Civ V Beta 1

Looks like I've got the permanent peace bug with Alex. I'm not sure if this counts as an exploit, since I didn't to have it happen.
Turns out it wasn't permanent - it just kept giving messages about the peace treaty expiring each turn the horses he was giving me continued.

 

alright here is my submission:

I finished on turn 393, in-game year 1973.

I made 3 cities in the best spots I could find and made sure to get a wonder in each one and build cultural buildings pretty early on.

I stayed out of the way of other nations, until Germany my large northern neighbour turned on me after eating up the others, I held him off twice and by then I was in a position to build the Utopia Project.

I used cities states after I adopted patronage.

My policy path was:

tradition
aristocracy
oligarchy
monarchy
piety
mandate of heaven
organized religion
reformation
free religion
freedom
constitution
freespeech
patronage
philanthropy
civil society
theocracy
legalism
landed elite
scholasticism
aesthetics
democracy
order
educated elite
nationalism
cultural diplomacy
universal sufferage
socialism
planned economy
communism
united front

I sold resources to the A.I. as much as I could. Kept about +50 happiness after the halfway point until I destroyed Germany near the end and got their puppeted cities.

I also stayed in golden ages quite often with the help of chichen itza.

I made most of the wonders.

good luck to the rest of you

 

As expected, Alex wanted revenge for Sparta and had a lot bigger - and more advanced - army this time.
Lessons learned: skipping the wheel and trapping were a mistake, as Arabia's UA makes early trade routes very useful. Also, need to expand a bit faster to secure that 3rd city before the AI gets the spot, happiness be damned.

 

Hmmm. turn 307 / 1874AD.

Was trying to break the 1900AD barrier this time, so I'm happy about that. But I think 1800AD is possible with some adjustments to my tech path / build order, just the right start position, and some luck with the AI - city states relationships & placement. I based a lot of my mid-late game timing on my previous best 1930AD finish...which really threw me off. I had a GArt and GGen sitting around at the end, another GGen just gifted overseas, and a GSci about to pop. Saved them late for golden ages, but then I finished Utopia faster than expected.

Chose settings:
1) OCC...I think that only comes into play if you take a capital (auto-raze?) which I didn't. I never intended to have more than one city. Not sure why I would. I refuse to use that cheap exploit of multiple cities producing culture then raze late to bring down the culture expense of the policies.
2) non-biased start...still started near the desert but I had my little oasis with 3xCotton, 3xFish, 1xMarble, 1xFur, desert hills, desert, and a few green places to put artist monuments
3) quick combat...my antique computer is slow enough already

World: Continents - Standard - Hot - wet - 5bil years - high sea level
AI: America - India - Ottoman - England - Iriquois - China - Siam

England was a mistake since she became an absolute beast on the other continent and took out China + Siam + some cultural city states. But I'm not sure who to place in the 7th slot. I don't want a warmonger like Songhai or Greece. I don't want a wonder builder like Egypt to compete against either.

I'll attempt this again over the weekend with the lessons I learned and a better start position...not that this one is terrible.

View attachment Arabia HoF 4000BC.Civ5Save

View attachment Arabia HoF 1874AD.Civ5Save

cas

 

Unless you are playing as any of them, you dont want Babylon, Egypt or Persia as your opponents for this.

 

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This shouldn't be the case, sure selling/giving/trading cities for the culture exploit should not be allowed. But what if thats not what your doing, what if your selling/trading a Puppet city, that would have no effect on policy cost.

There is a quick fix to remove the selling cities exploit to lower Policy cost, which is,
It would also remove other "tactics" or "exploits" depending on how you look at them, of saving culture until after either 1. Redentor, or 2. That -25% Future Social Policies Social Policy on Freedom.

Fix : When the cost of a policy drops, all unspent culture drops by the same percentage.
I.e A 25% Social Policy Cost Drop, will reduce unspent culture by the same amount, if you have 1,000 in saved culture, this is reduced to 750.

This should be either 1. Put into a Mod designed to balance the game removing exploits and what not, or 2. Passed onto the Dev's who will update it into the game.

