I have now played a game to the end by using the no palace bug. It leaves my empire totaly corruption free and a lot easyer to play. I would like to know if my game will be accepted. I dont think i am the only one who have doubts about this so please reply on this....:confused:

It obviously defeats the spirit of the game. And its obviously a bug. I'm not sure why there is any question in your mind weither it should be allowed. Was the gold bug of pre-patch questionable? (You know the one where you ask for 999999999 gold per turn and it accepts it, and you actually get it for one turn)

Clearly both of those are bugs, and both stand to give you a huge advantage.

I might make allowance for the first person who ran into this unintentionally, unless that person would win by some large margin.

My guess right now would be that the winner will have 7k+, maybe even 10k or more. So where did you game place?

My score ended at 6799 and maybe your right it should not be allowed (not even by him who discovered it.). I AM about to play a new game without using the bug, but if it will be allowed i will submit my first savegame while im sure a lot of other people will exploit the bug too.
Hmm.. maybe there should be two GOTM in this month. One where your can use the bug and one where you cant.

How is this even an issue? Is there even a realistic chance of using that bug in the first place without reloading over and over until you get the results from a hut that you want, and you happen to stumble on his capital quickly and combat turns out just right? Somehow I doubt it, and if I'm right, you've already cheated. Plus, in order to learn of that trick from wizlock, who I'm sure just stumbled into this in complete innocence (yeah right), you had to have been reading the GOTM3 spoiler thread before starting that game, which is against the spirit of the game as well. Replaying the game now that you've already cheated also falls in that category, since you have even more advance knowledge of the game.

Gee, why don't you edit the game and give yourself all the techs and 20 cities to start with and see what your score is and submit it? Hey, why don't we have one GOTM where you do that in addition to the normal one? :rolleyes:

*sigh*

Well you did not discover the bug yourself. Someone discovered it and posted it,so you knew about it and purposely exploited this bug to obtain an advantage in ths game. This is considered cheating, so your game will not be accepted.

I'd say just try again and play with a palace :king:

Pvondrak do you have a bad day today or what??? If you had read the whole thread you can see that i am starting a new game without using the bug. I am not taking this game as seriously as you apparantly do AND I am playing this game for fun and to test myself against other civ players. As for reloading: i dont reload exept if i make a really stupid move, hitting a wrong key and so on or if i lose 5 or 6 swordsmen against a spearman. Furthermore. I am pretty sure that im not the only one who are reloading from time to time. Actually i think most people doing it.
You say it is cheating to start a new game or even read the spoiler talks on this site... COME ON!!! If i should listen to you i cant submit a game because it would be cheating.. Are you afraid i would have a better score than you or what??

To EEKthedog: Congratulation with your fine score in the first GOTM and i looking forward to see your score for this month GOTM. It was pretty impressive. Yes i have realized it would be (not cheating) but exploit to submit a game with the "no palace bug" And i am about to start a new game... I wonder have you NEVER EVER reloaded a game??

i actually did find this bug/exploit as a total accident .. and i dont think my game will be super great because i lost like 1500 years in the beginning just fooling around with the japs .. and then it took maybe 20 turns before i realized that i didn't have any corruption .. so i lost a lot of momentum in the beginning ..

anyways, whatever score i get, i dont think my game should count in the competition .. just playing for the fun of it .. and for comparing playing style with others .. so when i've finished this game i'll probably start a new GOTM3 ... yeah i know .. now i know the map and what to do .. but like most (i guess) i'm playing GOTM just to compare not compete

wizlock the un-corruptioner :)

If you read the rules of the GOTM it makes it very clear that reloading (and that would include replaying) isn't allowed. It isnt a contest to see who can reload until they get the best outcome. I screwed up and saved over my saves this month, so I wont be able to submit a GOTM3. I was doing quite well even (had the last city dead to rights whenever I wanted to take it at 250AD), and may have had a chance to claim a high score again. If replaying and reloading were allowed, the winner would always end up being whoever had the most spare time that month to play, and skill would have almost nothing to do with who won. Thats why I shouldnt be allowed to play again, as I know now that I could cut at least 20 turns off of my conquest, and it would be impossible to replay out the scenario perfectly to that point.

I admit that in non competition games I like to save and reload quite a bit. Not so much from a standpoint of getting a better result, as in seeing how a different approach would have affected the outcome. Its perfectly alright to play Civ3 in any way you like privately, but when playing a competition game, the whole point is to have people play by the rules and see how well they can do within those limits.

The line between exploits and cheats really isnt much of a difference. Just because there isnt a specific rule against a particular exploit doesnt mean that taking advantage of it isnt considered cheating. An example would be using a debugging program to modify values in the game memory. The rules mention not modifying the save files, but nothing about game memory. It would be relatively easy to find where the score was being held, and modify it to whatever you wanted. There is no mention of this being disallowed in the rules for the GOTM specifically, but common sense says that it would be cheating. With the no palace bug, Corruption is a large part of the game, and finding a way to nullify it outside of intended gaming strategies is cheating. Just the same as if you figured out a way to make your units invincible, or the previously mentioned pre-patch gold bug. If there were a rule stating that a particular exploit was allowed, then that would be the only time that using the exploit would not be considered cheating.

