Abusing the AI - Gold before DoW

[Greizer85]

Did you people even read my post? Not choosing to use the exploit is a fine solution in non-competitive games, but in challenge games where victory dates are compared, using the exploit improves your finish time by probably something like 50 turns. I refuse to use the exploit and I can't participate in the challenge games 'cause what'd be the point? I'll never be able to compete against the metagamers. Now if the exploit were removed, otoh, I could have fun competing and no harm would be done to the metagame, since, well, it would merely have one cheesy trick less.

 

[Windsor]

Don't do it?

No seriously, just don't.

It's not that hard to just NOT do it.

I do agree there should be ways to prevent this, but it can actually be nice to do the opposite sometimes (get lump sums from the AI for your GPT).

This is the thing with Deity though...the way to win is pretty much exploiting the AI as much as is possible.
If you didn't steal CS workers, didn't make bad trades, didn't pay off the AI to attack each other, etc, people wouldn't be winning Deity much.
Deity is pretty much about exploiting sadly.

It is hard to just not do it.

A lot of players don't like to artificially handicap themselves. And knowing that you deliberately chose to do something that is clearly suboptimal is even more annoying than taking advantage of the game design.

You should be able to play by the rules and still have a good game. One thing is avoiding obvious bugs, but what people label as "exploits" isn't bugs. It's just signs of bad game design.

 

[Battlehelm043]

I think people are missing the point... you cant change the trading mechanic in SP an revert it to the way it is now in MP... The point of exploits was to allow for humans to exploit humans in MP but at the same time as Jon said, its to play against an AI that thinks its a human. (albeit a homicidal moron of an AI with some tricks up its sleeve) Once again read up on the prisoners dilemma. It happens even in today's "advanced society"... because lets face it humans are sinister and opportunistic... This is evident in all governments around the world... don't sit there and try to feed me the "I care about the world" bit when the world is a game in which the objective is to win, even life is like that. It is in the end a game of diplomacy, economics, strategy, tactics, warfare, espionage, and lastly trickery. Trying to make it so fair an balanced only serves to limit natural human instinct; as well as limit potential. I personally don't see it as an exploit really, because when I play MP people constantly break treaties and trade deals left an right. It makes the game interesting... unless that is of course, you prefer everyone shackled to a non-realistic model that doesn't exist in our current society.

 

[Greizer85]

I think people are missing the point... you cant change the trading mechanic in SP an revert it to the way it is now in MP... The point of exploits was to allow for humans to exploit humans in MP but at the same time as Jon said, its to play against an AI that thinks its a human. (albeit a homicidal moron of an AI with some tricks up its sleeve) Once again read up on the prisoners dilemma. It happens even in today's "advanced society"... because lets face it humans are sinister and opportunistic... This is evident in all governments around the world... don't sit there and try to feed me the "I care about the world" bit when the world is a game in which the objective is to win, even life is like that. It is in the end a game of diplomacy, economics, strategy, tactics, warfare, espionage, and lastly trickery. Trying to make it so fair an balanced only serves to limit natural human instinct; as well as limit potential. I personally don't see it as an exploit really, because when I play MP people constantly break treaties and trade deals left an right. It makes the game interesting... unless that is of course, you prefer everyone shackled to a non-realistic model that doesn't exist in our current society.

If the US paid the Saudis $ 100 billion in advance for oil supplies and the Saudis ceased delivery, what do you think would happen?

A diplomatic modifier is a fine solution, now that I think more about it. There's already a precedent in that if you steal more than one CS worker, CSs 'grow wary' and then if you continue they'll enter permanent war with you. Imo it would be fine if for the first time you broke a gpt/luxury deal by going to war you'd get a penalty with the Civ you did it to... Second time and all civs take notice and raise their trade prices by 50%. Third strike and no one will trade with you again, period. This would make breaking deals a strategic element instead of the no-brainer gimmick it is now. How many deals can you break and still benefit? Warmongers could break a third deal at some point, and most everyone would do it once, carefully finding the best possible deal.

 

[Matthew.]

It is hard to just not do it.

A lot of players don't like to artificially handicap themselves. And knowing that you deliberately chose to do something that is clearly suboptimal is even more annoying than taking advantage of the game design.

You should be able to play by the rules and still have a good game. One thing is avoiding obvious bugs, but what people label as "exploits" isn't bugs. It's just signs of bad game design.

