Banned Exploits - Discussion II

[TheMeInTeam]

I'll post more evidence against the assertion that "gifting cities then declaring to take them" is an exploit:

http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?106570-AI-Diplomacy-From-the-XML-(A-Quck-Interpretation

As you can see, this has a *profound* impact on diplo, not to mention the opportunity costs I've pointed out multiple times (Loss of RA opportunity, alternative usage of that went into the acquisition of city sold, etc). How can one possibly assert that this cost is consistently minimal? The evidence against that assertion is tremendous.

I'll also point out that making up rules without a basis for them is precisely the behavior that leads to bogus and inconsistently applied rules and that this is a good example of how things can go awry if you just use the preference of 1-2 people. HoF sorely needs an agreed-upon basis for determining whether a tactic is harmful to competition, lest we start seeing more illogical bans without a credible basis to support them.

 

[Martin Alvito]

TMIT, no matter how high you think you have stacked the evidence, the fact remains that selling a city and retaking on the same turn has an opportunity cost equal to the productivity of the lost population given that you have sufficient force (not hard with no defenders) and one of the following obtains:

- You don't care about RAs with that AI, or that AI's opinion of you
- You were going to kill that AI anyway, and your forces presently have nothing better to do

The former condition will obtain at some point in every Diplo and Culture game you play. The latter condition will obtain in at least some Domination games. At some point production in the core ceases to matter in all Domination games, and production in non-capital cities ceases to matter in Diplo and Culture games, so the opportunity cost of the population is functionally zero late in those games. The result is that if you permit selling cities and instant reconquest, you will see players do it. A lot.

Taking the AI's lunch money by instant-speed punking it isn't clever. It's cheap. The efficacy depends entirely upon luck-based factors (AI cash production). Do you really want to introduce yet another equilibrium strategy with random effects?



As for the broader points in the thread: rules have three normatively desirable properties. We want them to be clear, purposeful and enforceable. The staff has a purpose in mind. We may not agree with the purpose all of the time, but there's a reason that Denniz is the dictadura. He does the work. You should respect that. I can understand wanting a more democratic approach, but some of the hostility displayed towards the staff lately has just been over the line. They're volunteers doing work for you. Be nice even when you don't agree with them, or they might not volunteer. You don't have to be nice to me; I just express opinions.

Enforcement isn't the issue. Neuro is correct that an unenforceable rule is useless (and even counterproductive), but the staff has the tools with which to make determinations and take action on the rules we have.

Clarity is the issue. DaveMcV, vexing and others have been on target with the complaint that the rules have not been clear enough for players to follow them. I still think that the standard of a "clear pattern of behavior" that is "beyond normal gameplay" leaves something to be desired. It's an improvement, and I understand why Denniz wants to hedge against the possibility of future bugs in patches polluting HoF, but I do think that we can do a better job.

The best possible standard is this one: "We reserve the right to identify new exploits and disallow submissions using those exploits subsequent to their identification." That puts the incentives where everybody wants them. The players are free to do whatever naughty things to the AI they want and gain a competitive advantage by doing so, and the staff has to live with it...for those submissions only. The staff has the flexibility to ban what they want when they want. Firaxis gets the information they need to patch their game. Everybody wins.

The approach vexing suggested for lump sum luxury sales (self-pillage not OK, barb pillage OK but no resale permissible) is the best one proposed yet. It's clear, it's easily enforceable by the staff (show me the autosave with the barbs pillaging), and the players can self-enforce the resale provisions. With a little bit of forgiveness for the rare game where a player makes an error and resells a few turns too early, so that a mistake does not lead to an instant "game over", that has the feel of a solid rule.

The other specific examples are sufficiently clear and enforceable to work.

 

[iggymnrr]

I would vote to put Martin on the rule making committee. He has experience with the game at all levels, he is lucid and he can hand down a decision and still command respect.

 

[ras9929]

Not to jump too OT here, but part of this would be solved in my mind if
1) The amount of Lump Sum trade gold were significantly less than what the total of a GPT trade were worth. (NPV anyone?)
2) Resources exported were not available to export until the original trade deal expired.
3) Selling cities was prevented, or had some established rule

Whether these are the exact rules you'd want or not, I'd submit that someone (read Denniz) could determine what they should be (or if he felt generous, this place has decent poll functionality) and we should find a modder to code them.

I'd be willing to pay a few $ (like of done on XDA for Phone coding before) for someone to build out a HoF mod, and with the scale of people here with strong opinion re the rules, I bet we could raise enough to encourage someone to code what I believe would be a pretty quick mod.

 

[MadDjinn]

For the sale of the city issue:

It's important to note that the amount of gold you get is mitigated by many factors.

1) Does the AI even want the city? This is a big one if the city is in a bad location. This factor leads to more gold when there is desired resources and/or if the city used to belong to them in the first place.

2) Does the AI even like you? If they are Hostile, you'll get very little from them. If you just took the city and made peace, you'll not likely get much out of them for it.

3) What is actually in the city? A city with a huge number of buildings+ pop is going to get you more for the sale than one with minimal pop and only a few buildings left. Wonders modify this of course, but not by a huge factor.

