Deity No-exploit challenges

Shark Diver said:

Worker steals are certainly historically accurate. Cheap and free labor is what built almost every great civilization in history. It fits the game theme very well.

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The problem isn't the stealing, the problem is the AI forgiving it.

Shark Diver said:

May I disagree? All of Europe has stabbed each other in the back countless times in just the past few centuries…..yet here they are now, supposedly happy as pigs in slop in the EU.

Japan and the US? Best of friends.

Mexico and the US? Numerous exploitive trade deals, yet they are also supposedly good buddies (although I'm sure Mexico views this differently).

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If every country in Europe had an immortal leader for the last 4000 years who determined the path/diplomacy of the countries then they wouldn't be happy as pigs in slop.

I mean, for example, the US completely changed the structure/politics of Japan once it beat Japan in WWII. It's not like Japan had the exact same leaders with the exact same attitude after being beaten.

tombakerwho said:

If you crush the AI with ideological pressure, forcing rebels to spawn, and then repeatedly build caravans and send them in to be captured, just to generate more and more rebels until the AI collapses, is that an exploit?

Because if it is, then we are going to have to make a pretty comprehensive list of rules before I would ever be allowed to play in these challenges.

Otherwise, it is Heathen Conversion, here I come

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Can you please expand on this? It sounds very interesting but I can't quite imagine what you're doing? (or if you're joking)

Shark Diver said:

Pillage/repair? I can even make a case for this.

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Please make the case for when this has happened, prior to the era of 'asymmetric warfare', where clearly modern corporations can make a fortune 'rebuilding' after they've demolished a country. It shouldn't happen in the Ancient era I don't think. Yet I can do it then.

consentient said:

Can you please expand on this? It sounds very interesting but I can't quite imagine what you're doing? (or if you're joking)

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Presumably he's trying to get something like Barbarian Giant Robots spawn in enemy territory and then turn them to his side with missionaries.

Of course, actually getting a Civ into negative unhappiness on Deity is nearly impossible.

> Can you please expand on this? It sounds very interesting but I can't quite imagine what you're doing? (or if you're joking)

I was just using that as an example of something the AI would never comprehend. So, it was meant to be joking. But, I genuinely want people to just have fun, rather than trying to create too many rules that prohibit creative play.

It is rare on Deity, but if you every notice rebels in AI territory, one abusive thing you can do is build caravans every turn and send them across the path of the rebels. When they raid the caravan, the rebels multiply. Just keep sending them every turn, and it will sometimes spiral out of control, especially if the rebels start pillaging luxury resources and the AI is overstretched. The AI does not recognize the abuse, as you are just sending them caravans, whereas a human player would catch on to what is happening pretty quick. Technically there is no hostile act on your part, and therefore no diplomatic penalty. This scenario is most likely to happen naturally in the late game due to ideology pressure, or after a runaway AI acquires a high pop city or two in a peace deal.

Sometimes I play experimental games, where I pick something like Heathen Conversion, which on the face of it seems utterly useless, and try to foster a scenario where it would be powerful, and try to snowball that into a win. This is not an optimal strategy for winning the game. But, it can be a lot more entertaining, and far more difficult, than optimizing a 4 city tradition science win.

Another example, after playing the Aztec DCL, I am attempting to win an Aztec culture victory by stealing works of Art. Nuke for a culture bomb, send in the XCOMs to steal art from the devastated city, sell the looted city to another AI for gold, use the gold to buy the next Nuke, repeat. I am using spies to scout out which cities have great works.

If you want to remove most of the AI trading exploits, the simplest way is to make it an "always war" game against one opposing civ.

The only other exploit I can think of is building settlers with a food deficit. That should have been patched to be frank.

tombakerwho said:

> ... one abusive thing you can do is build caravans every turn and send them across the path of the rebels. When they raid the caravan, the rebels multiply. Just keep sending them every turn, and it will sometimes spiral out of control...

