Subsidies and Aggressive Trading Practices

I think that re-generating the map to get a certain kind of start is an exploit and should be banned. The game should be programmed so that every start has to be played out before another one start can be generated.
 
As regards the new "exploit" addendum: I'm having trouble seeing how this provides a substantial increase in your foreign revenues. I've tried it in a couple of my games that were nearing conclusion. I gifted one of my less-than-fortunate opponents a large pile of cash (50 GPT, for the hell of it). I then demanded as much as I could from him. I was still limited to 5GPT (the amount he was currently paying me for resources). He accepted the demand for 5GPT. I then attempted to demand an additional 5. He declined. When I think back, I don't believe I've ever had an AI cede to two demands on the same turn (or even in the space of a couple of turns).

I suppose you could work up a system wherein you demanded additional funds from the opponent on a regular schedule. But, a) you don't know the frequency at which your demands would be met and b) every demand as an associated diplomatic penalty. I'm not entirely sure, but I'd imagine, after a while, the opponent would consistently refuse any demand you made. Have others' experiences differed?
 
Zombie69 said:
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.

If it works like you said, then it's the programmer/developer's fault and they should fix it. I'm not responsible for crime committed by them.

Zombie69 said:
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.

I think that's true in any country, not just Canada. However, if victory = $$$, then I would say the rich kid has the advantage. Since the game also offer many other victory conditions, I agree with you that the poor kid also has the advantage too, but it's a different kind of an advantage that aims toward a different type of victory (may be a victory in morals and ethics). Exactly why I don't mind about people using this exploit. They are just playing for a different type of victory. It's just a game and I'm cool with whatever that may float their boat.
 
playshogi said:
I think that re-generating the map to get a certain kind of start is an exploit and should be banned. The game should be programmed so that every start has to be played out before another one start can be generated.
I disagree, that would be extremely boring for people who love to play the starts they want. Why force people to play a start they dont like? A game is made to entertain people not to turn people into desperates that will lose with intention until they get the stárt they want.
Zombie69 said:
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.
Thats your opinion. I would rather start in a nice position and enjoy my glorius win than waste my time on bad starts. Im not interested in play a game like that and since games are for fun to me, I play whatever I think is fun and so does everyone that think like I do.
 
Moonsinger said:
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.

Lance Armstrong doesn't win by so extreme a margin that second place might as well be last. There's no athelete in modern sports that dominates in the way I described. The Tour seems to be a fairly close race during every leg of it; Lance and his team can and have lost the lead on occassion. As I said, if there was zero chance that Lance and his team could lose the lead ever, in any leg of any year of the race, then interest would dwindle. And yes, Lance's tendency to win is reducing interest in the sport. The past race already so a relatively low interest here in America. While there may be more people biking because of his continued victories, the number of people who care is dwindling. Simply put, the point of view is, "Great, Lance won again, what else is on."

With regards to the pop-rush bug versus the subsidization exploit, consider this.

The difference between whipping and not whipping is (significantly) greater than the difference between whipping with the pop-rush bug and not whipping with the pop-rush bug.

The difference between trading resources for gpt without subsidization and not trading resources for gpt at all is significantly smaller than the difference between trading resources for gpt with subsidization and trading resources for gpt without subsidization.
 
I don't think your point is fair. All it shows is that whipping is already overpowered even without the bug, while trading resources, if anything, is underpowered. That is, it says more about the non-exploit facet than it does about the exploit part.
 
Nares said:
Well, it's arguable if they intended the CS slingshot or not. I admit that it's by far the most powerful of the slingshots. As I state in the post describing it versus other potential slingshots, no slingshot is so streamlined or as powerful, particularly given the potency of Bureaucracy and the near necessity of Code of Laws.

It's not as powerful, but Liberalism->Biology and Liberalism->Astronomy are two good ones for my builder-war when necessary style.

As far as COL->CS being an exploit, I think that's ridiculous. There are about 3 different ways you can get it. It's more "playing the game to the maximum possiblity" than an "exploit". While it's not proof, before 1.61, the col->cs slingshots were very well known, yet the developers did nothing about it. They did however, nerf financial rushing and chop-rushing. The kremlin is worthless now, and building a worker first is kinda silly too, IMO.
 