The Fix will remove the additional bonus you get for not spending early (more policies for your culture - the exploit), however, it does not make the Policy/Wonder irrelevant, they still work, but probably more so as inttended, to lower all future policy costs. I.e all Current/Previous(Unspent) culture is not allowed to be spent at the new cheaper rate, but all future culture earnt does get the benefit.

Alas, till such a fix is implemented, the Rendentor Exploit as it shall be known from now on, and all others like it, (which lower the policy cost for culture saved up), will be the easiest way to win. But its not impossible to win otherwise, I finished the Culture victory, spending each culture policy as I earnt it, and never even built the Rendentor, (I had finished the game by the time my science reached it, as science wasn't my goal.

If their should be a rule to use to stop the Redentor Exploit. It should not be to stop from selling cities, as this doesn't fix the other two versions of the exploit.
It should be,

Guidelines -

- Where possible, adopt a Cultural Policy into a desired branch as soon as your able.
- Tactics to save Culture for a different tree not yet available is allowed, however, Culture must be spent on policies before doing any of the following, 1. Selling Non-Puppet Cities, 2. Building the World Wonder the Redentor, 3. Taking the Freedom Solical Policy "Free Speech".

All of which are exploits as described below, not just the first one;

My proposed tempory Guideline solution, will solve all three Exploits without impeeding on allowed strategies, such as saving for a different policy tree or selling cities for other purposes, perhaps to stop warmonger happy civ's from crushing your little utopia.
Well it will solve the problem, so long as everyone is honhest and abides it.

So thats 1 Exploit found, debated, and a fix has just been proposed. Lets find some more .

 

^^

Sorry, but its not an exploit to save your culture until you have free speech or the Cristo Redentor. The game tells you very clearly when you get enough culture for a new policy that you can right click to dismiss. Most people will end up doing this anyway after trying to get a cultural victory and failing several times due to not having unlocked enough policies.

 

No, its not an exploit to save culture up for a policy that actually matters to you.
I.e Saving culture for the Commerce Tree.

However, Saving all your culture till you unlock the Freedom tree, and then taking Free Speech because it not only lowers "future" social policy purchases with future earnt culture as intended, but it also lowers the cost for all this saved up culture meaning you can buy more policies this way than by any other buying method. This IS the exploit.
It is also the reason people will tend to not spend any culture till after taking Free Speech and/or The Cristo Redentor. They are not doing it for the intended reasons (although they are still decent), but for the Exploit of getting more "bang for their previously earnt buck" so to speak. As apposed to "Future" earnt culture for "Future" Policies which is what they were designed for. If they were designed to decrease the policy cost of previously earnt culture, it would say so and also decrease the cost of previously spent culture policies, so that their is no Exploitation where by everyone has to do it a certain way if they don't want to be massively disadvantaged.

If you fail to win a cultural victory unless you use the Cristo Rendentor Exploit, then its not that its impossible to win without the Exploit, its just you aren't playing properly.
I won the cultural victory, with ample time left, without using any of the exploits. I never owned more than 1 city, so that rules out Exploit number 1., I never built the Cristo Redentor, so that rules out Exploit Number 2., I spent all culture as I earn't it, so that rules out The Free Speech Exploit, number 3.
It is possible to win a Cultural Victory without using exploits, just as its possible to win all others I would imagine.

 

Finished mine turn 337 (1917.)

Strats: 2 city build to start (I wanted 3 but between desert above and tundra below I couldn't find a good spot,) 3 once I took Berlin (the only other civ on my island--and I was honorable, he attacked me first!) I razed his other two cities. I didn't bother connecting Berlin to my capital because it was so far away and landlocked.

I spammed farms to help support a large specialist empire, which along with Maritime city-states let me have two cities at 22 and 26, with a third at I think 19, working every single specialist available (though the attached save has my capital on production focus with almost no specialists to finish the wonder.) My income was a mixture of nearly permanent Golden Ages from Great People born to my empire and gifted from city-states, as well as selling off all spare Luxury resources (love the Bazaar.) I warred quite a bit with my navy which got me a few great generals to turn into Golden Ages, as well. When I first annexed Berlin I was hurting for money and figured with only 3 cities I'd need to spam trading posts there for an income, but as it happens I was rolling in dough the rest of the game and could easily have turned it into a specialist city early on to make the game that much faster.

