cash for gpt

Most likely, it was discussed before, but I could not find it.
In one of the recent games I urgently needed cash and I bought about 30 gold for 2 gpt. This brought me the following thought.
In some games, particularly on high difficulty levels, AI has a lot of cash. If I remember correctly, my Persia in GOTM43 has something close to 20K
Thus, with a good reputation, it is possible to get this cash for gpt and declare a war. Of course, you get a reputation hit and probably can do this only once, but that’s a lot of free knights.

I think you were remembering this thread where there was a lot of discussion about making big gpt payment deals then going into anarchy. I don't think your situation is the same, since you do take a big reputation hit when you break the deal.

It may be allowed right now, but it does seem unfair and unbalancing.

At some point in the game, you are so far ahead in military or research that a broken reputation doesn't matter anymore. So the general strategy is to break a really huge deal right before you reach that point.

A really unbalancing thing I found out about is to pay gpt for alliances:


for ( int i = 0; i< AIbankrupt.size() ; i++){

}
then kill the dying AI;

You end up with loads of money. The AI end up with negative gpt.

Clearly this shouldn't be done, but you would have to search the rules pretty hard. Really I just mention this to make sure no-one is actually doing it, and to illustrate that there are probably lots of tricky little exploits not quite covered. Basically, if it feels wrong, it probably is.

You could probably generalize this by saying: A.) Make deal 1 that provides gpt to an AI (or AIs) for something (Tech, Luxury, Alliance, etc); B.) Make deal 2 that gains gpt from AI for something else; C.) Break deal 1 by an intentional action.

Should this be banned? And at what level, because I'm sure that this happens at least occasionally without any direct intent to do so on the part of the player.

I'm not as concerned with Solenoozerec's example, where a large amount of Gold is siphoned out of the AI's treasury; in my experience, the AI uses such Treasury poorly. The example that Offa provides is potentially more game changing. The only limit is the total amount of gpt that the player has available. But in Theory, it can be used against every AI in the game, since the player gains the gpt back in deal #2 to be used against the next AI. A perfect time to do this would be at the beginning of the Middle Ages, especially with a Scientific civ who gets a free Tech (sounds a lot like GOTM45!); beat up on an adjacent civ late in the AA, take them down to one city with a big stack next to it, enter the MidAges with Free Tech, sign alliances one AI at a time giving as much gpt as possible, sell Free Tech for equivalent or more gpt, repeat 10 times, destroy last city of adjacent civ, and sail through the MidAges while all the other AI become bankrupt.

There are lots of ways to abuse the AI in civ; this sounds pretty extreme in theory, and really trivializes the game.

I have tried this before, and I couldn't get it to work. Not sure why; maybe the AI was already running a deficit and my Deal 1 gpt payment just went some way towards filling the gap.

Anyway, I'm not quite convinced that this should be considered an exploit. After all, the AI isn't paying more than it thinks the Deal 2 commodity is worth. The player made only fair deals, and shouldn't be held responsible for the AI's poor treasury management. Here's a slightly different scenario...
turn 1: AI has no gpt but has been researching strongly.
turn 2: AI has lots of gpt and a new tech, and all his friends have that tech too.
turn 20: Human gets a unique tech. Should Human not sell it to AI for gpt, knowing that AI's gpt deals with the third-party civs are about to end?

Now for the other side of the argument. We could consider it an exploit on the grounds that we have a rule which says the player may not deliberately run a treasury deficit without the cash reserves to cover it, and the player should manually sell buildings or disband units to bring the situation under control, rather than rely on the game's in-built penalty.
With this dying AI trick, we are inducing the AI to comit a banned exploit!

I have noticed the AI will declare war on you if they have a big GPT outstanding to you they cannot afford....

PaperBeetle said:

The player made only fair deals, and shouldn't be held responsible for the AI's poor treasury management.

Click to expand...

I'm not for sure which deal you are talking about, Offa's or the original author of this thread. In Offa's deal I could never state it was a fair deal. The 1st deal was made with the full intention of destroying the dying AI, thereby ending the 1st deal prematurely. A person cannot honestly consider that a fair deal when they fully intend the deal to end long before the 20 turns as planned.

In truth neither is S'nooz deal fair either. He specifically states he is making the deal and than declaring war. Again there is no intention of fairness.

My definition of fairness I am using is that when you make a deal you fully plan on following through with that deal for the full 20 turns.

Realize that this is all my opinion.

