1 Turn Bulbing a GS (Post Patch)

Fluphen Azine

Fluphen Azine

What is Fluphen Azine?
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Even though the new patch has changed the overflow problem I still notice that if you bulb techs at 1 turn left to research you still get alot of overflow and can shave off many turns in your game. Im just curious how people are using GS's? Do you usually bulb instantly or plant them? Do you make sure you bulb a tech that has many turns or do you wait for a 1 turn tech to bulb? Do you save up all your GS's to wait for after researching PS's or Labs?I know alot of people swear by planting the first GS but I find it still works better for my games to just bulb them all.
 
I do not know if this is the best way to do now after the patch but I plant 1 GS and burn the rest in one turn after I have maxed out my science output for the past 8 turns (at some point after researching plastics and building labs).
 
After 2 academies, I bulb the rest, usually instantly unless I have some kind of Oxford-to-Modern scenario going on.
 
They haven't fixed the beaker overflow exploit, rather they have nerfed it. Overflow cannot be more than the base cost of the last tech cost or 5 turns worth of science, whatever is greater. So you still get overflow but it is capped.
 
Mathematically, planting vs. bulbing gets close to break-even sometime between Industrial and Modern (it's different every game).

Strategically, I find planting more than 2 gets in the way of being early to ideologies.

Regarding the question of when to bulb; you'll get a faster SV by waiting until each bulb is worth 8000+. However, because of silly issues like defense and Wonders, bulbing a couple earlier ends up making sense. I usually go by feel more than math at that point, but i'm also one who cares more about "likelihood of winning" than "speed of victory" (probably a result of early Deity experience of having my capital attacked and not having anywhere to hide 3-4 GS I had been saving).
 
Post patch hasn't really changed the discussion:
-Planting first GS is alright
-Beyond the first it's highly questionable, even for freedom (but if your games tend to go in the late 200 it gets more justified)
-If you plant the first I would not bulb ST
-OCC can plant probably one or 2 more (maths to be made there)

The only real difference the patch made is that you have to be careful with your bulbing, because of Firaxis incompetence to fix the bug appropriately.
 
Yup, it's not changed the cut off point for the last GS to form into an academy and when to save the rest.

It does however mean that you may need to take a few turns bulbing a series of GS instead of all in the same turn if you don't want to waste beakers.
 
phillipwyllie said:
They haven't fixed the beaker overflow exploit, rather they have nerved it. Overflow cannot be more than the base cost of the last tech cost or 5 turns worth of science, whatever is greater. So you still get overflow but it is capped.
Click to expand...

joncnunn said:
It does however mean that you may need to take a few turns bulbing a series of GS instead of all in the same turn if you don't want to waste beakers.
Click to expand...

I am not in the habit of saving GS, but my most recent game I had like 5000+ faith stockpiled waiting to finish off the Rationalism tree which came just at the end of golden age. I never time things that well, so this was a new experience for me. I bought and bulbed 3 GS on one turn. The third one did nothing. Lesson learned!
 
beetle said:
The third one did nothing. Lesson learned!
Click to expand...

Really? That makes very little sense. Can anyone else confirm/deny this?

My habit when going into bulb mode is to do one per turn. I'm not sure where I got the idea that this made sense.

All things equal, science victory requires X number of beakers. Bulbing when BPT are <1000 only makes sense when you need a certain tech NOW. I try to save every GS I can for as long as I can (after planting the first 1-2).

Also, one of my favorite things is to see coal, oil, or aluminum show up underneath an academy. Nothing like having that extra production and have the resource available immediately. I'm starting to think academy placement should consider this (meaning not on strategics). I have lately been planting academies on top of deer/wheat/cattle when possible for the food benefit.
 
There's been a limit for BNW of only getting 1 tech in the middle of your turn via GS with the remainder being kept until the next turn.

This feature actually fed into the overflow exploit via bulbing several all in the same turn that the Halloween patch caps.

Post patch if you refrain from bulbing again on the same turn after having received a tech you'll avoid being caped.
 
Shark Diver said:
I have lately been planting academies on top of deer/wheat/cattle when possible for the food benefit.
Click to expand...

Exceptions abound of course, basically any time the population is low relative to an abundance of above average tiles, but how is this a good general approach?

academy-on-flat-grassland + improved deer/wheat/cattle > academy-on-deer/etc + farm

joncnunn said:
There's been a limit for BNW of only getting 1 tech in the middle of your turn via GS with the remainder being kept until the next turn.
Click to expand...

Sure, I was not expecting multiple techs on a single turn. I was expecting that the next turn I have another 1 turn tech, similar to what had happened pre-patch (not deliberately exploiting the bug, but aspects of it happen pretty often when switching from bottom to top of the tech tree). I image I could have bulbed, switched techs, bulbed again, repeat. But the main problem was that I wasn't thinking about it, as it comes up so rarely for me.
 
beetle said:
Exceptions abound of course, basically any time the population is low relative to an abundance of above average tiles, but how is this a good general approach?

academy-on-flat-grassland + improved deer/wheat/cattle > academy-on-deer/etc + farm
Click to expand...

It seems I play quite a few non-optimal starts where capital growth isn't a given. This works often at those times.

It's not a "general approach", just one that keeps popping up in my games. It can certainly make sense in a desert or tundra start. i'd also say it's probably ideal when playing as Inca, my favorite civ.
 
They should really just change the way to GS work to the way that Great Musicians got nerfed. The value you get from bulbing/mission isn't increased over time. For CV people used to do what people do now for SV. It's silly that scientists you can hoard and bomb later but musicians you can't.

Yes, it would make it harder on human players but it's a step forward in gameplay imo.
 
I did a comparison in my recent game in which Apollo was finished on T205. After that the following were compared (the same number of GS were used):
1. Only 1 tech per turn and only 1GS per turn
2. Two GS per turn, and one time even 3 GS per turn

All other conditions were the same (Freedom, enough gold to buy parts etc.)

The result was that only 1GS per turn was better.
1. T224 finish time
2. T227 finish time.

So it looks like when I bulbed 3 GS I wasted beakers and probably wasted some when bulbing 2GS per turn.

It seems that now the safest way is only 1GS per turn which unfortunately means that your winning time will be 10-20 turns slower.
 
sun8119 said:
It seems that now the safest way is only 1GS per turn which unfortunately means that your winning time will be 10-20 turns slower.
Click to expand...


No you're exaggerating here. The only thing you have to do now is to start bulbing earlier instead of using 2 or 3 a turn. The only difference is in the number of beakers you won't get for bulbing a few turns earlier than before. That quantity isn't worth 10-20 turns.
 
Well, the problem I had is the lack of GS - just 1 extra GS which naturally would have been born around T225. I could have started bulbing earlier but then I would still have to wait.

But sure if you have enough GS to bulb all the techs you need then starting earlier is the way to go :)
 
They patched this wrong, obivously its nice to be able to have alot of overflowing science, its just that the % modifiers to tech should not affects this overflow.

example is you max your science for 8 turns then burn 7 GS

then you will lose all the extra science because of the capped overflow even though this is the optimal strategy even without the bug of % modifiers.
 
I honestly don't think spreading out the bulb is that much of a nerf considering you have around 5 natural ones and 3 faith bought. In the end you're still shaving off about 80 turns of science, it's just the beakers don't get boosted from the modifiers as much.
 
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