Culture through Espionage - Exploit?

[Quibblesome]

So we're finally banning Inca from HOF? Sweet.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

So we're finally banning Inca from HOF? Sweet.

Sadly, no, not entirely. By default, Inca is banned as a player Civ in HoF Gauntlets, HoF Challenges and Elite Quatromasters. Inca is also allowed in the first two when specifically required in the settings.

Inca is always permitted in the HoF tables. Even an Inca filter/checkbox idea was nixed by the HoF staff. This forces one to look at all these Inca #1 wins in HoF, even though few people are interested in seeing the Inca Civ in the HoF tables.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Quibblesome]

Is there a particular reason for this division in attitudes between HOF and GOTM?
I assume this also suggests we can rewrite the HOF board with cultionage victories!

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Is there a particular reason for this division in attitudes between HOF and GOTM?

HoF's opinion on Inca is it was included when the Civ IV HoF was orginially set up and thus it will not be removed or even filtered by an end user checkbox. If you want a #1 game in a HoF table, your game must be the best, including any and all Inca challenges to it.

HoF seems to be more interested in fairness between players while minimizing the code that needs to be maintained. xOTM seems to be more interested in fairness to the AI (balance between the player and the AIs), although the competition is really only betweens players here too. For example, SGOTM has several rules that are impossible to enforce either automatically or manually (i.e. GOTO command as plot height radar detection is prohibited).

I assume this also suggests we can rewrite the HOF board with cultionage victories!

Well, the HoF staff did not exclude Kaitzilla's game. I just looked and his 850 AD win at Emporer Standard Epic is still in the HoF tables. To my knowledge, the HoF staff never said such games will be excluded or allowed (but actions speak louder than words - they accepted this cultural victory knowing that most of the culture was generated by spies). In addition, these espionage assisted cultural games have been implicitly allowed for the past five years, we must assume they will continue to be allowed, unless they decide that an explicit ban is both technically feasible to enforce and is actually even desirable.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[LowtherCastle]

Is there a particular reason for this division in attitudes between HOF and GOTM?

The HOF is all about how to create the ultimate game, under given parameters, using the best possible start Mapfinder can generate.

The GOTM/SGOTM is all about friendly competition between a broad array CIV players playing scenarios with unexpected, novel parameters and you have to get it right the first time to do well.

In short, the basic difference is Mapfinder or not.

STW's talk about fairness is wholly irrelevant to your question because there's nothing HOF administrators can do to stop people from cheating if they have their hearts set on that. Nothing. At. All. You can't stop me from reloading, you can't stop me from cheating in any manner you name. HOF admins will never detect my violations.

The only thing that can stop me from cheating is my own conscience and the satisfaction gained from winning honestly despite others potentially cheating.

GOTM/SGOTM makes rules based on the very same honor system that permeates the entire CFC website and makes this community one of the best in the world. Part of that honor system has to do with achieving some sense of group consensus on what constitutes an exploit.

Some exploits can be auto-tracked, others not. Ironically, contrary to STW's implication, some exploits that cannot be auto-tracked (and thus presumably are not banned in the HOF), cannot be abused without leaving traces that can be manually tracked, whereas other cheats/exploits that can be "auto-tracked" can actually be abused without leaving a trace.

The only viable conclusion is to use the honor system and let cheaters rot in hell.

.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Rule violations must be detectable. Otherwise, there is no way to know whether all players are scrupulously/accidentally following them or accidentally/fragrantly violating them or which percentage of each of these extremes is actually the case.

The CFC membership isn't quite the scrupulously rule following group that LowtherCastle has suggested. A significant number of CFC members get temporarily banned from posting to the forums for forum rules violations. Would xOTM rules be any more sacred to such CFC members? I rather doubt it.

I do not believe the HoF staff would very pleased by a CFC member saying he could violate any of their rules without detection. If true, its not the sort of thing that should commmunicated in a world viewable forum. If not true, ...

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[LowtherCastle]

Rule violations must be detectable.

I understand your notion, but it's a fantasy. Get it? YOu can repeat it till your face turns blue but it doesn't change reality.

The CFC membership isn't quite the scrupulously rule following group that LowtherCastle has suggested. A significant number of CFC members get temporarily banned from posting to the forums for forum rules violations. Would xOTM rules be any more sacred to such CFC members? I rather doubt it.

That's why we have admins. But forum rules? What does that have to do with the price of beans in Boston? Just because someone gets annoyed with another poster and loses his cool doesn't mean he's a cheater. Non sequitor.

I do not believe the HoF staff would very pleased by a CFC member saying he could violate any of their rules without detection. If true, its not the sort of thing that should commmunicated in a world viewable forum.

I haven't said a thing that isn't already known, both by admins and the forum at large.

