Hello! What do Universities do? The description is very vague so I've never taken the card. XD

Depending on the amount of money you put in and upgrades, you have a chance to get more global damage against health/armour/shields every level. Kinda eh atm imo. If you're gonna take them then I recommend waiting as close to level 30 because you can't get the tile you need to use them before that anyway. Funding gets more expensive so it's kinda better to focus on one thing per university... I'd have to do more math to know when buying new universities is better than upgrading one you already have though.

One important thing to note about getting university's somewhat early: They do allow access to several hidden cards, such as; all towers get crit chance +5% or to increase all research by + X%. They work well with lookout towers.

universities, when placed next to a ruin, has a % chance based upon upgrades to provide a global buff to ALL towers increasing the health, armor, and/or shield damage by 1 at the start of a round.

the problem is that there isn't a base % chance for these unless you take another card (3,2 and 1% bonus) and it costs coin to increase the % chance (+20 coin per +1% chance) as such they are MAJOR money sinks that may, or may not do anything.

It is possible to get the ruin very early (I've had one show at round 23) or not at all.

The primary problem with them is that you have to pay a LOT of gold to get them to a decent % chance to provide an increase, and they dont have a base % chance, thus the 500 coin investment to build them does nouthing.

I just did the math. At base, 7 upgrades is the cheapest per upgrade at 151.4 gold per %. If you have the card that gives +3% per category, then 2 upgrades is teh cheapest at 50.9 gold per catigory
any further upgrade cards and then 1 upgrade is the cheapest.

Originally posted by Frosty the Pyro:

I just did the math. At base, 7 upgrades is the cheapest per upgrade at 151.4 gold per %. If you have the card that gives +3% per category, then 2 upgrades is teh cheapest at 50.9 gold per catigory
any further upgrade cards and then 1 upgrade is the cheapest.

I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean... I think to me the most valuable metric would be to know the breakpoint at which building a new university is cheaper than upgrading an existing one...

Plus, I think it's all fairly abstract because, at the point where you start putting down universities, you'll already have invested a bunch in defenses, the increased costs of putting down more towers or upgrading makes it hard to quantify the value of each very well.

Also, knowing all the metrics only helps so much since you can't build an infinite number of universities... and then there's the stats because having 10x universities with 10% chance of boost is quite different from having one with 100%.

Well. I won't go into maths, since I haven't bothered to do calculations, but from my experience if you invest into unis as early as possible (earliest wave to get a ruin for me was 26) until they have 10% chance per level of getting a stat you will get anything from +10 to +25 each, depending on your luck, how many ruins you get and how soon you'll put the money in. I've used unis in all my "ballista + other tower" achievement runs and those were my results. On average I got +15 in each stat.

They give a % based chance to gain 1 global damage for your towers to either Health, Armor, or Shield.

Personally I have stopped caring about them. They are expensive at 500 a pop for something that doesn't come with a base % (without another card,) and for something that does not have a cumulative percentage. Basically each University has a chance to gain the upgrade per game level but four Universities at 25% each does not equal a 100% chance.

They are endgame oriented but they are far too RNG reliant to be worth the cost. If possible use a lookout instead, if needed just buy another lookout.

That being said, there are OTHER perks of taking the University card itself. It unlocks a few other cards that are not just the research chances, such as one for +5% crit to all towers.

Originally posted by Mirinth:

They give a % based chance to gain 1 global damage for your towers to either Health, Armor, or Shield.

Personally I have stopped caring about them. They are expensive at 500 a pop for something that doesn't come with a base % (without another card,) and for something that does not have a cumulative percentage. Basically each University has a chance to gain the upgrade per game level but four Universities at 25% each does not equal a 100% chance.

They are endgame oriented but they are far too RNG reliant to be worth the cost. If possible use a lookout instead, if needed just buy another lookout.

That being said, there are OTHER perks of taking the University card itself. It unlocks a few other cards that are not just the research chances, such as one for +5% crit to all towers.

You can't make use of them at all until Occult Shrines show up, and if 500 gold is "expensive" at level 25ish you're doing something horribly wrong tbh.

Originally posted by Mirinth:

They give a % based chance to gain 1 global damage for your towers to either Health, Armor, or Shield.

Personally I have stopped caring about them. They are expensive at 500 a pop for something that doesn't come with a base % (without another card,) and for something that does not have a cumulative percentage. Basically each University has a chance to gain the upgrade per game level but four Universities at 25% each does not equal a 100% chance.

They are endgame oriented but they are far too RNG reliant to be worth the cost. If possible use a lookout instead, if needed just buy another lookout.

That being said, there are OTHER perks of taking the University card itself. It unlocks a few other cards that are not just the research chances, such as one for +5% crit to all towers.

While I agree RNG can screw you over, I've found that getting the ballista only achievement hinges on universities. I tried time and time again and got to wave 40 and kept dying until I gave in and unlocked universities again.

So yeah, you do rely on RNG, but they are worth the cost.