I get the point as I used to be the same way, but I don't find this particular situation to be overly challenging to avoid because you need to consciously go out or your way to do it.

For example Torchlight 1 had an enchanting system where you can enchant an item unlimited number of times, but if you rolled a "bad enchant" it wiped the item clean. I've always thought it a poor system because you are encouraged to enchant items (why else would they add it into the game?) yet at the same time losing a powerful item due to unlucky RNG sucked. It was difficult *not* to simply re-load the game to get your item back.

This particular situation in Civ is a non-issue for me. You need to open the trade window, look for Civs with gold, trade items for said gold, then immediately break the trade all knowing in advance that you going to do so. There is no RNG, no trying to change unlucky outcomes, just pure exploitation of the system. Agreed with ense7en on "just don't do it"

Yeah, some players may have better success on higher difficulties because of it, but so what? I could also edit the game files and show off some impressive "wins". Just my opinion, but worrying over competition where the only regulation in place for fairness is another person's word seems a bit... pointless. If it matters that much you could just post a win time with the additional note of "I don't steal workers or break trades"

 

[Old Peter]

It is hard to just not do it.

A lot of players don't like to artificially handicap themselves. And knowing that you deliberately chose to do something that is clearly suboptimal is even more annoying than taking advantage of the game design.

You should be able to play by the rules and still have a good game. One thing is avoiding obvious bugs, but what people label as "exploits" isn't bugs. It's just signs of bad game design.

Yes. It is like with the tax debate in USA. The people who wants low tax say: "if you want higher taxes, you start and just volenterly pay more". Problem is - No one has ever done that.

I am myself a long time diety player. And I handicap myself most of my games by having no city states and take large pangea maps with high water, to make it a little harder etc. And I try to never ever abuse this gold thing. BUT, if I am loosing a game, and the AI comes toward me with a ton of stuff or whatever, I feel it is fair of me to do whatever I can to stay alive. And then sometimes I abuse this. So basicly, I can never loose, because I can always abuse this and stay alive. And this is not how a game is supposed to be when you have a team who can fix this and patch it.

 

[Biologist]

Personally I'd like to see lump sum gold trades taken away from the game entirely - it just doesn't make sense; who pays for hundreds of years worth of imports in a single lump sum? All trades should be gold per turn.

Ramesses: "So, if we give you 500 librae of gold to save your empire from economic destitution, you'll tribute us your finest spices and horse herds for the next 10 generations?"

Caesar: "Correct."

Ramesses: "All right, it's a deal!"

 

[tommynt]

this is as pointless as the thread crying about 1 upt, the games offers the option, if u dont like it doesnt really matter.

In the end sp is all about abusing ai weaknesses, thats what the game is about.

 

[Old Peter]

this is as pointless as the thread crying about 1 upt, the games offers the option, if u dont like it doesnt really matter.

In the end sp is all about abusing ai weaknesses, thats what the game is about.

Yes, but with this abuse you have a safe win late game. It is too powerful, and too easy.

 

[Moriarte]

Play by HoF rules, Peter. Many here choose to do so. It is less abusive. Try it with the next Deity challenge .

 

[RedFuneral]

It should remain a choice; the problem is that there are no consequences for doing it. In a warmongering game you may lie to the AI about why your troops are on their borders because you don't care about the diplomatic hit. This is the same kind of thing, it should remain an option where you have to weigh how it'll affect AI relations toward you and how much you can 'scam' out of it.

 

[joncnunn]

It should remain a choice; the problem is that there are no consequences for doing it. In a warmongering game you may lie to the AI about why your troops are on their borders because you don't care about the diplomatic hit. This is the same kind of thing, it should remain an option where you have to weigh how it'll affect AI relations toward you and how much you can 'scam' out of it.

Yes; and even if you coded it to have the other AIs blame the player doing the DOW for breaking the trade agreement, the AI's behavior is so well known at this point all it would do is add the other AIs getting mad at that AI (instead of human buying gold and DOW on his turn, he just sees the AI forces coming and still buys the gold knowing full well the AI will DOW him; canceling the obligation)
Note that simply having the only the AI a broken deal was for get upset is no deterrent as any war between human & AI is usually results in the human forcing that AI into an involuntary OCC in a useless city.

