well if it really bothers you that much i have 3 words for you: CTRL + ALT + O. Ok, i guess none of those were technically words, but you get the point. no need to abandon the rest of BUG for one easily fixed issue.
WHEOOHRN - working as planned or exploit?
- Thread starter Badtz Maru
- Start date
CouNterOrdeR
Chieftain
He isnt talking about bug. Hes talking about civ4.
I suspect that some people will object to any changes in this department because they have integrated WHEOOHRN so tightly into their high-level strategies against high-level AIs with massively unfair production bonuses, such that relying on things like WHEOOHRN becomes the only way to stay alive. But should the game necessarily be reduced to such gimmicky, non-flavorful factors?
But w/o BUG (or if you turn the scoreboard icon off in BUG), it's a non-issue, since you have to enter diplomacy AND hover over the red name under "declare war on" to ever know they are in WHEOOHRN. The OP said the issue arose when he got BUG, and he felt his rise in level was aided by illicit info given by BUG; so ya, he IS talking about BUG (in the first sentence of the first post if you missed it).
And ya, i read post #5, but one can only control one's own games, if you don't like an exploit, don't use it; if you're mad that an exploit exists at all, you shouldn't play video games (or board games, or sports, or life).
I hear what he's saying about it's existance being unrealistic, but it only becomes a balance issue when BUG is involved. Seeing WHEOOHRN once or twice a game when you accidentally mouse over is no big deal, it's seeing every civs war plans on the scoreboard every turn that is the balance issue.
Again, if you want the thing effectively out of your game, DaveMcW hit the nail on the head, drop WHEOOHRN down to the bottom of the list and you'll almost always get a different response (in the rare event you mouse over a question you don't want the answer to)
Badtz Maru
King
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I wasn't aware of WHEOOHRN until I looked into BUG, but now that I know about it, even if I disable that part of BUG, I will still know it's there and be sorely tempted to check on my neighbors every turn or so to see if they are planning for a war. If there was an undocumented glitch in the game that allowed you to tell where resources were in unexplored territory, how many people would be able to resist using it? WHEOOHRN is the root of the problem, BUG just exacerbates it.
And as I pointed out earlier, BUG doesn't just make it easier to access the information provided by the glitch, it will tell you if an AI is WHEOOHRN even if you would not be able to find out about it in the unmodded game. It is accessing info that is not available during normal gameplay, and when I read up on the mod before installing it, they said that the mod did NOT do that. It also apparently provides info on when the AI is willing to trade techs or offer open borders even in situations when you would not be able to tell that without the mod. BUG with all options enabled is effectively a hack for cheating.
I edited this into my post before you posted but after you quoted me:
naterator said:
turn it off if you don't want it!!!
Scrapping BUG over this is like junking your new car because you don't like the cigarette lighters, and not being willing to turn it off because you'll be tempted to use it is ridiculous, that's like complaining about how easy settler is when there's all these other difficulty levels because you're too tempted to take the bonuses when they're made available. Do you know about the "new random seed" option? That's the biggest cheat of all and you can probably resist that, right?
A non-issue. Knowledge that you cannot act upon, that becomes readily available as soon as you CAN act upon it. Hell, your f4 advisor can probably tell you when they want to trade techs even if they can't so it's just open borders, and who cares if you know that?
Badtz Maru
King
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I probably will edit it so that it only appears when there are no other reasons, but then I am in a situation where I am playing a modded game that is more difficult than the version most people play. When I read playthroughs of people who use BUG or even just check for WHEOOHRN, I'll always be nagged by the suspicion that they wouldn't be doing nearly as well if they didn't have access to information I don't have through an uncorrected glitch. It will be harder for me to compare my skill level against others, as having access to more information has admittedly increased the level of play for many people by one or two difficulty levels. I went from winning 80% of the time at my old difficulty level to winning nearly every time at the difficulty level above that and strongly considering moving up another level when I installed BUG, and I can assure you, the improved interface and notifications my city was about to grow were not THAT big of a factor. What really helped me was knowing when my neighbor was planning a war with enough advance warning that I had time to switch all production to military units and saving money for upgrades. As I said earlier, even without BUG I will now be sorely tempted to mouseover war bribes on the diplomacy screen every turn when I have a potential threat near me, which will slow down the game and make me feel like I am exploiting.
For an analogy, imagine that there was a glitch where if you held down a certain key and moved the mouse cursor over unexplored areas of the map, your cursor would change colors when over a resource. Wouldn't you want that fixed, even if you had the self-control to not make use of it? Now consider the possibility that you could download a mod that would use that glitch to automatically scan the entire map that way for resources, and mark them on your map. Would you consider people who used such a mod to be playing fairly? Would you consider a person who could win on Deity but only using that mod a Deity level player? Would you want to play multiplayer with them if you couldn't tell if they were running that mod?
oops! -- that's twice you got me before i edited my post.