The very fact that several people admit to having found or used the no corruption bug seems to point to massive reloading/replaying of the game to get the desired effect. I tested with it a bit, to see how it works, and out of about 50 different tries, only 2 or 3 ended up working in an acceptable manner to continue the game from. 3 times I was able to conquer a city before my settler died or ran out of huts to pop. One of those times it took so long that I was so far behind that it didnt matter. There certainly are ways that it will work, and once I had found them, I could reproduce them. With how many people knew of this bug before the competition (roughly no one), and how strange of a starting scenario it entails, its suprising that even wiz stumbled into it in a competition game. Running your settler around without placing a city is just asking to get wiped out before you even start the game. Everyone else who achieves this obviously did it with prior knowlege of the game situation from the spoiler thread, and prior knowlege is the reason why replaying isnt allowed.

Oh, one thing I found while testing the no palace bug (and the way that worked the best for me). If you build a city right off, then build an archer or two, and then disband your city by building a settler, it works the same way. I built one archer and then by the time that archer was in position to attack, the settler had been built and I was ready to go with a 2 attack elite (popped barbs) instead of a 1 attack vetran (best you can get from popping 3 barbs from a hut).

Just including this for anyone who was wondering (like me) or wants to use it in private games. Also another interesting thing I found, was that I was actually behind on this map by playing this way by about 300 years in the conquest of where I had been from the start. The power of no corruption doesnt matter much while you are pop-rushing, but anytime else it is HUGE. Also I found a way to combine this with getting an early settler as well, talk about over powered for a non-conquest game. ;)

I have always beleved (and hoped) that some part of the reason to make a GOTM is not just the score but also to be able to share your thoughts and stories how it goes so far with other. I like to read about how other people handle the game and maybe get some good ideas. If this NOT is the case (and i beleve it is, for a lot of the people playing it) it is just too bad...
Half the joy of playing it is to play the same game as other people and share your thoughts with them.
How about all the people posting threats about the game right now (including all of you), should they also be banned??

Aeson if you were so unlucky too delete your savegame i really think you should submit a game anyway i really cant see why not..

pagh80, I'm annoyed because you clearly don't get it.

Civ3 GOTM Rules

Code of Honor
Cheating and replaying of the game are not allowed. Playing the game with modified rules, using exploits such as the 1 million gold bug, editing a saved game using a save game editor, retiring to see the map, and reloading the game when things don't go the way you wanted are all considered cheating. Because we cannot check this, we'll have to trust in your good honesty. There is really no need to cheat because GOTM is meant as a casual contest.

I would have thought that was pretty clear. Let's just say that I'm big on honesty. :D

Yes i have realized it would be (not cheating) but exploit to submit a game with the "no palace bug" And i am about to start a new game... I wonder have you NEVER EVER reloaded a game??

I'll answer that I haven't reloaded a game for the purposes of the contest, even though that was directed to EEKthedog. You should realize that using an exploit is cheating.

While this is a casual competition, that just means I won't be serious about my final score, it doesn't mean I won't be serious about people blatently not following the spirit of the competition, and acting like it's no big deal because 'everyone does it'. That's an insult to those that feel an honor code actually means something, and is a major pet peeve of mine, in case you hadn't guessed. ;) Besides, what does it hurt if your 4 swordsman get killed by 1 spearman and you just keep playing? It happens to everyone, right? Or at least, I thought it did, lol.

...

wizlock, if you really just discovered it, my apologies. It seems like the sort of thing that some clever person would've figured out playing around with the editor ;)

...

Regarding your last post pagh80, couldn't you just give the game a good natured honest attempt, see how you do, come back here, talk about it, and try again on your own implementing new tactics? I'd argue that playing the same game others are playing is nearly all of the fun of it, at least for me.

I also think that trying things on my own first and then attempting to learn from my mistakes is better experience than just being told what works first. That's why in school they actually give you homework and wait until you're done before giving you the answers. In a job, training usually consists of practice runs in addition to the instruction.

Just a suggestion, but why don't you at least try to play the next one by the books? You might find you enjoy it even more, because it doesn't really matter if things go poorly. Do your best, come back here and learn how you can do better! If you find that still doesn't appeal to you, at least you'd have given it a shot...

