Culture through Espionage - Exploit?

[DynamicSpirit]

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.

There's a lot to be said for having a separate VC. Basing it on self-reporting is probably not realistic though. It'd mean the staff having to message everyone who obtained a culture victory to ask what they did, and then waiting for the replies before publishing the results. And imagine if the person who would've won the fastest cultural victory never answers...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You could do a cutoff like "spread culture" + win = triggers CtE, whereas no usage of that spy mission = traditional .

Traditional culture games where people divert their resources to to use the spread culture mission (or most other missions) are extremely rare. It would not surprise me if it's only been used once or never in the fastest traditional win games.

If it is possible to detect the specific city being targeted by espionage in the code, then you could eliminate the small possibility of accidentally triggering CtE entirely, by only applying this rule to legendary cities.

 

[LowtherCastle]

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.

This is a misunderstanding. The fantasy is that anything is 100% enforceable. That is factually a fantasy, at least in the HOF, where <censored> is forbidden. Only <censored> can prevent abuse of reloading, by way of example.

The HOF mods are useful, but anything but ironclad, 100% foolproof. Sorry to pop your bubble. I'm just the messenger of that truth.

At least some of the rules are 100% enforceable.

Name one. By pm, if you prefer.

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.

You're interpreting his assertion differently than I am. Whatever he meant, I'm saying that this assertion is easily disproved:

The GOTO command is not a game-changer if some use it and others don't.​

Only that assertion would be relevant to my point because I'm referring to that set of people who consider using the GOTO command to "defog" contours is cheating.

Your interpretation of the assertion, right or wrong, is irrelevant to my point.

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.

No, it doesn't ignore that other group of people at all. It simply focuses on one particularly subset of the players here and I clearly defined that subset. That's not ignoring, it's communicating with clarity and precision in attempt to avoid misinterpretation.

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.

This is another misinterpretation that begs the question you're choosing to answer, off-topic from my point.

I'm saying that some subset of the players want to enjoy a friendly competition, playing CIV without cheating. That doesn't imply that there isn't another subset that just wants to play and doesn't care about being competitive. The primary purpose of BOTM and SGOTM is a competition. If one can't win, then there is no competition, by definition. Some might play just to play, with no intention of competing.

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.

Now you're taking my quote far afield from its original context. My context was the GOTO command, which is not a tactic. Period. The fog is contour-free. Period.

As for the espionage-to-culture tactic, I'm not saying anything like what you're deliberately misconstruing it to be. For such topics, I'm simply saying that I'm happy to go with the majority decision. Period. Incidentally, your "honor brigade" argument can be applied equally to your position as to the position you incorrectly attribute to me.

The implication that people have more fun by taking away other player's options is asinine.

Again you're incorrectly attributing a position to me. Then after fabricating this false position and falsely attributing it to me, you label it asinine. That's...cute. (Admins, please pm me to let me know if it's against the forum rules to call a statement cute.)

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.

(sigh) (sigh) (sigh)

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Your persistent and perpetual sophistry aside, my friend, it is a well-known fact among educated adults that discussions devolve into arguments when people speak past each other, each with one's own understanding of words. Arguments evolve into discussion when people clarify and come to understand one another's meanings.

Fair means fair. How one person applies that meaning to reality and how another applies it can be different. So for clarity, I spelled out how I and many others use it.

For example, to me, a fair law allows me to be an honest citizen. An unfair law forces me to be a dishonest citizen. Here, a fair game allows me to play without cheating. An unfair game forces me to cheat to win. Get it?

 

[bcool]

While I agree that creating a separate award for the espionage assisted culture victory dilutes the competition, I don't see a better solution.

Modding the game in a way that improves it seems very difficult. At least in a way that improves it in the eyes of the majority of the community. I see improving the game as increasing the number of viable strategies and tactics.

1) The spread culture mission is relatively weak when not used explicitly for the cultural victory, so I fear that reducing its effect will make it even more unlikely to be used outside of an espionage cultural victory.

2) Limiting the number of spies has a certain appeal in terms of balance since missionaries and executives are limited. However, limiting the number of spies severely limits other legitimate uses of espionage.

