Should you ever use great scientist for tile improvement? (maybe korea?)

[Kevin J]

Very good point and that can be quite significant!

We also haven't included that holding onto GSes costs upkeep which also can be significant.

EDIT - I'm definitely not saying "hey I've figured out this is best thing to do" cause I don't know that and would never say such a thing anyways. I know people have great success bulbing and it works beautifully. I also know that I have great success with usually 3 early academies. What's better? I have no idea

Wonder what the math is on the average upkeep cost, assuming GS's are kept right until endgame when you pop them to start your spaceship parts. How many lost RA's is that? Unless you go somewhat wide (either by puppetting or settling), there is typically a shortage of gold to take full advantage of RAs, so this isn't a moot point for all games.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

Wonder what the math is on the average upkeep cost, assuming GS's are kept right until endgame when you pop them to start your spaceship parts. How many lost RA's is that? Unless you go somewhat wide (either by puppetting or settling), there is typically a shortage of gold to take full advantage of RAs, so this isn't a moot point for all games.

I just took a glance at the number crunching thread cause I have no idea either and it seems that units between turns 100 - 250 (the ones we are most interested in) start out costing about 1.5GPT and end up costing about 3.5GPT. So if we just average that out for simplicity sake, we'd get 3GPT / unit.

Let's just again pretend we are talking about 3 early GSes that you can get about turn 100. They will cost you 9GPT * 150 turns = 1350 gold.

Having worked tiles instead though you might've made 1350 gold or some equivalent amount of production. That depends on the terrain you get and is significantly harder to quantify. For a small city, you will have lost more as there are tons of rich tiles available. For a larger city you likely only lost a grassland farm or TP and it's not as big a deal.

 

[Hustapha Thool]

Math aside, saving those (6) GS for the end of the game is a safer bet. Getting Apollo and then popping those spaceship parts techs, greatly reduces the chance that you will be nuked or attacked due to the fact that the time from when you start your spaceship win and finish is much shorter.

btw I do not save my GS......

 

[Rinnero]

On the actual yeilds of acadmies, let's take a look at what you can get. I realize that crossmr did something like this but the freedom finisher was not included and the +15% from sovereignty is a multiplied modifier, not additive. It's easy to make these kind of errors. I do it all the time . I will try to get the numbers right, however.

+50% from university
+50% from observatory
+50% from research lab
+50% from national college

So that gives a multiplier of 3x. Now sovereignty is applied on top of this AFAIK. So this gives 1.15 * 3 = 3.45

The freedom finisher is tricky. It seems to double base tile yeilds but not the addons. So it doubles the 6 but not the extra 2 from Korea or Scientific Theory. At least that's what I've noticed (others feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). So under this assumption, the new base yeild of a Korean academy post freedom finisher is:

6 * 2 + 2 + 2 = 16

This gives a max academy yeild of 16 * 3.45 = 55.2:c5beakers:/turn

Now to be fair, for most of the game you won't have the research lab bonus nor in most games the observatory. The freedom finisher can be obtained in Renaissance but late Renaissance. So let's say for argument sake you get just the university and NC for the first half of the academies lifetime and the other bonuses for the last.

That gives the early game academy an effective yeild of: 14.64/turn
It follows that, under the above assumptions, the average bonus over the life of the academy is: 34.92/turn

If it lasts 150 turns, that gives you 150 * 34.92 = 5238/academy

Of course this assumes getting a lot of policies to modify these outputs. It's certainly possible but the 50-50 assumption I made won't hold. It's too hard to analyze any other way though and you can tear through renaissance with academies so I thought it was fair. It also doesn't include the extra RA bonuses, the fact that you will get techs fast than not meaning earlier public schools and such increasing overall science faster.

Just something to think on.

Why did you calculate academy yields again?
You didnt like this?:

450 science for 50-100 turns
750 science for 100-150 turns
1750 science for 150-200 turns (assuming you get freedom finisher by turn 150)
2100 science for 200-250 turns

Though that is average best calculations.

We haven't even talked about the fact that the academy uses up a citizen for 150 turns that could be producing /.

But I did it. Months ago...

