What should we consider exploits in Civ5?

One of our goals in the Civ5 Training Game Series was to identify exploits in game play. Had been reluctant to start this thread as so many patches have been promised and game play has evolved with each patch. What prompted me was Tabarnak's post in the TSG12 Announcement thread.

Tabarnak said:

For this GOTM(and for later ones) i will not sign a single RA, or trade luxuries for lump slump of gold. Only gold per turn is allowed. Barbs can pillage luxuries without much consequences. In fact, i HAVE to protect them if i want to maximize potential.

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The other issue I have read in the threads is trading for lump sums of gold and then declaring war and trading the same resource with another civ for lump sum of gold.

Thinking it is time to begin discussing this topic and we shall see how things change as the game changes. Appreciate your opinions, please keep it civil as these discussions sometime bring out passions.

Sadly, this is an issue that needs to be addressed by the game developers. Trying to establish arbitrary guidelines is never going to satisfy anyone, and people will argue endlessly about exactly where the line is.

The issue isn't making GPT deals then declaring war, it's the fact that there aren't serious enough repercussions. The AI doesn't give a damn if you break a per-turn deal, and that's what needs to change, and that will only happen on the coding side.

Besides, nations have done stuff like this all throughout history. Many monarchs have invented a Casus Belli to avoid paying an incurred debt, why should Civ be any different?

Understand your point of view.

I think from the staff standpoint, we should try to play by the same rules once a competition starts. There are various techniques and strategies used in Civ4 that have been banned as exploits for the competitions. This is an attempt to discuss what a list for Civ5 might looks like.

edit - Your post below represents the problem?

Neuro said:

RAs aren't the problem, Tech Blocking is.

Well, RAs as currently implemented aren't exactly wonderful. Personally, I think they should add a fixed amount of beakers based on which era you were in when you signed the RA.

Sadly, I *will* be using RAs. It's the only way to remain competitive with guys like DaveMcW.

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I don't want to legitimate of what is good or not good, but personnally i want to play like that from now. If people are interested, just sign up and i will make a personnal ranking. It's only passive competition so i don't see the problem here.

Neuro is right. Devs have the biggest part of the stick and they have to correct these mechanisms if they feel it's the right thing to do. Personnally i think they should. If they bring more difficulties to players, they can also bring down cheats for AIs too! This is logical no?

But one thing is : RAs and lump slumps of gold are HIGHLY related to luck. Like i said in previous posts, Luck>Skills is a in civ games.

leif erikson said:

Understand your point of view.

I think from the staff standpoint, we should try to play by the same rules once a competition starts. There are various techniques and strategies used in Civ4 that have been banned as exploits for the competitions. This is an attempt to discuss what a list for Civ5 might looks like.

edit - Your post below represents the problem?

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Using that Civ4 list as a starting point, I notice that one of the allowed "exploits" is too difficult to fix or ban, and so the solution is to inform everyone about it to level the playing field. This is how I feel about the various GPT trade exploits in Civ5; they are part of the intended design, so just open the floodgates and let people abuse the AI as best they can.

Two of the banned exploits in Civ4 are clear bugs, and violate the intended design. In Civ5, I equate these to the Multiple Oxford University exploit and the Liberty-Autocracy-Liberty exploit, both of which are already banned.

Research Agreements simply need to be redesigned, and that's completely up to the developers. I don't see any way to fix that under current design constraints, unless you flat-out ban all RAs. (Which would make for an interesting game!)

Looks like we have a pretty good start.

leif erikson said:

The other issue I have read in the threads is trading for lump sums of gold and then declaring war and trading the same resource with another civ for lump sum of gold.

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Ironically, this doesn't work if you're trying to maximize RAs.

Are you saying there is a cost to that strategy that would make it a choice and not an exploit?

I'm saying RAs are that powerful.

Are they that powerful if you cannot use blocking? Or is it blocking that gives RA's that power?

leif erikson said:

Are they that powerful if you cannot use blocking? Or is it blocking that gives RA's that power?

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We have two extremes. If no RA blocking, nobody will want to take a big guess and hope for the tech(s) they want by pure luck. On other side, you have the most powerful tool for almost all kind of victories excepted some domination victories situations.

Obviously, blocking makes RAs very powerful. The problem is at deity it's almost impossible to compete without this power. At least we play emperor.