3) Ban gifting cities. Again I think this limits other legitimate strategies too much.

going over the other suggested changes all seem to limit the spread culture mission or some other use it had before it became part of the a viable cultural victory strategy. Perhaps keeping the 5% but limiting to some speed adjusted maximum value might work. I suppose there might be a scenario outside of a cultural victory that would be useful but it is very rare. But again any mod would eliminate this creative tactic from the game, so I'm not in favor of it.

 

[Manco Capac]

What do you mean banning gifting cities. Liberating or gifting through diplomacy. All the time and for situations or just for particular victory conditions. And letting the AI capturing it through a war triggered by the human can pass by the ban without problem.

 

[bcool]

I was just giving examples of why modding the game is NOT a very satisfying solution. Banning city gifts probably can't be done in a satisfactory way even if I thought it was a viable solution.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

There is no need to modify the game to prevent use of a new strategy for attaining a Cultural Victory.

However, for those that have been trying to modify the Espionage System in some way to either make the new Espionage assisted Cultural Victory strategy harder or impossible to use, why not "fix" the Traditional Cultural Victory Game Mechanics to make it competitive with the new Espionage assisted Strategy?

Because there is nothing to fix. Play the game that we have; any "fix" will almost certainly be broken in one way or posdibly many.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[kossin]

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.

