Strategies I never will do in civ V...

In terms of odd game mechanics, the Litmus test I use is to ask myself if it more absurd than MGs having less range than XBs. If not, then I can live with it!

Puhi said:

You made me think of this... Perhaps it's not so far fetched after all.

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Thanks for that!

fyar said:

Meanwhile, Beyonce is just sitting in a boat in the Yellow Sea, waiting for the declaration of war. And somehow, just by declaring war, without the accompaniment of any naval warships or stealth bombers or marines, she's able to force herself into Pyongyang, perform a concert tour against Kim Jong-un's will...

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I like to imagine the tour being broadcast by satellites into everyone's home, by high jacking the official government frequencies. You make a fair point, but sure, such a broadcast would be an act of war.

...and this somehow leads to the capitulation of the North Korean government.

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It is still not clear to me what a CV represents. But it does leave the rival government still in control.

fyar said:

One more common strategy that I don't like to do, because it came up in another thread: declaring war just to get "open" borders and have my great musician perform a concert tour. Others consider this a perfectly reasonable strategy, but I don't like to do it because of the sheer ridiculousness of the concept. I imagine President Obama trying to complete America's "cultural victory" over North Korea, unsuccessfully being able to negotiate open borders, and finally telling Kim Jong-un, "Ok, your licit nuclear program was bad enough, but not letting Beyonce perform a concert in Pyongyang is the last straw. This means WAR!" Meanwhile, Beyonce is just sitting in a boat in the Yellow Sea, waiting for the declaration of war. And somehow, just by declaring war, without the accompaniment of any naval warships or stealth bombers or marines, she's able to force herself into Pyongyang, perform a concert tour against Kim Jong-un's will, and this somehow leads to the capitulation of the North Korean government.

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It's just a fix for the fact that Musicians can't enter borders peacefully, like in the real world.

Your prophets can bombard me with no consequence all game long but I've gotta pay you 6 luxes and 300gpt for open borders for my musician? No.

Yeah, it is a bit galling that Great Prophets and Missionaries can wander around freely without open borders, converting cities right and left, but a wandering band of minstrels can't perform in public without permission from the (host) government?

beetle said:

It is still not clear to me what a CV represents. But it does leave the rival government still in control.

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Well it's not necessarily the same as a CV, but the related idea was that by attaining influential status, North Korea's "happiness" with Order sunk way into the negatives and they had to flip to Freedom to avoid it.

Chum said:

It's just a fix for the fact that Musicians can't enter borders peacefully, like in the real world.

Your prophets can bombard me with no consequence all game long but I've gotta pay you 6 luxes and 300gpt for open borders for my musician? No.

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I get that, but if the fix is an exploit, I still don't like it. If you want the fix to be a patch or a mod that allows great musicians to enter without open borders, then I don't consider it an exploit, because the AI can use it too. But the "fix" you proposed is one that the AI can't take advantage of, so I don't like to do it either.

Me personally, I don't think it's unreasonable to deny open borders in order to prevent someone else's cultural tourism from overwhelming you. It reflects the current North Korean government's strategy quite well. So I would not support the proposed patch/mod to give musicians that ability. I would, however, support a patch/mod that prevented concert tours when at war. I guess that would make cultural victories much harder in multiplayer (which I don't play), but my understanding is that people rarely pursue that anyway.

Concert tours should be for your friends anyway. Going to war to play concerts seems silly imo. I understand it speeds the victory at times but I'd honestly just as soon it not be a feature. Just another thing that encourages you to go to war to win culturally which seems like it goes agains the nature of the VC. Your culture is supposed to do the work not war. War is an acceptable recourse to stop someone winning culturally over you, and that's realistic, but I dislike that it can be used to help someone WIN culturally as well.

Anyway, wasn't that the point of TV and broadcast towers? To get your influence spread to closed nations? Tours are more of a thing you do with friend nations.

fyar said:

I get that, but if the fix is an exploit, I still don't like it. If you want the fix to be a patch or a mod that allows great musicians to enter without open borders, then I don't consider it an exploit, because the AI can use it too. But the "fix" you proposed is one that the AI can't take advantage of, so I don't like to do it either.

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Handicap yourself any way you want. I don't shed any tears for the AI when I outsmart it.

Acken's mod allows musicians to pass freely, btw, for the very reason you described. The AI isn't capable of exploiting the current situation to the same extent human players are.