DaviddesJ said:
A tactic, available to the human player but not to the AI, that gives a disproportionate advantage, often through a violation of the underlying logic of the game (e.g., being technologically more backward, by not researching Masonry, gives you a research advantage, in that a GP then gives you a better tech). Exploits are bad because they increase the handicap level required to make the game challenging, and they (generally) reduce the variety of successful play styles.

By that definition, intelligence is practically an exploit. Going to war is certainly an exploit. You know how badly the AI deals with war, and in what ways. Therefore it's an exploit to declare war on them.

Better remove your Alt key, and get a lobotomy. That's the only solution I see.

Seriously though, the only explotative thing I see in this tactic is that the AI won't cancel if you have pleased/friendly relations with them. However, maintaining those relations, for me, usually involves me giving them things they want, like free techs! So, at worst, I'd call this tactic "mildly exploitative". It also doesn't help your case any that this happens in real life all the time.
 
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.

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.

I don't see what the big deal is about selecting your civ, your opponents, and your starting position. Any combination you choose is possible through the random number generator that you have such an elfin child-like shiny object attraction to.

The random settings are there to play a random game, where you have to decide what sort of victory to go for as you play it. If you want to go for a certain victory condition and be the fastest to get it, you could force a loss every game until you got one you liked, but that's silly.

The point is, if all other things were equal, and the game were forced to be random, and no one was able to cheat, the top tiers would probably be occupied by people who had gotten similar opponents, civs, and starting positions.

I agree that randomness is fun sometimes, but so is focusing on getting that ship out as fast as possible, for some others such as me. You should try the HoF. You could play the huge maps at high difficulties, where simple reliance on a few exploits by casual players doesn't interfere too much with the good players. You're required to have the default number of opponents at those settings, which makes it hard to bluff your way through.

The main rule with the HoF that is wrong in my opinion is the starting era. I think it should be forced ancient. I don't have a lot of interest in future or modern starts.

This may be an "exploit," but the tech and resource trading are broken anyway. The AI will refuse to trade things that would be great for it, where I know I am offering the AI a significant advantage in exchange for something lesser, but it doesn't know that. It seems like it hardly ever works right. Generally, I out-research the AI, and I give away big-techs in exchange for several small ones. But if I'm behind, the trades it will go for and won't go for are often to it's disadvantage to spite me, rather than it looking for anything that could help it.

I don't think 5 or 6 per turn per resource is a bad deal, which is all I've been able to swing so far. Occasionally I'll get a high offer of 10 or 12, but have few resources to trade.

The AI performs better with more people, as a human does, just not as much as a human. Trading them resources gives them a boost to pop, so I'm reluctant to do it with some of them. In fact, I haven't tried it yet, but if I were to try a permanent alliance game, I'd probably want to do this with my ally, for 3-4 resources at least.

Civs getting crippled by "free resources" from other civs is something that has happened before, in life. An example is the American Revolution. It's not an exact model, but there are similarities. The Americans were being taxed for all sorts of goods that Britain had financially confiscated, and resold to them at a higher rate.

Maybe the levels to which you can do it are exploitative, but there should be some balance rather than only trading what spare cash the AI has at whatever percent they are running research that turn.

If I could buy several resources that I needed in one turn, for 5 or 6 each, from the AI, I would do it, even if it brought me to 10% research. But I can't, so I can't prove to you how great that would be.

I think it's less of an exploit, than just some very thin game logic. The AI should have a resource budget, rather than just whatever is gravy from research. And a smarter AI is possible. Until then, this will do. I have to conquer the resource to offer it in the first place, and I need to trade some to get other resources too. I find it to be relatively balanced in most games. Perhaps that's just me.
 
RemoWilliams said:
I don't see what the big deal is about selecting your civ, your opponents, and your starting position. Any combination you choose is possible through the random number generator that you have such an elfin child-like shiny object attraction to.

I don't see what the big deal is about playing without reloading. After all, in a random game there's a nonzero chance that you win every battle, regardless of what the odds are. So you might as well force that to happen, by reloading every battle (with save seed turned off) until you win. It's just an easier way to achieve something that could happen at random.
 
