The "Official" Diety Overflow Exploit Challenge

Summary from what I understood about the science overflow tactic:

-try to have raw beakers over 100 (RAs don't count, presumably trade routes don't either? What about patronage CS ally science beakers?)

-bulb 1-2 GS (harder said than done without education tech path presumably?)

-win the vote for scholars in residence world congress (try to guarantee vote win - patronage policy and forbidden palace helps, also it helps to bribe voters and found world congress yourself

-specify the tech path so that you have the greatest possible number of early techs unresearched (I suspect that this is of importance, to maximize the multiplicative benefit of overflow - the number of unresearched techs by the player, but that the same unresearched techs are actually already known by the AI)

-espionage (presumably it benefits overflow if you LET AI steal your techs)
catch22 is that AI doesn't need to spend beaker maintenance on actual research purposes so the techadvantage, is not further widened against the hardest teching AIs

Beakers from City States (via Patronage) do count toward your overflow. 100 beaker/turn is not a requirement. You just need to have some decent amount of overflow. You can bulb multiple GSes for example.

Allowing AIs to steal your techs that you researched doesn't help.
 
For best results, you have to get lucky and have the AI discover Printing Press early. You can go for early Printing Press yourself, but I've never achieved it before t110 even with insane dirt. With the right AIs in the game, t110 can happen naturally. Then wait for Scholars. Scholars gives waaaay more overflow beakers because of compound interest. If there are 15 techs the AI knows that you don't, Scholars gives about 8x as many overflow beakers. As long as your bulb is 10x the first tech you research, this snowball will grow large enough to complete the tree.

The longer you wait to bulb, the bigger your initial snowball, which increases the peak overflow.

If you try to bulb before t140, which implies not getting Scholars in Residence, you can only get about 40-60k beakers... depending on the AI, and that number goes down the earlier you bulb. Your overflow is compounded at closer to ~20% instead of ~40% without Scholars. You can get more with Pacal because you can bulb an extra GS after you get one naturally. You can get another with Mixed Liberty/Tradition. It is theoretically possible to get 4 GS by t117 this way:

For 3->Education by 104 + Garden + National Epic to get +50% GS points will get you a GS by t115. Fill the Writer's Guild to have Great Writers on hand, keep Liberty one point from completion, bulb it on t116. Long Count GS on t117. That's 3.

For 4->However, if you can get Education by t88, which I know is tough, but with Pacal, not out of the question... you can get 4. You get one points GS on t98, and another GS on t117. Then bulb GW to finish liberty on the same turn and get your long count GS. Voila, 4 GS on t117. This will get you 50k+ beakers, and that will get you 2nd-tier Atomic Era techs, even Information Era if you go for the cheapest path. Otherwise you're limited to late Modern or early Atomic techs.

Here's the cheatsheet summary:

Things that increase your max free techs:
* Extra GS: Early Education, Maya, Babylon and/or Liberty closer
* Waiting longer to bulb
* Leaving both Bronze-working AND Sailing unresearched
* Waiting for scholars

There's a theoretical limit on how early you can get Info era techs, simply due to the fact that the bulb strength goes way down the earlier you execute the exploit.
 
Ive never yet cleaned up the whole tech tree with this science overflow !

I mean Ive gotten to the atomic era units like infantry + flight +artillery + landships (without biology though)

It seems I always run out of the overflow science at the end. Admittedly, the problem for me is always that I MUST research something during the turns of waiting that the world congress is convening for the voting results.

I.e. I do get to the early education often and get many GS as Babylon etc... But I gotta start working on the bronzeworking tree eventually because there's like no other options iin the tech tree anymore.

Last game I bulbed like 4 GS with babylon Scholars enacted, but the overflow only carried me into the atomics techs like plastics. I just didn't time this thing properly I think...
I relied on the sailing line bulbs

Let me get this straight though? What you must do initially when yyou start the bulbs, yyou select the cheap tech like sailing (1 turn left). Then you bulb the first GS.

Then you get the message that says you finished sailing. Then you bulb all the rest of the GS without even selecting any other techs after sailing.

Then you select a tech (1 turn remaining) and press end turn?

