What's the effect of Emsworth Aggreements on the Civ3 HOF?

EMan said:

The HOF Staff is doing the best they can to be fair to all the thousands of players (okay 191), and I think they're doing a fantastic job!

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I agree.

It's just I see all this agony over a great achievement (beating Firaxis at its own game.)
There are certain means of taking advantage that are just contrary to the way reality seems to work. I think I remember (vaguely) about someone giving away a city with the Great Library for future benefit. I can just imagine letting a foreign power borrow an American city for a few decades just to get it back with some enhancements.
And I like chess. OK the king's gambit didn't work that time, let's try pawn to queen's knight 4.
I also like the certainty that my rook will always beat a pawn. I hate losing my Celtic swordsman to a mere warrior knowing that if I had waited one move I would have won. Popping techs rather than four successive barbarians is the luck that wins games. 20 GLs for a win??? There is no even playing field when luck determines so much of the outcome. That is why I admire anyone who can beat the system with guile rather than luck.

Ozymandius said:

I also like the certainty that my rook will always beat a pawn (..)

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You are right that the HOF, besides skill, is also to a large extent about luck and/or spending lots of time. In that respect civ does not compare to chess. Now in chess, I would guess that you agree that there is a difference between:

1. Improving your game by advancing in theoretic development.
2. Improving your game by finding a loophole in the rules that allow you to play a type of move that effectively makes it another kind of game (for example, consider allowing the queen to make knight type jumps).

I think that in chess it is in general easier to distinguish these 2 cases than it is in a computer game.

In the example I gave, suppose that indeeed some expert in semantics found out that strictly speaking the chess rules allow the queen to make knight type jumps. I do not think that the community of chess players would see it as a theoretical discovery that significanlty improves gameplay. I think the rules would be changed so as to explicitly disallow it. That is exactly what the HOF staff is trying to achieve with the Emsworth agreements.

ThinkTank said:

In the example I gave, suppose that indeed some expert in semantics found out that strictly speaking the chess rules allow the queen to make knight type jumps.

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But here we are talking about faulty coding. If I were to buy a computer chess game that would allow a person to make moves that are known to be "illegal" because of faulty code, the game would be updated with a new version or the company would no longer sell chess games. However people would still be able to compete for the best record using the faulty game because the written code would apply to anyone who played that version.

Unfortunately (for HOF Staff), Firaxis is in business to make money, NOT a perfect game of Civ........So, there will be bugs in the code. The question is: Does it matter? If everyone plays by the same rules, so what if Civ doesn't parallel Real Life?



(I couldn't resist!) Question: In chess, when does a Queen move like a Knight legally and is more valuable?

Answer: When a pawn reaches the 8th rank and becomes a Knight insead of a Queen and performs a mate sequence that is quicker than a queen would..........Or, promoting the pawn to a queen causes stalemate (viz. result=draw).

Yeah, Chess is The (almost) Perfect Game Of Skill......But, man do I like playing competitive (viz. HOF) Civ!

Ozymandius said:

If I were to buy a computer chess game that would allow a person to make moves that are known to be "illegal" because of faulty code, the game would be updated with a new version or the company would no longer sell chess games. However people would still be able to compete for the best record using the faulty game because the written code would apply to anyone who played that version.

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True, but you would not call that game chess. And if in fact it was discovered that the "faulty" program interpreted the rules correctly, but that the error was in the rules, the rules of chess would be changed.

Denniz said:

With Superslug gone, we can't just ask him to settle the issue.

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In the XOTM forums, there is a discussion on this same topic and it leads to an interesting post from Gyathaar a few years back. Here is the post:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2831453&postcount=14

Gyathaar said:

A related exploit to this would be to gift an AI 9999gpt and a resource/lux , then sell them a tech for as much gpt as possible, and then pillage the lux resource to break the gift..
This way you force the AI into deficient spending with a lot of gpt going to you, and creates money out of thin air... this is banned in HoF, but it isnt listed in GOTM rules as far as I can see.

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What does this mean? Was the exploit already banned, but no longer on the books?

EMan said:

NOT a perfect game of Civ........So, there will be bugs in the code. The question is: Does it matter? If everyone plays by the same rules, so what if Civ doesn't parallel Real Life?