Nares said:
Lance Armstrong doesn't win by so extreme a margin that second place might as well be last. There's no athelete in modern sports that dominates in the way I described. The Tour seems to be a fairly close race during every leg of it; Lance and his team can and have lost the lead on occassion. As I said, if there was zero chance that Lance and his team could lose the lead ever, in any leg of any year of the race, then interest would dwindle. And yes, Lance's tendency to win is reducing interest in the sport. The past race already so a relatively low interest here in America. While there may be more people biking because of his continued victories, the number of people who care is dwindling. Simply put, the point of view is, "Great, Lance won again, what else is on."

First place and second place was a close race, but what about those people who have always been in the last place in almost every Tour, yet they keep on racing. Also, in other news, there are many teams that have absolutely no chance in the World Cup. For example, Togo or Iran, they have never come close to win any World Cup and yet they haven't given up. Should we change the game rules to give everybody a fair shot at the World Cup?

The same thing with Civ4, if people don't like to play the game in a certain ways. That's fine. I don't think we should constantly try to change the rules every time someone scream "exploit".
 
Yeah, I don't think that the rules should be changed per se, but the resource trading really needs to be improved.
RemoWilliams said:
The AI should have a resource budget, rather than just whatever is gravy from research.
That might do it.

Many exploits are based around areas where things are just not working properly.
 
Civ is certainly a complex game and as such there are going to be some loopholes in the game design, many of which will be exploited to a player's advantage. If the designers regard this as serious enough then they'll close the loophole in the next patch as we've already seen. If a player relies on exploiting loopholes to win a game at any level then they'll struggle when/if the loophole gets closed (so in that sense they're only fooling themselves).
If you're playing Civ purely for your own enjoyment then you can do whatever you like. You can certainly post your favourite strategies and tactics. If some else likes them they'll use them. If they don't,they won't. It seems to me that when someone says 'cheating','exploit' most of the time they're saying that this is not how they want to play, so fair enough, don't play that way.
In terms of restarting,reloading,world-builder etc the same kind of thing applies. However if you post a game without stating that you restarted five times, added copper through world-builder and reloaded twenty times in order to attain your humungous score that's what I would call cheating.
I also think that there is a meaningful distinction between loopholes in game design and the difference between artificial and human intelligence.
 
But what's a non-strategic resource worth really? If you can lift the pop-cap of a few cities one higher, how much GP, money and/or production will it generate for you?

Oil, copper, iron and also coal and uranium in a lesser extent could fetch mutch higher prices, because having no oil really screws you in the late game when at war.

Anyway, it's always nice to see a 'weak' Montezuma getting attacked by another AI, and then seeing his power graph jumping up after you've given him iron for free and then reports of captured cities dripping in :D
 
DaviddesJ said:
I don't see what the big deal is about playing without reloading. After all, in a random game there's a nonzero chance that you win every battle, regardless of what the odds are. So you might as well force that to happen, by reloading every battle (with save seed turned off) until you win. It's just an easier way to achieve something that could happen at random.
Come now. Surely you can see the difference between starting a game from scratch and reloading during a game. Those are two different sins entirely.

Here's how I see it: playing random civs/maps may make you a better more rounded player, but selecting civs and winning still takes skill. After all, if what you are going after is a specific win condition, it just makes sense to select your civs. Playing randomly, you would decide what win to go for after you start the game.

Reloading during a game takes zero skill and even a monkey could win that way.
 
RemoWilliams said:
Reloading during a game takes zero skill and even a monkey could win that way.

...assuming that random seed thing gets turned on.

Not knowing about the random seed off option, my first dozen or so games ended the obvious way (with a SoD killing me) until I discovered that slavery helped me keep up with unit building. I had already started to learn the game without a random seed so that when a friend told me about it I decided that I would never turn it on. No random seed effectively makes reloading a waste of time. The tiring and constant reloading was what made me put CivIII down anyway, and I wasn't good enough to win on the highest level without it.

Back to CivIV... After the SoD games of death, I finally started winning some, moved past Prince, and am now finishing up my first early breakaway victory on Monarch. Which brings me to my example of a really aggressive trading practice, except in the other direction of the OP.

...My current breakaway game happened quite unexpectedly. I was Mali in the center of the old world on a Terra map. I expanded early to get the resources I wanted using that Skirmisher unit. I had absorbed my four neighbors in the middle and realized that I had cut the world in two when I was done, with an undeveloped donut hole in the middle of my natural borders.