So the exploit is blocking?

Or do we consider blocking to be part of the game mechanics and teach everyone how to do it effectively?

Personally, I never block, which may explain why it always takes me so long to win these games. And it also may explain why I've started playing without using RA's at all.

As far as solutions, I think a simple fix would be to always have a completed RA pop the cheapest tech you have unresearched. Not counting the one you are currently researching on the turn it pops. That would still leave the exploit of switching to the cheapest tech you have left on the turn before the RA comes due, but it would be a step in the right direction. Actually, in this scenario maybe you get the next cheapest after sailing and it only takes effect after you complete your sailing research. That would curtail the exploit and again, make you really think about whether an RA is even worth signing.

Another solution would be instead researching a full tech, you actually just get beakers you can apply to a specific tech. Then have a sliding scale of how many beakers you get based on two factors: where you are in the tech tree, and where your RA partner is. If you've left sailing unresearched while beelining Steel for instance, then when your RA pops, maybe you only get Sailing beakers to apply towards Steel rather than the full tech.

Another factor could be where you are in relation to the person your trading with. If you're ahead, you only get the beakers they use. So again, if they're popping Sailing, you only get Sailing beakers to apply towards the tech you're trying to get. If they're ahead, and you use the RA to get Archery, they only get that many beakers to apply towards their choice.

Just an idea. I'm no coder and obviously not even close to an elite player but those rules seem like they'd at least rein it in somewhat. And also force some strategic thought into whether it's a good idea to sign them at all. And with who....

As for the gold problem, pay the gold as a gpt rather than all at once. So a lump sum 300 trade gets you 10 gpt until broken. Take the 300 gold out of the account and if they break the agreement, you get all the remaining gold. If you break it, they get what's left of their gold back and (maybe) retain the resource benefit for the full 30 turns.

You could maybe even add a tech or building or something that could accelerate payment. Just thoughts....

Realistically though, I think you need the ability to generate lump sums quickly. So maybe just locking down the traded resource for 30 turns, regardless of when the trade agreement is broken would be the better fix. So trading for 300 then declaring wouldn't enable you to trade the same specific resource again until that 30 turns is up.

backnine31 said:

As for the gold problem, pay the gold as a gpt rather than all at once. So a lump sum 300 trade gets you 10 gpt until broken. Take the 300 gold out of the account and if they break the agreement, you get all the remaining gold. If you break it, they get what's left of their gold back and (maybe) retain the resource benefit for the full 30 turns.

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I don't know how. If i get 300 gold for a lux and spend all the money for a building and the deal broke the turn after, how can i give him back the money?

A human will never accept to give 300 gold for a lux. This should be the same for the AI. This is not the case.

If AI can block techs efficiently, thats fine because in this case you have to face a much more powerful AI! This is not the case.

If they want to make this realistic, devs should learn from how humans would do this and that and let no exploitative instruments in hand of human players.

I think the fixes you describe would need to be done by the programmers, not something we can fix as GoTM Staff. Unless we get the .dll and can make fixes as part of a mod.

In this thread, we should look at what we can do to identify and correct exploits, or decide to live with them and let everyone know they are there so we are on an even playing field.

leif erikson said:

In this thread, we should look at what we can do to identify and correct exploits, or decide to live with them and let everyone know they are there so we are on an even playing field.

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If HoF staff ban RAs and/or lump sum gold for lux, i suggest to bring down the level to King. Not everyone can easily beat Emperor.

Tabarnak said:

If HoF staff ban RAs and/or lump sum gold for lux, i suggest to bring down the level to King. Not everyone can easily beat Emperor.

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for pointing me in that direction. I see the HoF is ahead of me by about a month.

I do not see anything about RA's and blocking though.

Out of curiosity, is the multi great people on the same turn considered an exploit? I discovered it accidentally a while back and I had forgotten about it until I read about someone doing it on purpose with 3 GP on the same turn recently. I think it was the last GoTM....

backnine31 said:

Out of curiosity, is the multi great people on the same turn considered an exploit? I discovered it accidentally a while back and I had forgotten about it until I read about someone doing it on purpose with 3 GP on the same turn recently. I think it was the last GoTM....

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How did I miss that? Could you describe how it works?