The game was designed in such a way that you can break a deal, but only 1 time (+ any other deals within 20 turn range). This was the intention of the developers and so it should not be banned IMHO. However any manipulations that allow you to cancel a deal without a reputation hit (like alliance against a dying AI or breaking a trade route while getting resources from the AI) are definitely exploitive.

@Methos: sorry, yes I was principally refering to Offa's trick. I agree with Obormot that Solen's original suggestion is validated by the rep hit which it incurs (definitely a good way to dow on the last civ in a conquest game though eh?).

Offa's trick is more subtle, but I maintain that the deals are fair. It is essentially a per-turn deal for both parties, so it doesn't matter how long it lasts. The player's obligation to pay 50gpt ends just as the AI's obligation to maintain a state of war ends. The player didn't get anything for his gpt payment, so isn't getting something for free when the deal ends early. The exploit (or non-exploit) is in maneouvering the AI into paying you more than it can afford (but not more than your tech is worth), not in dodging a rep hit.

Now if we do a deal like... Human gives 50gpt, AI gives war against a dying civ + a tech worth 20turns x 50gpt, then I think we do satisfy Obormot's definition of an exploit whereby a deal is cancelled without the rep hit it deserves.

I tested out Offa's suggested exploit a bit in GOTM45. Without being spoilerish, I'll just say that in this test, at this point in the game (late AA, early Medieval, everybody still in Despotism), the AI didn't care to give me much at all in gpt deals, even when just given a gpt deal. I only attempted a few deals, since it requires me to give gpt before seeing if the AI would give me any gpt back, and the results were so poor that I cut it off very quickly. I may test a bit more later on in the game. My concern with the potential exploit is the manipulation of the AI (maybe most of them) into a bankrupt status, at the same time gaining tons of cash.

@Obormot: I do believe you get a reputation hit when the alliance against the dying civ is broken (by finishing them off). I've noticed in that case that all the allies seem a tad ticked off at me, so I usually try to wait until the alliance is over before finishing off the dying civ.

@Methos: I understand your statement about fairness. In response, I'll say I've given Techs and Gold countless times to form alliances, just to have the AI cancel out a few turns later. Cancelling a deal before 20 turns is something the AI does as well, so it might be unfair but not really exploitive. And you do lose reputation status doing so.

civ_steve said:

I do believe you get a reputation hit when the alliance against the dying civ is broken (by finishing them off). I've noticed in that case that all the allies seem a tad ticked off at me, so I usually try to wait until the alliance is over before finishing off the dying civ.

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Yes, I am sure this is correct. However, Offa's exploit will work in theory without a rep hit if you are absolutly sure that one of AIs will finish the dying one.
In my case, I also may avoid a rep hit if I manage to make that AI to declare on me.

Offa's 'exploit' shouldn't work. You have to close the diplo screen after the alliance deal, and then the AI re-adjusts its economy; thus you won't get a gpt payment fro a tech in a seperate deal they couldn't afford anyway.
But, the other way around works: Connect a gpt for cash/tech payment you're making with a MA against a dying Civ...

And no, this won't affect your reputation. As long as you don't ship resources (!).

Still, this is a borderline valid tactic even in SGs. The risk is pretty high - the near-dead AI may have a Settler somewhere in a boat, or even worse, a one tile island . IMHO it becomes an exploit only once you have a Spy planted (and know there is no Settler around).

Doesn't work!

I don't think it is legit, but it definitely works (on my test). It isn't zero risk, but the potential gains are very large (££££££ and suffering AI). On my test an AI who was down to a single town in the desert carried on paying 50+gpt for the whole 20 turns. Try it by selling feudalism or something the AI really like.

Why close the diplo screen while doing it?

Why close the diplo screen while doing it?

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Not exactly the Diplo screen, but the trade screen - you need to make a seperate deal with the tech; if you include it in the MA, it will of course end with the dead of the Civ.

I've been testing this little confidence trick out, and exactly as DocT predicts, the AI adjusts its sliders between the two deals. This often results in the AI swallowing your gpt-for-war payment, and then still having no gpt for the tech sale, but all is not lost: before the deal, investigate their cheapest city to check their slider settings. If they are already high on science and low on tax, they don't have much room to transfer your gpt payment to science, and will likely have plenty left over to pay for the tech. Similarly, the more gpt you can give them, the more they will have left over after changing the sliders.

Hi,

I did not test it, but if it is doable ill sure give it a try. The thing is if what Offa claims is right that will give a huge advantage to those who actually do it. So it would be necessary to know, exactly, if thats allowed or not... I think a xOTM moderator comment/instruction would be in order now

About reputation: if you are going for conquest/domination thats not much of an issue so it would only bring advantages anyway.