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Really?
I have never noticed that. Certainly the revolutionary wave spawns barbs, but they multiply when fed caravans ? How do you know? Is this a known game mechanism?
Has anyone else observed this?

sending a caravan increases your tourism pressure, and *that* may help keep the barbs spawning, but if they capture the caravan, i would think you would loose the 25% tourism and thus some of the pressure would decrease. You are correct that pillaged lux will hurt and keep the barbs spawning as well, but they would need to pillage a lot of them in some cases (makes me pine for the days of civ iv spy units pillaging behind enemy borders )

tombakerwho said:

if you every notice rebels in AI territory, one abusive thing you can do is build caravans every turn and send them across the path of the rebels. When they raid the caravan, the rebels multiply. Just keep sending them every turn, and it will sometimes spiral out of control, especially if the rebels start pillaging luxury resources and the AI is overstretched. The AI does not recognize the abuse, as you are just sending them caravans, whereas a human player would catch on to what is happening pretty quick. Technically there is no hostile act on your part, and therefore no diplomatic penalty. This scenario is most likely to happen naturally in the late game due to ideology pressure, or after a runaway AI acquires a high pop city or two in a peace deal.

Sometimes I play experimental games, where I pick something like Heathen Conversion, which on the face of it seems utterly useless, and try to foster a scenario where it would be powerful, and try to snowball that into a win. This is not an optimal strategy for winning the game. But, it can be a lot more entertaining, and far more difficult, than optimizing a 4 city tradition science win.

Another example, after playing the Aztec DCL, I am attempting to win an Aztec culture victory by stealing works of Art. Nuke for a culture bomb, send in the XCOMs to steal art from the devastated city, sell the looted city to another AI for gold, use the gold to buy the next Nuke, repeat. I am using spies to scout out which cities have great works.

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All 3 of these ideas sound like incredible fun, but I'm not yet good enough on Deity to be able to play around like this in the endgame. When I am, I will experiment for sure!

It is rare on Deity, but if you every notice rebels in AI territory, one abusive thing you can do is build caravans every turn and send them across the path of the rebels. When they raid the caravan, the rebels multiply. Just keep sending them every turn, and it will sometimes spiral out of control, especially if the rebels start pillaging luxury resources and the AI is overstretched.

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Neat, I have never been able to see that because I've never seen a Deity AI dip into minus double digits. Most of them have big enough armies to trounce the rebels anyway. On rare occasions they do though, I think it's a revolution fairly quickly.

Out of curiosity, does that work with the early game barbs as well? Obviously a big waste of hammers to try that "exploit" there but I wonder.

Really?
I have never noticed that. Certainly the revolutionary wave spawns barbs, but they multiply when fed caravans ? How do you know? Is this a known game mechanism?
Has anyone else observed this?

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I think nope. Barbs only spawn if you hit minus double digits. You can have all kinds of revolutionary waves around but if you're net positive, you should be ok. Someone confirm this please.

All Games on Deity Stand/Stand

I've played a few test games with Heathen Conversion lately. I started kinda early mixing in Holy Warriors. I played as Japan a few games recently but was not always able to get Holy Warriors which hurts if you have decent faith generation early. I had a huge army but the Rebels usually spawn around every 3-5 turns. In most cases it was all Pikes. So I would buy archers for 80 faith and upgrade them and use the pikes to surround cities. It is good to plan out when you are going to go from -10/-11 happy and instantly get to +1 or better. Usually I try to time out when I am going to get my luxes back or if I can ally up a Mercantile CS and or be able to buy some luxes. What I find interesting is that you really make a ton of gold sacrificing your happy for a good amount of turns which of course hurts your growth and production. The biggest problem is getting your empire into -10 happy or more. You need to plan it out once you are ready to buy your missionary. Once tactic I am using is over extending my empire. Usually 2 extra cities that I do not really want and will sell to the AI once I have my large converted Barbarian Army. Usually you want to have the cities ready to plant right after you get your NC up. This idea came from kb27787 actually when I was trying to get some ideas on a Full Piety Warmonger Strategy. It is obvious for my games that Jesuit Education and a more peaceful/growth type of early game is stronger but using Holy Warriors with Heathen Conversion can be another option to play your game sub-optimally/fun I suppose. I like this idea of spawning rebels and feeding them caravans but it sounds like it only happens once in awhile and not on most games. I also found if you have a lot of extra luxes and only met 4 Civs you wont be able to sell all your luxes to help you get into the unhappy so you have to be careful of improving something like 5 cotton. Most players will not like this type of game since you are hurting yourself in the early game to gain a large army. Is the trade off worth it? Most likely not if you are trying for a fast turn time win but it can help break up the usual monotony of playing standard strategies. Lastly... what I did find is that going Full Piety you usually can get a Religion if you expand early and build shrines asap. Of course going Full Piety is not nearly as good as Full Tradition or Liberty or even Full Honor first but it can be interesting if you like to struggle. I usually always put two to three faith Civs in my games (Ethiopia,Celts, and Maya usually). I also always put Alex in my games as well making it harder to obtain the CS's.

