Meritocracy Great Person musings

[snarzberry]

I've started to have second thoughts about the use of the free great person from Liberty when operating some kind of national college start game. Taking a great scientist or the great library if it's still around for a free tech is what I consider to be the obvious play. I still think this is the best approach if you're bee-lining a tech like Steel for a longsword attack.

However, I was running a Steel rush one game recently when I luckily found two ruins back to back which gave me meritocracy extremely early. I had about 25 turns to wait until the RA's came in which I had planned to link with the GS and shoot to Steel fast. But I'm loathe to have a GS just sitting around for 25 turns, and after some thinking I just couldn't come up with a better plan than an academy.

In conjunction with a NC start the academy yields 9 pt now and of course more later when other multipliers come into effect and you benefit from it for the rest of the game. But it comes at a cost of or throughout the game as you likely would have been able to work a 2 and 2 additional yield hex on average with that citizen for the rest of the game.

This particular game went really well and I won easily. Since then I've been talking myself into settling a scientist more and more often when it comes early in combination with the NC.

Thing is, I'm not sure if it's right. It just feels right, to me. If feels like the strongest option in a lot of cases but I don't know if I could construct an argument to show it's often better than an early wonder, or early load of upfront in the form of early Civil Service (anyone), early Currency (Arabia) or early Machinery (Hiawatha) which up till recently have been my main plays.

I know others have advocated popping an engineer for a manufactory but I must say this has never seemed like the best option to me, but I'd be keen to listen to the argument of those who think it is.

So, what have you guys been doing with this GP, and how much settling is actually going on out there?

 

[Martin Alvito]

Burning 3 SPs on an Academy is almost invariably a bad idea. 5 can be generated by 5 , and multiple early SPs are well suited to growth.

There are two reasons to go Meritocracy: OCC Culture (in which case the growth policies are bad), and because your overall strategy relies on the Great Person. An Academy doesn't qualify.

 

[Camikaze]

What about using a GE for an early wonder? Even if you are going cultural, couldn't the benefit from that overtime outweigh the benefit gained from getting one tech ahead?

 

[snarzberry]

Burning 3 SPs on an Academy is almost invariably a bad idea. 5 can be generated by 5 , and multiple early SPs are well suited to growth.

There are two reasons to go Meritocracy: OCC Culture (in which case the growth policies are bad), and because your overall strategy relies on the Great Person. An Academy doesn't qualify.

You're right that 5 can be generated by 5 however not all are created equal. The fast early beakers gained in the first 100 or so turns are much more valuable than the same amount accrued over time through organic growth. Also 5 gained by comes at the cost of 5 which the academy is not burdened with. So your comparison is a little unfair

I'm not convinced you're right as it seems to me that the extra 9 pt in the period between turn 45 and turn 100 can give you a dominant unit for possibly an extra 10 turns or so compared to the same line without the academy. As you well know this could mean the difference between sweeping a continent or having your attack come to a grinding halt which results in you entering the consolidation phase with comparatively less assets. To this then needs to be added the long term benefit of the academy also.

You also benefit from the opening and second Liberty policy nicely so it's hardly burning them for the academy.

As I said in the OP this habit has entered my game after having a situation where I could take a different SP, which would have meant an entire grand strat change or take the GP but in an awkward time where I have nothing super valuable for him to do tech-tree wise for about 25 turns. I think there's an argument for an academy in this rare-ish situation.

Bah, I'm probably wrong as I'm only listening to my gut which has been known to be wrong but I think there are some pluses in the academies favor that are not being quantified.

 

[Bibor]

Burning 3 SPs on an Academy is almost invariably a bad idea.

Actually, any of the mini-wonders (mini Stonehenge, mini Ironworks, Academy) are a good idea.

The Academy doubles your research pace for a quite sizeable amount of turns and frees your money to be put into upgrades, rush-buys or city-state investments.

 

[kamex]

I've recently been trying this strategy a lot. I often go for an academy if i can get it early. Its effective because its not just 5 beakers... The capital working it has NC, which makes it 7.5 beakers, and future multipliers such as a university will also improve this 'base' research.

Last game I tried a manufactoy, which worked much better than expected on Immortal. It REALLY helps if your going for a rush. in fact, I built the entire super barracks (Barracks, HE and Armorer) in 15 turns! It also helped as my capital was very production poor!

 

[snarzberry]

Is the Academy 5 base or 6? I thought it was 6 but everyone else seems to be saying 5.

 

[Smote]

id take the hammer/food bonus of landed elite over a few pesky beakers anyday

 

[RogerN]

There are a few reasons why I've basically stopped building academies:

1) The vast majority of my techs tend to come from RAs. In my last game I had 6-7 RAs in place for the majority of the game. That averages out to a new tech every 5 turns or so. Unless you've pumping out an astonishing amount of beakers, a lot of your science production gets wasted when RAs starting flowing in and duplicating your normal research efforts.