Can you KNOW for sure, whether a given technology has already been discovered by at least one AI civ? Can you tell this by looking at the tech cost in the tech tree?
 
Ive never yet cleaned up the whole tech tree with this science overflow !

I mean Ive gotten to the atomic era units like infantry + flight +artillery + landships (without biology though)

It seems I always run out of the overflow science at the end. Admittedly, the problem for me is always that I MUST research something during the turns of waiting that the world congress is convening for the voting results.

I.e. I do get to the early education often and get many GS as Babylon etc... But I gotta start working on the bronzeworking tree eventually because there's like no other options iin the tech tree anymore.

Last game I bulbed like 4 GS with babylon Scholars enacted, but the overflow only carried me into the atomics techs like plastics. I just didn't time this thing properly I think...
I relied on the sailing line bulbs

Let me get this straight though? What you must do initially when yyou start the bulbs, yyou select the cheap tech like sailing (1 turn left). Then you bulb the first GS.

Then you get the message that says you finished sailing. Then you bulb all the rest of the GS without even selecting any other techs after sailing.

Then you select a tech (1 turn remaining) and press end turn?

Can you KNOW for sure, whether a given technology has already been discovered by at least one AI civ? Can you tell this by looking at the tech cost in the tech tree?

Are you on deity? If you are on a lower difficulty level and the AI don't have a tech lead you won't experience the same results.
 
Don't select any tech. Bulb all GS at once the turn you complete architecture. But you only get good overflow for the techs that most or all of the AIs have researched. On King that's a lot less. You'd have to intentionally slow down your research until 8 turns before you bulb. But this trick just won't be as effective on King regardless.
 
t281 future Tech on Emperor. I started by bulbing 2 Gs after I built Public Schools in all 4 of my cities, and finished researching Electricity on t235. There were some hairy moments where I nearly ran into negative overflow. I'm going to try on Immortal and bulb as soon as I reach the Industrial Age and see if i can beat that time.
 

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I'm trying the two-shot out at immortal. You just can't wait for someone to discover printing press. The last game was still slowed by the AI:s abysmal tech rate; Babylon reached renaissance at turn 165 with 4 good cities. The first AI only hit industrial at turn 192, even with with scholars. I reached, fertiliser, industrialisation and radio with the first shot started turn 135. The second shot, after scholars fell short though and I had to wait 10 turns for particle theory. Finished turn 236 which is 12 turns behind my best attempt with only one shot after public schools+scholars. But I should be able to do under 200 at immortal.
 
Agreed. On Immortal you'll have to rush Printing Press yourself. Which is why for a two-stage run your goal for the first bulb should be earliest possible Printing press, IMHO. On Deity, this is not significantly faster than waiting for the AI to get Printing Press, but on Immortal it should save many turns. For a one-bulb run, there are really two options. Bulb before t100 or so to get early public schools, or wait until t115 or so to get early Plastics. I think the latter is the better approach because it nets you earlier Ideology. That extra happiness will help max your population growth, which is really the key to SV. Plus, getting into that later era sooner will boost trade route food yield, and get you more trade routes, from the techs along the way.

(I say there are two options because I don't think waiting for the AI to tech Printing Press is actually faster than a traditional science victory on Immortal)

On Deity, I'm tempted to play with early Penicillin + Freedom to see if getting Medical labs + reduced food that early use boosts growth enough to compete with Order.
 
t260 Future Tech on Emperor using a OCC Babylon. I only made 2 mistakes and that was catching a Shoshone spy, and not having any early RAs. I tried many attempts starting when I finished researching Architecture(t183), Scientific Theory(193), and Electricity(t202) which all resulted in me running out of steam. In the end I started on t216 when I finished Radio.
My strategy was to beeline Eduction then Printing press and to explore, explore, explore which resulted me in hosting the WC. Coupled with timing my Renaissance spy to be in Carthage at the time of WC founding I was able to bribe 4 civs to vote for Scholars in Residence.
 

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I've been trying this exploit and it's great.

The limiting factor here is without a doubt the turn the World congress is founded which determines the turn Scholars in Residence is approved.