For social policies I picked up Aristocracy first, then went into Patronage as soon as I hit Medieval (which was quick with the aid of the Great Library.) I forget if it was 3 or 5 techs I got there before Freedom. I realize everyone says Freedom first, and I'm sure that's best (especially if you're doing the big empire sell/raze at the end cheese,) but for the first half of my game city state allies were providing just as much culture as mine were. I'm sure it's not technically better, but it's not that much worse, and it's a lot more fun to have city-state allies. :] Especially if you honor the alliance and defend them against the backstabbing Songhai.

By the end I had 18 wonders in my capital alone. Aristocracy really paid off!

Anyway, this was a fun challenge. Arabia offered a strange mix of bonuses for a cultural game. It certainly wasn't one I would've picked for myself, since the desert tiles are harsh when you want to only settle a few cities and trade bonuses are kinda useless. However, the extra income from trading the Bazaars' extra resources had me swimming in so many coins I could fast buy tons of things and still keep my city-states happy, which would otherwise be rare for a small empire that goes for farms instead of trading posts.



edit: As for selling/giving away cities at any time... well, I did. I didn't use them for culture or even build a single thing there, or keep any for a single turn for that matter. Three or four of Askia's cities I captured in a bid to keep him off of Tyre's back (one of my city-state allies,) and instead of razing them so he'd just rebuild again I gifted them to Japan. It was immediate, though. *shrug* By the end I was earning about 600 culture a turn from three cities, you don't need more than that. I did keep extra saves to prove this though if need be, so I have one from 191 and 300.

 

Have to agree with Ragnarok here, basicly it's the same.However, banning it will force people to artificially slow down culture to gain on discount for 1-2 socics.

 

Explain what you mean Lexad by "Artificially slowing down culture to gain on discount for 1-2 policies."

 

I respectfully disagree - as mentioned earlier in this thread there is a trade-off with saving up your culture until Free Speech or Cristo Redentor.
You are losing dozens or hundreds of rounds without any added bonusses that might help you out a lot - e.g. a friend refused to save up too much for Free Speech but decided to pump stuff into Patronage to get faster culture. I don't think this is better, but it's another strategy.
Then at one point e.g. I got attacked by an AI before having built Cristo Redentor - I quickly adopted a few policies to help me defend like +33% city defense. If I had saved them I could have lost a city.

An added risk (although not really a strong one) like explained in my submission is, that you can save up too much culture and might end up completing more than the five trees. In fact I think you can finish the game much earlier than having researched Telegraph (=Cristo Redentor).

In the end though I wouldn't mind if saving up policies got penalized in some way - I don't think it's cheesy or an exploit. I think it's an interesting strategy and I actually like to have a few options (how much to save up, do i get +33% ww production first, what about patronage, etc..?) to win. But then again this one is rather boring and I think it's too good. So a re-balance in some way would be ok.

 

This isnt anymore of an exploit than saving up for the commerce tree. The freedom tree matters the most to me than any other, hence I save up for it first in all of my games now.

The freedom tree matters most to me because I want cheaper policies, and 50% extra GP birth rate before I start pumping gold into city states. If that is an exploit, then so would be saving up policies to place anywhere else, such as commerce or patronage.

 

If you capture cities and keep them puppeted, they dont increase your required culture for policies, and will even generate culture for you if the auto build a monument.

Hence it makes no sense to trade away cities to reduce costs, you can capture lots of puppet cities to generate extra culture without increasing the culture cap.

 

Simply putting the word "exploit" after something doesn't make it so.

That is until the idiot AI governor starts building lots of useless high maintenance buildings in order to bankrupt you.

 

Noob question: Why is it negative with many cities when going for culture victory? Is there a culture penalty pr. city owned? ..And puppet cities does not count here?

 

Obviously your just not grasping what I'm explaining.