2) The benefit of bulbing a tech is immediate; you can jump into a leading science position and then use the tech to further increase your lead. This is another reason why selling luxuries for cash is so powerful; the benefit of the luxury itself is spread out over 30 turns, but the cash you get from selling it can be immediately reinvested.

3) They use up a tile improvement which I'd probably prefer to be making extra hammers or gold.

 

[Bibor]

1) The vast majority of my techs tend to come from RAs. In my last game I had 6-7 RAs in place for the majority of the game.

This applies only to deity and perhaps immortal. That's less than 1% of the player population. Academies on the other hand work on all difficulty levels and also in isolation.

 

[MadDjinn]

well, here's the situation then:

Do a NC-start game. (don't make RAs)

version 1)
Tech straight to Steel (no RAs)
Bulb Steel with the GS.

version 2)
Settle the GS for the Academy
Research Steel the hard way.

See which one is faster, and that will tell you which one you want when trying for a superior unit early to maximize your chances of doing damage to an AI.

.. I think the RA to steel version is slower than the bulb, in most games, due to not getting Philosophy and having to rely on the random tech patterns of the AIs.

Next...

Pick a start strategy that you like to do (expansion or NC-start) Use RAs this time.

goal is fastest time to Education. (block techs as needed)

version 1) settle the GS for the academy
version 2) bulb Civil Service. (bulbing Theocracy isn't really that useful unless you want the monastary and have calendar already + 2 RAs fast to handle CS/Education)

Check out your overall science output and see how fast you get there. (Note- likely need a river start here, else CS isn't a useful tech)

Testing this one seems rather straight forward to me.

 

[MadDjinn]

There are a few reasons why I've basically stopped building academies:

1) The vast majority of my techs tend to come from RAs.

This applies only to deity and perhaps immortal. That's less than 1% of the player population. Academies on the other hand work on all difficulty levels and also in isolation.

Well, in peaceful games this reasoning is true. If everyone is at peace then the AI will spam the RAs and the only way to keep up is spam of RAs yourself.

Even still, a healthy beaker count does matter. You can't ignore science and rely on RAs alone through Industrial/Modern. (especially if you're blocking techs)

on lower levels.. RAs still matter. The problem is that the AI may not have the cash for them, or even if they do, you've got to pay them extra since you'll likely have the tech lead fast.

 

[PScirocco]

There are two reasons to go Meritocracy: OCC Culture (in which case the growth policies are bad), and because your overall strategy relies on the Great Person. An Academy doesn't qualify.

How and which GP would I use for OCC Culture? GE to rush stonehenge for quick +8 culture? Seems to be a better option than settling an artist. Or would bulbing a certain tech be a better choice?

 

[Martin Alvito]

How and which GP would I use for OCC Culture? GE to rush stonehenge for quick +8 culture? Seems to be a better option than settling an artist. Or would bulbing a certain tech be a better choice?

You're going to rush a Culture Wonder with the GE. Which one depends on the difficulty level. If you're on Deity, the AI will get Stonehenge first via Meritocracy if you try to hard build it. On lower levels, you have some more flexibility and it's best to take Meritocracy later and rush something later. Delaying Stonehenge by ten or fifteen turns will usually have a positive impact on your game by enabling you to take Renaissance polices faster, which in turn washes out the effects of delaying Stonehenge.

This applies only to deity and perhaps immortal. That's less than 1% of the player population. Academies on the other hand work on all difficulty levels and also in isolation.

In G-Minor II I'm still having a very large proportion of techs come from Research Agreements. You just have to expand to the point that you can feed cash to the AIs. It's still worthwhile.

Also 5 gained by comes at the cost of 5 which the academy is not burdened with. So your comparison is a little unfair

You can get that right back by not selling a luxury. So your claim is really that you'd rather have 300 rather than a Culture friend (Tradition plus free Legalism Monument) and Maritime friend (Landed Elite) in the opening in an OCC. If you can do something strong with Legalism later, that makes a certain amount of sense. But even then you're better off slapping down the Manufactory and accelerating the NC and your expansion phase post-NC.

Alternately, buying allies and popping Civil Service for quick Patronage will do you a lot more long run good than an Academy. The only thing that matters in the short run is that you are able to get the infrastructure techs you need, then block everything else before Education/Astronomy. That's easy enough to do if you're selective about what you research pre-Education.

The Academy just doesn't return enough to be worth the cost here.

