Cheese, or valid tactic

[Itstoearly]

The problem is you can "trade" by giving civ's 1 gold for nothing and force a peace treaty which is even more broken.

Perhaps the solution is to give a player that does this a large number of negative points in the eyes of the other AI, just as it would with other players. You scam an AI, and now the rest are quite unwilling to trade with you.

 

[RedRover57]

My vote - cheese.

You can win at all difficulty levels without resorting to such tactics.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Something that looks like a rather simple solution to me is immediate subtracting from player's treasury everything he gained from a broken deal. If that means it drops below 0, units get disbanded. That's for luxes/strategics. Lump sums for gpt shouldn't exist at all.

 

[Grendeldef]

Something that looks like a rather simple solution to me is immediate subtracting from player's treasury everything he gained from a broken deal. If that means it drops below 0, units get disbanded. That's for luxes/strategics. Lump sums for gpt shouldn't exist at all.

I don't like the idea of instant payment in form of tax but a diplomatic hit with all your & trading partner's known civs and a trade sanction for x turns. This sanction could be several things like:

- harder to trade at all
- buying is more expensive
- selling less profitable
- money gives less influence with CSs
(- less money from traderoutes)

All of these could/should be affected with one's current reputation towards others.

G

 

[PibbZ]

The problem is you can "trade" by giving civ's 1 gold for nothing and force a peace treaty which is even more broken.

Afaik you didnt force a peace treaty by giving the AI something. They had to give something in return for such a treaty to happen?

 

[mike678]

Afaik you didnt force a peace treaty by giving the AI something. They had to give something in return for such a treaty to happen?

I was replying to the theoretical solution some one came up with for a forced peace treaty for 10 turns after you trade with an opponent.

 

[The Pilgrim]

I don't like the idea of instant payment in form of tax but a diplomatic hit with all your & trading partner's known civs and a trade sanction for x turns. This sanction could be several things like:

- harder to trade at all
- buying is more expensive
- selling less profitable
- money gives less influence with CSs
(- less money from traderoutes)

All of these could/should be affected with one's current reputation towards others.

That makes sense, although won't affect HoF games. Who cares about diplo modifiers if the game lasts 70 turns? You strip AI of all its money by selling gpt just to prevent rush buying walls/units and off you go. On the other hand, players are creative enough and will come up with new exploits no matter what restriction you impose.

 

[Callonia]

It's cheesy.

However I can see myself doing to an AI with a potty mouth, like, rham of siam. If he dares to bully Lhasa for 5th time. If.

 

[Zilla]

I don't like the idea of instant payment in form of tax but a diplomatic hit with all your & trading partner's known civs and a trade sanction for x turns. This sanction could be several things like:

- harder to trade at all
- buying is more expensive
- selling less profitable
- money gives less influence with CSs
(- less money from traderoutes)

All of these could/should be affected with one's current reputation towards others.

G

I like this suggestion, it feels like what would happen in real life. Maybe not the trade route one, since trade routes are empire internal anyways.

But I think the penalty needs to scale down depending on how many turns have passed since the trade. You can definitely do a "good faith" trade with the AI, then declare on it 20 - 25 turns later for unrelated reasons.

I also don't think it should apply if you get forced into DoW due to a defensive pact.

 

[snarzberry]

It is, always has been and always will be straight blue vein cheese imo. We've had many debates on this board about this supposed 'tactic'. I can't believe this wasn't fixed, now the pro-cheating camp can argue that it's a feature. My favoured fix has always been a trading reputation mechanic, which would see dishonourable deals come at the cost of future trade potential similar to what's been proposed.

If players do use this ploy and pull gold out of their hats every time they DoW then it makes domination victories, especially on deity, a LOT easier. To me it seems like it has too great an effect on your winning chances for such an asinine action. If it isn't punished in game, and we all know it should be, then I say it should be completely avoided.

 

[thadian]

The AI = Big bucket of cheez whiz. The only difference is it has cheat handicaps, it plays by a different ruleset - gold and happiness are irrelevant. non existent. They will have over 5k gold but primitive troops they don't upgrade. This could be a lack of early war, the AI just doesn't seem to have any other way to rid itself of those units and when it does it builds good ones.

Unlike a player, city-states ALWAYS give in to the AI bully. Have you ever gifted 500 gold and watched your entire gift fall into the hands of Monty?

To best sum it up, the AI is a talentless little kid who has a queen on every tile of the pawn row, it plays black and goes first. You play white, and go second, you have no bishops or knights.

The higher up the difficulty, the more pieces you are missing. This is the nature of the Civ AI. Sign a research agreement? Save a great scientist for the right moment? Notice the AI using bad troop formations?

I wish i could say i believe in the ability to win without "cheating" but if a human player in MP were dumb enough to make the SAME CHOICES as the AI while having the same starting advantages - would that still be cheating to deceive that player?