Its not exploitive or wrong to save culture instead of spending it right away. You can save up to spend in the freedom branch if you wish, and if your going for cultural victory I would recommend it.

However the Exploit, of the "bug" or what ever you want to call it, is specifically the "free speech" policy, the Cristo Rendentor Wonder and Selling/Trading/Gifting/Razing Cities, all of which rightfully decrease FUTURE social policy costs. However the bug is that they also decrease the social policy cost of PAST culture earnt but not yet spent.
Saving up all your culture till after decreasing your social policy costs to benefit from the bug which shouldn't exist is the Exploit.

There nothing wrong with saving culture to spend later per say, its just the bug on decreasing social policy costs that can make it exploitable. I suggested both here and on 2k Forumns the simple fix needed to remove the uninteded bug, and then you can save up culture, sell cities or build the cristo redentor, and then spend culture without hitting the bug.

The Freespeech Policy and the Cristo Redentor Wonder will not be made redundant after this fix, they will still work like intended, to reduce FUTURE policy costs.

.....

In Big Letters is what the Exploit/BUG is. So hopefully there will be no further misunderstanding.

.......

If you want to use Cristo Rendentor or Free Speech strategies, (those which don't reside around the Exploit) then fair enough.

I can give you an example of the correct strategy, Freedom gets at Muskets (Renissance, another Rennisance tech also will unlock it), if you bee-line for writing (perhaps after taking calendar for stone henge), get a library built and make a great scientist or two, also build the great library for a free tech, you should be able to hit the renissance era with a few good jumps. At this point you have quickly unlocked Freedom, and you can then obtain 100% culture in every city with a world wonder, and -25% future social policy costs (to avoid bug exploitation, make sure you spend all your culture leaving only enough to take 1 policy before taking Free Speech, - this should be possible by simply buying the rest of the freedom tree first or whatever other policies you might want). You have now quickly gained +100% culture and will only pay 75% of the normal social policy cost from now on. Suffice to say. Its going to help out.

......

For each additional City you control, social policy costs increase. This is because as thier owner they can become very good culture producers, Puppet city's don't count to this or great person cost increase, mainly because well they suck at it. They don't specialise, they only ever produce a little culture, they can't build wonders for instance.

For balance reasons, so that a small empire can win the game, things like social policy costs increase if you control more cities. This is to avoid the traditional, more is better, the bigger your empire the better your everything.

 

Sorry - I flatly disagree. The problem is that the game has terrible balance problems. The solution isn't artificial decrees about "exploits": it's to flag things to fix.

The underlying problem is that the scaling of culture costs with extra cities is just stupidly steep. People wouldn't bother with selling off cities, etc. if it wasn't so severe, and then penalties for shedding cities were added, that would make more sense.

I also disagree that storing culture up for a discount is an exploit: you pay the opportunity cost of not getting the usage of the policies while waiting. It may be a good idea to change culture to "use or lose", e.g. you stop gaining culture until you get a policy, but until they do it people need to work within the (broken) system.

 

Its not an exploit or a bug because thats how free speech and cristo redentor just happen and are meant to work.

Accumulating lots of cities and then selling them is not however a normal viable tactic that people would use. This isnt comparable to spending your culture after aquiring free speech or cristo redentor, just as much as saving up gold to spend on city states after unlocking the top two policies in Patronage, or on rush buys after unlocking the -25% rush buy policy in commerce and building the big ben isnt an exploit.

Culture in Civ V is used just like Gold, you can save up as much as you like and spend it whenever you like as well, even if that is after acquiring free speech and building the cristo redentor.

So is it an exploit then when most people dont spend any gold on city states until they have the top two patronage policies as well?

 

Yes, each city increases the amount of culture required for policies by 30%. But since an extra city can theoretically produce at least 80% of the culture of the capital (ballpark figure) in later ages you would get policies faster with two cities than with one city. In fact, if you have four cities generating max culture you go fastest. After that it goes down until with 10 cities you go slower. The numbers are even higher if you have the 100%-extra-culture-with-a-wonder policy (and every city has a wonder of course )