Happy new year guys. I have just come back from a wife - free golfing vacation and am reading this post with a tinge of sadness.
I couldn't agree more with what Aeson and pvondrak have to say on the subject of cheating and exploits. Since reading about the corruption free exploit I went and tested it myself as Aeson did. It may be possible to chance upon it once but the odds of replicating it are astronomical and it can only be replicated by reloading ( cheating). I believe strongly in an honour code whether a competition is for fun or not and it's good to see that there are others here who feel likewise. What happened to card cheats in the American wild west who didn't follow the code? Answer - look at my signature, lol. I never reload a save, or replay a previously seen map, not just because it's the rules but because it's not in the spirit of the game and I also feel that i'm cheating myself. Use Aeson as an example, he could have kept quiet about losing his saves and relayed the game but he didn't.
That is playing in the spirit of the game, Aeson I feel for you buddy, gonna miss your score.
Finaly, when it comes to multiplayer (and it's coming) those who have used reload and exploits to score high scores will be blown out of the water by the players who have learned by their mistakes and played through them to become better players.

Lets have some great competition and fun, but lets also stick to the rules and have a level playing field.

PS, sorry if i'm preaching but it's also a pet peeve of mine ;)

Dirty Clint, thanks for the...preaching. ;) I was gone the last 7 days, otherwise I would've intervened myself. Indeed, it's an honour thing. If I notice someone using whatever cheat there is (which includes taking advantage of a bug), (s)he won't show up in the results. And that's just according to the rules stated on the GOTM pages. ;)

After read all this posts i have been convinced and realized that there are some guys outhere who dont manipulate the game in any way. Beleve me or not it actually made me happy and changed my mind about how to play this game. Next month i will try to play the game without reloading(well.. this month it is pretty much too late).

Because i have comed forward with this threat(and taking all the beating for it ;) ) i´m not the only one who have reloaded the game nor would i be the last..
I have never read the rules of the game.. actually i did´nt know there was rules about loading\reloading, reading the spoiler threats before playing the game and start the game more than one time. Now i know, and i will try too keep to them.
As for the posts: it was some good and convinsing ones, though it was a bit annoying to read your first post pvondrak. I just say, if you think it is cheating(as i have realised it is) just say it in a decent way.. i can acually also understand that.... but no hard fealings..

Good to hear that, pagh80! :goodjob:

[sigh] If only I could replay the GOTM02... http://www.straland.com/images/smilies/undecided.gif

;)

Just for laughs.

Well, just IMO, it's not technically a bug since Firaxis have yet to officially acknowledge that this isn't intended behaviour (as far as I'm aware).

So I'd consider it poor sportsmanship to use it, but not cheating.

Well my GOTM2 result should vouch that I don't reload, ever!

What I wanted to ask though, is reading the GOTM Spoiler threads cheating, or unsporting, or neither?

I've been doing it for GOTM 2 & 3 because, frankly, I need every bit of intelligence I can get. Not much good it's done me mind, someone "went and wiped out the Japs", ha!

I don't think its a big deal to participate in the spoiler threads once you play at least partway through the game (once your map is mostly visable and you know where all the civ's are). Checking out the threads before then could be akin to reloading or restarting, as it could give you quite an advantage. Later on, even finding out strategic resource placements isn't going to make much of a difference in the scoring most of the time. There haven't been many posts that give specific locations or sea crossings, so the vague tips like knowing someone "went and wiped out the Japs" wont have much of an effect on gameplay.

Well, just IMO, it's not technically a bug since Firaxis have yet to officially acknowledge that this isn't intended behaviour (as far as I'm aware).

We don't need Firaxis to verify it's a bug. According to your logic, if they resolved all the bugs in the game then dropped off the face of the earth, one could claim their software was then permanently bug-free, technically speaking of course. Hmm, better keep that quiet, don't want to give the marketing people any ideas... I'd love to give that excuse though... "I don't acknowledge that the code isn't supposed to do that, so it isn't a bug and you have to pay me to fi...err change it." :D

Often developers have intentions that aren't readily clear, and you many not be able to tell if the game behavior is as intended, but any intelligent person should be able to quickly determine that a core piece of empire management being sidestepped wasn't by design.

If you're trying to be some sort of picky rules lawyer, you might want to consider that the rules for the GOTM don't specifically mention bugs, but rather 'exploits'. The definition of a bug is thus irrelevant. As for 'exploit', it's described only by example, the final say obviously goes to those holding the contest, and I believe they've spoken on the matter.

If you're trying to justify using it as not cheating and thus not against the rules, feel free to go ahead and submit a game using that method, and see what happens to your submission. :lol:

I reload ALL the time, every day in fact, every day when I continue my game ;).


I think the multiplayer statement puts all this in context, you will be hurting if you don't learn how to play without reloading. And there are certainly many skill-based options to avoid losing 6 swords to a spearmen. And there are a host of other "superstitious" methods to avoid it, (ie things that I've noticed, but don't seem possible: like not attacking with your last movement point, fortifying the unit before attacking).


As for wizlock, if he says he innocently found this bug I believe him. If any map wants you to explore before settling its this one, however in most cases its not worth it, as long as your start has food production, settle. I only move 1 or 2 spaces if I get more resources or river/coastal.


