Exploits and AI Abuse

Actually "the milking ai for gold" trick that tommynt mentioned is a difficult trade off. Yes, you get "free" DoW each new game. You can once DoW some ai after trade or you can once DoW CS to get their worker "for free".

Anyway its the only 1 "free" DoW that wont get any diplo hits later in the game. Oh, you get -reputation with that CS and -diplo with that civ you have declared. Means its not "free" after all.

So you often need worker ASAP and AI often just get not enough gold to do some efficient "milking".

And people loves to steal CS workers and no1 calls it an exploit.
Is milking really exploit then?


In my eyes its a typical game decision in so unperfect game design model. This way you can read it as "you get free gold or you get free worker" opportunity.

avl8 said:

So you often need worker ASAP and AI often just get not enough gold to do some efficient "milking".

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They do at emperor or higher difficult level. That's why it is a big deal. (Have enough gold)

avl8 said:

Actually "the milking ai for gold" trick that tommynt mentioned is a difficult trade off. Yes, you get "free" DoW each new game. You can once DoW some ai after trade or you can once DoW CS to get their worker "for free".

<snip>

In my eyes its a typical game decision in so unperfect game design model. This way you can read it as "you get free gold or you get free worker" opportunity.

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Is this "free DoW" for each civ/cs or is it one civ/cs per game?

It is one / game, and dow vs CS counts.

Arilian said:

What about this?

A barbarian appears and it is one one of my resource.
I know it will pillage it next turn.
I sell everything I have including this resource and GPT for Gold.
Next turn the trade is broken and I have +2000 gold for nothing.

Imho this is an exploit. But you can say it is not, it is in the game.

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You can do it yourself. Build a fort on a ressource for 1 turn to destroy the plantation/mine, pillage with a unit and repair the tile right after. This pattern takes 3 turns to do. Pretty powerful at high levels.

the things you learn...

I agree with Tommy.

If you are not supposed to do something, the game should not permit you to do it. If the game permits you do something, it is not an exploit.

The problem, as I see it, is the the AI response to many actions are poorly documented, so noobs (like me) do not know all the tricks that experienced players do. I think a more transparent documentation of how the AI will respond to player actions would solve most of the "problems".

As far as real life, Hitler traded with Stalin until 2 hours before Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Within the last few months, real people lost millions of dollars when MF Global "lost" their customer funds on bad deals.

The real value of GOTM is that noobs, like me, can see how other players handle the exact same scenario. I may believe that beelining optics on a island map to exploit ruins is the best strategy, but I can compare how that strategy fares against someone else who pursues another line of thinking. I have learned a lot from reading the After Action posts and watching Dave's videos. I really hope that Tommy makes some videos of his games. I would like to see what he does and learn from it.

Balibar

Balibar said:

The real value of GOTM is that noobs, like me, can see how other players handle the exact same scenario. I may believe that beelining optics on a island map to exploit ruins is the best strategy, but I can compare how that strategy fares against someone else who pursues another line of thinking. I have learned a lot from reading the After Action posts and watching Dave's videos. I really hope that Tommy makes some videos of his games. I would like to see what he does and learn from it.

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He "abuses" the AI with buying/selling stuff.

Peets said:

He "abuses" the AI with buying/selling stuff.

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As in real life, he did not force the AI to accept the trade.

I think the perception of abuse arises because we do not expect people to keep trading with those who welsh on deals. There are many ways for the devs to make trading smarter. The devs either do not care that the AI trades stupidly or they intend for you to take advantage of it.

If you plop a city right next to the AI's border, they will likely DOW you. Is it abuse of the AI to plop a city right next to the AI so you do not have to DOW the AI?

A cursory examination of game strategy will reveal that ethical behavior is not rewarded in Civ 5, so the winners of any competition will likely be as cutthroat as the AI mechanics allow them to get away with.

I would like to see a game where cooperation was rewarded, but Civ 5 is not it.

You have come in late to a discussion that was completed some months ago. As far as I am concerned, the discussion concluded and we are using the results in the games we currently play. I do not see a need to open it again unless there is a compelling reason. Please let us know the reason.

As you point out, Civ5 is a game and it seems that what we might do in real life has little effect on game play. Therefore we cannot take what happens in real life and expect to apply it to the software.

In game terms, exploits occur when there are few, or no, consequences (or costs) for your actions. Getting things from the AI for "free" are the types of things that should be disallowed, or should be known to all players to level the playing field. In GOTM, you are playing against your fellow players using a common save, so an exploit gives an advantage.