 

[pirsq]

If you are going for a Liberty start (as opposed to Tradition), that means you are planning to either:
1. Settle a lot of new cities (conquering cities doesn't count, because fast settlers / fast workers / +1 production / +1 culture don't do much in this case); or
2. Hit a faster timing with the free settler / worker / great person (like in your CKN rush).

I don't think the academy is an obvious choice for either case. If you're going for a rapid expansion, you'll have quite a lot of science anyway - while more science is always better, it would probably be more worthwhile to have a manufactory to actually build the things you unlock. If you're going for a timing attack, it's kind of hard to look past a free tech/wonder.

However, there are certainly situations where it'd be good. If you want to expand but find you have plenty of hammers, you could reasonably grab the extra science. If you're going for a timing attack but something disrupts your timing (like in your game), it could certainly end up being a good choice to improve the follow-up to your initial attack.

All-in-all, I don't think it's that powerful as a basic start, because the academy doesn't synergise well with the rest of the Liberty tree. However, depending on the game, it can definitely be a good choice.

 

[slobberinbear]

If you are going for a Liberty start (as opposed to Tradition), that means you are planning to either:
1. Settle a lot of new cities (conquering cities doesn't count, because fast settlers / fast workers / +1 production / +1 culture don't do much in this case); or
2. Hit a faster timing with the free settler / worker / great person (like in your CKN rush).

I don't think the academy is an obvious choice for either case. If you're going for a rapid expansion, you'll have quite a lot of science anyway - while more science is always better, it would probably be more worthwhile to have a manufactory to actually build the things you unlock. If you're going for a timing attack, it's kind of hard to look past a free tech/wonder.

However, there are certainly situations where it'd be good. If you want to expand but find you have plenty of hammers, you could reasonably grab the extra science. If you're going for a timing attack but something disrupts your timing (like in your game), it could certainly end up being a good choice to improve the follow-up to your initial attack.

All-in-all, I don't think it's that powerful as a basic start, because the academy doesn't synergise well with the rest of the Liberty tree. However, depending on the game, it can definitely be a good choice.

this is my experience on emperor. I use/abuse Liberty for early rexing and either want instant gratification (wonder, bulbing) or more hammers (manufactory). I think the academy is a better call for tradition/liberty combo strategies that do early NC then expansion afterwards.

 

[chazzycat]

All-in-all, I don't think it's that powerful as a basic start, because the academy doesn't synergise well with the rest of the Liberty tree. However, depending on the game, it can definitely be a good choice.

Hit the nail on the head right here. There is just no synergy with the other Liberty policies. If you are choosing Liberty and not REXing, you are doing it wrong. If you are doing the NC first, that's not a REX and you should likely be taking tradition policies instead (Martin's point). The academy is never a good idea without the NC multiplier, and you just don't need the science anyway if you are truly REXing.

 

[Rex_Mundi]

When I use Liberty, I delay Meritocracy till later in the game where the happiness bonus will matter.

A few times I have managed to time it so my trade routes come in around the time when I research Banking, a great engeneer that can give me the Forbidden Palace together with the Mericocracy happiness gives me alot of room to grow my cities.

 

[bhavv]

How come no one mentions how powerful an early Manufactory is?

If you are going for a Liberty start (as opposed to Tradition), that means you are planning to either:
1. Settle a lot of new cities (conquering cities doesn't count, because fast settlers / fast workers / +1 production / +1 culture don't do much in this case); or
2. Hit a faster timing with the free settler / worker / great person (like in your CKN rush).

You dont actually need to build lots of cities to get benefit from Meritocracy, the left hand side of the tree is mostly useless compared to the right. Even for a small empire of 4 cities, +4 , +2 , free worker, free GE and +25% worker construction is a huge boost.

id take the hammer/food bonus of landed elite over a few pesky beakers anyday

I'd rather take a free manufactory first while settling 4 cities and building monuments, then 4 free temples, and then landed elite. You never have to choose between either meritocracy or landed elite, you can easily have both.

 

[Tabarnak]

id take the hammer/food bonus of landed elite over a few pesky beakers anyday

How come no one mentions how powerful an early Manufactory is?

Landed Elite is more powerful on quick speed, low levels and for multiplayer(usually prince-emperor and quick settings). You can have a larger boost of food and production by going LE first. A manufactory gives +4 hammers, but 4 cities under LE can give up to +12 hammers. It's a matter of distribution. Some paths emphasise leveraging capital first(check G-Major I thread for many examples) and some other paths are better for many cities at the same time(check G-minor II thread for other examples).

AI is dumb. You can actually concentrate your power on a single city and win. Put humans in the game and a NC first and/or GE first strategy and you will be at risk, because in the long run you will not be able to resist to 20+ units in the renaissance era and you can't build such army with limited ressources. You will be outteched and outproduced as well.

RAs and trades make an early manufactory a lot more powerful.