Culture through Espionage - Exploit?

[Sun Tzu Wu]

This:

...is a silly argument. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

You haven't even attempted to explain why my argument is a "slippery slope". Simply saying it is, doesn't make it so. If the Cultural Victory Condition can be upset by a superior strategy, there is no reason to not assume that the same thing can't happen to other Victory Conditions. The only thing that makes Espionage assisted Cultural Victory Strategy different is it is very different in its nature compared to the strategies it displaces. There have already been many new strategies that have made the old ones obsolete. For example, for the Cultural Victory, the old strategy of building 12, 9 or 6 cities (Huge-Large, Standard-Small, Tiny-Dual map sizes), spreading several religions to them, spamming Cathedrals, Wonders and Cultural buildings was obsoleted by jesusin's strategy of one Great Person Farm and two Cottage cities plus 1-3 ancillary cities and Cathedrals in only the two cottage cities and Hermitage in the city with the largest culture rate. This was a radical change in strategy for the Cultural Victory condition and few players persisted using the old obsolete strategy, because it clearly did not work as well as the new one. This strategy leap-frogging process has most likely happened a few times already in the other Victory Conditions. All it would take is the new strategy be significantly different than the old strategy. Before Plastic Ducks used this strategy in SGTOM-15, very few players could have predicted this thread would be considered necessary. If it can happen to the Cultural Victory Condition, it could happen to the other Victory Conditions as well, given players motitivated enough to find faster ways to win. BtS is certainly complicated enough to hide latent superior strategies, especially since significant effort was expended in making the AIs opaque (as opposed to completely transparent). With further code diving, its probably more a question of when, rather than if, another Victory Condition will have a new controversial strategy that will require yet another thread like this one.

The superiority of the strategy is not a objectionable; the considerable deviation from the principles, substance, and methodology that underpin a traditional cultural victory is, at least, to judge from the posts scattered throughout this thread.

It would require a particular form of willful misrepresentation (if not obtuseness) to claim that the creation of a CtE condition was a consequence of nepotism. I am not sure who would levy this charge anyway.

I clearly explained my use of the word "nepotism" to mean splitting a Victory Condition so that the superior strategy can no longer be used, except possibly in a newly defined Victory Condition, unfairly giving the obsolete strategy new life (via nepotism), when it should be discarded. The term nepotism is meant to apply to the split Victory Conditions, not to people, where one Victory Condition is valid and the other its propped up "sister". My apologies for trying to make the word nepotism fit in this context; it seemed to be more appropriate when I first wrote it; I now wish I had taken the time to find a better word.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The superiority of the strategy is not a objectionable; the considerable deviation from the principles, substance, and methodology that underpin a traditional cultural victory is, at least, to judge from the posts scattered throughout this thread.

Some posts.

It would require a particular form of willful misrepresentation (if not obtuseness) to claim that the creation of a CtE condition was a consequence of nepotism

Nepotism is probably the wrong word choice, unless someone on the staff and one of the people arguing in this thread are related through family ties. A ban does, however, provide a nod to past efforts that should not necessarily be a considered when attempting to make fair rules grounding in sound competitive reasoning that are as enforceable as possible.

 

[Doshin]

You haven't even attempted to explain why my argument is a "slippery slope". Simply saying it is, doesn't make it so.

Ok, sure. In two parts:

(1)

Whenever a new strategy is developed for a victory condition that makes all previous strategies for that victory condition obsolete, we should welcome it. Not split it off into its own victory condition or worse yet ban the new strategy. Now it is Cultural Victory.

A. The contentious issue, or first step. The power of the CtE approach leads to the development of a new victory condition or an outright ban.

Next it may be the Space Colony Victory, or The United Nations Diplomatic Victory, or even Domination or Conquest Victory.

B. The slope or precipice. Now all victory types (AP victories aside) give rise to a new set of hypothetical sub-victories. The impression of declivity is enhanced by the use of a tricolon crescens.

There is no reason why (A) will increase the likelihood that (B) will occur, post hoc ergo propter hoc. This is a parade of horribles, the sum total of which would change the face of the game as we know it. The argument transitions from the issue at hand (involving issues of 'exploits,' the representation of reality, player enjoyment, tradition, competition, accessibility, and so forth) into unsubstantiated conjecture, a future that does not yet exist.

(2)

Can we now claim we know the optimal strategies for all these victory conditions for all leaders, map types, map sizes, game speeds and game options? No.

This is an incontrovertible premise.

Thus, if we treat Espionage assisted Cultural Victory different, this may set an unwelcome precedent to treat other Victory Conditions in the same manner when another Strategy is found to be so superior it obsoletes all others.

But why is this a logical, probable, or inevitable result? I could offer up a similarly false instance:

Can we now claim we know the optimal strategies for all these victory conditions for all leaders, map types, map sizes, game speeds and game options? No. Thus, if we fail to acknowledge the damaging effect of Espionage assisted Cultural Victories, this may set an unwelcome precedent that will prevent us from acting when we discover other exploits that seriously harm our enjoyment of the game.​

Yes, precedent has some weight, and some slopes really are dangerous. So it's not fallacious reasoning in and of itself. But it is incomplete, and far too suppositional to be of any real use.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

@Doshin:

I believe we are the only ones who really care about your "slippy slope". Everyone knows that what I have said could happen or not happen. What is important to know is it has happened with the Cultural Victory and that as you acknowledged is an important precendent without which I'd have no argument at all, but neither would this thread exist either.

