Banned Exploits - Discussion


All I was pointing out was that while your statement accused everyone else of being biased, you're utterly biased yourself.

I won't dig into the rest of it, Max said it well, no point arguing with you. You have your preconceived opinion of the matter and won't listen to reasoning (as always, I may point out).


For the record, I am fine with either ruling, as long as it's clear.
 
I'm getting tired of your accusations. I will just ignore your posts right from now.
That's also funny, because even if I wanted to accuse you of something, I couldn't. I don't know anything about you or the way you play. But you do, so who am I to argue with your feelings? :)

All I was pointing out was that while your statement accused everyone else of being biased, you're utterly biased yourself.

I won't dig into the rest of it, Max said it well, no point arguing with you. You have your preconceived opinion of the matter and won't listen to reasoning (as always, I may point out).
If by biased you mean that I have an opinion, you got me again. Without lump sums my play will take hit too, perhaps even more than yours. But I don't care, because I think that they ruin the balance and turn trading into blatant milking of the clueless AI, i.e. getting free cash without giving anything in exchange. I didn't hear much of a disagreement on this, btw.
There is nothing that was said by you or others in this thread and hasn't been said before. The only new part of the so called reasoning, is your repeated attempts to make the debate personal, but they hardly add any weight to your arguments.

For the record, I am fine with either ruling, as long as it's clear.
At least we agree on something. I hope that's what HoF stuff will remember next time when they face bashing and ranting about what they should or should not do.
 
If by biased you mean that I have an opinion, you got me again. Without lump sums my play will take hit too, perhaps even more than yours. But I don't care, because I think that they ruin the balance and turn trading into blatant milking of the clueless AI, i.e. getting free cash without giving anything in exchange. I didn't hear much of a disagreement on this, btw.

I think 'no lump sums, ever' is an over-reaction. I agree, the current system turns into blatant milking of a clueless AI with fake deals. I'd much rather see deals be binding for the player, rather than preventing deals entirely. I don't think selling your first lux for 240 gold, and actually honouring the deal, is exploitative.
 
I wouldn't mind if trade agreements weren't nullified by a DoW. Though it's unrealistic, I think that it would solve some of the lump sum exploits because you couldn't simply sell everything you owned and then DoW to get them back immediately. In this case, I would side with gameplay balance than realism.
 
minor Game of Thrones spoiler (totally related to at least a portion of this thread):

Spoiler :
Regarding the ability to trade and then declare war, a major character did just that this season. It was spectacularly ruthless. if you watch the show you know what im talking about. (decided to not include the character's name for those who might wait til a season is done to rent/watch it.)
 
After a revisit and read of this thread i don't change my mind for the best competitive HoF games possible.

One word : Mod.

Should include :

-No eldorado and FoY...ever(set probability to ''0'')

-Static deals

Barb pillaging(edit : or self pillaging) your lux after 5 turns from a deal? You immediately lose anything related to gpt. You can keep the lump sump of gold, but can't make another deal for 25 turns unless you done a strictly gpt deal. If you have done a lux for lux deal you can make another one(of course).

I find this part pretty interesting : You can decide early on to get a lump sum of gold or strict gpt. The first sentence is more risky and you need to protect your lux even more or you will lose the opportunity to make immediately another deal.

AI DoW you. Not your fault. You can deal again. You DoW the AI? You can't make another deal until the 30 turns range is completed. You gonna take some cities...and new luxs and ressources...isn't that enough?

-If Petra stays the same than GnK, make the mod eliminates this wonder from the game for balance sake.

In fact it's really not complicated...just the common sense. Rules need to be simple and balanced.

I'm not a mod master but can i ask how much time this can take to add these simple rules? This shouldn't be complicated, or am i missing something?
 
I think 'no lump sums, ever' is an over-reaction. I agree, the current system turns into blatant milking of a clueless AI with fake deals. I'd much rather see deals be binding for the player, rather than preventing deals entirely. I don't think selling your first lux for 240 gold, and actually honouring the deal, is exploitative.
Exploitative is a strong word in this context, but even if honored lump sum deals are very unbalanced. You give up essentially nothing (you don't need spare luxuries) and get something you do need - cash. AI gives up cash it needs and gains nothing because it doesn't need your luxes more than you do. It's better with strategics and even worse with gpt
.
To balance things up and turn AI into valuable trading partner rather than ATM, lump sums should be either much lower or taken away completely. Not something HoF stuff should be messing with, though. I'd love to see code changes, but I'm not optimistic in this regard.

if you watch the show
Nope. :mischief: Put it in spoiler. :)

I'm not a mod master but can i ask how much time this can take to add these simple rules? This shouldn't be complicated, or am i missing something?
Banning Petra and FoY/El Dorado is really easy, static deals are harder. Not impossible, but again, I just don't see HoF mod altering the core rules too much. Anyways, we'll see how and if BNW affects the balance and then we can talk specifics what it should and should not include.