You can ensure that Scholars passes proposing it and buying votes from 3/4 civs moving your spies during the 30 turn wait.

You cannot affect the turn the World congress is founded as it depends on a civ researching Printing Press and meeting the other civs (this is quite assured being Pangaea). You cannot discover yourself Printing Press to found the congress earlier as you need to avoid the Iron Working line or you'd lose half of the overflow (and founding 10 turns earlier for half the overflow is not worth it).

In my game with Babylon, I built 4 cities, filled uni slots asap. Congress was founded T110 and scholars passed T140.
I had 3 Great Scientists waiting. It happened just in time as I had no "new" techs to research (finished Machinery and Architecture, you have to be careful to time it).
I burned the 3 scientists with the Science ledger in "select tech" (just discovered Architecture) so then I could select either optics or iron working (needed fishing for pearls happiness) with like 3300 beakers of overflow.
10 turns later (150) i'm researching Physics with over 75000 beakers of overflow and growing.
I started signing RAs and continued getting GS points as each RA and GS means an additional tech and at this point you're limited to get a tech each turn no matter the beaker cost.

At this point you can do what you want and select the win condition. I dunno which would be the fastest, spaceship parts money bought, UN or Tourism (reaching fast Internet civs would have low culture points).

I'll post a screen of a later turn count.

¿Is it really a way to speed things up? If you burn 2 GS without scholars in residence to reach earlier Printing Press and then let's say 2 once it passed with only the fishing line remaining (only 4-5 already discovered techs) I thing the overflow would only allow you to reach a certain tech sooner (say artillery) but your science would stagnant after that with 0 overflow and no GS stored or planted.
 
My shot at a sub 200 victory using this exploit:

Turn 184 Deity Science Victory with Babylon, standard, pangea. Room for improvement, some bad decisioins. Used tradition, might have gotten one more initial scientist if liberty for the finisher, but I don't like playing liberty...

No Scholars in residence, because: you cannot self research it (you burn 10 exponential techs, not worth it, and you cannot really wait anyway until turn 140 ish to start your bulb out (too late IMO to finish up for a sub 200 victory). Generally, burning the guaranteed exponential growth techs is a very bad idea, because, well, it's exponential growth :)

If you have the sailing, bronze working and masonry lines + gunpowder unresearched when you reach architecture (13 techs) you will have a multiplier of 1.2625^13 = 20.7 . Now, the real fun starts if you have just a couple of more techs researched by the AI (let's say 15) but not you: 1.2625^15 is a multiplier of 33! If you were "dumb" enough to research fishing because you wanted another trade route, that 20.7 would drop to 16.4... Very bad idea indeed.

When you are standing at the architecture threshold you need about 200.000 Science (very rough estimate) to finish the spaceship techs.

At least as Babylon, it is possible to generate 3 great scientists + the free one from writing (saved, not settled) by the time you finish architecture. The unique thing about babylon is that the first free scientist really is free (does not advance the cost of scientist no. 2) and of course the great +50% scientist GPP. Getting 2 unis up at education, the capital having both garden and the national epic, will result in 3 scientists generated just in time (1st capital, 2nd in 2nd city, 3rd in capital again).

Not sure you could do this as easily with Maya, would require a lot of timing because the Maya GP DOES increase the cost of the next one as far as i recall, and they generate new ones a lot slower than babylon in the early game.

The window is narrow, because your universities, rationalism policy etc. are pushing you towards architecture, but you want to hold off as long as possible to generate the max amount of scientists for a max size bulb. At the same time, you want your universities up in all 4 cities + 8 scientists working and opening rationalism + secularism done by the time you start researching architecture (to maximize the value of your bulb-out when you do it 8 turns later...).

Of course, you really do have to bulb when you reach architecture, otherwise you start burning the multiplier techs (nothing else left to research....)

When I bulbed, I had aproximately 250 science/turn(? don't remember exactly) which for me resulted in 1500 from each scientist, so an initial overflow of 4*1500 = 6000 beakers. Thus, my expected beaker max overflow at the end of the exponential growth was 6000 x 20 = 120 000. I ended up somewhere around 110 000 ish, so it worked out pretty well (discrepancy due to high beaker cost of the latest techs and perhaps not all AI having researched them).