I did not mean to imply that what has happened to the Cultural Victory Condition will necessarily happen to all of them or even to just one other Victory Condition. Never the less, some strategies are still developed which obsolete previous strategies and what we are dealing with now with the Cultural Victory may happen to other Victory Conditions in the future.

None of us has a Crystal Ball that provides perfect knowledge of future, but that should not prevent us from planning for it.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Deckhand]

This discussion is about how to handle CtE in BOTM (and SGOTM).
for BOTM:

• Ban it or mod code to nerf it? - consensus is No
• Create another victory medal (only affects BOTM results) - consensus is Yes

Does this create a Precedent? - Yes; Is it a welcome precedent? - consensus is Yes

Spoiler :

Based on discussion, I think only STW objects.
I'd rather not add a new discussion regarding the desirability of this as a precedent;
since most are in favor of it, I conclude most would like it as a precedent as well.

for SGOTM: These are unique and map maker will decide

 

[Duckweed]

Actually, I was referring to the use of the GOTO command for checking on Astro. I didn't know that you use the flying camera to do it in SG13. Did you? (I wasn't even accusing you guys of doing it. (Edit: I was just arguing that a team could have to good advantage.) I actually assumed you guessed that you didn't need Astro. I vaguely remember Duckweed making that assumption near the beginning of your thread.)

GOTO works as well.

.

Believe it or not, I knew a lot of tricks very early including the resource trade and FC and never bother to use them, but not the GOTO trick. Since you specially pointed at me and I don't expect you to spend time on reading our thread, here's some links to show you how I adapted the information when the game proceeded and made adjustment accordingly.

For SGOTM13

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10239014&postcount=15
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10243968&postcount=30

I was expecting Astro from beginning until

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10300533&postcount=303

We had met 4 AIs including the GLH owner and from the EP we knew that the 5th AI can be accessed by galleys as well. At that time, was it reasonable to capture GLH as soon as possible and conquered 5 AIs while keep looking for the last AI?

So you think that not going for Astro in a map (SGOTM13) not requiring it is fishy, then again you also think that gunning for Astro in another map (SGOTM17) not requiring it is suspicious as well.

I'll try to explain a bit more as I really want to see a friendly forum and I'd like to see everyone try to improve their own play instead of accusing each other.

SGOTM 13 was emperor level, so catapults were enough to kill everyone if Astro was unnecessary. Moreover, capturing GLH let us stay in a flexible situation, we could either go for full war after seeing the last AI (in our game shortly after T100, which was before we complete Oracle and we already decided to Oracle Currency) or immediately slow down the war pace and switch to research with the support of GLH.

SGOTM17 was immortal level, so at least in my mind that catapults were not enough, that's why I mentioned clearly that we wanted trebs. Therefore, Engineering was the major goal, while Astro was a side-product (in the bulb route before Engineering) with the most flexibility to deal with the situation requiring galleons, although this side-product turned out to play a more important role.

SGOTM17
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12236606&postcount=47
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12238708&postcount=54

Last, all my grand strategies were proposed before the real saves were released, so at least I had no chance of using the GOTO thing

SGOTM14: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10749891&postcount=6
SGOTM15: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11200109&postcount=18
SGOTM16: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11833935&postcount=14

I don't mind that you and others call them blind or lucky. For me, the lucky thing is that my teammates have been willing to accept them. I guess it's also fishy for you that why they could accept those blind strategies.

 

[LowtherCastle]

So you think that not going for Astro in a map (SGOTM13) not requiring it is fishy, then again you also think that gunning for Astro in another map (SGOTM17) not requiring it is suspicious as well.

I'll try to explain a bit more as I really want to see a friendly forum and I'd like to see everyone try to improve their own play instead of accusing each other.

I don't mind that you and others call them blind or lucky. For me, the lucky thing is that my teammates have been willing to accept them. I guess it's also fishy for you that why they could accept those blind strategies.

Thanks for taking the time to post.

My only other response is to clear up a confusion, because it's clear to me that my communication wasn't clear enough and you misunderstood the point of my post. I also prefer a friendly forum and have never found your posts anything but friendly, to say nothing of helpful.

If I said "fishy" (I don't remember) I surely didn't mean to say your game was fishy or your game decisions. In SG13, I vaguely remembered you concluding that you wouldn't need astro. I assumed you used your intelligence to make such a conclusion, not luck (or fishing trips ). In SG17, I believe you guys spotted the ocean tile next to the mountain so you had every reason to conclude that Astro was either needed or very good strategy. I have no problems with your rationale, so why would I consider that fishy? Well, I don't (and didn't). I personally believe that a Guilds beeline could have been deduced and executed in SG17 for a faster finish, but that's another story.

So what was my point? My point was in response to Sun Tsu Wu and I was making the assertion that the GOTO can make game-breaking differences. Why did I use SG13? Because you won with galleys, not because I was accusing you of using the GOTO command (as I already explained to kossin above). I hope you can understand the difference. I'm giving SG13 as a concrete example only because it involved a successful usage of galleys to win and because the GOTO command can be used to inform a team that galleons are not necessary. I'm sorry that you and kossin misunderstood this as an accusation. I simply don't have very many examples in my head to pick from because I mostly only play SGs and very rarely BOTMs, but I don't remember them much.

Again, thanks for taking the time to respond.

EDIT: I hope you'll change your mind and play with Plastic Ducks in this SGOTM.

.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Thanks for your contributions everyone. It was very useful and helped to inform the staff's own deliberations.

The decision has been made and the announcement of what is going to happen regarding CtE in GOTMs is here

This thread is now closed to further contributions.