 

[Greizer85]

Yes; and even if you coded it to have the other AIs blame the player doing the DOW for breaking the trade agreement, the AI's behavior is so well known at this point all it would do is add the other AIs getting mad at that AI (instead of human buying gold and DOW on his turn, he just sees the AI forces coming and still buys the gold knowing full well the AI will DOW him; canceling the obligation)
Note that simply having the only the AI a broken deal was for get upset is no deterrent as any war between human & AI is usually results in the human forcing that AI into an involuntary OCC in a useless city.

Make it so you only get the diplo hit if you give gpt/lux AND are the party that DOWs. This would still allow you to do the trick if you suspect an AI DOW is imminent - but how often do you reliably see the AI coming? And how many times per game? Much less than what you can gain with the exploit in its current state - it's an automatic thing before every single DOW, no strategy or thinking needed. And you can DOW overseas parties that have no hope of getting to you... You can do this trick very early in the game, thus giving you a snowballing advantage for virtually no risk at all (especially since you can use some of your newly-conned cash for extra defense). I honestly don't know which one is cheesier - this trick or the old-school ROP-rape from Civ II and III (and V in its first version, iirc). Well, maybe the Civ II railroad-ROP-rape was uglier.

this is as pointless as the thread crying about 1 upt, the games offers the option, if u dont like it doesnt really matter.

In the end sp is all about abusing ai weaknesses, thats what the game is about.

Removing this exploit and getting rid of 1upt can be compared to giving your car a paint job and exchanging every mechanical part in it. The former is much easier and changes nothing essential about the car; its speed, maneuverability etc remain constant.

I agree that competitive play is about exploiting the AI; however, this exploit is too blatant in that it totally breaks the immersion for many players. Some of us like to role play AND be competitive at the same time. You must've read Sullla's playthroughs of Civ III and IV; that is the mentality of this group. We know the AI is just numbers and algorithms, but it's fun to *imagine* otherwise, even in a competitive game. Tell me, do you find fault in the following logic:

1) The exploit remains in the game. In a tough Deity challenge, it allows tommynt to win 50 turns before anyone else (it so happens no one else used it this time). Many players with role play genes in them feel the game just became too gamey and leave for other games or stay out of competitive challenges, giving tommynt less people to argue with and compete against. There is only one winner, tommynt (and he loses, too).

2) The exploit is removed (somehow... see below). In the otherwise identical Deity challenge, tommynt wins by 10 turns (or 20, whatever) due to superior strategy (other, more subtle exploits included). The role playing competitors think 'oh well, with some minor improvements I'm sure I could win... More importantly, I had fun with this game! I'll be back for the next!' There are many winners, tommynt and everyone who lost to him.

Does it really matter to you whether you win by 10-20 or 50 turns? If anything there's less clicks for you without the exploit, leading to less rl time used per game. The only 'strategy' with the exploit comes into play with declaring against faraway civs and knowing when it's safe to do that. Otherwise it's simply an auto-click before any DOW you'd have done anyway. When you weigh this one strategic bit against the extreme irritation of a multitude of other players, surely the latter consideration must win out?

I agree that so long as the exploit remains in the game, its use is always optimal and it's senseless to argue against using it when finish time is what counts in the final end. To you it may be the *only* thing that counts; but many people have other things on their minds even while they compete. The less things there are that remind people that AIs are just numbers, the better imo. It costs the competitive players almost nothing and adds a huge amount of fun for the role players.


Now, about *how* the exploit should be 'fixed': there are a number of ways, all with pros and cons. I can think of three right off the bat, some of which have been touched upon:

1) Diplomatic penalties.

Pros: Exploit mostly removed, while making it 'believable' (you can do it but with consequences, as in the real world).

Gray area: Depending on the severity of the penalties, there could remain situations where the exploit would still be optimal to use. With a limited number of utilizations (due to mounting penalties), it can be argued this would add strategy to the game (I hereby coin the Civ acronym 'OPOB' for all time - 'Optimal Point Of Betrayal' ).

Cons: Some people would consider the thing above a con instead, preferring the exploit to be altogether impossible. With severe enough penalties this could be done, but it starts to feel gamey in another way ('what, I broke one deal and now the WHOLE WORLD hates me FOREVER??!1').

2) No lump sum trading possible (for AI-human trades, at any rate).

Pros: Clean and simple at first glance; exploit totally impossible.

Cons/Gray area: If you need gold urgently, you have no way of getting it. Some would argue this adds strategy: you must plan in advance to have enough gold on hand for all your needs.