Balibar said:

I think the perception of abuse arises because we do not expect people to keep trading with those who welsh on deals. There are many ways for the devs to make trading smarter. The devs either do not care that the AI trades stupidly or they intend for you to take advantage of it.

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I think it is very difficult to program this. That is why it is how it is.
But perhaps with the new expansion something has be done about it.
Until then I follow the rules how the mods say it.
But if you use it or don't use it, it makes a big difference in your game.
For me, I have to lower the difficulty or I can't win anymore.

Peets said:

I think it is very difficult to program this. That is why it is how it is.
But perhaps with the new expansion something has be done about it.
Until then I follow the rules how the mods say it.
But if you use it or don't use it, it makes a big difference in your game.
For me, I have to lower the difficulty or I can't win anymore.

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From the point of view of Austrian Economics, trades are impossible to program because all value is subjective.

For example, the AI will give 240 gold for a luxury resource. So, it places the value of the extra happiness at 240 gold. Is there any reason why the number should be 240 rather than 300 or 190? If I follow Dave's game, he tries to sell his open borders. On occasion he will purchase an open borders and pay more than the AI will give him (52 vs 50 gold) Is this "fair." I am sure Dave can explain why he thought open borders was worth 52 gold at that particular point in time. Dave valued the open borders more than the 52 gold or he would not have made the trade. The AI, on the other hand, will make the trade every time irrespective of the situation.

Now it would be possible for a programmer to program all of his known valuations into the game for every prior known situation, but the next game would present something new and the AI would do something the programmer would not do in the same exact situation.

Trading may make sense only in a multiplayer context.

leif erikson said:

You have come in late to a discussion that was completed some months ago. As far as I am concerned, the discussion concluded and we are using the results in the games we currently play. I do not see a need to open it again unless there is a compelling reason. Please let us know the reason.

As you point out, Civ5 is a game and it seems that what we might do in real life has little effect on game play. Therefore we cannot take what happens in real life and expect to apply it to the software.

In game terms, exploits occur when there are few, or no, consequences (or costs) for your actions. Getting things from the AI for "free" are the types of things that should be disallowed, or should be known to all players to level the playing field. In GOTM, you are playing against your fellow players using a common save, so an exploit gives an advantage.

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I am a latecomer, but I am not so sure everyone has reached the same conclusions. I see undertones of this topic in After Action Report Threads. I suspect that some believe that everyone is not playing by the same rules. I don't want to stir the pot.

For example, In the GOTM 25 game, Dave traded GPT to Ottoman for gold for many turns in a row, because he knew Otto was going to DOW soon due to his placement of a city. Was this "fair." I thought he was pretty clever about it and tip my hat to him, but the notion that this was somehow different from doing the same kind of trade then DOW on Otto seems splitting hairs to me. Or that trading GPT for gold would be OK before a DOW if you capture the capital but not if you accept peace from the AI ten turns later.

If everyone agreed to what was OK and what was not, I missed it in the discussion. Could you please outline what is acceptable and what is not? I am willing to accept whatever you all have agreed to, but it is not clear to me what you all have agreed to.

The bottom line is that we are in sync with the current HoF rules.

However, without a mod, this really is not a competition as nothing is enforceable. We describe what we are trying to achieve in the TSG series of games in this thread.

Hopefully, as Civ5 matures, we can do a better job of defining rules and hosting a "real" competition.

edit - Also thought I should add that we should be pushing the software some to see if we can discover where there are exploits. When we create the mod, we can often correct exploits to some degree. No mod though until the .dll file contents are released.

Balibar said:

For example, In the GOTM 25 game, Dave traded GPT to Ottoman for gold for many turns in a row, because he knew Otto was going to DOW soon due to his placement of a city. Was this "fair." I thought he was pretty clever about it and tip my hat to him, but the notion that this was somehow different from doing the same kind of trade then DOW on Otto seems splitting hairs to me. Or that trading GPT for gold would be OK before a DOW if you capture the capital but not if you accept peace from the AI ten turns later.

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As I understand it, and as it was explained to me in the other thread, selling GPT before a war (no matter who instigates it) is fine, as long as the war is legitimate. The exploit would be to declare peace without fighting and do it repeatedly, perhaps gaining more from the sale than you give up in the peace deal.

tommynt said:

There was never a reason why something is a exploit and something else isnt in HOF.
...
exploits are things which are hidden for a normal player and possibly even the devs, so you do something abnormal which is not planed to do from devs.