The person arguing semantics about bugs, STFU, firaxis doesn't have to officially proclaim anything is a bug, if that were the case more than half the bugs that exist in all the software wouldn't be. You sound like a marketting droid. If in fact you are a Microsoft employee, you should know that most companies don't follow MS guidelines on this.
The dice in my Monopoly game melted and so no longer roll properly (and 1 die has 3 pips and 5 pips on the same side!), Hasbro neglected to mention what I should do in such a event, so now when we play we just pick random numbers from our head and use that instead.


Back to the topic..
I understand why this is a bug, but I consider it a stupid one considering there are only a few things you need to worry about to ensure a player always has a capital. Its a rare case, potentially, since you aren't much of a war going civ if you have no cities, but as Aeson mentioned he was able to repeat it just by abandoning his only city. So this is exploitable *any* time in the early game.

I would be quite annoyed if this happened to me by accident, because it then ruins the game. If you don't feel cheating ruins the game, then you have to get over the win-at-all-costs mentality and learn the enjoying-the-game-itself.

LOL, I would never have been the person to find this bug! I'm way too cautious.

As something which might be interesting to some readers (advanced players may find this boring):

I suggest never opening a goody hut even with a worker, not to mention a settler. With a settler the risk is extreme, it could be game over, not a chance I would take. But even with a worker the cost could be very high. At the start of the game a lost worker could make a big difference. And, to my thinking, there's no reward for taking that risk! At the start of the game, my worker(s) will be 100% busy in already explored areas, so diverting them to open a hut would waste moves. And any hut near enough to the workers to be opened by them will still be there a few turns later - if it is that accessible then it is in our territory, we'll get there first. We can afford to wait and examine the hut with a fighting unit when one is available.

Somewhat unrelated but may be of interest to some, here's the thought process I went through at the very start of GOTM #3. (There's some relevance to my already digressed note <g> since I remember that I ignored a goody hut at the start. I just replayed the start to write the following notes. I'm fairly sure these notes are an exact replay of how I started because the following sequence ends up popping barbarians from the hut, just what happened in my actual GOTM #3.)

4000BC: The starting position seems tolerable but not great. Before committing to it let's move the worker one space. Normally I do not start exploring with a diagonal move (I'll try to write more about that in another thread sometime) but in this particular situation:
1) There's ocean East of us.
2) There are mineable tiles SW and NW of the start position. When possible, my priority would be to irrigate more food for the first city. But this start position can't have the food improved for the first few citizens. Given that, my next choice is to increase production. Therefore the SW and NW tiles are of interest, the worker should start by mining one of them ASAP if we do start the city here.

So I move the worker SW. (A toss up. There's a hint of plain/desert visible to the south which suggests north might be better. Against that, the ocean curves to the south suggesting more land mass in that direction. I pick south.)

The worker move doesn't reveal any better place to start, so I build Beijing in the starting position.

I start Beijing building a warrior. (I don't worry about a barracks at the start, it is more important to get units exploring quickly.)

I start research on Pottery. (I want Granary ASAP so that efficient pop rushing can begin.) I set the research rate to 100%.

3950BC: Start the worker on mining the SW tile. Although there is a visible goody hut, that can wait for the first warrior.

3800BC: Move the worker to the NW mineable tile.

3750BC: Start Beijing on another warrior. Move the warrior it just produced due south - he's going for the goody hut, but he's going there with an efficient exploration pattern. Start the worker on mining the NW tile.

3700BC: Move the warrior south another step.

3650BC: Explore the goody hut. Blast it, barbarians!

Despite the bad luck in getting barbarians from the hut, that doesn't change my thinking that this was a good sequence of starting moves. If you play out the sequence you'll see that our warrior defeats two of the barbarians but the third one goes the other way and ransacks Beijing. It is a pity (sure didn't feel like a great start when it happened) but it really turns out not to be a big deal in the greater scheme of things. It is just a bit of gold lost and a reminder that this is why we don't open huts with settlers or workers!

I find it best to wait to explore huts that are within 3 spaces of an undefended city, worker, or settler. If barbarians have the choice of attacking a military unit, or going for one of the undefended options I mentioned, they will always choose the undefended (even if they shouldn't be able to see it). Horsemen Barbarians are worse, as they will go for unseen, undefensible units up to 3 spaces away. But since Horsemen don't pop out of huts, it isn't a problem in this case.