3) Luxury and gpt deals persist through wars.

Pros: Fixes the exploit, alright. (Unless they have one city and you can quickly destroy them, thus cancelling the deal. But how much could they have to trade anyway in such a situation?)

Cons: Totally jarring role play wise, perhaps even more so than the current mess. I mean what two countries have historically continued trading during war, barring black market trade? I'm sure a few examples could be found, but overall the notion is preposterous.

4) Other ways that haven't been thought about yet. Ideas are welcome; maybe we should make a poll about this? How many want the exploit gone and what are people's favorite remedies?

Edit: One additional way is making deals give a mandatory period of peace... But even if it's not the full 30 turns that a trade deal lasts, this would be very exploitable by humans - when you see the AI coming with 50 units, just sign a paltry deal for Sugar vs 1 gpt and be safe for ten turns... After that sign another, and so on ad infinitum. Clearly this 'fix' brings more problems than it cures.

 

[Moriarte]

I think one way is quite obvious.. Once you sell horses, you lose resource for 30 turns. The physically left the country and it takes time to 'grow' new horses (coal, dyes, aluminum). Now if the deal breaks, horses are lost and so is the GPT. Lump sum, obviously, stays, if it was involved. (for the sake of realism) Part of exploit is removed that way.

 

[Greizer85]

I think one way is quite obvious.. Once you sell horses, you lose resource for 30 turns. The physically left the country and it takes time to 'grow' new horses (coal, dyes, aluminum). Now if the deal breaks, horses are lost and so is the GPT. Lump sum, obviously, stays, if it was involved. (for the sake of realism) Part of exploit is removed that way.

I like it! Basically it's like my #3, but the AI doesn't get the benefits of the lux/gpt during war (which would be very unrealistic). How much does this really hurt the AI, with its infinite happiness (on Immortal/Deity at any rate) and stacks of gold? I'd say this is a non-issue.

Ofc with the shipments continuing for 30 turns it's a bit hard to explain... Where is all that cash/lux going? It leaves your country but never arrives at the AI's. What could explain such a pattern historically? :we need a 'scratches chin' smiley:

Edit: Ofc not everything can be or needs to be explained... Imo this solution would be fine immersion-wise, as long as the AI gets nothing during the war. Other people may disagree ofc; I might start that poll soon, but let's wait for some more solutions first.

 

[tommynt]

I agree that so long as the exploit remains in the game, its use is always optimal and it's senseless to argue against using it when finish time is what counts in the final end. To you it may be the *only* thing that counts; but many people have other things on their minds even while they compete. The less things there are that remind people that AIs are just numbers, the better imo. It costs the competitive players almost nothing and adds a huge amount of fun for the role players.


Now, about *how* the exploit should be 'fixed': there are a number of ways, all with pros and cons. I can think of three right off the bat, some of which have been touched upon:

Quote:
1) Diplomatic penalties.

Pros: Exploit mostly removed, while making it 'believable' (you can do it but with consequences, as in the real world).

Gray area: Depending on the severity of the penalties, there could remain situations where the exploit would still be optimal to use. With a limited number of utilizations (due to mounting penalties), it can be argued this would add strategy to the game (I hereby coin the Civ acronym 'OPOB' for all time - 'Optimal Point Of Betrayal' ).

Cons: Some people would consider the thing above a con instead, preferring the exploit to be altogether impossible. With severe enough penalties this could be done, but it starts to feel gamey in another way ('what, I broke one deal and now the WHOLE WORLD hates me FOREVER??!1').

Quote:
2) No lump sum trading possible (for AI-human trades, at any rate).

Pros: Clean and simple at first glance; exploit totally impossible.

Cons/Gray area: If you need gold urgently, you have no way of getting it. Some would argue this adds strategy: you must plan in advance to have enough gold on hand for all your needs.

Quote:
3) Luxury and gpt deals persist through wars.

Pros: Fixes the exploit, alright. (Unless they have one city and you can quickly destroy them, thus cancelling the deal. But how much could they have to trade anyway in such a situation?)

Cons: Totally jarring role play wise, perhaps even more so than the current mess. I mean what two countries have historically continued trading during war, barring black market trade? I'm sure a few examples could be found, but overall the notion is preposterous.