Ka-ching! A light went off in my head and I kept my borders closed to everyone... which kept them out of my empty heartland and, importantly, also hurt their trade income. I closed off both the north and south coastline with culture (east and west couldn't trade with eachother until Astronomy, cutting everyone's trade distance bonus for most of the game). Talk about aggressive non-trading practices, I think this is a pretty good one if you find yourself in the right position. I jumped for mercantilism to make up for my own lost trade revenue and played a game of resource denial and proxy wars with the AI. I only traded with the nations I planned to conquer soon, and only to make them fatter targets by getting them to absorb their smaller neighbors while I prepared the army.

With the game now all but won and only a few eastern nations remaining, I decided to stay out of the new world to shoot for my first conquest victory on any level.

I admit that it's a situational tactic, but I was surprised how well it worked with the other strategies I have learned.
 
Stolen Rutters said:
The tiring and constant reloading was what made me put CivIII down anyway, and I wasn't good enough to win on the highest level without it.

It's probably not because you weren't good enough, but because you didn't know or didn't like to "exploit".;) The secret for winning Civ3 at the highest level is not about reloading, not about selecting good starting position, not about having good map and poor AIs, but really about exploits.

For example, the Great Library exploit can help you to catch up on techs. If you wait until at least two of your opponents to reach the modern age, then acquire the Great Library for yourself, you would jump direct from ancient to modern within 1 turn. Sound easy, right? Not true! It's really the opposite. If you attempt to use this exploit, you would most likely be over run by the AIs. With their advance railroad and modern units, your obsolete troops won't stand a chance, not to mentions that they usually out-number you at least 5 to 1. Obsoleted and out of number and no railroad, not much of a chance there. Therefore, an exploit may sound pretty good and may even sound easy, but how many people can actually benefit from it. Hint: The Great Library exploit itself won't do any good unless you combine it with the army exploit, cannon/artilery exploit, banking/trading exploit, undefending city exploit, mass upgrading exploit, Cleo's Workshop exploit, Art of War exploit, etc... Btw, all of these exploits are still legal in Civ3.

Each exploit by itself won't do much good, but they becomes deadly in correct combination. Since it takes planning and brain powers to process all these endless combination of exploits, intelligence itself is really the ultimate exploit of all. Since the AI in Civ4 doesn't have any intelligent, only human does, being the human player is really an exploit. Unless we want to ban all the human players from playing Civ4, we better not ban this Subsidies Trading Practices.;)
 
Moonsinger said:
It's probably not because you weren't good enough, but because you didn't know or didn't like to "exploit". The secret for winning Civ3 at the highest level is not about reloading, not about selecting good starting position, not about having good map and poor AIs, but really about exploits.

Good point. I guess I should have said that I did not master enough of the known exploits to allow me to win the highest level in CivIII (was it Deity?) without constant saving and reloading both for the perfect start and during the game to save my precious military.
 
The definition of an exploit is taking advantage of a programming bug. It's very important to distinguish between this and the idea of 'exploiting' strategic weakness in the AI as the same word is being used in two different senses.

1.52 chopping wasn't an exploit (and was overrated in any case), GP tech manipulation isn't an exploit, whipping in general isn't an exploit. Balanced or not, they're part of the rules of the game.

Micromanaging cities purely to hit the magic numbers for bugged whips is clearly an exploit, since it's just abusing a bug.

I guess we could debate all day whether AI not properly recalculating the amount of GPT it's willing to trade when existing GPT deals are cancelled is a bug or a strategic weakness, but to me it definitely feels like a bug.

If people in the HoF are happy playing with these exploits, more power to them. It doesn't bother me since I don't play HoF, because playing Deity then selecting the easiest possible AI opponents and game settings to try and get maximum score defeats the whole point as far as I'm concerned.
 
uberfish said:
The definition of an exploit is taking advantage of a programming bug.

That's only one possible definition. Not the most common, imho. E.g., worker dogpiling in Civ3 didn't depend on any bug, just on the basic rules of the game (cities with insufficient food lose one population each turn). But it's clearly an exploit. Same for adding lots of workers to a city just for pop rushing: this doesn't involve any bug, it was just banned because it was considered too powerful. Scout resource denial just takes advantage of AI stupidity, in an overly powerful way. Etc.
 
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