I haven't tried it yet but it might be better to play peaceful early and wait till you have a nice tech lead to start the converting of barbs. Now in the later game you will be spawning things like GWIs and what not. It seems like you usually spawn Melee units instead of Range. I would really love this strategy if the barbs were always spawning Range Units but I guess that is obvious.

JeSuisNapoleon said:

Really?
I have never noticed that. Certainly the revolutionary wave spawns barbs, but they multiply when fed caravans ? How do you know? Is this a known game mechanism?
Has anyone else observed this?

sending a caravan increases your tourism pressure, and *that* may help keep the barbs spawning, but if they capture the caravan, i would think you would loose the 25% tourism and thus some of the pressure would decrease. You are correct that pillaged lux will hurt and keep the barbs spawning as well, but they would need to pillage a lot of them in some cases (makes me pine for the days of civ iv spy units pillaging behind enemy borders )

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The ideology pressure is a function of the difference in influential levels, not the Tourism amount. Losing the modifier won't change the ideology pressure in the short term.

When barbs murderize a caravan, they make a barb. It's what happens.

stormtrooper412 said:

Neat, I have never been able to see that because I've never seen a Deity AI dip into minus double digits. Most of them have big enough armies to trounce the rebels anyway. On rare occasions they do though, I think it's a revolution fairly quickly.

Out of curiosity, does that work with the early game barbs as well? Obviously a big waste of hammers to try that "exploit" there but I wonder.



I think nope. Barbs only spawn if you hit minus double digits. You can have all kinds of revolutionary waves around but if you're net positive, you should be ok. Someone confirm this please.

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I'm sure I have a screenshot or two I would share...
(and no, if you go Freedom, even if 50-city Shaka or Atilla change to Freedom from autocracy they will still be deep in the red so their AI brain will refuse to switch ideology) you will occasionally find this when going for CV (and doing very well) against a culture gimp who just likes to make cities.

However, I find that even with the combat penalty from unhappiness (which is regrettably capped, otherwise anything under -50 would result in zero strength and would be quite amusing to watch), the AI deals with barbs quite well... (simply because the insane combat bonus against barbs they get from playing on chieftain); although they might lose their luxes/roads for a few turns, but the barbs will never be able to capture a city on deity.

Chances are you might be able to flip a city and sell it back for all their gold and luxes, perpetuating the cycle until the end of the game, drowning them in sorrow for eternity. That is clearly not an exploit IMO since the AI accepts the deal rather than saying "nah... you keep the city... my citizens are revolting and they want nothing to do with me!"

you know, one of the reasons I gave up on Civ: BE was that the exploits were too much of a gamebreaker and that patch was a really half assed effort thst didn't really do anything. These all sound much subtle yet some of them are just as bad

tombakerwho said:

It is rare on Deity, but if you every notice rebels in AI territory, one abusive thing you can do is build caravans every turn and send them across the path of the rebels. When they raid the caravan, the rebels multiply.

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That is hilarious! I have seen AI caps with rebels, and noticed caravans turn to barbs, but I never would have thought of combining the two! Still, “until the AI collapses” seems very optimistic. The cap will never fall, and the barbs die pretty quick. Have you ever seen this reach the point where the AI is at -10 unhappy for the rest of the game? I would think the chaos would only happen so long as the player keeps sending caravans.

kb27787 said:

although they might lose their luxes/roads for a few turns, but the barbs will never be able to capture a city on deity.

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Barbs will never be able to capture a city at any difficulty level. I am embarrassed to admit it, but I once had a city reduced to zero health by barbs (axe men plus warriors). Barbs just vaporize when they should be capturing. Turns out, there is an “achievement” badge for this! Before it happened to me, I also watched barbs seriously assail an AI city (might have been a CS). I was quite disappointed...