Subsidies and Aggressive Trading Practices

Zombie69 said:

Try it the other way around.

The reason Zombie69 doesn't think "exploits" are a big deal is because of the definition of exploit.

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OK, same thing. The point is that the people who have no trouble with "exploits" are the ones who choose a definition of "exploit" that makes almost everything in the game an exploit, so of course logically they have to be ok. And the people who want to ban/limit exploits are those who use a definition that's roughly like mine: something that creates a problem or imbalance.

For the record, i use both this and the pop rush exploit, and i find both of them to contain the same amount of work and the same level of difficulty.

DaviddesJ said:

Chopping is definitely an issue, because the AI doesn't understand it. But, of course, it's central to the game, so even if were an "exploit" there's little you can do about that.

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Slavery is also pretty central to the game. Not really a way to avoid it either. Same for trading resources.

DaviddesJ said:

And, to go back to the definition (my definition), the issues then become (1) does it give a disproportionate advantage and (2) does it violate the natural logic of the game? The changes in chopping from 1.52 to 1.61 helped to address both (1) and (2).

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1.61 may have helped, but it didn't fix anything. Chop rushing is still overpowered.

Zombie69 said:

For the record, i use both this and the pop rush exploit, and i find both of them to contain the same amount of work and the same level of difficulty.

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And I don't use either one (so far), and I also find them to contain the same amount of work and level of difficulty.

DaviddesJ said:

OK, same thing. The point is that the people who have no trouble with "exploits" are the ones who choose a definition of "exploit" that makes almost everything in the game an exploit, so of course logically they have to be ok. And the people who want to ban/limit exploits are those who use a definition that's roughly like mine: something that creates a problem or imbalance.

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Your own definition of exploit actually seems to encompass more stuff than mine. With your definition, almost everything is an exploit. Or at least, every strategy not used by the AI. They all give an unfair advantage over the AI.

Ok, the Extortion Addendum is up. Now you can get GPT without needing to trade any resources!

(I have not tested its efficacy yet.)

Slavery is laos pretty central to the game. Not really a way to avoid it either. Same for trading resources.

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One can definitely choose to avoid all of these things. E.g., I think it's pretty interesting to play a game with no forest chopping, and no slavery, and no resource trading, and still win at Emperor (or whatever). More interesting to me than using all available exploits to win at Deity. But different people enjoy different things.

Zombie69 said:

1.61 may have helped, but it didn't fix anything. Chop rushing is still overpowered.

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The changes helped somewhat. They reduced the problem (by a lot). I certainly would have liked to see bigger reductions (and I argued for those). But you can't always get everything you want.

I can't see this addendum. Where is it?

DaviddesJ said:

One can definitely choose to avoid all of these things. E.g., I think it's pretty interesting to play a game with no forest chopping, and no slavery, and no resource trading, and still win at Emperor (or whatever). More interesting to me than using all available exploits to win at Deity. But different people enjoy different things.

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With no forest chopping, how do you improve resources hidden under forests? Sure it can be done, but it's certainly not a normal game!

Zombie69 said:

With no forest chopping, how do you improve resources hidden under forests?

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When I'm playing this way, I would allow building the improvements that access resources in forests. Obviously, everyone can choose whatever rules they want (unless it's an organized competition, in which case the organizers can choose whatever rules they want).

Sure it can be done, but it's certainly not a normal game!

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Who decides what's "normal"? I don't think it's "normal" to generate 1000 starting positions and play only the best one, but some people think that's perfectly normal. I do think it's "normal" to micromanage the pop rushing in each city for best results, but some people think that's excessive. I don't think it's "normal" to take advantage of AI stupidity by stealing their workers, but some people always do that. It's just in the eye of the beholder which decisions are "normal" and which aren't. One criterion is to say that it's normal to do whatever is legal and best helps you reach your goals. But that's certainly not the only reasonable way to play.

Hans Lemurson said:

Additional Uses for Subsidies:
1. Extortion:
All GPT deals are restricted by the amount of Available GPT the AI has in stock. Subsidizing allows you to bypass this limit, and so opens up a new world of options, namely "Coercive Bargaining" or "Protection Fees".
How to make use of this?

• Get a Large and Threatening(tm) army.
• Look for a weak Civ somewhere in the world, who you think might like to "stay in buisiness", but might be too much hassle to "take care of" yourself.
• Having selected your victim, offer them a nice gift, say 15-20 GPT to ease up their finances.
• Demand a repayment in kind, but for a substantially larger sum (if possible, they may still be restricted by their trading limit.).
• If the first "trade" was not enough, try this again and again to see how much you can sqeeze out of the little sucker. You may have to keep pumping them up with GPT so that they can afford your demands.
• After 10 turns are up, go ahead and cancel your side of the bargain, but their tribute will still be coming in.

I won't even pretend this is not an exploit, since any sensible player would cancel their tribute to an AI guilt-free after 10 turns were up. This will theoreticly allow you to soak your victim nations for a significantly larger chunk of change than you could normally, since a 0GPT in diplomacy can't limit the tribute. The AI will faithfully send it's moneys to you basicly forever once the deal is made, ending only if one of you declares war on the other. The best part about this is that you don't need to actually have any other resources than just a large military. Your relationship may suffer, but do you really care? If they don't like paying, then you can just tax them like normal citizens of your empire (after you 'assist' their citizenship).

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It's at the end of the Article and thematicly blends with the rest. Perfect camoflouge!