Everything except using the fire tuner to give yourself crap is not cheating. if the AI takes a bad deal, you better have offered it before it signs 8 research agreements with all your foes and they all chain denounce you.

 

[Grendeldef]

That makes sense, although won't affect HoF games. Who cares about diplo modifiers if the game lasts 70 turns? You strip AI of all its money by selling gpt just to prevent rush buying walls/units and off you go. On the other hand, players are creative enough and will come up with new exploits no matter what restriction you impose.

As Pilgrim pointed out there're are flaws in my suggestion as well especially the diplo hit part when there're only few civs left and/or game is otherwise near the end. This could be the time for the trade route penalty in some form. It was originally in parenthesis because I thought it'd be rather extreme but could have it's use when other sanctions are practically worthless. Even with few tweaks the possibilities are countless but in form some anti-Trade&DoW mechanisms should be implemented.

G

 

[Cel.erity]

It is, always has been and always will be straight blue vein cheese imo. We've had many debates on this board about this supposed 'tactic'. I can't believe this wasn't fixed, now the pro-cheating camp can argue that it's a feature. My favoured fix has always been a trading reputation mechanic, which would see dishonourable deals come at the cost of future trade potential similar to what's been proposed.

If players do use this ploy and pull gold out of their hats every time they DoW then it makes domination victories, especially on deity, a LOT easier. To me it seems like it has too great an effect on your winning chances for such an asinine action. If it isn't punished in game, and we all know it should be, then I say it should be completely avoided.

So are you telling me that (in Vanilla) if you see the AI embark one of its units in front of your ship for no good reason, you refuse to destroy it on principle? Because there's really no difference. I won't argue that it should be a part of the game, but if you're going to avoid abusing one particular type of poor AI decision, you should attempt to avoid abusing every bad decision the AI makes. At that point, the game becomes an unplayable walk on eggshells as you attempt to draw the line between tactical play and abusive play.

It's cool if you want to beat the game with a handicap, but I can't stand all these people who cry about cheese and cheating, trying to dictate the way other people play the game, while they themselves abuse things like map settings/naval warfare/tech timings for easy wins.

 

[snarzberry]

I think there is a difference between your two examples. But I've had this debate about ten times and I'm not going to start it again . I know others see it differently and I don't really care how anyone else chooses to play at the end of the day. My opinion is that trading before dowing should be a disallowed tactic, end of.

 

[Tabarnak]

My opinion is that trading before dowing should be a disallowed tactic, end of.

It is for HoF games, but not completely. You just can't make peace until you managed to capture his capital or half of their cities. But it's rarely gamebreaking.

The AI sue for peace and gives all his cities and his atronomic pot of gold and gpt? Now that's what i call gamebreaking! and it's not even been called cheesy or cheaty(is this a word?)

 

[The Pilgrim]

To best sum it up, the AI is a talentless little kid who has a queen on every tile of the pawn row, it plays black and goes first. You play white, and go second, you have no bishops or knights.

The higher up the difficulty, the more pieces you are missing. This is the nature of the Civ AI. Sign a research agreement? Save a great scientist for the right moment? Notice the AI using bad troop formations?

I wish i could say i believe in the ability to win without "cheating" but if a human player in MP were dumb enough to make the SAME CHOICES as the AI while having the same starting advantages - would that still be cheating to deceive that player?

Just as you said, AI is a little kid. Where I came from, you don't tackle full strength those who just graduated from a junior league. It's not in the spirit of good sportsmanship. But that's just me and my old-fashioned (and quite old, as well ) habits. I assume MP video gaming etiquette is pretty different from sports etiquette.

It's cool if you want to beat the game with a handicap, but I can't stand all these people who cry about cheese and cheating, trying to dictate the way other people play the game, while they themselves abuse things like map settings/naval warfare/tech timings for easy wins.

Where and when was anybody trying to dictate anything to anyone else? People share opinions. At the end of the day, all of us do whatever suites our personal ethics and beliefs. And nobody else watches or cares, to be honest. The only place it does matter, it's competitive play, where those who do use such techniques have a clear advantage over those who don't.

It is for HoF games, but not completely. You just can't make peace until you managed to capture his capital or half of their cities. But it's rarely gamebreaking.

The AI sue for peace and gives all his cities and his atronomic pot of gold and gpt? Now that's what i call gamebreaking! and it's not even been called cheesy or cheaty(is this a word?)

Cheat and cheese is not the same. Fire tuner is cheating, selling and DoWing is cheesing. As for crazy peace deals, you can't say nobody cares. People do complain all the time. Not so much HoF/GotM participants, though. I think the common perception is that as long as you're not the initiator of a questionable unfair deal, it's ok to exploit it. Doesn't mean it's very reasonable, but we have to draw a line somewhere, I guess... Fixing these mechanics would solve all 'ethics' problems altogether.

 

[black213]

I should do it more often. I always forget to do it.