4) Secondary cost here, but the Social Policy and Golden Age counters can be permanently raised up against you if you picked up the city then sold it. (Social Policies only if you annexed it)

So, with the above, you can't really exploit the AI for gold for long with this concept. As the city gets destroyed, it'll become less and less valuable to you.

When I posted my original example, it was a city that I got through a peace deal (no damage and right beside the capital) so I was likely to get a lot more cash for it than a city I actually took away from them. This is about the only case where you can maximize the gold income for selling a city.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

the fact remains that selling a city and retaking on the same turn has an opportunity cost equal to the productivity of the lost population given that you have sufficient force (not hard with no defenders) and one of the following obtains:

It's ridiculous for someone with an economic background to ignore opportunity costs. Just because other costs are acceptable in a given case does not mean they are not costs, or that they are not relevant in other cases! Your argument is circular enough that saying "this is always best in x situation" leads directly to banning good play as a rule. No matter how much you try to ignore opportunity cost, it's still there.

- You don't care about RAs with that AI, or that AI's opinion of you

Situational, even for you. I haven't heard you advocate constantly gifting and declaring in any of your actual games, after all. Therefore, you're making an assumption inappropriate to HoF rules.

- You were going to kill that AI anyway, and your forces presently have nothing better to do

"Nothing better to do" is not "nothing else to do", and you have yet to show anybody on the forum that consistently using units for this over and over again as opposed to alternative uses of units is strong play.

Because you can't do it.

Taking the AI's lunch money by instant-speed punking it isn't clever. It's cheap.

Yes, one could argue that all tactics that take advantage of AI stupidity are "cheap", and with the same logical basis you're using, too. That kind of argument isn't useful for HoF.

That a rule is clear and enforceable does not make it a good one. Picking rules not based on actual gameplay knowledge does not make good rules.

Also, in a previous post I pasted in a part of the standard that HoF claims it uses for its competition. Rules that do not meet this standard (or worse, are detrimental to it outright), are objectively bad for the HoF; it makes it into something different from what it claims. Drawing the line between exploit and good play appropriately is *not* preference of myself alone; it is a STATED goal in the HoF. We are seeing repeat examples of rules and behavior that violate this stated purpose. There's a reason I'm not the only one frustrated by this.

Also, I have not been hostile to anybody on this thread, though I've poked holes in arguments when they've gotten silly or wrong outright. Show me a personal attack in this thread though, rather than an attack on an argument. There's no reason to take attacks on arguments personally.

Mostly I agree with the rest of your post so no point quoting it; we share some goals even if the disagreement on what is necessary to reach them is significant.

 

[Martin Alvito]

It's ridiculous for someone with an economic background to ignore opportunity costs.

I have not ignored opportunity costs. I have merely partitioned the situation in question into cases where the costs bind and where they do not. The entire thrust of the argument is to demonstrate that the costs do not bind in a large quantity of meaningful cases.

Situational, even for you. I haven't heard you advocate constantly gifting and declaring in any of your actual games, after all.

There's a reason for that. I played G-Minor II properly and won. That shouldn't surprise you; Space is clearly my strongest win condition. I played G-Major I as an OCC and lost. The result was five turns slow; the approach was in error. I should have played vexing's approach, resold and reconquered. (DaveMcV exploited overflow for the win; I'm sure he'll admit this.) My strategic error is obvious in hindsight; strictly better would have been to puppet some cities, sign additional RAs, and punki anyone I didn't require for the RAs to achieve Hydro/Solar Plants in order to pay for the RA

Also, I have not been hostile to anybody on this thread, though I've poked holes in arguments when they've gotten silly or wrong outright. Show me a personal attack in this thread though, rather than an attack on an argument. There's no reason to take attacks on arguments personally.

You're hardly alone in making posts that seek to strip legitimacy from the staff. "Good example of how things go awry if you use the preference of 1-2 people?" The implications are clear; Denniz is a dictator, his rulings are undemocratic and are therefore somehow unjust. My counterargument is simple; Denniz has earned the divine right of kings by way of effort, which counts for a lot more than those who have pretended to the Dragon Throne of China brought to the table in the last century.

 

[tommynt]

WTH is all the blabla f.e. from Martin Alvito?

You guys just dont figure the main problem:
AI IS DUMB

Just cause you "fix" 1 way of its dumbness you can still exploit all the others.

There will allways be powerful stuff which some1 calls "exploit".
Also no1 has answered the question yet why getting like 300 gold from an ai is that more strong then converting 300 gold into 7000 bakkers.

 

[Denniz]

Moderator Action: I am closing this thread. Once again things have spun out of control and off topic. The thread was supposed to be an official HOF thread focused on the exploits and simple Q&A about them.


I appreciate those that have tried to be constructive. I am disappointed in the attitudes of a few that seem to be more interested in divisiveness. The open disrespect myself and the HOF rules is distasteful.

Also, the insinuation by certain individuals that the HOF rules somehow don't apply to them has been noted. (Do you write nasty notes to the IRS about not paying your taxes, as well? ) It is much easier when we know who's saves need to be checked extra carefully.