@dana, I agree, and that's exactly why it feels like an exploit to me. Broadcast towers should have that role, which is exactly what South Korea does in spreading propaganda to North Korea. I suppose that's why Freedom gets that tenet.

Chum said:

Handicap yourself any way you want. I don't shed any tears for the AI when I outsmart it.

Acken's mod allows musicians to pass freely, btw, for the very reason you described. The AI isn't capable of exploiting the current situation to the same extent human players are.

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Gee, thanks for granting me permission, I guess? Of course I'm not shedding tears for the AI. The purpose of the game is to gain satisfaction from playing it. I gain significantly less satisfaction from winning the game by employing a strategy that feels like an exploit to me. Apparently, it does nothing to your sense of satisfaction. Go ahead and do it then. I'm just responding to the topic, I'm not trying to convince you.

Your obsession with "optimal" play is not shared by everyone, but your dismissiveness of those who don't share it borders on condescension. If playing optimally every game is what gives you satisfaction, then you have my permission to continue to play that way as well.

I think the difference is some people want to win as fast and as effectively as possible, whereas others of us just want to play a fun game. I can't speak for other players that operate under "honor rules" but for me, I basically just don't do stuff that makes the game less fun for me. The AI is bad enough I don't feel the need to weaken them further by capitalizing on all their linearities. If it looks like a bug or is something the AI cannot likewise exploit, I usually avoid it. The game is easy enough to win, so I guess I just get more satistifaction in playing with rules the AI perform better under. Maybe I should just cave in and get a better AI mod but so many of them rebalance trees or do other things. Does anyone know of one that only improves their decision making and nothing else?

In recent games I've found myself ignoring some diplomacy and not sending them to war against each other as well so they have a chance to get mad at me, target, and backstab me. it's been real fun to scout, recognize war preparation, prepare, and do battle with them rather then just bribe them to DOW someone else. And the games have been far more engaging for me! I've been backstabbed at least 5 times in my past 2 games by friends during wars because I am not paying them to war each other much and several times ended up with mult-front wars as a result. It's suboptimal play and sure I win with a slightly later time but it's fun to respond to the AI when it is performing better and actually making some nice, effective decisions to stop me and all I really care about is if I win not when I win. My past immortal game France actually prepared a good enough rifle/gatling rush I couldn't prevent losing a city. I rebuffed him and retook after a few turns mobilizing, but it was great play by him and it was novel losing a city after so many games without it happening. I think recent patches must have improved the AI because he did well surrounding the city with melee then moving siege in and preventing support by spreading gatlings near incoming roads. I killed a lot but even with a castle and nice garrison I couldn't prevent the loss so I've started to have to support a larger military rather than rely on bribes and tech lead to keep myself safe. It feels more like an even struggle this way.

fyar said:

Gee, thanks for granting me permission, I guess? Of course I'm not shedding tears for the AI. The purpose of the game is to gain satisfaction from playing it. I gain significantly less satisfaction from winning the game by employing a strategy that feels like an exploit to me. Apparently, it does nothing to your sense of satisfaction. Go ahead and do it then. I'm just responding to the topic, I'm not trying to convince you.

Your obsession with "optimal" play is not shared by everyone, but your dismissiveness of those who don't share it borders on condescension. If playing optimally every game is what gives you satisfaction, then you have my permission to continue to play that way as well.

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Someone's cranky.

All I did was point out the fact that there already are units that can pass thru borders without open borders, and the fact that it appears to have been an oversight when the GMu was implemented.

I guess if you like spending an extra 50 turns grinding down a culture victory without them, that's up to you, but when a MORE peaceful unit than a GProphet can't do the same things, I consider it balancing the game myself.

fyar said:

Well it's not necessarily the same as a CV, but the related idea was that by attaining influential status, North Korea's "happiness" with Order sunk way into the negatives and they had to flip to Freedom to avoid it.

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I love the city flipping and/or AIs being forced to change ideologies. Great fun!

But it is odd that achieving any of the VC does not result in the player having extra advantage if you keep playing at point. From the games perspective, the turn after VC is just about identical to the turn before VC!

But the "fix" you proposed is one that the AI can't take advantage of, so I don't like to do it either.

