June 2015 Academy vs Bulbing Discussion

[tommynt]

There is an equation to tell you how much beakers you're likely to get out of it

you know very well that the total number doesnt matter as there its such a huge difference between early and late beakers.

What kind of matters is how much of your total science the academy acounts for. Thats why the early academy of bab is so powerful - not cause it generates 300 or whatever beakers over the course of game but cause it doubles early science output.

Thats why academies after public schools are never worth it.

 

[Acken]

The academy from babylon accelerates other stuff this is why it's good. Philosophy, Education etc are sped up.
Some of these considerations are considered when weighing the value of an academy. Have you actually spent some time spoting problems with our way of calculating it ?
Of course some stuff aren't factored in. Like winning a turn on Radio or Banking. Only the big gains like faster schools or labs (the milestones after education) are considered. But so far it's a bit more precise than just having a guess.

Post public schools academies have never raised any question anyway. Every decent player already knows without calculations that they aren't worth it. The question is about those between Education and Schools.

 

[tommynt]

pointless discussion.

What everyone d like to have is a guidline when to plant an academy when to bulb a tech and when to save.
But you say yourself that your math doesnt offer one.

I at least give basic guidlines.
Even when I do think I might sometimes plant 1 academy too much.
But planting an academy is a good compromise between bulbing an early tech and saving till end. Its basicly a little bulb for all techs.

Also you save most times 2 gold upkeep ...

 

[Acken]

Why participate in a pointless discussion ?

 

[tommynt]

Well its been pointless untill I did participate and increased lvl by like 45,6

 

[Redaxe]

pointless discussion.

What everyone d like to have is a guidline when to plant an academy when to bulb a tech and when to save.
But you say yourself that your math doesnt offer one.

I at least give basic guidlines.
Even when I do think I might sometimes plant 1 academy too much.
But planting an academy is a good compromise between bulbing an early tech and saving till end. Its basicly a little bulb for all techs.

Also you save most times 2 gold upkeep ...

I think the general consensus was 1 or at most 2 early academies (before scientific theory), bulb to accelerate Scientific Theory or Plastics if you are ready to build/buy labs/schools otherwise save for late game bulbing. Bulbing to get chemistry is another possibility.

No doubt about Babylons early academy is certainly very strong. You will get to Civil Service much quicker to get the extra food and I certainly put a priority on Chemistry (after Education & maybe Astronomy) because the bonus to mines and quarries is so powerful that the earlier you get chemistry the more snowballing you get.

If I play liberty I like to try to get a free engineer from a Wonder that generates engineer points (and hopefully finish the 100pts working a workshop specialist) than immediately finish Representation to get a Scientist for an academy.

I should mention too that on Diety if a civ sends you an early caravan or vice versa you usually get about 3-4 science from them so 2 of those essentially equals an early academy. Food for thought eh.

 

[SooHongLoo]

I am not good enough at this game or the math of the game to get involved in any sort of argument. Oddly enough I am in the exact situation that you are all talking about right now. I planted my first GS and now I just completed Pisa which is very rare for my Deity games since I never try for it but since it seemed possible on this weeks DCL I thought I would swing for the fences. So now that I have the choice of a Great Person my choices are to either take the GS and if so, should I bulb or plant it at this point in the game. I am at Economics now on my way to ST. I should be able to hard build the PT so I suppose the GE to rush the PT is a bad play. I am also 8 turns away from a natural GS. I guess I could pop some sort of GP that doesn't push my natural spawning of the GS but that seems like the worst play of the three choices?

I do not think I have to worry about a war but I am starting to build some units to push for a late War. England is at war with India and the Huns. I am at war with India but that was to get England involved and I do not think I will see Indias Army. I put the Huns to war with 2 CS's and Germany. Morocco and England decided to go to war with the Huns as well since Atilla took over one of the CS's.

That is the set up and I am just curious on if I should plant or bulb to get a faster ST. I guess as mentioned above that if I have enough gold to rush the PS than bulb and if not plant right but should I take the GS or wait for the GS from natural spawn or wait for the GS from PT??

 

[claudiupb]

Are you aiming for SV?

With all that jungle I doubt that another academy is going to make much of a difference. It's an extra 5% science, so you are going to save, at maximum, a turn in the next 19-20 turns. This might be increased because you get schools 1 turn earlier, though.