Hans Lemurson said:

Ok, the Extortion Addendum is up. Now you can get GPT without needing to trade any resources!

(I have not tested its efficacy yet.)

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I doubt it will work particularly well, but I'm interested enough to hear how other people do with it. At high difficulty levels (which is all I'm really interested in) it's not going to be all that easy to get the AI to fear you so much.

I also don't think it will work very well, but would be interested to hear concrete results.

Nares said:

You fail to appreciate the lack of interest that would be generated if a single player could dominate a game on that level. It's one thing if the player has a chance of losing. It's one thing for the player to do this for one season, maybe two. After too long of this kind of fully lopsided gameplay, public interest in the professional level of the sport would dwindle.

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You mean like the guy that won the Tour de France 7 times in the row? I don't think there any lack of interest there. I can't speak for anyone else, but if I'm capable of competing in the Tour de France, I would look forward to see how close I will get to Lance Armstrong. Sure, first place is nice, but I rather have second place knowing that I'm competing against one of the best.

The pop-rush bug requires a lot of work. This requires almost no effort on the part of the player to take advantage of.

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For the record, I have never used any pop-rush bug or this Subsidies Trading Practices in Civ4. Never had and probably never will. Therefore, I really don't know how much of an advantage or effort it may require. I usually play the Settler level. The most peaceful and relaxing level in the game and I have no need for any exploits.

DaviddesJ said:

I've never selected my opponents. I would agree that selecting your opponents (or selecting your own leader, or selecting particularly favorable maps, etc.) undermines your results.

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True! However, if you are competing for a specific goal (like how fast you can launch your spaceship or something), you will be at the mercy of the Random God. Let's say you and your friend in a race toward launching Spaceship and the Random God like you better than your friend (like giving better staring position with peaceful civs while your friend have to work his way out of the jungles surrounding by aggressive civs). Although you didn't select your opponents or map, you are exploit good fortune, IMO.

Just like in real life, some of us are born poor and we have work to extra hard to get by. On the other hand, some people are born rich and they don't have to worry where money come from. Although neither the rich kids or the poor kids have any choice in selecting their parrents, don't you think the rich kids are having a really big advantage there. If this isn't an exploit, then I don't know what else. Therefore, even though you have never selected your opponents, or selecting your own leader, or selecting particularly favorable maps, etc., you are exploiting good fortune from the Random God.

And this is one of the big problems with the HOF---unfortunately, there's no way I can think of to avoid it. But this is certainly a main reason that I've never been interested in participating in the HOF.

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Exactly why in Civ3, we created MapFinder in attempt to give everyone a fair chance in generating map. If eveyone have the same chance of playing the good map, then less will be depended on the random generator god. Of course, our intention was good, but I'm sure someone would disagree.

But it goes too far to conclude that every exploit must be banned. Some exploits we just have to live with (and selecting your civ and your opponents and generating favorable maps, in the HOF, is perhaps an example of that).

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I concur! Some exploits are bad, some are ok, and some exploits are good, but they are all have one thing in common: deep down, they are all exploits.

No two exploits are not on fire.

Moonsinger said:

However, if you are competing for a specific goal (like how fast you can launch your spaceship or something), you will be at the mercy of the Random God. Let's say you and your friend in a race toward launching Spaceship and the Random God like you better than your friend (like giving better staring position with peaceful civs while your friend have to work his way out of the jungles surrounding by aggressive civs).

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If I were competing with a friend, we would play the same map. Anything else would be pointless, imho.

Exactly why in Civ3, we created MapFinder in attempt to give everyone a fair chance in generating map. If eveyone have the same chance of playing the good map, then less will be depended on the random generator god. Of course, our intention was good, but I'm sure someone would disagree.

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Given the ground rules of the HOF, MapFinder makes sense, for exactly the reasons that you stated. But I'm still not interested in HOF myself, for the reasons that I stated.

DaviddesJ said:

If I were competing with a friend, we would play the same map. Anything else would be pointless, imho.

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No disagreement there! However, I still think the Random God may like one of you better than the other. Even without any Random God in the game, the fact remains that one of you may be blessed with smarter gene or richer parrents, better education, or something. That may give you disproportionate advantages over your friend; therefore, it's an exploit by your definition.

Moonsinger said:

For the record, I have never used any pop-rush bug or this Subsidies Trading Practices in Civ4.

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You probably used it without even knowing it. The way it works right now, if you don't look closely, sometimes you'll get shafted and get less than you should if the bug weren't there, and sometimes you get lucky and get more than you should. As long as you have any kind of production bonus, you almost never get the proper amount.

Moonsinger said:

Just like in real life, some of us are born poor and we have work to extra hard to get by. On the other hand, some people are born rich and they don't have to worry where money come from. Although neither the rich kids or the poor kids have any choice in selecting their parrents, don't you think the rich kids are having a really big advantage there. If this isn't an exploit, then I don't know what else. Therefore, even though you have never selected your opponents, or selecting your own leader, or selecting particularly favorable maps, etc., you are exploiting good fortune from the Random God.

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This obviously depends on the country you live in. In Canada, i would say more often than not the poor kid has the advantage. He'll probably learn to appreciate the value of a dollar a lot more, spend more time with his parents, be raised with better morals and ethics, and grow up to be a better person.

The same is true of Civ. I'd rather start in a bad position and enjoy the challenge it presents than start in a great position and have a boring, predictable game.