As to your doubts, set it up, STW. Give me a list of violations you think are detectable, get Ozbenno to agree to perform the verification, and give me a map.

I understand you want to believe banned violations must be detectable and that undetectable violations are a different breed. Sorry to pop your balloon, STW. I also understand the accidental violations point you made. That has validity, but the example you gave above, detecting terrain differences in the fog don't happen by accident. Most exploits don't happen by accident.

~~~

As always, my point is not to advocate cheating. It's to acknowledge what makes the CFC great--the people that populate it and the honor system and open forum the people abide by and contribute to.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

You guys are each partially correct.

Honour is important. I very much doubt that either competition would be workable if it were not for the vast majority of players being honest and coming here wanting to participate in a fair game.

On the other hand it is important to be able to enforce rules. The HOF mod has quite few security features in it to assist both us and the HOF team to detect breaches of rules. We regularly disqualify entries from GOTM games where we detect replaying - so there is certainly more than just the honour system at work.

 

[LowtherCastle]

You guys are each partially correct.

Honour is important. I very much doubt that either competition would be workable if it were not for the vast majority of players being honest and coming here wanting to participate in a fair game.

On the other hand it is important to be able to enforce rules. The HOF mod has quite few security features in it to assist both us and the HOF team to detect breaches of rules. We regularly disqualify entries from GOTM games where we detect replaying - so there is certainly more than just the honour system at work.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I need to make myself clear.

1. The honor system underlies everything because expert cheaters can evade the HOF mod. Fact.

2. The HOF mod and whatever tools HOF and BOTM admins use to safeguard play are great. I applaud the expertise and hard work that went into making these safeguarding tools, however much they might deviate from perfection.

3. The principle that only rules that can be enforced should be made is a principle based on a false premise, namely that rules can be 100% enforced, therefore such a principle is not practical. Instead, as a group we attempt to form a consensus about exploits. Part of that has to do with the pragmatics of enforceability. Part of it has to do with the honor system.

4. I'm happy with both the HOF mods and the honor system. STW, for reasons I cannot fathom, persists in advocating against the honor system.

 

[neilmeister]

4. I'm happy with both the HOF mods and the honor system. STW, for reasons I cannot fathom, persists in advocating against the honor system.

I think it is quite clear that STW thinks the honour system doesn't work and cannot be made to work. Your "no-one can detect me cheating" post kind of confirms his/her thinking.

If you start with that premise, then his/her conclusions are perfectly logical.

 

[Fippy]

I don't get a feeling that STW advocates against the honor system, whatever that means.
Almost every breaking of rules, no matter if HoF, gotm or something else, would happen by either accident or not being aware.
From what i read, STW just wants all this to be clearly set.

Security mods mostly make sure that they are detected so people can be reminded to not use/be careful with this and that..so overall it's mostly here to protect players, not fair rankings.
For me it's almost laughable to imagine that somebody would want to seriously cheat in games like Civ where you can neither win any prize money, nor would the rotw ever care what happens in Civ4. No no, such people certainly use other games..

 

[LowtherCastle]

I think it is quite clear that STW thinks the honour system doesn't work and cannot be made to work. Your "no-one can detect me cheating" post kind of confirms his/her thinking.

If you start with that premise, then his/her conclusions are perfectly logical.

Guess I've been hanging around my wife too much. You totally lost me.

STW spent several posts in an SGOTM thread arguing against two teams deciding to have an agreement that they weren't going to use a certain "exploit." I have no idea why, but this agreement seemed to unsettle STW no end. Perhaps because he was on a third team that didn't want to enter into the agreement and this made him feel like it might sully his team's potential victory. In any case, it really was none of his business because he wasn't on either of the two teams. Yet, he decided to make it his business. Go figure, as they say.

So that's the original context. Now, what was your logic again?

I don't get a feeling that STW advocates against the honor system, whatever that means.
Almost every breaking of rules, no matter if HoF, gotm or something else, would happen by either accident or not being aware.
From what i read, STW just wants all this to be clearly set.

Security mods mostly make sure that they are detected so people can be reminded to not use/be careful with this and that..so overall it's mostly here to protect players, not fair rankings.
For me it's almost laughable to imagine that somebody would want to seriously cheat in games like Civ where you can neither win any prize money, nor would the rotw ever care what happens in Civ4. No no, such people certainly use other games..

Context, my man. Context. STW wants things his way or no way. The "exploits" that we've been talking about over the last couple of months could in no way be used "accidentally." As I pointed out to Neil above, this is about the group making agreements and whether the enforcement of the rules can be automated so admins can easily and effortlessly detect their violation. A lot of people don't like the exploits because it lessens their enjoyment of the game. They would rather not use them under an honor system than worry about enforcement, as STW does.

Not outlawing an exploit, with an honorable agreement, forces those who don't like it to use it, if they want to win the competition. Welcome to the dark side...

