Exploits?

[Atlas]

Soon we'll be against the "building a library, hiring 2 scientists and founding Taoism" tactic.

I am already tired of this tactic (I think it is legitimate though) and the axe rush (see my Epic 5 loss I wanted get them with cannons). BOth of these tactics are legitimate IMHO, but I am just bored of them. I really appreciate the few reports on Emperor + that eschew these 2 tactics (See Sulll'a Metalman or Cathy's Romp). Oh well.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

* "Pre-chopping" forests so that a whole bunch can be "finished off" in rapid fire once a new tech comes in or a new resource online.

I agree that this is cheesy. I used it once to get a feel for it, and won't use it a second time. A "decay" (reforestation) over time would be a good idea, but since it won't be likely that this will be "fixed" in a patch, I think we should ban this if it's used by too many players.

This category also includes "pre-working" tiles in other ways, in any systematic approach intended to circumvent exposure to pillaging.

I used that in Epic 5, although only because it was the only way for my worker to do something, and again I agree (see above).

I do use the trick though that if you want your worker to improve a tile two moves away, that I move him only one tile, start to improve that one, immediately wake him up so that he can move to the real destination and start to improve it next turn, gaining one worker action for free. I had filed this trick under "micromanagement" akin to Civ 3 city micromanagement, but wouldn't mind seeing that one getting banned, too. Blake's solution would be best, but again would require a patch or a mod.

* Deliberate avoidance of learning Masonry to boost the power of early game Great Prophets.

With this I do not agree. In my opinion this falls into the category of clever strategy. It would be nice if a real cost were attached to this because it is very easy to avoid Masonry since it doesn't do much useful, but avoiding it to boost the power of Great Prophets is akin to researching all the prerequisits for CS to use the Oracle CS slingshot, etc. Disallowing this would reduce the range of options of how to play the game IMHO.

* Systematic "binary research".

This is bordering an exploit, yes. But I do wonder about the use of this. Maybe I haven't grasped all the consequences of it yet, but to me it's not worth the effort...

* "Seed Corn" Civ4 style.

This I feel the strongest about. This should be addressed somehow, although it might not be as easy as it had been for Civ 3. There are legitimate early wars of aggression, and you should be able to attack the worker then. But declaring war only for stealing that worker should be prohibited until a certain date.


Too bad that it seems we can't have a tournament without explicitly banning certain things, but this had to be expected with such a complex game. That we all have different opinions on what constitutes an exploit and what is just a feature probably doesn't help either... so thanks for doing this, Sirian.

-Kylearan

[Sirian]

Too bad that it seems we can't have a tournament without explicitly banning certain things, but this had to be expected with such a complex game. That we all have different opinions on what constitutes an exploit and what is just a feature probably doesn't help either... so thanks for doing this, Sirian.

-Kylearan

Well, I haven't done anything yet, other than ruminate out loud.

The Seed Corn issue has been destined for the Exploit List longer than Civ4 has been out. It's not that I didn't try to come up with a fix for it during development, but some problems have no reachable solutions.

There seems to be the least amount of agreement on my concern about Masonry. However, if RBCiv has to go to an "official mod" for other reasons, then I'll probably clean this one up by changing the "trait category" on some techs, primarily making Masonry a religious tech so that it gets added to the line of what a Prophet would Lightbulb. Not worth doing a mod just for that, though.


- Sirian

[uberfish]

Yeah, masonry is too often something you wouldn't research except as a prereq for Construction anyway. IMO being able to direct GP lightbulb research in this way is actually a positive rather than negative feature.

I have a slightly different take on worker stealing. I only do it when I'm intending to attack the victim in Ancient era anyway because it slows down their early development. It's certainly not a risk-free strategy, in epic5 Elizabeth did respond to the attack with harrassing archers and killed 3 of my warriors so I actually came out behind on hammers. Don't really care if it's banned.

Of the things Sirian listed in his original post, I think the only one I would class as an exploit is pre-chopping.

[mihau]

making Masonry a religious tech

actually free-masons ARE considered a religion (or anti-religion) by some groups of people

[Atlas]

Too bad that it seems we can't have a tournament without explicitly banning certain things, but this had to be expected with such a complex game. That we all have different opinions on what constitutes an exploit and what is just a feature probably doesn't help either... so thanks for doing this, Sirian.

I think it speaks highly for the game/tournament that has been going on since Oct. and we still don't have anything on the exploits page. It was bound to happen though. Maybe the Masonry thing will change with Warlords vis a vis The Great Wall. Who knows, the rest of the stuff will no likely remain unchange though.

[mostly_harmless]

I would suggest to have great people just give you a certain number of beakers independent of their profession.
These beakers will then be added to your current research tech. Plus u get the overflow.
Beakers given by great persons should increase with time, since techs get more expensive too.
Say early on they give 100 beakers and in the late game 2000 beakers.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

There seems to be the least amount of agreement on my concern about Masonry. However, if RBCiv has to go to an "official mod" for other reasons, then I'll probably clean this one up by changing the "trait category" on some techs, primarily making Masonry a religious tech so that it gets added to the line of what a Prophet would Lightbulb.

It already is, what?

Assuming I remember correctly, Masonry is on the prophet's lightbulb list, but much lower because it has less religion flavor. So you could adjust the list simply by giving Masonry more religious flavor, or CS less.

There's a risk, I believe, in that those same flavors are used by the AI to determine tech order. Do you have the facilities to check this change for game balance?

Added to the toDo list: inspect more carefully the tech selection algorithm in the SDK

[blid]

Concerning BSR, I join Blake position. This was the best way for me to follow how my economy is doing. I never look for 4 multiples and such though. I would understand calling it tedious, or thinking it is useless but I don't see the cheezy part about it

Concerning pre-chopping, the rare times I tried to use it, I finished with a chop invested in barracks or warrior

great perons and tech paths shoud be handled by balancing choices IMO. Giving masonry more value (religion, enable building) like many suggested seems to me like the best option, so delaying it has an opportunity missing cost

One thing I don't see in this list is the give money then sell resources to maximize AI available GPT. Maybe you don't consider it like intrusively gamey but rather deep on the wrong side like I do but I don't see it in the exploits list on the web site

[regoarrarr]

I wouldn't mind a ban on pre-chopping or pre-working "exploits", but I think I am for the GP Civil Service "strategy"

As for seed corn, I am with banning it in principle, but where do you draw the line? Can you park a defensive unit on a forested hill near an AI capital to "scare" the workers from improving? Early pillaging? Does it matter if it's Always War? Some interesting questions...