Cheating at video games is easy. GTA san andreas had almost 100 cheat codes, which i had. I still played it through w/o cheating because it was more fun. I don't care what others do in their game. If you want to worldbuilder yourself some diety wins, go right ahead, i couldn't care less. The WB allows total cheating w/o mods, so cheating is a separate issue.
Plus, if a civ won't talk to you, they are either:
1) at war with you, so they're probably preparing for war
2) you cut off trade with them, so you obviously don't care if they start the war prep
so really if you can't talk to them, it's a safe assumption they are in WHEOOHRN anyway.
I really think you're making a bigger deal out of it than you need to. (and selling yourself short, let us know if you have to drop back down a level after turning it off. I doubt you will have to)
Cheating at video games is easy. GTA san andreas had almost 100 cheat codes, which i had. I still played it through w/o cheating because it was more fun. I don't care what others do in their game. If you want to worldbuilder yourself some diety wins, go right ahead, i couldn't care less. The WB allows total cheating w/o mods, so cheating is a separate issue.
Plus, if a civ won't talk to you, they are either:
1) at war with you, so they're probably preparing for war
2) you cut off trade with them, so you obviously don't care if they start the war prep
so really if you can't talk to them, it's a safe assumption they are in WHEOOHRN anyway.
I really think you're making a bigger deal out of it than you need to. (and selling yourself short, let us know if you have to drop back down a level after turning it off. I doubt you will have to)
Badtz Maru
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I don't assume that someone is going to prepare for war just because I cut off trade with them - the two do not always go together. In the unmodded game, if someone sks you to cut off relations with another civilization, you have to balance that not only with the fact you will lose the direct benefits of your relations with that civ (which in many cases is nothing to big) with the indirect effect that you will have no diplomatic access to them. Did ending my agreements with Civ X result in them being mad enough to go to war with me? Without BUG, no way of knowing for several turns, with BUG, you'll know.
I don't think I'll have the same winning percentage without BUG and WHEOOHRN that I do with. My change in ability was too dramatic. I used to play vanilla Civ a lot years ago, and got to where I was comfortable on Prince, and could at least stay in the middle of the score table on Monarch if I could survive the early wars. When I got BtS a few months ago, I decided to go back to Noble because I was out of practice, and got my butt kicked, and had to go down to Warlord to win. Over the last several months I gradually got to where I could win on Noble most of the time, and had a couple of wins on Prince with cooked settings (favorite civ, islands map, aggressive barbs, no tech brokering, no spaceship victory, permanent alliances, random personalities). Then I got BUG, and once I learned about using WHEOOHRN, Noble was no challenge at all (I rarely finished games as it was always obvious I could choose my winning condition around mid-game), and moved up to Prince and could win consistently with random maps and leaders, default settings. Knowing when a civ was planning war took almost all of the challenge out of the game. I knew when I could expand and build improvements and neglect my military, and knew when I had to stop doing that and build military.
well, you'll know right away if you leave that option on, otherwise you'll have to check the power graph to find out. This is because although you don't know that a civ is preparing for war after cutting off trade, you DO know that you just pissed them off, so a quick look at the power graph will tell you if you put them in WHEOOHRN w/o BUG (or "cheating" by checking the diplomacy tooltip).
Badtz Maru
King
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- 674
This is not true, either. I had only one other civ on my continent in a game I've been playing recently, and I was keeping a close eye on our relative power levels. At one point his power started going up rapidly, so in a relatively short time I went from having 1.5 times his power to 0.9, but he never entered WHEOOHRN - it was Justinian, and he was friendly with me due to shared religion, and I don't think he declares at friendly. I let his power go up because there was no WHEOOHRN indicated, and he didn't declare. Then we had an event that hurt our relations by -2 (the one where they get to help my rebels blow up a bunch of my improvements), he immediately went to WHEOOHRN, and declared a few turns later.
Likewise, I've pissed off civs but had them not go into WHEOOHRN. I've also had a pissed off civ go into WHEOOHRN, and knew I was the target, and rapidly build up my military so that I had a much larger one than him, and he never declared and stayed in WHEOOHRN for a very long time, until I let my relative power drop later and then he declared. It was the longest I've seen a civ stay in WHEOOHRN without declaring.
This "undocumented feature" gives the player far too much insight into the internal working of the AI's mind.
So justinial wasn't in WHEOOHRN but his power spiked? Well then he was preparing for war without telling you. sneaky.
in this case though, your extra knowledge hurt you because you figured that a spike in power w/o WHEOOHRN was less significant than a spike in power with it. He probably would have been in WHEOOHRN alot longer if you had kept up in power, but you snoozed, neglected your military because you had a false sense of security because of the lack of WHEOOHRN, and so at the next impasse, you were weaker and were attacked.
