The Mechanics of Overflow Inflation

yeesh...great find, OP. We should keep bumping this till the devs see it. I'm mostly surprised it took this long to find! And you call yourself fanatics...shame shame

Cromagnus said:

joshua: I actually think it's worse that you get similar results. It makes it very hard to tell whether someone legitimately posted a win or cheated... for things like GoTM, HOF this is especially bad.

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Yeah, hopefully though they can still tell. Like if you have researched the entire tech tree on turn 200 but are only generating 400bpt, it's kind of obvious what you did. But people might be able to be more subtle about it.

Cromagnus said:

Moriarte: Watching your video (thanks for posting it) I noticed you missed an opportunity to get more beaker growth... not sure if it was on purpose or if you didn't realize this, but... at any given level of the tech tree you can tell which tech has been researched by more people, just by looking at the cost. Navigation and Metallurgy both have the same default cost (1150) but in your game, Navigation was noticeably cheaper than Metallurgy. I noticed you eventually theorized that if you had taken Navigation earlier you would have gotten more overflow, but I don't know if you realized that you can determine this in general for every tech. If it has a lower cost than other techs at the same level, then you know for certain that at least one player has researched it.

So, theoretically, you could use this to "ride the limit" of 210,000: Check the costs and stop taking techs that have already been researched when you're at risk of going over 210k. Start again when you drop safely down far enough, say 150k beakers.

Of course, you were planning on stopping at some point to Dominate(tm), but still. The overflow multiplier for taking Navigation would have been higher than Metallurgy.

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Thought it was 2^18 = 262144 that sent you into negative beakers, not 210k. Could be wrong.

Anyway, I'm guessing the optimal approach, if used correctly, would allow you to complete the entire tech tree, the limiting factor just being the number of techs. Furthermore, I'm guessing it's better to bulb your GSes on separate turns. I think the overflow applies each time you research a tech, and by bulbing your GS's on three separate turns, you research two extra techs. Since the overflow from ONE GS is enough, you'll finish whatever path you're trying to finish 2 turns faster that way.

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Nope, the overflow when completing a tech via bulb doesn't seem to multiply. By bulbing 9 scientists I was at ~53k extra, then researched sailing and was at ~80k overflow for optics. By bulbing 8 scientists, then selecting sailing and bulbing the last, I was still at ~53k overflow for optics. 2 turns later, it was ~100k overflow for astronomy vs 150k overflow for astronomy. No more multiplirs after that, as this was a test on settler and nobody had astronomy. Got astronomy, and all the subsequent techs, one turn earlier, but at the cost of 50k beakers, ~4 final tier techs, at the end.

sanabas said:

Thought it was 2^18 = 262144 that sent you into negative beakers, not 210k. Could be wrong.

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Nope.214748 precisely

Cromagnus said:

I think that was logical and on purpose, actually. I think, with the exception of "The Netherlands", which I believe is the correct name for that country in English, they chose "The" for civilizations that don't have a well-known country name. England is a country. China is a country. When the Aztecs and Inca were dominant civilizations, what were the names of those countries? I don't think, by today's standards, they had "country names", or at least I've never heard of them. I have however heard or seen it written as "The Aztecs" and "The Inca", so that naming convention makes sense to me. It took me off guard at first too, but I think it's logical.

/shrug

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You are apparently also unaware of the convention that "The" is disregarded when sorting names alphabetically.

qemist said:

You are apparently also unaware of the convention that "The" is disregarded when sorting names alphabetically.

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Nah, I just misread his meaning. I thought he was taking issue with naming them "The Aztecs".

sanabas said:

Thought it was 2^18 = 262144 that sent you into negative beakers, not 210k. Could be wrong.



Nope, the overflow when completing a tech via bulb doesn't seem to multiply. By bulbing 9 scientists I was at ~53k extra, then researched sailing and was at ~80k overflow for optics. By bulbing 8 scientists, then selecting sailing and bulbing the last, I was still at ~53k overflow for optics. 2 turns later, it was ~100k overflow for astronomy vs 150k overflow for astronomy. No more multiplirs after that, as this was a test on settler and nobody had astronomy. Got astronomy, and all the subsequent techs, one turn earlier, but at the cost of 50k beakers, ~4 final tier techs, at the end.

