Pinstar
Ringtailed Regent
The other problem with GP buildings in general is their vulnerability to pillaging. I can see this being a serious problem in MP...and single player too depending on how pillage-happy the AI is.
We have no idea how much gold will be gained from a trade mission, though my best guess is that it will increase in return based on certain possible factors. Population of city state. Distance from City state. Tech level/era/how many turns into game you are. Unfortunately I have nothing to base the actual return of a trade mission on. If it's 750 gold or later, than again, in the late game it will take over 100 turns to recoup the one time mission with a tile improvement.
The other problem with GP buildings in general is their vulnerability to pillaging. I can see this being a serious problem in MP...and single player too depending on how pillage-happy the AI is.
BTW, while you can get unlucky and build a great improvement over a resource, a safe tactic would be to build it on a desert tile. The only thing that can show up on a desert tile is oil and if you have to remove the academy to get the oil you got a lot of use out of it regardless.
I'm not at all sure about the other GP improvements, either. They all sound pretty lame, except maybe for the manufactory (and that doesn't sound too great, either). Citadel might be useful at choke points but I guess that your opponent will be able to find a way around it in most cases.
Basically, this decision isn't very dynamic, flexible insta-tech is just that good.
In my last game Montezuma tried to WALK around it, losing three points each time. His units came out the other end of my peninsula with one HP!
The problem is that the Science per turn is that bad.
Consider +5 Science per turn against the Science required for a late Medieval tech. On Deity, Standard map that's going to cost you 484S. It would take 97 turns to recoup that, and that number is before we even take the measure of what getting the tech early will yield.
You'll still bulb even if the list of techs is restricted or the Science from bulbing is capped with elapsed turns unless the Academy gets a huge buff. You'll just bulb Education rather than, say, Steel.
Even though this kind of analysis is already in favor of instant techs, what actually makes the scientists totally insane is their ability to go down a three or four techs deep slingshot to some absurdly advanced tech like Artillery or Globalisation. This problem could be solved by making them give you a random tech like research agreements.
Even though this kind of analysis is already in favor of instant techs, what actually makes the scientists totally insane is their ability to go down a three or four techs deep slingshot to some absurdly advanced tech like Artillery or Globalisation. This problem could be solved by making them give you a random tech like research agreements.