I think it's better to keep the scientist for a bulb, depending on the VC aimed (archeology, fertilizer, ST, or anything that helps you at the moment). It gives you more flexibility at the cost of unit maintenance.

If you don't really need the scientist, maybe a GE would help get a wonder like Eiffel Tower, or the ideology wonder. If you are 8 turns to a GS, with LtoP you will push the next GS for 13-14 turns. With Garden 11-12 turns. So depending on weather you want to bulb something in that time frame, and the total number of GS you want throughout the game, you could get an engineer.

 

[beetle]

Later bulbs are more beakers, but bulbing sooner than later means unlocking techs and other possible accelerating snowball effects.

So, post public schools, anytime one has a GS -- run your scientist specialists slots for 8 turns and then bulb (timing so not as to worry about losing beakers to overflow).

Imagining a graph of beakers over time, this simple strategy would have to result in a “relative maximum” would it not?

If labs or certain SP are a few turns away, then bulbing would be worth postponing. I have been following this thread, but I am not convinced by the arguments for bulbing later than sooner. I feel like I am missing something though.

My expectation (and experience, but I am not watching closely) is that the extra beakers you get by waiting are almost exactly offset by increasing tech costs. That is, for the window between schools and labs, bulbing gets you the same number of turns of turns of science regardless of being early or late in that window. If this is correct, then any time post labs is good time to bulb, assuming you are running science specialists for 8+ turns.

Please tell me what is wrong with this line of reasoning!

I planted my first GS and now I just completed Pisa which is very rare for my Deity games since I never try for it but since it seemed possible on this weeks DCL I thought I would swing for the fences. So now that I have the choice of a Great Person my choices are to either take the GS and if so, should I bulb or plant it at this point in the game... I should be able to hard build the PT so I suppose the GE to rush the PT is a bad play.

I would still use the Pisa GE to rush PT and then plant that GS. Even if you can hard build PT, the turns that takes could be put to better use. I am playing the same game, so I quite envious of your progress! Buy why do you have so many unfarmed riverside plains? You are working jungles without TP and dry grassland because multiple wet plains have not been improved.

 

[stormtrooper412]

What everyone d like to have is a guidline when to plant an academy when to bulb a tech and when to save.

Get on this though I'd like a guideline on that issue as well, I always seem to bulb either a couple techs too early or a fair bit late

 

[claudiupb]

If you don't have any RA's coming soon there is no reason to hurry PT. You get the hammer boost, but at the cost of a Scientist or another wonder (perhaps a modern era one). If you don't have money for Public Schools, you can stop building the PT and do the school, the risk of losing PT is very low.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

SP and MP are different animals, this is probably why tommynt is weighting the early academy higher. If someone gets a small window on you and you die, the 8000 beakers you can get off a later game GS is moot. In that environment, you're evaluating whether you want to all-in someone on bulbs *now* versus settling it for a faster curve until key military techs I'd suspect...haven't done much competitive MP in Civ V but the theory should be similar in TBS genre. Long term advantages are only good insofar as you can use them.

If you can reliably survive, however, the analysis provided here is not pointless. Claiming otherwise is nothing short of bias towards a gameplay mode/way of thinking. I bet tommynt would not consider these calculations pointless if he decided to compete in a HoF competition with something sufficiently valuable to him on the line. We might see more GS saving then!

 

[beetle]

If you don't have money for Public Schools, you can stop building the PT and do the school, the risk of losing PT is very low.

I agree with this in general, and I usually rather casually hard build it, but I just lost PT to Bismark in the DCL. Using Pisa for another Wonder seems like a safe bet in any game.

Get on this though -- I'd like a guideline on that issue as well, I always seem to bulb either a couple techs too early or a fair bit late

I am hoping one of the more mathematically inclined people confirms or refutes my “local maximum” observation. Mindful bulbing sooner than later should be sufficiently advantageous enough as to not warrant deliberation.

 

[tommynt]

If you can reliably survive, however, the analysis provided here is not pointless. Claiming otherwise is nothing short of bias towards a gameplay mode/way of thinking. I bet tommynt would not consider these calculations pointless if he decided to compete in a HoF competition with something sufficiently valuable to him on the line. We might see more GS saving then!