Also, getting barbarians from goody huts is the second best thing in my opinion (a settler being first). This means your military unit is now an elite military unit, and at the stage where goody huts are still being found, this can be huge. An elite Archer has a good chance of taking out a couple AI cities early on (other than Deity level). On GOTM3, I took over the capitols of the Japanese, Persians, and Babylonians with just 2 units. For peace treaties I got a Persian city, and another Babylonian one just a few turns later. The Japanese hadn't built a 3rd city, otherwise it would have been 6 cities overall, with only 2 military units. Both were Archers, one which had been promoted to elite by barbarians from a hut. If it hadn't been for that promotion, it wouldn't have been able to beat the Babylonian capitol (finished with 1 out of 5 hps). So those barbarians were actually worth 2 cities in this case, even better than a settler.

pagh80: Good for you! I was so glad to read your latest post. I too am comfortable that this is a fair play zone. (There may be exceptions but to focus on them would spoil the good fun, so let's not. They won't win anything that matters by it.) I barely decided to play my first GOTM, #2 last month. I was actually really nervous about not reloading. I was used to playing on my own and just going back and replaying when disaster struck. I didn't think I could enjoy playing on after a massive barbarian uprising, a stupid war when I didn't want one, etc, etc. It is a whole new kind of play for me. Much to my delighted surprise it turns out to be way more fun! It turns out that the worst of bad events can be recovered from and sometimes they are even blessings in disguise. They are not so bad to deal with as the thought of them was! Discovering that has been a liberating experience. And they add a new dimension of unpredictability, of having to change direction after making plans.

What a neat thought Aeson! I hadn't considered the barbarians from huts as a positive but of course you are right! That sure fits in with my previous reply to pagh80 - this game is full of surprises to me in what can turn out to be a good thing.

Right now i am playing GOTM3 for fun. Just to try how it is not to reload at all. (not that i reloaded all the time before.. but i did some times if i realiced ive made a big mistake or so on)
Like sirPleb(by the way.. nice 2nd place in the GOTM2) i realiced that its somehow enjoyable to play that way... well its nice to rise again after a mistake. lets say a devistating war..:king:

As for the huts. I agree with aeson. after a settler the next best thing is barbarians because it almost everytime makes your unit elite... great for early conquest. Settlers and barbarians are only good at the very beginning, i prefer techology later on though.

Has anyone tried to hurry attack units in your cities??
At start you have despotism and it is pretty crappy. But it has one good thing... If you goes for conquest its very good to speed up production on attack units. You Shall ONLY do it in your cities with high corrution. I usually get too many cities in the start so the corruption takes a big part of my money and overall shields.. but the food-output will not be touched.
A city with high corruption who are placed just on a decent spot can easily rice to two before it get a swordsman build, and therefore it makes the production of units much higher if you speed it up. A city on size 1 or 4 does´nt make the big difference because corruption takes a big part of the cities shield and money-output. The concern of the peoples mood is neither a concern. Just have a unit stationiced in the city, and the people will be content( i dont even think you have to have a unit in the city if the size is 1).
A couple of turns(5-10) before you decide to switch to republic, its a good thing not to hurry on your cities. That way your people will forget your cruelty..:D :rocket3:

I wonder if you guys would tell me what level you usually play on.
I play on monarch or emperor but i have never really tried a game on Deity.(The huge bonuses the computer gets is pretty scary) :slay:

I usually play Deity games, just because then every mistake I make, I notice it and can learn from it. My most common mistake is trying to divide my forces during conquest, instead of keeping large groups of units concentrated on individual cities. On Monarch and even Emporer, this isn't really that big of a problem. On Deity though, trying to take cities with less than overwhelming force usually ends up costing me. Also I have a tendancy to not build enough overall units, which the AI will remind me of very quickly. Only 1 or 2 units per city? Say "hello" to Cleopatra's 200 archers/spearmen/warriors (they still don't upgrade much on Deity sadly).

You just figured out a large part of what makes all these high scores in the GOTM's possible pagh80! Pop-rushing in Despotism is probably the most powerful production tool in Civ3. Food isn't affected by corruption at all, so using population to build units or improvements almost makes corruption irrelevant. Sounds sorta like the argument against the no palace bug right? but this is an intended game feature, though probably more useful than intended. I try to not use it too much, as it is so powerful, but none of the high scores in the GOTM's would have been possible without at least a bit of Pop-rushing. My original Horseman army and Barracks were pop rushed in GOTM2, along with the Galleys I also built. After that it really wasn't needed as those units, and the units that they were upgraded to, fought all of the battles until Mech Infantry/Modern Armor were available. In cities that were just somewhat corrupt I did rush courthouses and temples in as well though.

You don't need a unit in the city if you either have a temple there (which can be rushed as well, 2 pop points for non-religious civs though), or a luxury hooked up. It usually is best to just park a spearman in the city for defensive purposes though. One thing about Pop-rushing, is that it adds a lot of micromanagement, especially with how many cities were possible during GOTM2. Each city needs to be checked for size, and have units pop-rushed once they grow. Sometimes its best to have a city hover at size 2 or 3 instead of 1, and this can get confusing. To determine the optimal pop rush point, just count up the number of "good" food sources that the city can use. If there are 2 flood plains and a cow, that means you want the city to be at size 3, and pop rush whenever it gets to 4. This is because that is when it will be growing fastest, as each population point takes 2 food per turn, and any 3+ food spaces will decrease the time needed to fill the food box. The food box is the same size from 1 thru 6. If pop-rushing is going to be used for extended periods of time, then building a granery is often a good idea (or capturing the pyramids if your neighbor decides to be nice and build it for you).

