Discussion thread for exploits and strategies

J

John Steele

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Joined
Jan 19, 2006
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Moonsinger's Deity strategy article outlined another 'exploit' (IMHO) which is to pre-chop forests and then when the wonder build starts chop them all in 1 turn each.

Should this be allowed?
 
This is not an exploit at all IMO since it is just a question of timing. You must still spend the same worker turns by chopping.
 
Horragoth,

I think we define the word 'exploit' differently.

To me, it 'produces results', but it is against the 'spirit of the game' and 'illogical'.

Do you, in real life, 'partially cut' 10 forests (if that is even possible), and suddenly take all the wood from all these forests to your construction site (if that is viable, either in relation to the wood's longevity or transportation wise)? No. I understand the analogy is stretched a bit too far, but please understand that this is also an intuitive feeling I have.

As such, my viewpoint should not necessarily be shared by others. I understand your viewpoint. However, my objective was to let the moderators know of this. Let us see what action they take.
 
I'm not boss here by a long shot, but I don't believe this will be disallowed.
 
For the purposes of the Game of the Month exploits are opportunities created by programming errors or accidents of sequencing or other subtleties of the software that permit a player to gain a benefit substantially disproportionate to cost. There are some value judgements in that statement, but I don't believe it can be stretched to apply to the case you are describing.

In this situation you have not got something for nothing. You have invested worker turns that could have been used for other activities. Where's the disproportionate benefit? Where's the programming error?

We run GOTM to play the game as it is designed and delivered by Firaxis. We are asking you to play the same sort of game you could play on your own, not one of our own design. Only in exceptional circumstances do we second guess the designers' intentions and over-ride the way the game operates out of the box.
 
Not currently. Basically, any mod that ONLY gives you information you can see or work out from the standard, out-of-the-box user interface is permitted.

As soon as possible, we want to be able to protect the save, setting the password on a routine basis. This will constrain the mods you can add on your own, so we need an 'official mod' like that used in the HoF beta that start files will work with.
 
I am thinking of doing a simple change to the emphasis food/production/commerence in the xml directly. Not sure if that will work. If it does, can I do it. It just adds convinence so that I am able to make a customized emphasis ratio which works for me. Just to reduce a bit of micromanagement. Is this okay? Note that I do not know if it will even work at all.
 
If it doesn't give you access to any hidden information then it's OK. However, you will have to email me for the unprotected file for GOTM 2 as the protected one will (or should) complain about modified assets. And you will probably lose the option to use it in future games when we get the password protection system working properly.

BTW I should have said ... Welcome Back :wavey: :salute:
 
I'm not sure if this goes here, but it is a question about the rules. My game randomly and frequently crashes, so sometimes I can't get through the first turn but other times I can play for hours without a problem. Consequently, I may have to reload the game at the last checkpoint several times in a game. Would this disqualify me?
 
It depends on how much you have to reload, but we have to be very tolerant at present, given the level of instability some players are experiencing.

I have to say this can't continue indefinitely, however. Players who do have excessive problems will have to find a way to fix their systems to complete games without repeated crashes, both to make our job easier in distinguishing genuine problems from cheating, and to make playing a pleasure and not a grind.
 
In the last GOTM I found a couple of little things that are quite small, but have zero negative points, so I thought I would mention them here. They both concern captured cities.

If you capture a city, and some of its squares are within your cultural borders (from another city) you can use the resisting population to work cottages etc. They do not give you gold, but it does count as a turn of growth to the cottage.

If you are running caste system, you can allocate 4 (on epic) citizens to be artists while the city is in resistance. On the turn it comes out of resistance it will have the culture applied and will have the borders expanded. I think that even if it would starve with 4 artists is will not lose a pop on this turn. You just have to make sure you go to "examine city" when it asks you "what do you want to build in this city" and remove the artists.

As I said, I belive that both these effects are quite small, but as there is no disadvantage to doing this it could be considered an exploit.
 
DaveMcW said:
Those are probably worth reporting to Firaxis as bugs, but I don't think they need to be banned. The AIs exploit them as much as a human does.
Click to expand...
I can belive that the AI uses the cottage working one, but I would be very suprised if it does the artist one. I do not think they should be banned anyway, I guess everyone needs to be aware of them to make it fair though.

It does make me wonder though, would setting other specialists work as well? Not very easy to test though.
 
If a city is culture pressed the governor will assign artists in the city during the unrest period and it will get that culture as you mention once it comes out.
 
AlanH said:
Not currently. Basically, any mod that ONLY gives you information you can see or work out from the standard, out-of-the-box user interface is permitted.

As soon as possible, we want to be able to protect the save, setting the password on a routine basis. This will constrain the mods you can add on your own, so we need an 'official mod' like that used in the HoF beta that start files will work with.
Click to expand...

The more I think about this, the more I think you should reconsider. I think you should have a list of allowed mods and not try to use protection, but let the players enforce the rules themselves.

The main reason is that there are so many mods that make the game much better (a big difference from Civ3), and I feel like I'll probably stop playing GOTM if I can't use most of them.
 
DaviddesJ said:
... and I feel like I'll probably stop playing GOTM if I can't use most of them.
Click to expand...
Name them. I'd like to try them if they're that good!
 
Dianthus said:
Name them. I'd like to try them if they're that good!
Click to expand...

Many of the best "no cheating" mods are included in "Alerum's Unaltered Game Play Mod":

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=151020

The improved advisors are all really helpful. The PlotList enhancement is very good, too.

I'm also expecting that there will be more improvements, especially in the area of alerting the player when certain events happen.
 
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