I reached the the apollo program tech and advanced balistics (the SS bosters tech) with the initial overflow before i ran out of steam (meant I could hardbuild 4 spaceship parts before needing the remaining 2 techs, which gave my cap something to do while waiting for the last bulb-out)

Got the Sattelites (for Hubble) from my rationalism finisher, bought a great engineer to finish it in 1 turn (yay tradition) finished just one round of 3 RA's around turn 170 ish, bulbed another 7 Great Scientists (2 of them from Hubble, 1 from Procelain tower - missed leaning tower unfortunately) scientists for around 5500 bulbs each to finish out the 2 last 2 needed techs when i was at around 800 Science/turn (not settling any GS in capital makes it hard to reach 1000/turn...) used Oxford on particle physics and that was pretty much it (the scientist bulbs got me to nanotechnology shy of 3 turns or something).

I had to use space procurements to buy 2 parts, probably because i held off for a number to turns to build apollo (bad idea, thought i had plenty of time, turns out I did not :) )

Having a lot of science AI's in the game would help a lot I think, In my game I had a few warmonger (Shaka, Genghis) and a few dud AIs (India, Venice), with 2 decent tech-AIs (Haille, Hiawatha) and Washington, who did little at all.... obviously, more tech-oriented AIs (Sejong) would have helped a lot, as my initial bulb would be helped by more exponential growth (remember, just 1 or 2 techs gives huge exponential returns at that stage)

I'll try another few games to optimize and see if my results are consistent, or if I just got lucky :)
 
My shot at a sub 200 victory using this exploit:

Turn 184 Deity Science Victory with Babylon, standard, pangea. Room for improvement, some bad decisioins. Used tradition, might have gotten one more initial scientist if liberty for the finisher, but I don't like playing liberty...

No Scholars in residence, because: you cannot self research it (you burn 10 exponential techs, not worth it, and you cannot really wait anyway until turn 140 ish to start your bulb out (too late IMO to finish up for a sub 200 victory). Generally, burning the guaranteed exponential growth techs is a very bad idea, because, well, it's exponential growth :)

If you have the sailing, bronze working and masonry lines + gunpowder unresearched when you reach architecture (13 techs) you will have a multiplier of 1.2625^13 = 20.7 . Now, the real fun starts if you have just a couple of more techs researched by the AI (let's say 15) but not you: 1.2625^15 is a multiplier of 33! If you were "dumb" enough to research fishing because you wanted another trade route, that 20.7 would drop to 16.4... Very bad idea indeed.

When you are standing at the architecture threshold you need about 200.000 Science (very rough estimate) to finish the spaceship techs.

At least as Babylon, it is possible to generate 3 great scientists + the free one from writing (saved, not settled) by the time you finish architecture. The unique thing about babylon is that the first free scientist really is free (does not advance the cost of scientist no. 2) and of course the great +50% scientist GPP. Getting 2 unis up at education, the capital having both garden and the national epic, will result in 3 scientists generated just in time (1st capital, 2nd in 2nd city, 3rd in capital again).

Not sure you could do this as easily with Maya, would require a lot of timing because the Maya GP DOES increase the cost of the next one as far as i recall, and they generate new ones a lot slower than babylon in the early game.

The window is narrow, because your universities, rationalism policy etc. are pushing you towards architecture, but you want to hold off as long as possible to generate the max amount of scientists for a max size bulb. At the same time, you want your universities up in all 4 cities + 8 scientists working and opening rationalism + secularism done by the time you start researching architecture (to maximize the value of your bulb-out when you do it 8 turns later...).

Of course, you really do have to bulb when you reach architecture, otherwise you start burning the multiplier techs (nothing else left to research....)

When I bulbed, I had aproximately 250 science/turn(? don't remember exactly) which for me resulted in 1500 from each scientist, so an initial overflow of 4*1500 = 6000 beakers. Thus, my expected beaker max overflow at the end of the exponential growth was 6000 x 20 = 120 000. I ended up somewhere around 110 000 ish, so it worked out pretty well (discrepancy due to high beaker cost of the latest techs and perhaps not all AI having researched them).