There are lots of little (and some big) strategies that can be used throughout the game. A lot of them are posted over on the Apolyton Strategy message boards if you want to check them out. The most important ideas are on Pop-rushing, Use of 2 Movement troops (horsemen), Diplomatic/Trade negotiations with the AI, and maximizing food production/use efficiency (when combined with pop-rushing). Other ideas such as worker factories (try building a worker in a city size 7, with a granery.. worker per turn), expansion/build patterns, and others can all help at certain times in the game. If you are playing on Emporer/Monarch and doing well, then a lot of these things you probably already found out, or do to some extent without realizing it.

You should not reload to redo anything in a way that gives you an advantage you wouldn't have had otherwise. That is cheating and anything obtuse like the no palace thing is cheating. I have only reloaded once so far in my GOTM 3 and that was when I accidentally gave a unit goto orders for like 17 turns of movement and I didn't even know what unit it was. Something like that is the only place where that is acceptable and then only if you hadn't done anything since the last save.

Marketting guy? Actually no, I'm a programmer. Thus I know how when something is working as intended but someone else doesn't understand it and thinks it's a bug, it can cause problems (ie their "fix" being worse than the original problem). That's why I suggest holding off declaring it an official bug until there is confirmation.

In my opinion, it's only a bug under 3 circumstances:
a) It causes the game to crash
b) The observed behaviour is different to the documented behaviour (which may infact be a bug in the documentation not the code!)
c) The original developer has confirmed it's a bug (which really reduces to case 2, since by doing this they're really just enhances the documentation, albeit unofficially)

Until then I think it's very dangerous territory to go making calls as to what is a bug. Perhaps what you think is a bug is just a feature that doesn't work as you would expect. Perhaps this is a situation the original developer never expected, but upon reflection believes it works as it should.

Since there's no documentation (at least that's available to us) as to what the expected behaviour is when you capture rather than build your first city, we can't know whether it's a bug or not.

Common sense says that it's most likely a bug, but we'll have to wait and see I think.

:rotfl:

I'm sorry, but that's just too ridiculous. This isn't some deep and obscure effect that requires much study to determine whether or not it acts as intended.

You're still basically saying that unless a developer says otherwise, it's not a bug. I have to say I feel that's somwhat foolish. We aren't talking about mathematical proofs here. We may not be able to know with 100% certainty that it's a bug, but no normal person I know of needs to know something to that degree of certainty before they'll say they 'know' it to be true. It certainly doesn't lend itself to being categorized as dangerous territory.

I'm guessing if you witnessed a murder, were put on the stand, and asked if you were certain you saw the crime, you'd say no. After all, you wouldn't even be sure you're really in the courtroom, everyone may all be a figment of your imagination, so who's to know what's really true, right? :rolleyes:

Originally posted by barefootbadass
You should not reload to redo anything in a way that gives you an advantage you wouldn't have had otherwise. That is cheating and anything obtuse like the no palace thing is cheating. I have only reloaded once so far in my GOTM 3 and that was when I accidentally gave a unit goto orders for like 17 turns of movement and I didn't even know what unit it was. Something like that is the only place where that is acceptable and then only if you hadn't done anything since the last save.
Completely right. Only an accidental wrong order (e.g. by pressing the wrong button) is a valid reason to reload.

I kind of surprised me someone actually didn't know it is disallowed to reload. :( Do you even read the rules page (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3gotm/civ3gotm_rules.shtml)? Perhaps we should become more irritating like you first have to read the rules before downloading the GOTM.

About pop-rushing: Firaxis will probably be informed about this. As long as they don't make a patch which counter-effects it, it is allowed.

By the way, I think this is done a lot in the real world as well. The average age was much lower, and the birth and death rate much higher. Perhaps they wanted to reflect that by this. :confused:

I think Firaxis has said that they are going to tone down the effects of pop rushing in a future patch/upgrade. It is overpowered right now, and something should be done about it. Most likely they will change the way citizens moods are affected, instead of just adding 20 more turns of unhappiness (which will still be calmed by the garrison units/luxuries/temples) there needs to be levels of unhappiness. In other Civ games there were angry people, and then there were angry people. Pop rushing once should have the same effect as now, but continued pop rushing would cause unhappiness to become a problem even with garrison units/luxuries/temples. Also the amount of shields per population point needs to be toned down a little most likely.

It would probably be less of an issue if the unhappiness was allowed to stack. Like Aeson mentioned, let people go from unhappy/angry to really unhappy, so that instead of needing one content face to make an unhappy person content, that person required two (or more, if you've been really busy killing all their friends and relatives).

Perhaps another solution would be to further reduce food/shields produced by people in that condition (possibly regardless of their happiness after modifiers), along the lines of the current despotism penalty. *shrug*

Stuff like this can be hard to balance though. Probably the easiest thing for them to do would be to make it more expensive in population cost.