BTW, kirbdog mentioned lump sum mechanics alterations in his Smarter AI mod thread. No idea what he meant by that.
 
Exploitative is a strong word in this context, but even if honored lump sum deals are very unbalanced. You give up essentially nothing (you don't need spare luxuries) and get something you do need - cash. AI gives up cash it needs and gains nothing because it doesn't need your luxes more than you do.

You're selling faster golden age to AI. Whether or not it is worth 240g's is another question, but AI IS profiting from bought luxuries by design. And given AI's ability to snowball quickly on higher levels, buying luxuries can be quite beneficial.
 
You're selling faster golden age to AI. Whether or not it is worth 240g's is another question, but AI IS profiting from bought luxuries by design. And given AI's ability to snowball quickly on higher levels, buying luxuries can be quite beneficial.
Rush buying university is beneficial, settling additional city is beneficial, entering GA one turn earlier is meaningless. AI can't use the cash in efficient way, this is indeed a problem, however, it doesn't change the fact you gain x10 more from such trade.
 
AI is clueless in regards to every aspect of the game, so, despite it's 3x bonuses on production and everything else (slight exaggeration), we can still beat it in science, military, and, eventually, everything else. The way i see it, we can't fix AI: apparently no one can, because of the reason why human will always outsmart the calculator :D. So, it's the question of keeping all aspects of the game intact and achieving t.190 science vic., or, removing chunks of game features to try to make the game longer (not harder) for everyone, yet less enjoyable, as these [removed] bits we will miss.. Both ways presume level playing field against each other, as everyone is using the same instruments, whatever the limitations.

In short: I don't see much glory in limiting ourselves versus clueless AI, as it will stay clueless no matter what we agree not to do to help it.
 
AI is clueless in regards to every aspect of the game, so, despite it's 3x bonuses on production and everything else (slight exaggeration), we can still beat it in science, military, and, eventually, everything else. The way i see it, we can't fix AI: apparently no one can, because of the reason why human will always outsmart the calculator :D.

So, it's the question of keeping all aspects of the game intact and achieving t.190 science vic., or, removing chunks of game features to try to make the game longer (not harder) for everyone, yet less enjoyable, as these [removed] bits we will miss.. Both ways presume level playing field against each other, as everyone is using the same instruments, whatever the limitations.
We can't fix it to the level it matches humans, but we can and should strive to make it better. And not to insist on keeping it as bad as it currently is just because we're used to capitalize on its weaknesses. Of course lump sums make the game easier, not only shorter. If all you want is short game, play quick speed. But that's not it, is it? And to ease on players with their dilemma, I'd love to see the change in code rather than self imposed rules.

In short: I don't see much glory in limiting ourselves versus clueless AI, as it will stay clueless no matter what we agree not to do to help it.
I see no glory in challenging yourself with higher difficulties and then robbing the AI of its bonuses that essentially create the challenge. It makes no sense.
 
Someone is just not getting the idea that the HoF is the competion between humans not between a human and AI. So he has no problemo to break the first for the sake of his vision of the "balanced" second.
 
Someone is just not getting the idea that the HoF is the competion between humans not between a human and AI. So he has no problemo to break the first for the sake of his vision of the "balanced" second.
Is someone suggesting that better AI and more balanced gameplay will ruin the competition between humans? Interesting theory. :)
 
Hold on a second, sir. :) How can we strive to make AI better if we have no tools to make it better? All we can do right now is invent limitations on ourselves, not 'strive to make AI better'. AI will stay bad at war, diplomacy and god knows what else after proposed gold restrictions, so, i can understand why posters above me came to conclusion that these changes can inspire even more re-rolls. By the way, re-rolls is the reason i don't play gauntlets anymore.