Personally, I'm with you, insofar as not caring about cheaters. As AlanH said so eloquently, "for a few pixels." If people want a certain exploit outlawed, fine by me. STW simply can't accept that point of view for his arbitrary reasons, enjoyment be damned.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Can we please make our posts less about other posters. I think they can express their own ideas better than someone else can.

Please express what you think and try not to even mention anyone in your posts. This is getting too personal. Thanks.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

You guys are each partially correct.

Honour is important. I very much doubt that either competition would be workable if it were not for the vast majority of players being honest and coming here wanting to participate in a fair game.

On the other hand it is important to be able to enforce rules. The HOF mod has quite few security features in it to assist both us and the HOF team to detect breaches of rules. We regularly disqualify entries from GOTM games where we detect replaying - so there is certainly more than just the honour system at work.

Of course I agree with the above statement. How could the competitions function to the satisfaction of players any other way?

Beyond that though, I no see no point in establishing rules that can not be enforced and, more importantly, do not make the competitions less fair to players or teams by their omission. It really makes no competitive difference whether or not there is a ban on using the GOTO command on unrevealed plots to detect plot height. The fact that the violations of this ban are absolutely not detectable make the rule itself totally superfluous (and quite silly to say the least).

The potential rule against using espionage for a cultural victory is somewhat similar, but also much more complicated. It makes no competitive different whether the rule exists or not; the playing field is level for competitors in both cases, but the winning strategies are very different. The use of the Spread Cultute mission is potentially detectable, but it may not be practical to implement a means of detecting its intended use. Thus, we need to decide whether to allow a nearly undetectable tactic and define exactly how the tactic may be legally used, since we do not want to ban uses the game developers clearly had in mind for the Spread Culture mission. Note that not banning the "legitimate" (those clearly intended by the developers) uses of the Spread Culture mission complicates its detection when used to assist in a cultural victory.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[LowtherCastle]

It really makes no competitive difference whether or not there is a ban on using the GOTO command on unrevealed plots to detect plot height.

Trivially easy to falsify this unproven assertion. Simplest counter-example: Using the GOTO command to determine whether Astro is needed for conquest or not. Case in point: SG13. PD did not go for Astro and won Conquest easily with galleys.

The fact that the violations of this ban are absolutely not detectable make the rule itself totally superfluous (and quite silly to say the least).

There are many players in GOTM/SGOTM who have explicitly voiced their sentiment that using this command spoils their inherent joy of playing CIV. This puts them in a quandary because not using it can guarantee no chance of victory against those who use it, as easily demonstrated above, despite unproven assertions to the contrary. So here's the quandary. Play a voluntary, fun competition and:

1) Go against their own principles, thus not having fun, or
2) Adhere to their own principles, having no chance to win, thus, not having (competitive) fun.

Of course, without banning the usage of the GOTO rule, there is no resolution to this quandary for many players, possibly the vast majority, who don't cheat and don't want to use this exploit for gaining map knowledge that was clearly not intended by the game designer (else why even have flat fog, if you can gaze into it and discern its contours?)

Of course, there is a solution to the quandary: An honor system. This system works perfectly well for all those who feel the above quandary because they know they have a chance to beat all like-minded players, hence they can have fun while not going against their principles. The fact that some might violate the prohibition does not influence their enjoyment because they do not know they cheated and if they did, they wouldn't respect such cheaters for winning. Hence, they are free to enjoy the competition wholeheartedly without compromising their principles.

Such a position is not "superfluous" because it singlehandedly enables such people to enjoy the game and without it, they don't as much. Contrary to being superfluous, it's actually required.

To suggest such a position is "silly" is tantamount to saying that the sentiments of all people who voiced them are not worthy.

I no see no point in establishing rules that can not be enforced

To see the point in establishing such rules, one simply needs to understand that "fair" has different definitions. "Fair" can be defined as allowing people to compete without having to compromise their principles of how CIV was meant to be played, that is, without cheating. Under this definition of "fair," gaining contour knowledge without defogging flat, contourless fogged tiles is cheating.

Some people who play in a friendly competition prioritize enforceability and would rather "cheat" with the others than risk losing. To these people, "fair" means when in Cheaters Land, cheat like the cheaters.

Other people who play in a friendly competition and who don't cheat are not concerned with enforceability. To them, enforceability is a "superfluous" criterion. Such people would rather play according to the principle of not cheating, with their not-cheating peers, and be oblivious to the possibility that there are amongst them cheaters, who they do not view as one of their not-cheating peers.

Not banning such unenforceable rules forces not-cheating people to either 1) cheat or 2) accept the fact they can't win.

Based on this, I hope all open-minded, intelligent people can at least see that there is a point to banning unenforceable rules.

 