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Hah, there is always a reason. The chief reason is that if the trick is so good that all players feel like they need to learn about it and use it to stay competitive, and it seems to go against the designed intent, then it is explotive.

Rebuilding Oxford, clearly odd, and unique among the wonders that can be rebuilt? This is probably just a bug, and were developer's time infinite it would be fixed in a patch.

The whole creating a trade with a resource and then pillaging said resource has been present in one form or another in every Civ game since I.
Morally its cheesy, its like a bait and switch, except you switch it with nothing. No one but an idiot would deal with you ever again were you to manage your deals in this manner. The AI does respond in some way, probably just a broke deal notation. If it gives you a pass (just once) it was probably so a bunch of folks aren't nerdraging at their monitors early game. But, you shouldn't get a freebie. If you do, then every competitive player is going to want/desire/need to use this exploit.

Unfortunately, this is a complex game, so the A in AI quickly becomes obvious. GOTM is about playing against a common goal but competing with other humans, so I for one want a cleaner game and will avoid anything the group decides to disallow. Why not? If you can't do it, and neither can anyone else then whats the problem?

I would love to see a hall of fame game where research agreements are banned and its pure raw science

I actually saw a lets play of this it was extremely fun



Basicly the hole research agreement and great scientist is a abuse and exploit but you can't blame the player's blame firaxis for making it so broken

apocalypse105 said:

I would love to see a hall of fame game where research agreements are banned and its pure raw science

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Something like i made for the TSG12?

announcement

progress

report

results(see post #2)

I'll probably not become extremely interested in Game of the Months, with my main gripe being that too much is allowed here in my opinion. It's not new, I had the same gripe with the Civ III Game of the Months.
With Civ 5 it'll be worse, at least Civ III had a system safeguarding the integrity of agreements - if you squandered one deal there, it became more difficult making deals after that, as your reputation was smudged.

The developers of Civ 5 are the first people at fault, as any decent strategy game should reward players who live up to agreements and penalize player who don't. If failing to live up to an agreement goes without penalty, or even gives rewards, like your pillaged resource is coming back to you and nobody's getting angered, then something's wrong.
I don't envy people who have to make rules for something like a Hall of Fame or Game of the Month. Using descriptions like 'repeatedly' and 'beyond normal play' for doing things like selling stuff and breaking a deal and saying that's against the rules is still rather vague. If I'm reading that I think I can still do it a couple of times in a game and get away with it. You're like saying "we don't like exploits, but if you don't make it too obvious it's okay".

If the developers aren't addressing the loopholes by giving at least diplo hits for not living up to agreements, competitive play will always remain flawed. Some players will permit themselves to do more than others. You won't get all players on the same line unless you make very strict rules or no rules at all.
No rules at all seems not an option, you can rake in the money by the bucket load if you sell pillage sell pillage sell etc. The game becomes a joke, not to be taken serious anymore.
Strict rules is better, at least you save the game with it. The main problem is perhaps that players who like to play competitively, like in HoF and GotM, are also the players who like the exploits, as it's the exploits who are giving them a distinctive edge.

There's no way you won't alienate people. You will alienate players with more strict rules, but you also alienate players by being lenient. Consider me as being in the latter category. I simply dislike this game if it's not played within gentleman's rules.

Smirk said:

Hah, there is always a reason. The chief reason is that if the trick is so good that all players feel like they need to learn about it and use it to stay competitive, and it seems to go against the designed intent, then it is explotive.

Rebuilding Oxford, clearly odd, and unique among the wonders that can be rebuilt? This is probably just a bug, and were developer's time infinite it would be fixed in a patch.

The whole creating a trade with a resource and then pillaging said resource has been present in one form or another in every Civ game since I.
Morally its cheesy, its like a bait and switch, except you switch it with nothing. No one but an idiot would deal with you ever again were you to manage your deals in this manner. The AI does respond in some way, probably just a broke deal notation. If it gives you a pass (just once) it was probably so a bunch of folks aren't nerdraging at their monitors early game. But, you shouldn't get a freebie. If you do, then every competitive player is going to want/desire/need to use this exploit.

Unfortunately, this is a complex game, so the A in AI quickly becomes obvious. GOTM is about playing against a common goal but competing with other humans, so I for one want a cleaner game and will avoid anything the group decides to disallow. Why not? If you can't do it, and neither can anyone else then whats the problem?

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sometimes theres the odd post on this forum that reminds me there is hope and not everyone on the internet is brain dead or trolling, or so it so often feels for me in the main room. the above is a fantastic example. especially the part about the nerdrage. Civ is game, very important to remember that. 10/10