as with most things we don't know the details but i would assume there would be a benefit, There really is no reason for there to be any kind of diminishing returns when it comes to research/learning.

if anything it would make more sense for it to be the other way around where having more of it in one location should give them a cumulative buff and create a reason to have something like an academic city.

and its probably more accurate to think of it as X amount of people rather then X amount of schools.

I think it would be better to pool the resources together, if possible, rather than have 3 schools of alchemy next door to each other who are working independently.

Also, institutions are just institutions as far as I know and this buff you are referring to would come from the workforce (do you have a legendary alchemist?) as Caspian has said that "buff" from inanimate objects aren't the norm.

and its probably more accurate to think of it as X amount of people rather then X amount of schools.

This would promote having higher learning institutions only in densely populated areas.

I think it would be better to pool the resources together, if possible, rather than have 3 schools of alchemy next door to each other who are working independently.

This would negate the spirit of competition.

I’m thinking that each institution will ‘spawn” a certain number of qualified NPCs. The more people/NPCs working on a single problem faster the answer is achieved, the more projects that can be worked in parallel.

Or do institutions expand and fail like settlements?

Posted By LukeSpyro at 6:11 PM - Sun Jun 23 2019

I think it would be better to pool the resources together, if possible, rather than have 3 schools of alchemy next door to each other who are working independently.

It would probobly be better to pool them together but there shouldnt be any issue with them being seperate. Still this scenario would probably be rare since why would someone try to start some kind of alchemy school in a city/ county that already has one, it would make more sense to go someplace else where the demand for that kind of thing isn't already being met.

The only real reason to end up with two similar schools near each other would be that the person opening up the second one just thought that he could make his better. or they specialize in different things, alchemy might not have many specializations within it but other professions might, plus some schools could focus on research while others focus on teaching.

Posted By Veteran at 6:54 PM - Sun Jun 23 2019

and its probably more accurate to think of it as X amount of people rather then X amount of schools.

This would promote having higher learning institutions only in densely populated areas.

Well that would be realistic, if you went to a small rural town in real life with a population of 2500 people you wouldn't expect to find a local university with as wide a range of degrees as you would find in a town of 250,000 people.

Keep in mind a few things:

1) a lot of rural counties have smaller community colleges

2) schools breading swine and horses will not be done downtown in the highest populated city

3) schools specializing in fruit tree grafting will need room to grow, aka need rural unpopulated areas

More information needed. Thanks.

Posted By Veteran at 6:08 PM - Sun Jun 23 2019

2) schools breading swine

That's called a corn dog!

I know, I know, but it was right there.