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Nope. It's not perfect and still a lot more fun than chess.

I'm just want to say a few things.


I personally and on behalf of the rest of the staffers thank Lord Emsworth for his honesty and openness about his technique. I feel really bad about rejecting his games, but it breaks the spirit of what we feel civ 3 should be, but isn't.

Thank you Eman, for pointing out why it isn't what it should be. Firaxis is in business to make money. The end. They aren't in it for the love of the game like we, staff and players, are. We've spent more effort for no pay than they ever would.

If I had a genie to wish for a fix, I would ask for all gpt deals be immediately rengotiated if conditions changed. If I cut the trade route then Bismark, or who-ever, should call me back and say "we missed that last payment, re-establish or all deals need to be renegotiated/cancelled" But that is far too complex and that's probably why they're never going to be fixed. That and the fact that Civ 3 is a dead game to Firaxis. Even Civ 4 has been kicked to the side because Revolutions is the new child. I don't know it for sure but I've heard BTS players are waiting for a patch, a patch that likely won't ever come. So why would we ever think Firaxis out of the goodness of their hearts suddenly come up with a fix?

The Hof was set up to try to conform to the "spirit" of the rules. That's why there is Red exploits. Yes, the program lets you do these things but it shouldn't, at least to the Hof staff opinion, and therefore are banned for all. You can do anything you like with a non submitted game, but if you want it submitted to our Hof go by our rules, please. We advertise the rules, so there shouldn't be too many surprizes. There is no entry fee, no prize money, so please don't act like I'm killing you when your game is rejected. We welcome all players. Rejections are not personal, they aren't attacks, they aren't punishment, we don't hold gruges. It's simply because a rule was broken that a game is rejected. We don't like rejecting people. If you have questions ask and we'll do our best to answer. If any of this isn't clear, ask, please.

As much as I've stressed over the whole Emsworth agreement situation, I appreciate the discussion and want to maintain interesting discussion here. This game has so many facets to it. I'm only just coming across things now. I didn't know you could keep building obselete UUs if you didn't have your golden age until last week. If it wasn't something really special, would be all still this embroiled with a six or seven year old game?

SpiffyKeen7744 said:

In the XOTM forums, there is a discussion on this same topic and it leads to an interesting post from Gyathaar a few years back. Here is the post:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2831453&postcount=14



What does this mean? Was the exploit already banned, but no longer on the books?

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Part of this was fixed in conquests. you can't get or give more than the 999 trick allows, but the problems here is the player increasing the AI's income to get a much better deal back and then cancelling the first deal, leaving the AI unable to cancel the second deal and paying more than it has, thereby creating money, because the amount faithfully shows up, even if the AI doesn't actually have it. This a more complex version of that, but it's still banned.

I've never played at a level or in a style (nor the insight) that allows for the accumulation of funds. I usually max out my research to get ahead of the AIs and try to eliminate them as quickly as possible for domination.

What strategy or style would lead to the necessity of "fraud" or counterfeiting, alchemy etc..: the need for funds when the normal economy of the Civ world does not generate that much gold?

I'm trying to find a way to increase my scores... legally of course.. but I find many of the threads give no clue on how some of the great scores are achieved.

Ozymandius said:

...I'm trying to find a way to increase my scores... legally of course.. but I find many of the threads give no clue on how some of the great scores are achieved.

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Well, if you want to know who to talk to regarding HOF high scores at Warlord & Regent levels, start by looking in the Mirror!

EMan said:

Well, if you want to know who to talk to regarding HOF high scores at Warlord & Regent levels, start by looking in the Mirror!

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Those games were milk runs with 1.29. If you got lucky with goody huts, end of ancient age by 1500 BC, milking was a chore but with time, high scores were possible. However I had way too many crashes, especially with F3 that I was forced to change computers and an upgrade to C3C. Since then I have been unable to get anything from huts except barbarians once I have a single warrior. I no longer get the upgrades to elite when attacked. Nearly 90 % of my attempts to kill barbarians lead not to an upgrade but annihilation. Now I leave the goodie huts to the AI but research takes forever.
I have also found that one to two hour "tiny" scores give greater point rewards than months-long milk runs.
And obviously at the higher levels others have way greater insights to achieving high scores than I have.