Quote:
4) Other ways that haven't been thought about yet. Ideas are welcome; maybe we should make a poll about this? How many want the exploit gone and what are people's favorite remedies?

Edit: One additional way is making deals give a mandatory period of peace... But even if it's not the full 30 turns that a trade deal lasts, this would be very exploitable by humans - when you see the AI coming with 50 units, just sign a paltry deal for Sugar vs 1 gpt and be safe for ten turns... After that sign another, and so on ad infinitum. Clearly this 'fix' brings more problems than it cures.

You dont seem to get it, I d appreciate if there were changes to the game, making the ai, diplomacy and trading better in general.

But atm the situation is like that that ai act totaly weired diplomacy wise and I see 0 reasoning to make situation worse by self restricting or even worse by getting restricted from 1 indívidual made up "rules".

And u can discuss back and forth how things "should be", this wont change how the game works.

Also I very unusually break deals just like that, but I see no reason not to take ais gold before I go to war with it - u know - roleplaying and so ...

But then the most obvious fix to ai problems is playing mp:
go join civplayers.com

 

[Greizer85]

You dont seem to get it, I d appreciate if there were changes to the game, making the ai, diplomacy and trading better in general.

But atm the situation is like that that ai act totaly weired diplomacy wise and I see 0 reasoning to make situation worse by self restricting or even worse by getting restricted from 1 indívidual made up "rules".

And u can discuss back and forth how things "should be", this wont change how the game works.

Have you heard of, you know... Patches? Granted that since this has been in the game for so long, it may be that the devs intended it this way. Which would be a bummer to say the least. Let's hope they'll address diplomacy in the new expansion, as has been speculated.

This said, idle speculation is what these boards are for (among other things), so I see no harm in thinking of potential fixes, even if they're never to be implemented. As it is now, one could of course make up challenges where the exploit would be specifically prohibited in the rules. I may just make such a game at some point; funny how I never thought of making the desired challenge myself.

I'm curious btw: if you could fix the exploit right now, and you *had* to fix it (whether you agreed to the need for the fix or not) - how would you do it and why?

Also I very unusually break deals just like that, but I see no reason not to take ais gold before I go to war with it - u know - roleplaying and so ...

So there's a role player in you too? I thought you were all about efficiency. The most efficient way to play currently is to pick out faraway hostile civs (ideally on other continents) and DOW them at a convenient point after taking their cash. Ofc you should keep your RA partners in a good mood, and avoid declaring on friends of friends. Although I must say the AI is far too forgiving when it comes to DOW... Often they go right back to Friendly after making peace.

But then the most obvious fix to ai problems is playing mp:
go join civplayers.com

I would, but an mp game takes up a huge amount of time, and mp is (last I heard) still riddled with all kinds of problems. What's more, there's no time to stop and think or do something else for a few hours in between turns. Also, I tend to be simply bad when playing against humans, in any game, not just in Civ V. If someone built the Pyramids and I couldn't reload, I wouldn't know what I'd do to myself.

(For the record, I play Immortal games, not Deity, and while I *can* win without reloading, it's more fun to actually get some wonders. In the challenge games I'd never reload, ofc; I'd go to war and simply capture my wonders. Much more reliable, but more boring + I hate the micromanagement of large-scale wars.)

 

[smallfish]

This said, idle speculation is what these boards are for (among other things), so I see no harm in thinking of potential fixes, even if they're never to be implemented. As it is now, one could of course make up challenges where the exploit would be specifically prohibited in the rules. I may just make such a game at some point; funny how I never thought of making the desired challenge myself.

It's not really new - we have alpaca's No Sales Challenge from last year, pre-patch

Do give it a spin if you were so inclined.

 

[Greizer85]

It's not really new - we have alpaca's No Sales Challenge from last year, pre-patch

Do give it a spin if you were so inclined.

I see. That's a bit more restrictive though - prohibiting all trades with AIs. Ofc it can be argued that *all* trading is an exploit in Civ V, since the AIs almost never actually need the luxuries they're buying. However, I find the removal of the whole trading mechanic a bit too drastic a measure. With their huge stacks of gold, it hardly hurts the AI either if it buys your useless resource. Ideally they'd only buy what they need and their extra happiness would be reduced to reasonable levels... I guess we must wait for the expansion and hope for the best.

 

[Old Peter]

prohibiting all trades with AIs.

A setting for this would be perfect. At least something. Any solution is better than the way it is.