We'll see what Firaxis does with it. But in the mean time we won't take any awkward decisions ourselves. It's just something you may take advantage of, now you still can. ;) I did that too, by the way. At least I think. Rushing lots of units saved my butt, because the Persians were kicking it. (I now have peace.) And it didn't even cost me a penny!

I've been mulling over the pop rush issue for a while. I've come up with an interesting idea. I hope someone from Firaxis is lurking on these threads and reads this!

The problem with pop rushing seems to be that it feels like it isn't something which Firaxis intended to be this powerful, and thus that if feels like it is imbalancing the game (every high score GOTM play will use it I think.)

My basic thought is, how about embracing it? Change perspective to consider it an interesting new fundamental game element and integrate it better as such. With small tweaking (small enough to be done in a patch I think) it could become yet one more dimension of the game which is as commonly used as food, shields, resources, etc.

Specifically here's a way this could be done:
1) Add a new on/off field in some city management window field called "forced labor".
2) Add a new numeric field in the same window called "maximum population".
3) Under all governments but Despotism and Communism these new fields are disabled and have no effect.
4) Under Despotism and Communism, if "forced labor" is on for a city, when the city's population grows past its "maximum population", eliminate the new citizen and add 25 shields to the project the city is currently working on. Unhappiness goes up just as it currently does.

The results would be:
1) It no longer feels unintended and like cheating a bit. Instead it is a clearly presented powerful game element.
2) Less awkward micro-management is required in play.
3) The strength of the technique is clearer and more predictable. (Vs. the current approach where one can squeeze 39 shields by doing it right.)
4) The strength of the technique is slightly reduced.

In terms of fitting the game's historic feel I think this would work well. In the ages we rule with Despotism forced labor was of course common and it did have a price in human life.

Rushing with workers should, I think, be a natural side-effect. If one has a worker join a forced labor city which is at the designated maximum population, the worker gets converted to 25 shields. This again seems to fit the feel of the game to me, workers are natural for this purpose. (Vs. the similar Caravan technique in the previous Civ which did not really feel right to me.) I don't think that using workers this way is an imbalance. It can be done with the current pop rush technique and I don't think anyone has found it overwhelming - workers are too valuable as workers to waste casually. In terms of moving production from one city to another, that seems ok to me. It can be done currently with pop rushing. Doing it this way the result would be that a worker costs 10 shields plus one pop growth in city A. Then the worker is used to gain 25 shields in city B. The pop growth in city A could have been used for 25 shields there. So the net cost of moving the production is 10 shields plus the time lost to move the worker.

The number of shields I've suggested, 25, could of course be any number. I like 25 for a few reasons. It is less than the currently possible 39. This reduces the power of the technique a bit which is good, particularly since this new way it would be more commonly used, and there'd be some additional power from the new way in cumulative effects. I like a number which would be just a bit less than the cost of a Horseman, so that there'd be some prize in creating a forced labor city which also had a little bit of production. This would make the technique a bit subtler with more tradeoffs. But one might argue for 30 as a good number, or even 20 I guess (I'd worry about that being a bit low and possibly eliminating this as a major game element.)

Wonders should continue to be excluded from rushing just as they are now. Personally I'd love to see that change but, as well as being more work, that could change the game balance. The consequences of being able to e.g. build Forbidden Palace by using 12 workers are too hard to foresee. An important thing about the basic change I've described is that it would not (I think) damage the game balance. It would change the existing unexpected technique a bit but mostly it would just embrace and better integrate it.

Similarly, cities which are at their maximum size should perhaps be excluded. E.g. a size 6 city without water/aqueduct should not add shields when it grows by one. The reason I suggest it is to avoid a change in balance vs. the current game. With a new easy way to pop rush, people might often put a maximum size city onto forced labor, to easily gain from the wasted food. One can already squeeze a city this way to some degree, building workers in it and having them join pop rush cities elsewhere. But we wouldn't want to introduce a new possibility of applying the excess food directly in the source city to other kinds of production - that's something which can't currently be done so it would risk some new imbalance.

I know that a change like this would be larger than one normally considers in a patch. But it might not be too large. Especially since it would deal with what seems to be the largest unexpected power technique. (Excluding bugs of course.)

Anyone else have thoughts? Perhaps I missed something and deserve to be quickly shot down on this?

Should I be posting this on another thread to improve the chance that Firaxis sees this?

now you want pop rushing taken out or cut back? :rolleyes:

why not just make the game completely unplayable?...almost there now.

Maybe the player should be limited to 10 techs in the game?
Maybe settlers should not be allowed till a city hits size 20?

WHY NOT MAKE A BETTER AI IN THE FIRST PLACE?
Better yet eliminate the pathetic AI with MP.