However, i like the challenge presented by the HoF, so i play deity exclusively lately (to restrict myself from reloading and for a good feel of accomplishment :)). For sure i am going completely offline in my SP games if proposed changes will ever be realised. I can see where your cause is noble, i just think the problem is too deep to be solved, so i enjoy it as it is. And, hopefully, we'll be dealing with completely different game in July. Just my opinion, Pilgrim. With all due respect.
 
Someone was just expressing concerns that a blind removal of certain gameplay features may have pretty much negative impact on already quite poor "human-to-human" balance. While someone else was continiously suggesting to enter an infinite ban loop ("ban A -> if B becomes OP after banning A -> ban B -> if C ... -> if Z becomes OP after banning Y -> ban Z") with the only intention of protecting the poor fellow AI. Meanwhile the first someone already suggested that most likely this ban loop only ends in:
... to disable rush-buys completely, disable any other "lump sum" depended stuff (such as RA) and finally to remove the gold from the game entirely (you don't need :c5gold: if you can't spend it) :)
But the second someone completely missed the point about "human-to-human" balance and kept throwing his comments forming into a dreadful story of the only intention of the first someone, "the intention to keep his lovely unfair advantage over the AI".

I must admit I'm awe of someone if he'll still be able to think of "exploitative is a strong word in this context" after his 74th reroll in a day...
 
well, they did release the .dll and i thought that was going to let some people really mod the game in a larger way. i think BtS functions solely on the mods they have for balance. kirbdog is working on an AI mod but i dont think it has any of this in mind so much as his modding desires for a better AI.

i have zero mod ability and am not interested in developing any either. did anyone ever attempt to make a new utility mod to make exclusions more accurate? or a different mod for things like new reasons for exclusions? im thinking this could 'solve' the state of flux or rules confusions HoF has in some people's minds.
 
Hold on a second, sir. :) How can we strive to make AI better if we have no tools to make it better?
Of course we have. It's called customer feedback. :)

All we can do right now is invent limitations on ourselves, not 'strive to make AI better'. AI will stay bad at war, diplomacy and god knows what else after proposed gold restrictions, so, i can understand why posters above me came to conclusion that these changes can inspire even more re-rolls. By the way, re-rolls is the reason i don't play gauntlets anymore.
How many times should I repeat that I think these rules be better hard coded rather than self imposed or enforced by HoF staff for you to believe me? :)
As long as we don't take RNG out of the equation completely (which will never happen) there will always be something to reroll for. Rerolls are limited only by players' willingness to reroll. And there is lots of it in these lands. :crazyeye:

However, i like the challenge presented by the HoF, so i play deity exclusively lately (to restrict myself from reloading and for a good feel of accomplishment :)). For sure i am going completely offline in my SP games if proposed changes will ever be realised. I can see where your cause is noble, i just think the problem is too deep to be solved, so i enjoy it as it is. And, hopefully, we'll be dealing with completely different game in July. Just my opinion, Pilgrim. With all due respect.
The problem is indeed deeper than just lump sums. However, Civ has come a long way since its release and still has a lot of room for improvement. For example, ability to move and shoot and better use of combat odds calculation will do wonders to combat AI. And be sure I'll promote those with the same enthusiasm I'm promoting lump sums removal.
 
Someone was just expressing concerns that a blind removal of certain gameplay features may have pretty much negative impact on already quite poor "human-to-human" balance. While someone else was continiously suggesting to enter an infinite ban loop ("ban A -> if B becomes OP after banning A -> ban B -> if C ... -> if Z becomes OP after banning Y -> ban Z") with the only intention of protecting the poor fellow AI.
Firstly, the only intention behind protecting the poor fellow AI is making the game more enjoyable for all someones involved. Yes, I'm convinced that enjoyment is tied to balance. And I have hard time believing someone thinks otherwise.
Secondly, nerfing OP elements is balancing.

Since someone strongly opposes to both, someone else naturally comes to the conclusion that "the only intention of the first someone, "the intention to keep his lovely unfair advantage over the AI".

But the second someone completely missed the point about "human-to-human" balance
If you want a real "human-to-human" balance, you need to play MP. If you choose to play SP, AI is still a factor and any attempt to prevent from it to become better leads to the above conclusion.

I must admit I'm awe of someone if he'll still be able to think of "exploitative is a strong word in this context" after his 74th reroll in a day...
A deal that has been honored is less exploitative than a deal that has not been honored, which is less exploitative than repeatedly broken deals etc. Better?
 
Back
Top Bottom