I reached the the apollo program tech and advanced balistics (the SS bosters tech) with the initial overflow before i ran out of steam (meant I could hardbuild 4 spaceship parts before needing the remaining 2 techs, which gave my cap something to do while waiting for the last bulb-out)

Got the Sattelites (for Hubble) from my rationalism finisher, bought a great engineer to finish it in 1 turn (yay tradition) finished just one round of 3 RA's around turn 170 ish, bulbed another 7 Great Scientists (2 of them from Hubble, 1 from Procelain tower - missed leaning tower unfortunately) scientists for around 5500 bulbs each to finish out the 2 last 2 needed techs when i was at around 800 Science/turn (not settling any GS in capital makes it hard to reach 1000/turn...) used Oxford on particle physics and that was pretty much it (the scientist bulbs got me to nanotechnology shy of 3 turns or something).

I had to use space procurements to buy 2 parts, probably because i held off for a number to turns to build apollo (bad idea, thought i had plenty of time, turns out I did not :) )

Having a lot of science AI's in the game would help a lot I think, In my game I had a few warmonger (Shaka, Genghis) and a few dud AIs (India, Venice), with 2 decent tech-AIs (Haille, Hiawatha) and Washington, who did little at all.... obviously, more tech-oriented AIs (Sejong) would have helped a lot, as my initial bulb would be helped by more exponential growth (remember, just 1 or 2 techs gives huge exponential returns at that stage)

I'll try another few games to optimize and see if my results are consistent, or if I just got lucky :)

Nicely done!

You can get 4 GS with the Maya too, 5 with Liberty if you don't mind losing the Tradition GEs. I didn't know about Babylon's free GS not affecting GS points though. That's awesome. You should be able to get 5 naturally with Babylon. T90 Education, GS on t99, (12pts/turn) GS on t110, (10pts/turn) GS on T120, (10pts/turn), GS on T124 (12pts/turn), + the free one. T90 is hard but doable.

If you don't tech-steal, you should be able to time completion of Architecture with t124, although you might have to hold off on working the slots in the 4th city until 8 turns before.

For the Maya though, in the capital with NE and Garden you have 9pts/turn, and in the expos you have 6, 7 w/ Garden. So 12 turns to the first GS, 29 to the second, 34 to the third (in capital)... so you just need Education by t98, then take the t133 Long Count for a GS. The problem with this is that you'll be hard-pressed to not complete Architecture sooner than t133. If you resist the urge to tech-steal, maybe you can delay it, but having solid beakers for 8 turns with 4 fully staffed universities... it tends to speed things up. :p

T85 Education is really hard to pull off, but you could get 4 GS with a t117 bulb with the Maya. But I think it's unnecessary. 3 GS on t117 is probably as good as 4 GS on t133. I'm not convinced that a t133 bulb will result in a faster science victory than a t117 bulb. Earlier research labs equates to an earlier victory, and the limiting factor on research labs is the sheer number of turns after you bulb. Yes you get less free techs, but you get big beakers sooner. So, an earlier, lesser bulb could give you a t185ish win as well. I haven't actually tried using this trick for a science victory though, so I can't say for sure. Definitely staggered RA will help, for speeding up the turns after your overflow stops growing.

But another point to consider is that the Maya make (IMHO) the early victory easier in other ways. GW to get Secularism faster, GE for Hubble, GM to buy science buildings/whatever. GG to secure aluminum fast, GA to speed everything up, GP to boost faith generation, etc.

I'll have to take my t92 education save and go for SV instead of t150 tanks, see what I can do... eventually. Haven't had time to play lately.
 
So, it looks like you can only count on this working with pangea maps. (Too many of the exploits or otherwise "guaranteed" wins that I find on this forum rely on pangea maps.) I played Babylon on continents. The World Congress wasn't founded until turn 180. By that time, Greece was a runaway power. They had 16 votes in the first meeting of the Congress, and they voted against Scholars in Residence, probably because they were ahead in science.
 
t192 Future Tech with Babylon on Pangaea, Standard, and Deity. WC was founded on t108 with Scholars in Residence passed on t138 with me researching Architecture. Tried starting on turns 138-141 which resulted in overflow no matter the route I took. Started on t142 having to burn some multiplier techs before starting, and use the Oxford University to get me through an overflowed Electricity. Got DOWed twice by Sweden, and then China. Let them DOW me now........
 

