Why build workers in early game? Just kidnap them!

My personal view on this is:
Stealing from a CS and declaring peace the same turn: no no
Declaring war on an AI and taking a worker: go ahead
Infinite xp grinding: one of the worst exploits you can do against AI, so never.

This is interesting, but I am too kind to do that, at least, my difficulty does not demand to do it. Additionally, I pretty often give away workers to the native civ, that I have recaptured from barbarians, do you do this or take it for yourself?

Also, by exposing these exploits, hopefully the developers can help to get rid of them so the game is more 'fair/difficult' for the player. Until then, you can't help but feel like a slick tyrant taking your 'slaves' back to your capital, just like any Pharoah would...

Randall_Flagg said:

I seem to have offended you. But to be quite clear here, the OP asked what we thought. I am not here to tell you or anyone what to do sir. I could care less how he or you plays the game.


Anyways, no need to respond again, I think we each have a view that is not close.

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Oh I don't mind that you have a different strategy i guess I'm just thin skinned and do not like accusations of cheating.

@Hpuk does camp farming barbs as the aztecs qualify for #3

SeriousThreat said:

This is interesting, but I am too kind to do that, at least, my difficulty does not demand to do it. Additionally, I pretty often give away workers to the native civ, that I have recaptured from barbarians, do you do this or take it for yourself?

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Depends, if I have a worker per city than I will give it back.*unless it is Alex* CS workers always go back, but that is for selfish reasons.

I personally think that stealing one worker is a fair game when you are playing at high difficulties.

You can claim that it is unfair because the AI won't do so, but the AI is already playing a very unfair game by having tons of bonuses that you don't have. They are having those bonuses to compensate from the fact that you as a human player can make advanced tactical decisions that they cannot.

Stealing a worker in my opinion can be classified as one of those tactical decisions. The game is clearly designed to allow you doing that. A different case would be if it was an exploit of bad programming that the designers didn't think about.
For example selling a resource to the AI and DoW them the turn later is an exploit because the programmers didn't mean for that to happen, and the sort of fix they added in BNW proves that.

I'm arguing that stealing a single worker is fair game because if you just steal one the diplomatic repercussions are minimal, but if you steal two, everyone will hate you. So the game seems to be designed to let you get away with that.
Let us also not forget that with a bit of luck you might even be able to get a worker that was previously taken by a barbarian. So getting a worker for free isn't really an exploit.

I tend to do just enough to keep me above the AI, but not by much. For instance, if you go to war with your neighbor and decimate his forces (just for an AI), he becomes too weak and will usually get crushed by a neighbor that has grown even more powerful because you weakened the first civ.

Plus, the XP exploit: I just do it long enough to get 5-6 promos in. I stop it shortly after. That would be cheating.

I don't personally do this, but I'm curious as to why it's such a contentious issue.

It seems like good strategy even from my perspective as a turtler who hates aggression.

El Caballerion said:

I think the best way around this would be to create another difficulty level between EMPEROR (which I find to be too easy) and IMMORTAL (which is sometimes too difficult). I do this because I don't start off with workers and EVERY OTHER CIV does on IMMORTAL. If I started off with one too, then IMMORTAL would be perfect IMO.

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There's a mod called "Really Advanced Setup" that will allow you to do just what you want! You can either give yourself a free worker (or more . . .), a free tech, whatever you like. I tried a game with starting visibility of 5 tiles instead of 3. It felt like cheating and I had to quite because the advantage felt too good. But I'm very particular about the way I play games, so yeah. I think you'd really like this mod and it would save you a great deal of trouble =]

If stealing workers was "cheating", then the game would just have workers get killed instead of stolen.

I don't even see killing enemies to gain XP as exploitative, the game obviously means for you to do that. You've trained as much as you can fighting barbarians, now go fight some real soldiers instead.

DeutschDachs said:

I guess beelining science is also cheating because the AI is too dumb to prioritize it...

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That's unrelated...but ok. The concern from people who don't steal workers is it just feels too exploity. However, I've never seen anybody condemn a person for doing it, and I wouldn't. It's just personal play style.

Randall_Flagg said:

You will find people split on this issue. I fall on the side of it being cheating. The way it is now, there is no doubt it is cheating. However, it is your dollars play as you want.

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I just can't get myself to...I know it's not cheating but it's a personal boundary I restrict myself to

DeutschDachs said:

@Hpuk does camp farming barbs as the aztecs qualify for #3

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No, because you can't get more than 2 promotions from fighting barbarians, presisely because otherwise you could xp farm them.

The distinction people make between strategy and exploit is completely arbitrary. If you argue that doing any tactic that the AI is incapable of doing is "cheating", then it should be impossible to beat the game on King or higher without "cheating" because a non-"cheating" player is always going to be behind the AI unless they just win by dumb luck.

Cymsdale said:

The distinction people make between strategy and exploit is completely arbitrary.

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End of story, really. Thread over.

If at least you should be forced to be at war for 10 turns if you steal a worker from a CS. That way, if you go and steal a worker with a scout or a warrior, there is at least a chance that they (a little bit) fight back.

When this gets taken to the multiplayer dimension, i often go out of my way to steal workers from other players (Non-AI), especially when they are my friends

I'm a terrible person, but it's not an exploit against other people, it's just poor thought on their part.

However, there is a very different reaction doing this to a new player to doing it to an experienced player. With an experienced player it is their mistake, with a new player, it's you being an obsessive winner or other words...

You could apply that sort of sliding scale to the AI too, but the way the AI is so limited in its playstyle and ability to control units I always see it as an exploit and you being an obsessive winner by taking advantage of it. But of course i do it anyway every so often, because free candy is very hard to say no to. You need some willpower.

Cymsdale said:

The distinction people make between strategy and exploit is completely arbitrary. If you argue that doing any tactic that the AI is incapable of doing is "cheating", then it should be impossible to beat the game on King or higher without "cheating" because a non-"cheating" player is always going to be behind the AI unless they just win by dumb luck.

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Everybody that has been saying they don't do it have stated it's just personal preference. We aren't calling people cheaters or judging them.

steveg700 said:

Thread over.

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/thread and its variants are obviously an exploitive cheaty hack cheat mod. I don't care if you cheat, and you don't have to defend your opinion of it not being a glitchy cheatsploit just because I go out of my way to emanate a smug sense of superiority of being a player who avoids gameshark code console command cheats, which saying "Thread over" definitely is, since it's an indisputable fact. Countering this bare assertion with reasoned arguments is cheating.

Why the discussion? The guy just wanted to make his strategy public, so the rest of the people published theirs... it's fine.

Don't complain if people have different approaches to play the game. Nobody expects an
Oscar for their strategies in a GAME!!!

And on topic, although VERY TEMPTING... Uhmmm... well, I prefer the Liberty free worker and the Pyramids. But again, everybody has different perspectives upon getting a worker.

If the opportunity arises, I have not been above taking a worker from a City State. I don't do it all the time, but it is frustrating at the start of the game to need workers... and to need so much other stuff... it may be a bit of an exploit, but there are diplo penalties for it, right?

Don't judge me.