Unresolved definition of banned gpt deals.

If I am understanding it right the banned technique is
1) "getting more gpt than the ai can possibly afford" as defined by the 9999 trick, or
2)"forcing the ai into double negative gpt" or
3) "creating money out of thin air".

Well now, these three definitions are not one and the same. They give different numbers for how much I can get out of an ai. This leaves me unclear on how far I can push the whole thing.

consider a sort of generic example. It's a deity game in the industrial age on a huge map. there are 14 ai's remaining. One is about to be eliminated. I try our old "emsworth trick" on 13 ai's just before eliminating the 14th. The 9999 trick shows me a typical income of, lets say, 700 gpt per civ. But when I ask them what they would give me for a luxury straight up most will say "Sorry Rys, I appear to be tapped." So now I do the alliance with gpt thingie and then I sell my luxury for, oh lets say, 30 gpt. Have I done a banned thing?

According to (1) I am legal. According to (2) I am legal. According to (3) I have just got my game banned.. Because the truth is if I had even sold the luxury for 1 gpt and then eliminated the ai I would have put one gpt into the economy that did not exist before.

Now there is a huge difference between rule (1) and rule (3). If I go by the letter of rule (1) I can cheat 13 ai's for 700 gpt each. And I have done this before and it is not that hard to do on deity. It typically take a few iterations to get caught up on tech so that I can apply it to all the civs, but it does not require exceeding the 999 limit to do so. The 10K total that I am drawing per turn will buy me 625 80-shield units over the next 20 turns. Needless to say it will not be long before I have the world conquered.

The final result I predict will be that games that stay (barely) within the limits of exploit (1), taking the maximum legal amount from all the ai's, will eventually get banned too.

And that is why I am posting this. I'm looking for a ruling to either:
- allow all three forms of the exploit, or
- ban all three.

And who's decision is this anyway?

rysingsun said:

And I have done this before and it is not that hard to do on deity.

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Thanks. Now I understand why I have never come across this possibility before. I've never even attempted deity because I can't get my 20k culture early enough at a lower level!

actually it is easy on any level. at lower levels you can start it sooner, since you catch up in technology sooner. On higher levels you get more money for it (without violating (1)), since the ai civs are richer.

when I say "easy", I mean that it is easy once you learn how the technique is executed.

rysingsun said:

Unresolved definition of banned gpt deals.

If I am understanding it right the banned technique is
1) "getting more gpt than the ai can possibly afford" as defined by the 9999 trick, or
2)"forcing the ai into double negative gpt" or
3) "creating money out of thin air".

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You'll need to turn around the way you are looking at this. We do not care how you get there. It is the end results of these deals that matter.

If as a result of any deal made with an AI, that AI has a negative GPT at any point during the duration of his half of that deal, then that negative GPT is essentially 'free money' and banned. So do not try to take everything the AI has. That will, in all probabliliy, force the negative GPT situation to occur if anything bad happens to that AI (War, other deals ending/broken, etc.). So just leave the AI enough of a cushion so that you know that he can actually pay without his economy having negative GPT as a result.

BTW, I think the correct way phase it is not "unless you know it will send him into negative GPT". It should be "unless you know it that will not send him into negative GPT".

rysingsun said:

And who's decision is this anyway?

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Right now, I am supposed to be the one with the final say, but Marsden and Tone are handling the Civ3 HOF day-to-day. What they think is the most important. I'm just the tie breaker.

ok, that is all clear and i'm satisfied with it

I know it's an old thread, but I DO think that double negative gpt could influence higher level games significantly, even in Conquests. AutomatedTeller hinted at this. Here's how it would work...

Deal 1: You give: gpt
AI 1 gives: a resource or luxury.

Deal 2: You give: tech
AI 1 gives: gpt.

You then cut the roads around your capital or at your borders canceling deal 1. You don't suffer a reputation hit, but you still have the gpt from techs. So more money for a larger army or structures earlier. I haven't done that before in any of my games, and I thought about doing it in a Sid game I have going on, but decided it's too risky when I don't have enough of an army, as it almost surely can force the AI into negative gpt. Or did I miss something?