I believe WHEOOHRN only tells you when a civ is preparing for a specific war, you still need to watch out for wars of oppurtunity or spontaneous wars.
i never said that cutting off trade will always put a civ in WHEOOHRN, i said it's a safe assumption, as in it's a dangerous assumption that no WHEOOHRN means no wars on the horizon.
as a side note, it's not just BUG that doesn't distinguish between civs that you can and can't talk to or trade with. this is what it looks like when someone offers a trade when they're the target of the AP embargo:
(i know, i'm running BUG in the pic, but i doubt this is a result of the mod)
(i know, i'm running BUG in the pic, but i doubt this is a result of the mod)
I say, if you don't like it, turn it off. You should play a game in whatever way gives you the most enjoyment. Though I do agree WHEOOHRN is an exploit, it's hardly gamebreaking IMO. I don't use bug, but I check every few turns for this occurrence.
I'm just guessing here, but i assume if you turn
into:
Then they wouldn't say WHEOOHRN unless they were planning 2 wars, which is probably never.
again, just a guess, anything more than basic XML tweaks is way over my head.
Code:
if (getAnyWarPlanCount(true) > 0)
{
return DENIAL_TOO_MANY_WARS;
}
Code:
if (getAnyWarPlanCount(true) > 1)
{
return DENIAL_TOO_MANY_WARS;
}again, just a guess, anything more than basic XML tweaks is way over my head.
That war was started by Georgia. It is the conclusion of the report commissioned by the Council of the European Union, and written by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, with the help of 30 European military, legal and history experts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8281990.stm
eris
King
I can't believe someone is talking about getting too much information as if it were a problem. The whole purpose of BUG is to give you information you, as an experienced player, could likely deduce through massive micromanagement. I am of the opinion that the little clues are there because the designers quite deliberately put them there to give people an opportunity to play in differing micromanagement styles, not because of some supposed oversight. Give the designers some credit, here!
There is even a complaint that someone could be "tempted" to look at information because it is there to cheat with. Well, World Builder is always there, and if you can avoid that temptation, then you can avoid others. (The developers do not control your ability to resist temptation. Theoretically, you do.) I like the WHEEOOHRN indicator and its ambivalent information. (Hmmm. They are prepping for war; I wonder against whom.) Contrary to what many seem to think here, I believe it adds value to the gameplay. And BUG just makes it easier, and I like that even better.
SO I think I will have to disagree completely with the points of the OP. No criticism to be implied, just the ability to have different reactions to the same game circumstance.
There is even a complaint that someone could be "tempted" to look at information because it is there to cheat with. Well, World Builder is always there, and if you can avoid that temptation, then you can avoid others. (The developers do not control your ability to resist temptation. Theoretically, you do.) I like the WHEEOOHRN indicator and its ambivalent information. (Hmmm. They are prepping for war; I wonder against whom.) Contrary to what many seem to think here, I believe it adds value to the gameplay. And BUG just makes it easier, and I like that even better.
SO I think I will have to disagree completely with the points of the OP. No criticism to be implied, just the ability to have different reactions to the same game circumstance.
katipunero
Prince
i agree with the op to an extent. good players are able to take full advantage of every information made available in the game even without a mod to the point that it might be considered an exploit by some. the declare war AI response for instance is too much a neon portent of what the AI plans to do next.
the WHEOOHRN warning sign and other indicators on bug only make the collection and analysis of information much easier and thus allowing better judgment calls to be made. this translates to at least a marked improvement in skill level ability in no time. this is because with it you are able to see information in a flash which would otherwise take a couple of clicks and some patience to obtain. the OP in fact said that moving up a difficulty level was ridiculously easy.
but see, the OP only stopped at noble or prince (???) coming up from warlord difficulty before deciding the game no longer presented any challenge at all what with the "exploit".
I suggest moving up to monarch or emperor, where AI bonuses are still reasonable/manageable relatively. Maybe then it would be easier to see that the mass of available information in the game, with or without bug, is not there to enable the player to whoop ai ass like silly but to allow the player to develop a tighter game on higher difficulty levels.
it's true that the bug mod makes lazy players win on higher levels. it does away with nourishing good civ habits like checking advisor screens often, managing whipping and whip anger, unhealthiness etc per city per turn the way the game was designed. but can't a civaddict enjoy the game by doing just half the tedious work? for me i'd like to get my fix fast and easy.
the WHEOOHRN warning sign and other indicators on bug only make the collection and analysis of information much easier and thus allowing better judgment calls to be made. this translates to at least a marked improvement in skill level ability in no time. this is because with it you are able to see information in a flash which would otherwise take a couple of clicks and some patience to obtain. the OP in fact said that moving up a difficulty level was ridiculously easy.
but see, the OP only stopped at noble or prince (???) coming up from warlord difficulty before deciding the game no longer presented any challenge at all what with the "exploit".
I suggest moving up to monarch or emperor, where AI bonuses are still reasonable/manageable relatively. Maybe then it would be easier to see that the mass of available information in the game, with or without bug, is not there to enable the player to whoop ai ass like silly but to allow the player to develop a tighter game on higher difficulty levels.
it's true that the bug mod makes lazy players win on higher levels. it does away with nourishing good civ habits like checking advisor screens often, managing whipping and whip anger, unhealthiness etc per city per turn the way the game was designed. but can't a civaddict enjoy the game by doing just half the tedious work? for me i'd like to get my fix fast and easy.
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