62g or 50f for 50-100 turns
75g or 50f for 100-150 turns
175g or 100f for 150-200 turns
208g or 100f for 200-250 turns

520g or 300f Total. 312g or 200f before turn 200
.
The best choice for GP placement is grasslands or plains without fresh water, because these tiles are the most useless in terms of improvements.




And, after all, THAT is how you should utilize GPs to maximaze your chances for victory:

Current usual/best strategy:
1-3 first GPs (by liberty finisher, HS and GP point from wonders) can be either GEs for good early-midgame wonders (HS, PT, ND) or settled GSs. After that just spam GSs trying to save them for industrial/early modern techs, but in emergency bulbing them to get best possible military techs (example: bulbing metallurgy and rifling if attacked, otherwise safely tech to scientific theory)

 

[Kevin J]

.
The best choice for GP placement is grasslands or plains without fresh water, because these tiles are the most useless in terms of improvements.

I think the best tile is a grasslands stone tile. All you lose (total) over the baseline improvement is 1 hammer. Without the improvement, it's still a 2/2/0 tile (assuming stoneworks), and the GP just adds to that. Every other tile (iirc) you lose at least 2 of one tile yield or another. Your grassland without fresh water is still an eventual 2 food loss (after tech). The other tile people frequently suggest is hills sheep - for an initial loss of 1 food, eventually more of a loss with tech.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

Why did you calculate academy yields again?

Sorry. I just like math I guess . Though I did it for Korea which was a little different in this case.

The best choice for GP placement is grasslands or plains without fresh water, because these tiles are the most useless in terms of improvements.

In terms of tile improvements, I find that you don't necessarly just lose the tile improvement you would've had on the academy tile but the tile you would've worked instead of the academy tile. So if, for example, you could've been working a 2 horse tile but instead plopped the academy on grassland without fresh water you are losing a lot more than just the food.

As Kevin J said, I tend to pick a tile that is decent but won't get a whole lot from an immediate improvement. I try to pick things like hill sheep, or stone. If nothing great is available, then I'll pick a river tile so I least I get the gold from it too. I find even with massive cities, I tend not to be working every tile so I'd rather not place my academy on the worst one I can find .

 

[crossmr]

I think the best tile is a grasslands stone tile. All you lose (total) over the baseline improvement is 1 hammer. Without the improvement, it's still a 2/2/0 tile (assuming stoneworks), and the GP just adds to that. Every other tile (iirc) you lose at least 2 of one tile yield or another. Your grassland without fresh water is still an eventual 2 food loss (after tech). The other tile people frequently suggest is hills sheep - for an initial loss of 1 food, eventually more of a loss with tech.

You lose +2 later one of the sciences improves quarries by +1

 

[Kevin J]

You lose +2 later one of the sciences improves quarries by +1

Ah, there you go - I had thought it weird that stone seemed an exception - guess I overlooked that. You lose at least 2 yield with any spot. I still like stone though, for a tile I'm going to always work, a base 2/2 tile is pretty dang nice.

 

[crossmr]

If you want to make your tiles better, you should be placing it on grasslands/plains river tiles. Yes, you don't get to put something else there, but you can improve those river tiles with a hydroplant to get +1 production.
You could get
2 1 1 8 of a grassland river tile
or 1 2 1 8 on a plains tile
It lets the guy working that science tile do a lot more.

 

[Rinnero]

Cap usually has enough pop to work on every resource/river tiles. Thats why its better to settle at non-river grassland/plain, because otherwise you lose +1 early food from civil service or production.

 

[pspboy7]

I academy more than I sometimes should, but it's never a bad investment, especially early in the game. I tend to bulb more in the later game than early on since RA's just don't cut it anymore after the patches, not that I did lots of RA hehe.

 

[pspboy7]

If you want to make your tiles better, you should be placing it on grasslands/plains river tiles. Yes, you don't get to put something else there, but you can improve those river tiles with a hydroplant to get +1 production.
You could get
2 1 1 8 of a grassland river tile
or 1 2 1 8 on a plains tile
It lets the guy working that science tile do a lot more.

Good point there Crossmr, nice tip

 

[pspboy7]

Crossmr is right, Science has a specific endgame purpose, while production is relevant to all aspects of the game.