Spamming array improvements for one science one energy
- Thread starter s0nny80y
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Tomice
Passionate Smart-Ass
It's quite easy to make money actually, so costly but powerful tile improvements are worth it IMO. Academies and Biowells seem very popular. Biowells get a cool +1 culture upgrade on a ring 2 purity leaf tech. And since everybody is going down prosperity anyway, upgraded terrascapes are not bad either.
You can get farms to +3f, +1p, +1e, +1s. Those and generators seem nice, but I just use farms and mines and win lol.
Talk about improvement variety QQ.
I suppose if you don't go for the farm techs, biowells are great, but if you do just farm every tile in sight, or terrascape deserts and tundra.
Talk about improvement variety QQ.
I suppose if you don't go for the farm techs, biowells are great, but if you do just farm every tile in sight, or terrascape deserts and tundra.
KiNg_
Chieftain
Not to mention the outpost growth and bonus to enemy spies
bkn42
Warlord
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2005
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- 105
Academies are indeed useless. Same with Domes.
+5 science per tile is pretty good IMO
I completely disagree. Without the +2 from the science virtue they are somewhat underpowered, but 5 science per tile is nothing to laugh at.
I don't find the +3 academies that appealing but, like said, the +5 academies are excellent if you have the worker horde and worker building percentage modifiers in. Just five of them worked in a city ring equals 25 population. Just one of them equals 3-4 early game science buildings. And there even aren't that many of them in the game. And there's the least sense of comparing them to specialists.
GAGA Extrem
Emperor
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An basic academy on a grass tile is like a self-sufficent scientist specialist. Not too shabby. With Knowledge, however, they are really powerful.
Arrays on the other hand are useless. I'd rather have an unupgraded academy and a generator than 2 Arrays. Imho they need 1 extra yield to be competetive.
Domes are another improvement that is pretty pointless. They come at the same tech level as Terrascapes and are usually much worse - only reason to build them is that you either don't have the money for Terrascapes or you desperately need HP for a frontline city.
Arrays on the other hand are useless. I'd rather have an unupgraded academy and a generator than 2 Arrays. Imho they need 1 extra yield to be competetive.
Domes are another improvement that is pretty pointless. They come at the same tech level as Terrascapes and are usually much worse - only reason to build them is that you either don't have the money for Terrascapes or you desperately need HP for a frontline city.
- Joined
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Biowells are my favorite. Their location on the Tech Web is superb. You pick up Rangers or Combat Rovers on the way. You're at Robotics anyway for the Autoplant +1 Trade Routes. You get Institute for free Tech. Plus you just opened up CNDRs and/or Battlesuit techs. So there's essentially no opportunity cost.
After you have Biowells, you can have Utopian Health even through a (complete) Domination run Annexing the world. Even ignoring going deep in Prosperity. (Though you still may want to do so.)
Farms are slower because the techs you need take you away from Military (and the all-powerful Autoplant quest), and the Health you get that way is insufficient.
After you have Biowells, you can have Utopian Health even through a (complete) Domination run Annexing the world. Even ignoring going deep in Prosperity. (Though you still may want to do so.)
Farms are slower because the techs you need take you away from Military (and the all-powerful Autoplant quest), and the Health you get that way is insufficient.
alpaca
King of Ungulates
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- Aug 3, 2006
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Academies cost 2 upkeep. So academy + generator = 3 sci while 2 arrays = 2 sci 2 energy. It really depends on the circumstances. There is a tech that provides the array with an additional +1 tech. There's also the virtue that provides the academy upgrade. That said, I also think that academies are probably the best improvement in the game.
I personally don't find terrascapes all that great. If they worked as advertised and provided +2/+2/+2 they'd be awesome, but all they do is turn a tile into a mediocre 2/2/2 tile, for which you pay 6 energy per turn. That's rather excessive considering the amount of worker turns you put in. They're only useful if you choose the according virtue and the tile is turned into 3/3/3.
I agree that domes (and manufactories) are pretty much a joke. Domes are just useless at 2 culture with almost no other benefit and manufactories provide 1 hammer over a measly mine and you get -2 health and pay energy for it. Ok, if you have that industry policy manufactories don't totally suck, but they're still not great.
Biowells are so/so. Most of the time I'd prefer something else, but biowells can save production in your city if you need additional health
An Academy with the +2 science virtue on a flood plain tile is 5 science for 0 upkeep.
Terrascapes seem like a good idea to put on hills/desert/tundra because they can turn a 0-1 food tile into a 2 or 3 food tile depending on virtues taken.