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The AIs do not save and bulb GS like human players either. Nor do they use Oxford for Radio. Human playing the GMu mechanics to best effects feels like either of those to me. Not an exploit, just being practical and playing the game as it is. And mind you, I am all about the role play aspect of the game as much as anyone.

Me personally, I don't think it's unreasonable to deny open borders in order to prevent someone else's cultural tourism from overwhelming you.

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On this point I am a total hypocrite. Closing borders to AI while buying open borders for a mere 2 gpt feels like a total exploit to me. So I don’t do that one!

Chum said:

Someone's cranky.

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Not cranky at all. I'm in quite the good mood. Don't give yourself so much credit.

Chum said:

All I did was point out the fact that there already are units that can pass thru borders without open borders, and the fact that it appears to have been an oversight when the GMu was implemented.

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All you did was smugly and dismissively suggest to me to "handicap yourself all you want". Not sure why you felt the need to tell anyone that, since it is in fact the whole point of the thread. You might as well have said that to every single poster in this thread.

Chum said:

I guess if you like spending an extra 50 turns grinding down a culture victory without them, that's up to you, but when a MORE peaceful unit than a GProphet can't do the same things, I consider it balancing the game myself.

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50 turns? You're either exaggerating, or you're doing it wrong. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say it was the former. I've won culture victory on Deity without using great musicians at all.

beetle said:

The AIs do not save and bulb GS like human players either. Nor do they use Oxford for Radio. Human playing the GMu mechanics to best effects feels like either of those to me. Not an exploit, just being practical and playing the game as it is. And mind you, I am all about the role play aspect of the game as much as anyone.

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Perfectly fair and valid point. I do those things, despite the AI not doing them. I'm not saying that it's consistent or coherent. But I have a sense of what feels like playing smart and playing an exploit. The things you mentioned are in line with how the game was intended to be played... so I think of them as smart play. To me, declaring war to perform a concert tour does not seem like how the mechanic was intended to work... hence exploit.

danaphanous said:

I think the difference is some people want to win as fast and as effectively as possible, whereas others of us just want to play a fun game.

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No, I think the difference is that some people play a game, whereas other people try and play a "You Remake History Simulator" and play it as if it really is real life.

I'm all for not cheating and exploiting bugs. However; are any of the things we brought up in this thread actually confirmed bugs as described by the people who created the game? If Fireaxis came out and said, "Sorry guys... We screwed up. Something in the code got corrupted which allows your workers to repair pillaged tile improvements outside of your territory and it's not supposed to work that way." Then I'd be inclined to NOT do that.

Without a specific statement from people involved with the game, all we are doing is speculating on what is and isn't a bug. And that's perfectly fine if that's how you want to play. But I think the word "Dishonorable" has been thrown out a few times in this thread, and to apply your morals to other people when playing a game as diverse and expansive as this one is maybe going a bit to far.

I get what you are saying and agree somewhat, but my point was playing without using these tactics is more fun and challenging for me. That's why I do it. Whether or not it is a "confirmed" bug doesn't really matter to me.

danaphanous said:

Does anyone else have an aversion to certain strategies to the point that they never do them as a point of honor?

I don't know if I'm just weird or what but I have a small list of "cheaty" things (my opinion) that I'll never do as they just seem too cheap given the AI's stupidity. Here's a few, anyone else like me or have more to add?

1. Trade away a city that I know I'm about to lose in a war
2. Build a terrible city to trade away to the AI who then burn it and get no benefit. You get loads of goodies for the cost of 2 turns building a settler.
3. Trade away luxes for lump gold or other immediate thing then pillage the resource to break the deal. Rinse/repeat
4. Nuke people that are about to win science victory or destroy spaceship parts in transit. I guess I'm ok with a classical invasion or bribing someone to attack them if someone is doing well in science or culture but a sudden nuking and sniping of parts seems like sore losing to me. Oh and apparently you can buy all their aluminum too and the AI will agree. With these strats there is almost no challenge to winning the science race in my opinion though.

I usually play on immortal difficulty. Emperor if I'm trying out a creative experiment or new approach and I've beaten Deity but I still can't bring myself to do these things even on Deity. They almost seem like loopholes in the code and I feel bad doing them. I feel bad nuking regardless but I could see myself using it in a full conquest game. A surprise nuke attack is not my style though, I guess I empathize too much with the issue irl.

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lol these are too ridiculous for me to have ever even considered, except #4. I think nuking a spaceship part is fair.