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I just realized that this exploit makes it natural for you to get an Ideology before the World Congress is founded (if you do it at Architecture). Seems legit lol.
 
t192 Future Tech with Babylon on Pangaea, Standard, and Deity. WC was founded on t108 with Scholars in Residence passed on t138 with me researching Architecture. Tried starting on turns 138-141 which resulted in overflow no matter the route I took. Started on t142 having to burn some multiplier techs before starting, and use the Oxford University to get me through an overflowed Electricity. Got DOWed twice by Sweden, and then China. Let them DOW me now........

It amuses me that you're researching Future Tech and building research labs.
 
Nicely done!

You can get 4 GS with the Maya too, 5 with Liberty if you don't mind losing the Tradition GEs. I didn't know about Babylon's free GS not affecting GS points though. That's awesome. You should be able to get 5 naturally with Babylon. T90 Education, GS on t99, (12pts/turn) GS on t110, (10pts/turn) GS on T120, (10pts/turn), GS on T124 (12pts/turn), + the free one. T90 is hard but doable.

If you don't tech-steal, you should be able to time completion of Architecture with t124, although you might have to hold off on working the slots in the 4th city until 8 turns before.

For the Maya though, in the capital with NE and Garden you have 9pts/turn, and in the expos you have 6, 7 w/ Garden. So 12 turns to the first GS, 29 to the second, 34 to the third (in capital)... so you just need Education by t98, then take the t133 Long Count for a GS. The problem with this is that you'll be hard-pressed to not complete Architecture sooner than t133. If you resist the urge to tech-steal, maybe you can delay it, but having solid beakers for 8 turns with 4 fully staffed universities... it tends to speed things up. :p

T85 Education is really hard to pull off, but you could get 4 GS with a t117 bulb with the Maya. But I think it's unnecessary. 3 GS on t117 is probably as good as 4 GS on t133. I'm not convinced that a t133 bulb will result in a faster science victory than a t117 bulb. Earlier research labs equates to an earlier victory, and the limiting factor on research labs is the sheer number of turns after you bulb. Yes you get less free techs, but you get big beakers sooner. So, an earlier, lesser bulb could give you a t185ish win as well. I haven't actually tried using this trick for a science victory though, so I can't say for sure. Definitely staggered RA will help, for speeding up the turns after your overflow stops growing.

But another point to consider is that the Maya make (IMHO) the early victory easier in other ways. GW to get Secularism faster, GE for Hubble, GM to buy science buildings/whatever. GG to secure aluminum fast, GA to speed everything up, GP to boost faith generation, etc.

I'll have to take my t92 education save and go for SV instead of t150 tanks, see what I can do... eventually. Haven't had time to play lately.

Thanks :) I did replicate my results again, though 5-10 turns slower this time at the current point in the game (worse start). So it's definitely reproducible, but starting location matters (when in CIV does it not?)

I think your math is slightly off on the 4th generated scientist, he costs 400, so add 9 turns to that... It's probably not possible due to architecture comming on so fast - maybe if you had great library from a very early turn to accumulate scientist points from a very early turn, and/or oracle (gives scientist points). Getting Humanism early is another little trick here, but the culture production and oracle requirements make it something that's hard to rely on.

Some other tricks I picked up: 8 turns before architecture finishes (in other words, when you start researching it), make sure to utilize all the specialist slots (secularism), and consider building science - it's not a lot of beakers, but they will affect the size of the 4x scientist bulb, AND are being taken through the exponential growth machine... I did this and my initial bulb value per scientist reached 1740 instead of 1500... pretty significant and will add up to over 40.000 science... nothing to sneeze at.

The next move is to do all this using liberty instead, 5 scientists at 1740*(1,2625^13) = 180.000 Science, which is probably enough to finish all relevant tech (you will have 500-750 science per turn too which will cover the rest. And this is the worst case scenario for multipliers....)
 
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