[neilmeister]

^^
Not sure how this relates to CtE.

 

[LowtherCastle]

^^
Not sure how this relates to CtE.

Simple. Thanks for asking.

Based on the discussion in this thread (I don't know the code and HOF modding well enough to make this judgment), it appears that there is no way to "auto-enforce" a rule against EtC, so the only solution for the HOF or BOTM or SGOTM communities would be an honor system.

Throughout this entire thread I have not voiced an opinion for or against EtC (or at least I have tried not to). I would be happy to abide by the majority preference, based on an honor system.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

STW spent several posts in an SGOTM thread arguing against two teams deciding to have an agreement that they weren't going to use a certain "exploit." I have no idea why, but this agreement seemed to unsettle STW no end. Perhaps because he was on a third team that didn't want to enter into the agreement and this made him feel like it might sully his team's potential victory. In any case, it really was none of his business because he wasn't on either of the two teams. Yet, he decided to make it his business. Go figure, as they say.

Similar reasons as the supposed "waters down competition" argument I saw earlier in this thread, I suspect.

I understand your notion, but it's a fantasy. Get it? YOu can repeat it till your face turns blue but it doesn't change reality.

In reality, rules being consistently and equally enforced for everybody is a core requirement to fair competition. Saying that it's fantasy is the equivalent of saying a fair/equally enforced competition is a fantasy...further evidenced by the fact that we have seen people attempt to cheat.

The principle that only rules that can be enforced should be made is a principle based on a false premise, namely that rules can be 100% enforced, therefore such a principle is not practical.

At least some of the rules are 100% enforceable. Others can be trivially invaded by more experienced cheaters. It would have been good for design of the competitions if they had removed the latter group as serious factors.

Trivially easy to falsify this unproven assertion. Simplest counter-example: Using the GOTO command to determine whether Astro is needed for conquest or not. Case in point: SG13. PD did not go for Astro and won Conquest easily with galleys.

His assertion was inherently true. If everybody used the goto command, then everybody knows that. That is a level playing field. Undetectable rules create an unlevel playing field, it is logically inconsistent to support a undetectable rules and a level playing field.

Play a voluntary, fun competition and:

1) Go against their own principles, thus not having fun, or
2) Adhere to their own principles, having no chance to win, thus, not having (competitive) fun.

This assertion, like many in the past of this thread, completely ignores that other people can miss out on fun by being FORCED to play the game a certain way.

This assertion is also logically inconsistent. It claims people are playing for fun, but in order for the game to be fun, they must be competitive. Now, however, they want only selected tactics to be banned from competitive practice, and not other tactics, without any objective basis whatsoever and regardless of the impact this has on other people's fun...including people who are attempting to compete in Civ IV and not "civ iv pretend rules honor brigade". Despite claims otherwise, the latter is objectively LESS level of a playing field.

The implication that people have more fun by taking away other player's options is asinine. That argument could literally be used to ban absolutely any in-game choice in existence, and has no place in a competitive setting whatsoever.

Fair" can be defined as allowing people to compete without having to compromise their principles of how CIV was meant to be played, that is, without cheating.

I would recommend using the actual accepted English definition of the word. There is no point arguing for or against made-up definitions that fit specific objectives.

So just post your opinion and ignore his response...because he will respond. This is an important discussion that has been hijacked by someone whose probably never even played one game of this type.

 

[RagingHordes]

I would advise the ruling powers to be capricious and decide these things without any deliberation, but rather based on their own feelings and opinions (we obviously trust in you, so why not use this trust?).
Deliberation only inflates the issue and this is really just a game. No global consequences, or world hunger will emerge. If you state the rules, people will play by them without much protest. Just try to make the rules fun.

Edit: Don't play to win. It makes winning very enjoyable.

 

[PattonTwo]

I've read 4 of the 7 pages and have cut to the end because there's too much back and forth mudslinging for me to find the posts which are still on the subject.

My personal opinion would be this be given it's own category as a victory condition.

It seems a very valid point that this IS a functional part of the game being used in a way close to but just a little different than how it was designed "spread culture". As it's been in the game since the start and it's using an existing feature in the way designed (albeit to the exclusion of everything else) banning it seems extreme.

It is also very valid to say this isn't just an enhancement on culture victory tactics. It is a completely different game. It is really an espionage game with culture being the byproduct. You could almost rename the espionage mission "spread victory" and call it a day. It isn't an exploit in the sense that the culture mission is to spread culture, but it is kind of an exploit because you aren't spreading culture to other cities, you are playing the game in a way that was never intended (make a city, give it away, immediately recapture it) to win much faster. It's not a culture victory as designed which is why it does feel like an exploit.

With such an overlapping grey area why not give it a victory condition all its own and leave it at that.

If you can't detect it, just ask someone to self report. No one's going to try and pretend their victory was a culture victory instead of the espionage victory.