No one is advocating taking out pop rushing (at least not here), just modifying it to make it more balanced with other forms of government. As it is now, staying in despotism is the best idea until the (self-imposed) limit of your conquest is at hand. I play Deity games without pop-rushing, and it is still possible, so toning pop rushing down a bit isn't going to make the game unplayable. It might allow a different production method to compete in the GOTM's though, which would be a good thing. Competitions where there is only one way to do well are less interesting than those where you have several options.

I agree with a lot of what SirPleb said, and definitely reducing the micromanagement involved would make the game more enjoyable, plus make pop rushing seem like an intended part of the game. There does need to be more of a trade off with happiness though. Being able to station 1 unit in a city to keep unhappiness from many many pop rushes just doesn't cut it. Increasing levels of unhappiness would allow pop rushing to be useful, but not so overpowering.

Another idea is perhaps with each pop rush there is an increased chance of a cultural defection ("hey! if we join the babylonians, they won't whip us to death!" *cheers*). Also, the intended use of pop rushing was that the first pop point is worth 40 sheilds, and all others are 20. Through step production, the diminishing returns are circumvented, which certainly isn't right. Of course since the most effective use of pop rushing is to produce units of 30 shields, and buildings of 40-60, this doesn't come into play all that often.

One way to curtail pop rushing's effectiveness, and step rushing as well, would be to put a hard limit on the number of turns between possible pop rushes. The best pop rushing cities can grow every other turn (at size 2-3 with a granery and some irrigated wheat flood plains). The average city grows in 5 turns with a granery though, and 10 without. Of course there isn't really a valid reason other than game balance that would explain a 5 or 10 turn wait.

nope...now this is the kinda thinking that got us what we have.The players are winning...take it out.

A much better idea is give me a reason to get out of despo.Make the "advanced" governments better.MUCH better.

Originally posted by Aeson

... There does need to be more of a trade off with happiness though ...
I like your idea of reducing happiness further Aeson. Ideally what I'd like would be something along the lines I described earlier with an increasing unhappiness level also happening.

Of the three things you mentioned (more unhappiness, chance of cultural defection, and hard limit on frequency of pop rush) the first two seem much nicer as models of the real world. Also, a hard limit on frequency would tend to curtail use of the technique vs. adding to the richness of the game.

I prefer the unhappiness approach to the chance of defection because I'd like pop rushing to stay predictable. There are elements of the game which are highly predictable (e.g. food growth, shield production) and elements which are unpredictable (e.g. combat results, discovery of resources.) I like the idea that forced labor would be in the predictable category.

Thinking as a programmer (I've been programming for 30 years), it seems unclear whether tweaking the unhappiness would be difficult, beyond what one might be willing to consider in a patch. It depends on the internal structure of course. But I have the impression that there may not be an existing internal structure which could be easily extended to allow for the appropriate new kind of deepening unhappiness. So they might not want to make that change. The cultural revolt idea might or might not be difficult. Limiting the number of turns between rushes would almost certainly be easy. I think it is good odds that doing something like what I described in my earlier note would be easier than the unhappiness and revolt changes, but of course harder than a number of turns limit. It sure would be wonderful if they could do that stuff and the unhappiness too!

Originally posted by Smash
nope...now this is the kinda thinking that got us what we have.The players are winning...take it out.

A much better idea is give me a reason to get out of despo.Make the "advanced" governments better.MUCH better.
We're not talking about eliminating the rush, just hoping to get a tweak which makes it less clear cut that this is THE way to win a tough game. Tweak it so that deciding which way one should proceed in a game is not as clear cut, and thus make the game more rewarding.

About increasing the power of other governments: Personally I already find that Democracy is very highly powered. The power of cash in this game is enormous. You can even buy happiness! And if you like rushing, don't forget Communism! In one deity game I was losing (my favorite kind of game, it was on a knife's edge whether I had a chance in it all the way up to modern times), I finally switched to Communism and started rushing Modern Armor in a few cities. That turned my losing position around. If you play a religious civ (the Egyptians are a great choice for this) you can flip back and forth between Democracy and Communism casually in the later part of a game.

There's also a problem with asking for "a reason to get out of despo" - that's not something Firaxis is likely to consider in a patch. It isn't specific enough and whatever reason one finds, it is likely to be a big overhaul. I think that the best we can hope for is to ask for another patch and to ask for the simplest, most specific, and thought-out changes we can. We have to work with what we have (CivIII with 1.16, which is great already!) and try to ask for things which are readily doable within the framework of an already released and play-tested game.

Originally posted by pagh80
I have now played a game to the end by using the no palace bug. It leaves my empire totaly corruption free and a lot easyer to play. ...

Question: Without a palace/capital how do you establish an embasy ?

You can't, but don't assume it's a bug! Firaxis may have intended it that way. :lol:

Actually, when you first research writing (can't trade for it or get it from a hut) you can still establish embassies with any Civs you currently have contact with.

Ahh, the code for the 'establish an embassy' pop-up kicks in then as well, I'd forgotten about that. I stand corrected. :o