Ok about this execle file. I am a "controller" my job is doing financial analysis for my company and I m working at least half the day with execle files - my major hobby is playing civ. But even i get nothing out of the file ..

I do talk mainly about sp now:
The 1. early academy is so good that there is no thinking about it.
Academies after ps are not worth it USUALLY

But apart that things are so game to game dependent - that doing math is impossible. In occ academies f.e are obviously stronger as they account for more total science as in a 8 city setup.

Even harder it is to judge if bulbing Plastics is worth it or not.
Its dependent 100% weather you can get the labs up right away or not ..
If yes - ya its worth it ..

In mp academies - easpacially early ones - are usually even stronger as total science is usually lower and they therefore account for bigger % of science.

 

[tommynt]

oh yeah and forget about pt - its bad bad wonder. one of worth I can think of actually.
MAYBE beside a GREAT deity game where you swim in gold.

 

[Acken]

If you have specific questions you can ask them.

Mindful bulbing sooner than later should be sufficiently advantageous enough as to not warrant deliberation.

Depends what. So far I advise against bulbing scientific theory (and anything before that) but bulbing some techs before plastics looks fine. When it comes to academies, settling the first is good. Subsequent academies value will depends on timings. For example I don't think you should settle beyond turn 110 for a T200 victory. But you can extend that to T150 easily for a T250 end.

But there are other considerations. The size of your empire and late game bpt are VERY important factors. For detailed exploration I suggest playing with the spreadsheet and change some of the green numbers. Note that with current calculations the number of cities has no influence in the sheet, only the science per turn that you input (which depends on city number !).

<snip>

I'm sorry you got nothing out of it. Still better than gut feeling if you ask me. Feel free to disagree but throwing your arm in the air saying it's impossible is not a better answer. It also provides me with a quick shortcut to see if an academy is worth it rather than starting to do napkin maths everytime and I'm just sharing it here. Its aim is not to provide an automation. If you work in financial analysis you already know excel spreadsheets only give partial answers and the human judgement is then required.

If you can't build labs you just don't bulb plastics so the question is nonsensical in that case. If there are labs that you cannot build and some you can you'll have to do manual adjustments to reflect that.

The sheet is mostly to provide a rough view of what an academy is worth. More precise calculations are possible but would require more variables and in game data for the science output. For example, right now the number of cities (so for OCC or wide games having very different results) is only reflected through a manual input of ingame science per turn (post and pre science buildings). It's probably the roughest part of the spreadsheet at the moment.

 

[beetle]

So far I advise against bulbing scientific theory (and anything before that) but bulbing some techs before plastics looks fine.

So long as you are not reckless, should not bulbing any number of GS before plastics be fine?

When it comes to academies, settling the first is good. Subsequent academies value will depends on timings. For example I don't think you should settle beyond turn 110 for a T200 victory. But you can extend that to T150 easily for a T250 end.

This seems like simple, solid advice. And you have provided the math supporting this conclusion.

 

[Acken]

So long as you are not reckless, should not bulbing any number of GS before plastics be fine?

So far the pure science yield calculations of keeping a GS, until the end, supports the fact that it's fine. Of course this doesn't apply for a pre-education GS.

BUT it is important to remember that bulbing earlier (or planting) allow to get some stuff faster to channel them through the production cycle. The purpose should be to achieve a smooth production cycle and use scientists only to accelerate (or delay by not using them) the availability of those buildings. Like has been said multiple times in this thread it is of no use to bulb if you're not ready. And for similar reasons you should probably bulb when you're ready because it will allow you to have more time for the next thing to build.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

Many times I have bulbed 2 GS in succession 8 (and 9) turns after Schools are built. Sometimes I can hit Radio pretty quickly and have some overflow into Industrialization. This unlocks many things I really like besides Ideology (Aluminum and Coal). Then head for Chemistry. This style seems to sync well with Order, production goes through the roof. Certainly this is worth more than 10-20 turns late game? Probably not for turn times, but it just feels good!

 

[Dushku]

Every time I think I understand the game, I come face to face with something I could understand better. Am I ever enjoying the ride! Many thanks to those who crunch the numbers for this. I have some new concepts to try and incorporate into my games.

The discussions seems to assume going straight for Education, straight for ST, straight for Plastics. How do you decide if/when to fit Observatories into this climb? Or parts of the lower tree to deal with aggressive neighbors?