1 first. And I'm using Protean most of the time, although that one game is played on a skirmish-map with grassland as main tile.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I think having a source of titanium in the capital or at least in your first city is pretty much necessary to get enough production to get everything running smoothly.[...]

Yeah, Titanitum is sort of a "you win" ressource, it's like having 3 salt next to your capital in CIV5.
I guess that alone speeds up your win by 5-10 turns. Might actually be the reason why this last game went so well (had Titanium near the capital).

I actually played around with that a bit too but the few runs I had basically lead to me not having enough gold to really run the additional academies that I got due to the higher population. ^^ Very limited testing though, so it might still work with some refining.

I guess you could use Scientist slots (from the Institute) as a workaround until the economy is up.

I didn't really find anything expensive that I want to get quickly so I'm actually just using that free tech for Nanorobotics most of the time, because it's the most expensive thing I get overall. I don't build any Institutes before I have Nanotechnology

Ah, okay, that might be a thing where we play different. I usually get an Institute in all large cities and use the tech to unlock Nanotechnology. That means the tech is worth ~400 less science, but the Scientist slots should make up for that over time. And I guess in some cases the Nanopasture might also be worth building. That 30% (or 15%, iirc it has a tooltip error?) carryover is not bad, the 10% science boost from quest is great and 2 Scientist slots can be handy.

 

[Ryika]

Yeah, Titanitum is sort of a "you win" ressource, it's like having 3 salt next to your capital in CIV5.
I guess that alone speeds up your win by 5-10 turns. Might actually be the reason why this last game went so well (had Titanium near the capital).

Yes, that's probably one of the reasons. Though actually... thinking about that I think I'd probably prefer to have Titanium in the first Expansion instead of the capital - because the capital will get the trade yield almost instantly and the second city lacks behind somewhat. Although then again, that might then actually stagger the trade yield for the capital.. so much untested grounds here.

I guess you could use Scientist slots (from the Institute) as a workaround until the economy is up.

Yeah, that might lead to interesting results. Haven't really tried to include scientist specialists AT ALL with that strategy yet although they did a very good job in other scenarios. Will test around later.

Ah, okay, that might be a thing where we play different. I usually get an Institute in all large cities and use the tech to unlock Nanotechnology. That means the tech is worth ~400 less science, but the Scientist slots should make up for that over time. And I guess in some cases the Nanopasture might also be worth building. That 30% (or 15%, iirc it has a tooltip error?) carryover is not bad, the 10% science boost from quest is great and 2 Scientist slots can be handy.

Yes, its only 15% and the main reason I didn't consider them that useful is that I didn't get them in the phase where my cities really grow. But of course, when I play around with Institutes and use that free tech to unlock the Nanopastures that might actually become quite worthwhile. Though my main concern right now is probably the total hammers that are needed to get both buildings at that point in the game (and to a lesser extend finding a way to get Robots earlier without delaying the other stuff too much). /edit: Or maybe delaying cognition may then even be worthwhile with 3 scientist slots per city.

But anyway... a lot of interesting things to think about and try out. Thanks a lot for that.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Now testing the hybrid strategy outlined above, will post the results later.

And: If only the late game would be as interesting as this...

 

[RedRover57]

IMHO the acid test is whether or not the strategy works on Apollo difficulty, since you can use just about any strategy and win on Soyuz. In particular, the strategy needs to be viable on a map like what was posted for the Apollo Deity Challenge Game #1 (Acken post, page 2 of this forum), where you start out sandwiched in between 2 aggressive AI civs without much room to maneuver. On that map you can probably settle 2-3 additional cities on the mainland if you are quick, and 1-2 on islands off the coast, but your aggressive settling will definitely result in DoWs from both neighbors. In such a case I agree with GAGA with regard to somehow incorporating 4 virtues in Might in order to survive the early game. The added benefit is that the increased affinity points virtue will result in having to research less affinity techs in the long run. However, to do this it would seem that you would have to skip the free Settler in Prosperity, otherwise it will just take too long to get to the bottom of the Industry tree and will significantly delay the time to reach the stage of sustained positive healthiness (the time when the first Knowledge policy becomes important).

What about Knowledge opener, Industry opener, 4 in Might, continue down Industry, then more in the Knowledge tree to finish? Since you are taking Pioneering to start you can still get out a relatively fast settler if you have decent growth in your capital.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Yes, that's probably one of the reasons. Though actually... thinking about that I think I'd probably prefer to have Titanium in the first Expansion instead of the capital - because the capital will get the trade yield almost instantly and the second city lacks behind somewhat. Although then again, that might then actually stagger the trade yield for the capital.. so much untested grounds here.

It does reduce TR yield quite a bit, so having Titanium in the capital is actually better.

Yes, its only 15% and the main reason I didn't consider them that useful is that I didn't get them in the phase where my cities really grow. But of course, when I play around with Institutes and use that free tech to unlock the Nanopastures that might actually become quite worthwhile. Though my main concern right now is probably the total hammers that are needed to get both buildings at that point in the game (and to a lesser extend finding a way to get Robots earlier without delaying the other stuff too much). /edit: Or maybe delaying cognition may then even be worthwhile with 3 scientist slots per city.

I think it is actually possible to completely skip Cognition if you want to focus on Scientists. You get 3 slots from Institute, 2 from Nanopasture, 2 from Gene Smelter and 1 from Xenu Nursery - so that's a total of 8 pop you can use as scientists. But you give up a lot of tile yields by employing them - and building that stuff is quite costly. Institute might be okay, but Nanopasture is usually something like 12+ turns for other cities. Considering that this is equal to ~250-300 science if you'd just convert I am not sure if most of these mid game buildigns are even worth the trouble...

Which leads me to another point that needs verification:
When is it better to convert science instead of food? I usually stop it once my cities reach pop 12 or so, because I feel that the extra pop costs so much food that the extra yield isn't actually worth the investment. For example I save 5 turns by converting food, but if I'd convert science these 5 turns equal something inebetween 50-150 science - will that new pop return that much when I get it 5 turns earlier? :/

Also finished the hybrid game: Victory at turn 222. Tried the Might thingy (it doesn't work, since you need 5 virtues for the free affinity and the 20% bonus from #4 comes too late), so I guess it could have been a few turns faster. But in the end I think the reason why it worked out so well was just the good terrain (have never seen such a defensive position) and the start titanium (and me not being familiar with the biowell strategy). But I think adding a few Biowells is a good idea - place them on Marsh or Forest tiles to save unnecessary worker time and still get some good yields in return. Forest hills are particulary good, since you end up with 3F 1P, so it's equal to an improved plains.

Overall I think there is no big difference in Biowell rush vs. Academy rush vs. Hybrid. The reason why you finish earlier than me is probably investing more into micromanagement. For example I never make AI deals and I rarely bother to use expeditions past the early game. Guess that is another 5-10 rounds I could shave off the timer, but I guess I am just too lazy to do it.