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Well, I meant that (on the higher difficulty levels at least) you could possibly get enough overflow from 1 GS that you could afford to bulb the other ones on separate turns, because you'd still be accumulating overflow each time. However, in retrospect, you'd be bulbing the techs that would generate the most overflow. So, perhaps it would be better to bulb 1-2 immediately and save the rest for rushing research labs. Also, I assume you get an extra turn of overflow if you bulb the GS in such a way that you avoid getting a free tech that turn. (IE you stay at 1turn-to-completion instead of completing)

I'm not sure exactly what dictates that, but I think the way to do it would be to try to get an expensive tech super-close to completion, then do all your bulbing, so that the only free tech you get is the expensive one, saving almost all your GS bulb beakers for Sailing... right?

DonChipotle said:

Yeah, hopefully though they can still tell. Like if you have researched the entire tech tree on turn 200 but are only generating 400bpt, it's kind of obvious what you did. But people might be able to be more subtle about it.

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This is a good point for SV. It would be pretty easy to tell from the final beakers alone. However, for Domination it would be harder to tell that you had achieved t150 artillery through cheating vs skill.

If the game replay shows GS bulbs & which turn a tech was discovered, it should be fairly trivial to detect though:

If you see someone bulb 1 or 2 GS's, and then discover sailing, optics, compass, etc. at 1 tech/turn, riding the bottom of the tree... that would be a dead giveaway. Even if they didn't do it on purpose, it would be proof that they took advantage of the exploit. It puts extra burden on the poor HOF guys though.

Cromagnus said:

Well, I meant that (on the higher difficulty levels at least) you could possibly get enough overflow from 1 GS that you could afford to bulb the other ones on separate turns, because you'd still be accumulating overflow each time. However, in retrospect, you'd be bulbing the techs that would generate the most overflow. So, perhaps it would be better to bulb 1-2 immediately and save the rest for rushing research labs. Also, I assume you get an extra turn of overflow if you bulb the GS in such a way that you avoid getting a free tech that turn. (IE you stay at 1turn-to-completion instead of completing)

I'm not sure exactly what dictates that, but I think the way to do it would be to try to get an expensive tech super-close to completion, then do all your bulbing, so that the only free tech you get is the expensive one, saving almost all your GS bulb beakers for Sailing... right?

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Yep. First bulb gives you a free tech, but if you don't select new research, subsequent bulbs on the same turn will just increase the overflow. Not that it will make that much difference on a high level. Will on a low level. If you bulb 50k beakers and needed only 200 to get your tech, you'll get maybe 150k with sailing/optics/compass. If you bulb 50k and needed 5k to get your tech, then you'll only get maybe 135k. Doubt it will make as much difference on deity, because you can probably get enough multipliers to top 200k regardless. My guess is still 1 turn from architecture will be the best time to do it, give the most chance of unlocking the entire tech tree in one hit. 1 turn from acoustics only got me to plastics, was only ~1k initial overflow, and didn't multiply high enough to go further.

sanabas said:

Yep. First bulb gives you a free tech, but if you don't select new research, subsequent bulbs on the same turn will just increase the overflow. Not that it will make that much difference on a high level. Will on a low level. If you bulb 50k beakers and needed only 200 to get your tech, you'll get maybe 150k with sailing/optics/compass. If you bulb 50k and needed 5k to get your tech, then you'll only get maybe 135k. Doubt it will make as much difference on deity, because you can probably get enough multipliers to top 200k regardless. My guess is still 1 turn from architecture will be the best time to do it, give the most chance of unlocking the entire tech tree in one hit. 1 turn from acoustics only got me to plastics, was only ~1k initial overflow, and didn't multiply high enough to go further.

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I suspect your right. Just got log jammed bulbing 2 GS's the turn electricity finished (bulbed Radar with Oxford same turn). You have to stay below 160kish on Deity when getting AI known techs or you break the 210k barrier. This was also too long to wait, would have given me a 250ish turn SV I suspect which is excellent but not "exploit" speed

joshua43214 said:

I suspect your right. Just got log jammed bulbing 2 GS's the turn electricity finished (bulbed Radar with Oxford same turn). You have to stay below 160kish on Deity when getting AI known techs or you break the 210k barrier. This was also too long to wait, would have given me a 250ish turn SV I suspect which is excellent but not "exploit" speed

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Yeah, the ideal point to do it is 1 turn from Architecture after ignoring both Bronze Working+ and Sailing+. It's hard to pass Scholars by that point, but you might not need it on Deity (with Scholars, I actually had to use Oxford mid-exploit to prevent overflowing into negative, and I only used one GS).

Wow this is just ridiculous.

Yay for bugs i guess.

