City State and Mali Expolit?

[timmychompchomp]

I quickly scanned this forum to see if this was a known exploit. I did not see anything about the city state + Mali percentage discounts on purchasing units exploit. Is this a legit thing? I haven't been playing GS much due to work. I knew about the rinse and repeat exploit when trading resources, but did not know about purchasing units for zero gold.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aPwkXaw5z0

 

[Furycrab]

I suspected when I saw that they brought back the Carthage bonus that it was going to be just as busted as a CS as it was in the previous game as it is in this game. I'm a little surprised it goes all the way to 0, although even without the Mali with just that CS and Democracy, units are bloody cheap.

The trade stuff however has always fallen in the category of stuff I'm just not willing to do. Little surprised at how far you can take it.

Edit: The Trade bug is very much known though just FYI and I think there's a Firaxis post somewhere that it's on the list of next things to fix.

 

[Sostratus]

I did not see anything about the city state + Mali percentage discounts on purchasing units exploit. Is this a legit thing?

In the first impressions thread I think this was mentioned due to coming up on reddit shortly after release. It's real. I remember replying to a comment about it.
In civ5 each gold purchase discount factor you had got multiplied together. This both ensures it will never become zero and it has a useful property: If you gain ability to make gold purchases X% cheaper, then no matter what discounts you already have, it will mean you spend X% less than you do right now.

In Civ6 these factors are additive. Previously there was no way to actually get 100% worth of discounts, which is why this only works with Mali - you need the Suguba's 20% gold purchase discount to get the units to be free. Additive also means each bonus is worth more than the last: Having all 3 stages of Ngazargamu is a 60% discount. Picking democracy normally gives 20%, but going from a 60 to 80% discount is effectively making units 50% cheaper. Adding in the suguba, it is functioning as a 100% discount at that point since they go from 80% off to free. This additive system forces the devs to keep track of all the ways we can combo discounts to make sure this doesn't happen. It should really become multiplicative. And Ngazargamu's bonus needs to be reworked or nerfed. It is crazy strong.

 

[Aurelesk]

Is Holy Order (missionaries and apostles are 30% cheaper to purchase), Theocracy bonus (15% discount on purchases with faith), and the Suguba (20% discount on all gold and faith purchases in this city) stack? We may end up with 65% discount, so almost 3 apostles for the price of one. Not as gamebreaking than free units, but still useful.

Democracy bonus is 25% discount on purchases with gold, so everyone can en up with 85% discount with the city-state (so, only 15% the initial price, so almost 7 units for the price of 1), if my game language isn't flawed (for example: in my version, the audience chamber don't mention the downside of -2 loyalty without governor, so it is here I found out this is the case (and it is; now I know where the mysterious -2 came from)).

 

[Troy Bruckner]

First game I played after release was with Mali and I posted the question about the ability to buy deathbots for zero gold was a bug or not.
It's still not the worst flaw in the game. Pillaging is by far more broken. Whoever play tested the game probably shouldn't be allowed to continue doing so.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

First game I played after release was with Mali and I posted the question about the ability to buy deathbots for zero gold was a bug or not.
It's still not the worst flaw in the game. Pillaging is by far more broken. Whoever play tested the game probably shouldn't be allowed to continue doing so.

Unless something magically changed, it's not the play testers. They find this stuff and get ignored in favor of "moar DLC" and such.

 

[Wizard-Bob]

I saw that video and started watching, but quickly ignored it. It was being played with a very heavily modified game, and it struck me that the mods used were meant to create these "impossible" situations. Not the way I play, so I ignored it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I saw that video and started watching, but quickly ignored it. It was being played with a very heavily modified game, and it struck me that the mods used were meant to create these "impossible" situations. Not the way I play, so I ignored it.

The tactics in question work in vanilla.

Which he did say right at the start.

 

[Hitesh12]

Does this strategy/exploit not work anymore? I am playing as Mali right now and I have got Suguba + Military Academy + Ngazargamu but the costs are not 0. For example, Cavalry cost is 65 gold

EDIT: Found my answer a minute later smh
https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Civilization_VI_April_2019_Update
It got nerfed in the April update. Democracy is now 15%

 

[Victoria]

Yeah, been discussed and nerfed, still pretty good but not stupid.
buying and selling is still exploitable as usual but the spiffing brit has provided us with the pantheon exploit to keep things jolly well broken
For example winnig a science victory without any campus -

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

From my own experience modding the game I know that the way the game calculates is that it adds up, so it's possible to get a 100% discount which really breaks the game.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Yes, however I don't think this actually influence the balance, you need Suguba, Democracy and Military Academy. This means you are already in a quite late stage of game playing a negative Civ to achieve this. At this time you are only a few turns to victory so the 100% discount does little.

BTW this 100% discount also happens when I'm loading a Suleiman save, don't know exactly the reason.