[GS] Where to build Campus when you don't have mountains.

[mrkzchh2]

Hi, well my question is pretty resumed in the title. I'm starting to make my games in Immortal, especially trying to achieve science victories and I don't know what to do with my campuses when I don't have neither mountains or rainforest in my near tiles. What do you do when you are in this situations? Thank you!

 

[monikernemo]

next to government plazas?

 

[Casualty of war]

Try to maximize any Jungle adjacency that you are planning to keep and make District clusters to get that adjacency bonus. Reefs also help and you can sometimes get a nice Reef-Harbor-Commercial Hub-Campus going.

 

[knighterrant81]

First, know that the goal is to try to get your adjacency bonus up to +3 for the Rationalism card.

Here are some options:

- use the Government Plaza and the City Center to bump a Campus up to +2. The other Districts you put next to the Plaza (like, say, more Campuses) will bump it up to +3.
- Use Jungles and other Districts
- Don't forget Reefs give you a major adjacency now.

Even when I am going for a Science Victory, I may not build a Campus in every city. Play the map: don't try to force a Campus into every city, build the District that best fits what the city can do. Coastal cities are good for boosting trade (just don't overbuild on the coast, I still think inland cities have an edge). Flat tile cities are a bit weak, but they are pretty good locations for Industrial Zones and Commercial Hubs.

That leads to another conclusion: if you don't have a direct Civ bonus to Campus adjacencies, your ability to have a Science Victory can be determined by the map you get. Civs like Australia, Maya or Korea are basically guaranteed to get as many strong Campuses as they like. That's one of the reasons they are so strong for a Science Victory. If you are playing a Civ like Rome, and you don't get a lot of mountains, then you should probably go for a Domination Victory. That's what Rome does best.

 

[Bibor]

If you're not looking for a record finish, this situation can be used for practicing two key components of space race victories that eluded me for so long:

1) Building space parts fast is actually a cultural feat that requires Royal Society (and thus Suffrage) and workers.
2) Powering science is more important than campus adjacency bonuses.

Powering comes primarily from culture, population, workers and in-game power mechanic:
- getting your population in cities to 10
- unlocking Education and chopping in Universities.
- getting to The Enlightenment and slotting in the Rationalism card
- Finding and investing into (incl. protecting) scientific city states
- unlocking Chemistry and acquiring Research labs
- building just enough industrial zones that will cover your Research labs needs


+3 Campuses would be obviously ideal, but you can in fact work with less:
A zero adjacency campus can still net you:
+2 from library
+4 from university
+8 from a powered research lab
That's 14, and with "population power" i.e. city-size-10 Rationalism, this still gets boosted to a total of 21.

 

[Victoria]

You need to pair/treble cities to get to +3 or wait until you can grow trees.
you chose where to settle your cities, you just do your best.

 

[DanQuayle]

If you cannot get any adjacency bonus from terrain, just build 6 districts around it. (excluding the government plaza bonus which can only accommodate 1-3 cities)
If you cities are close enough, you can build your districts in an inbetween cluster.
In the worst case scenario where there is no adjacency bonus from terrain and your cities are far apart, build your campus in the aqueduct / city center "nook" + 4 other districts. It may require a pop 13 city if you cannot build a dam.

terrain > inbetween cluster > solo cluster
because of the timing of when you get the bonus

 

[playshogi]

A game setup trick is to select "new" world age. There will be plenty of mountains. The exception is the Maya. There, you want "old" world age so that you gets lots of flat terrain for farms, since their "observatory" districts get its adjacency from farms and plantations and nothing from mountains.

 

[Bibor]

This is also why Japan is so powerful: any victory district can go up to a +4 with 3 cities, a ring of 6 districts and a govt plaza in the middle. No mountains, wonders or reefs needed.