The scary thing is, I think you can actually benefit from this as early as t85. I haven't tried it, but I'm pretty sure neglecting Bronzeworking and Sailing on the way to Machinery would allow you to bulb a Liberty Finisher GS right as you finish Guilds, pick up the cheap techs and have enough overflow beakers left to complete Machinery and Civil Service on t95, or something like that anyway. It wouldn't be as drastic as later-game exploits, but it could still earn you a good number of free techs.

I'm going to test this theory with Shaka.

Does anyone think they put this in on purpose to help the weakest (science-wise) civ and just assumed no one would ever burn a GS on a 1-turn tech? (And did not test.)

pvtjava said:

Does anyone think they put this in on purpose to help the weakest (science-wise) civ and just assumed no one would ever burn a GS on a 1-turn tech? (And did not test.)

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Yes, that is exactly why this is in the game.

I'm not sure if the catch-up mechanic existed back in vanilla, when a GS simply gave a free tech, but this likely wasn't thought of when they were changed to produce a science value instead.

So you can definitely use this pre-T100. It works best with civs that can get an extra Great Scientist, namely Babylon and The Maya, but it would probably work with any civ.

I did a very rough test run, sub-optimal in many ways, using Babylon. #1 in science by t100, backed my way into the renaissance via steel, first to Printing Press, had Education Chivalry and Machinery by t102... I got 1 tech/turn starting on t90 or so until t108. My overflow got slightly bigger every turn until I hit the final tier techs (IE the last tier that the AI had researched) at which point it immediately started dropping. I think it peaked at 2600 excess beakers, and most of the techs at the last tier of medieval cost around 640, so I got 4 more techs before I ran out.

Just to make it clear how much extra beakers this earned me, I had roughly 70beakers/turn naturally, and my excess grew or broke even until I researched the 640beaker techs. So, with 70 beakers/turn, I was getting 320beaker techs every turn and still gaining roughly 100-200 beakers excess each turn. So, the amount of bonus beakers I got from the exploit was about 300-400. Sure it only lasted 15 turns, but that is just game-breaking, even that early. It's the equivalent of 3-4 extra GSes at that stage.

And, on top of that, I didn't even attempt to beeline. I did everything very suboptimally up to that point, and had very low production and growth, so I'm pretty sure if I had been playing better, and had stopped collecting the last tier of techs when my excess beakers stopped growing, then beelined Chemistry after Education, I would have had Cannons by t100 and Artillery by t130.

Basically, here's my take on early use of it. It's not as optimal as later use, because you run out of techs to get "for free" pretty fast when you overtake the AI. There's a critical mass where the overflow at least breaks even (roughly 8x the cost of a tech it seems) or will grow as long as the majority of the AIs have researched that tech. Once you pass them, you quickly run out of free techs because the overflow amount is small that early in the game.

So, if you can bulb 2 GS in one turn around t90 you can basically learn every tech the AIs know at 1 tech/turn + a few more. (I used babylon + liberty to get 2 GS and bulbed them the same turn I finished Compass)

Also this was in a game where I completed NC *after* bulbing my GS.

So, the potential, if you time it right, is huge. I think the optimal path is Pacal, so you don't sit there with a GS burning your gpt all the way from Writing. You don't want to avoid teching writing, so Babylon can't exploit this quite as much.

Here are some screens from t104 when my excess ran out. As you can see I was #1 in tech and almost had enough to complete all medieval techs. However, in future runs I won't bother to fill out the upper tier of Medieval. It's better to beeline with that excess tech.

Next time I'll beeline Education with Pacal, use the Liberty and Long Count GS the turn I complete Education, rack up all the cheap techs, and then see how far I can get towards Dynamite. I'm pretty sure I can get Fertilizer by t110. The trick then is to get enough population growth and production to feed your university slots and build cannons. Getting Artillery on t135 is pointless if you don't have cannons to upgrade.




Alternatively, it might be best with Babylon, but instead of beelining Education, hug the bottom of the tree and bulb your GS when you complete Metal-Casting or maybe Physics. Those techs are more likely to be unresearched, so you don't "waste" your research on techs you can get for free. More importantly, you've got less techs left to research between you and Dynamite when you get the overflow beakers.

ravenmagus said:

I officially dub it the Science Slingshot.

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Since we heard about it from Japan, maybe we should call it とある科学の一方通行 (A Certain Scientific Accelerator)

So now u need some1 who isnt just good at exploiting but also at playing to do a really fast win ...

Which appears to be the goal of this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=518297

Fallen_Kings said:

Nope.214748 precisely

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What lame language are they using that has ints that rollover at 214748?