Small correction: it was flying camera in that one... which is now banned without any way to verify its use or not. I sincerely believe it's more fun for everyone this way.

~~~

Sorry for out of context, carry on gentlemen

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Name one. By pm, if you prefer.

Examples of definitely enforceable:

- Required game settings
- AFAIK, it's impossible to win one way then have it count towards another
- Usage of HoF mod

I doubt these have direct bypasses, though I could be mistaken:

- Oracle/liberalism bug
- City gifting while at war to gain massive + diplo with someone you're fighting
- Pretty much anything that requires you not do something that will show up in the log

I've given what you said some thought though and within the current constraints of the game we need to rely upon the honor system, because there are some methods to cheat that are logically impossible to detect once I considered how one might approach the issue.

That said, one should still lean on it as little as possible, both to limit temptations and to raise the odds that two people are playing the same game when it comes to that.

Only that assertion would be relevant to my point because I'm referring to that set of people who consider using the GOTO command to "defog" contours is cheating.

Your interpretation of the assertion, right or wrong, is irrelevant to my point.

You were asserting something as unfair, when the circumstances were perfectly fair. If players choose to handicap themselves, that doesn't mean the rules are unfair.

No, it doesn't ignore that other group of people at all. It simply focuses on one particularly subset of the players here and I clearly defined that subset. That's not ignoring, it's communicating with clarity and precision in attempt to avoid misinterpretation.

Defining a convenient subset and then arguing based on that subset excludes players needlessly. It also does not address the impact of choices on the non-included subset. If you prefer "actively not considered" to "ignore", then okay I guess.

Again you're incorrectly attributing a position to me. Then after fabricating this false position and falsely attributing it to me, you label it asinine. That's...cute. (Admins, please pm me to let me know if it's against the forum rules to call a statement cute.)

Let's see...

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.

So, when players are "forced" (IE to be competitively viable), to play in a way that goes "against their principles" , they don't have fun. You claimed this directly. Now, in order to preserve these "principles", the suggestion is to restrict the choices available to other players, which is easily against their principles. Based on the above, people wanting CtE to exist either have to use it and "have no chance to win" (IE not having competitive fun) or go against their principles and not use the best in-game tactic to reach a goal, "thus not having fun".

Where was the false attribution?

which is now banned without any way to verify its use or not. I sincerely believe it's more fun for everyone this way.

I don't see how such a conclusion is possible. If what you were saying were to be true, then there would be nobody advocating against its ban. However, a decent % of the players actively argued in favor of its usage and compared it to other valid in-game options at the time. A conclusion that it was "more fun for everyone" when some people (supposedly) couldn't play in a way they actively stated they'd prefer playing can't be accurate. Maybe more fun for some. Maybe even a majority, but "everyone"? That's just silly.

But the same argument is being used now, too. Players who would prefer to play with a mechanic optional to them (and who are playing for fun!) after are being conceptually ironed out as we see repeatedly see inaccurate claims of "fun for all", instead of "fun for possibly more people than this harms fun for, we think".

 

[LowtherCastle]

You were asserting something as unfair, when the circumstances were perfectly fair. If players choose to handicap themselves, that doesn't mean the rules are unfair.

There you go again, deliberately changing my meaning.

So, when players are "forced" (IE to be competitively viable), to play in a way that goes "against their principles" , they don't have fun. You claimed this directly. Now, in order to preserve these "principles", the suggestion is to restrict the choices available to other players, which is easily against their principles. Based on the above, people wanting CtE to exist either have to use it and "have no chance to win" (IE not having competitive fun) or go against their principles and not use the best in-game tactic to reach a goal, "thus not having fun".

Where was the false attribution?

As I said, the context was the example STW raised, the GOTO function, not CtE. You switched it to CtE to prove you're right and me wrong. Nice try, guy.

There's no communication between you and me. Stop pretending you're communicating with me and just fulminate on about your obsession here, my friend.

Btw, my BOTM is going pretty well and as I said in the pre-game, I'm trying out CtE. How about you? Putting your money where your mouth is or just bloviating? I'm almost curious.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Small correction: it was flying camera in that one... which is now banned without any way to verify its use or not.

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.

.

 

[kossin]

I wasn't even aware of the goto trick at the time, it was all done using flying camera.

Don't worry, I was merely pointing out the correction, I'm pretty much done arguing with anyone on this forum on what is said or meant

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'm pretty much done arguing with anyone on this forum on what is said or meant

Amen to that. You're wise beyond your years, no matter how old you are...

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I suggest that all non-enforceable rules be removed from xOTM competitions. I suggest that xOTM staff state that all future rules must have some means of enforcement. Rules with no possibily of enforcement have no place in any competition.

I suggest that nothing be done with regard to Espionage assisted Cultural. This is not an exploit, thus no modification of the rules or the game is justified. Improved strategies have surfaced from time to time in Civ IV; this Espionage Assisted Cultural Victory Strategy is just another improved strategy. There was no controversy when Plastics Ducks used the strategy in SGOTM-15 to make two cities legendary (2/3 of a cultural victory); why should there be any now? Ignore it!

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I suggest that all non-enforceable rules be removed from xOTM competitions.

I agree at the fundamental level, but this would completely change the format (far more so than the topic in discussion). It is also a separate and serious issue.

One of the very few things I share with LCT is a desire not to spread knowledge of how to cheat here, but there are certain serious limitations to what the HoF mod can do. IMO any serious discussion on anti-cheat circumventions should not be public, as we'd be essentially advertising how to do it, and regardless of CTE ruling we want less of that, not more.

 

[Mad Professor]

what we're talking about here is potentially losing virtually the entire way that people play culture games. That's not just a strategy, it's almost the equivalent of losing a whole victory condition. If espionage-culture victories take over the culture rankings, then what remains will be notionally a culture victory, but - as far as I understand it from the explanations that have been given - it will for all practical purposes be a completely different game. (An analogy might be: Suppose someone found a trick to win domination without ever going to war, which was virtually guaranteed to give faster victories than actually going to war. Imagine how all the people who play civ because the enjoy the strategies behind warring and attacking cities would feel...) Whatever the merits of being able to play the new espionage tactic might be, that would undoubtedly be a huge loss for many players. I don't think we can lightly take a decision that would have that consequence.

I think this is an excellent point. From what I've read of this tactic, it seems to involve careful planning, skill, and at least as much work and cunning as the more "traditional" ways of obtaining culture victory. However it isn't the same kind of victory. The fact that you end up with legendary culture cities is mostly (it seems to me) a co-incidence - you have not played a game with "culture" at all. You played a game with espionage.

It seems to me therefore that banning it would be a mistake (since it seems to be a clever, skilled way of playing the game) but I think it would be better as a separate kind of victory condition. (And no I won't be the one doing all the modding work to make that happen so I can type that sentence more easily than the guy who will have to do it! )

 

[SilentWatcher]

Perhaps there is a simpler way? mark culture wins that dont use more than x espionage points as trad (or something like that). Both sides get to play the game the way they want to play it, after all thats probably THE most important thing. But the traditional method payers still get their league table. I'm going to give the method a try and then I'll be better informed but I'm not going to do it on my submission game as I guess quite a few who have it sussed are going to do that... leaves more room in the other victories section for me! I'm generally against banning things or second guessing the dev's as to what we think they were thinking (or more likely what we wanted them to be thinking). Until I've played it I'll settle for it being just another string to the Civ bow. It's your game you play it. Should it make an older method obsolete? No. Give it a new label.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

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

I do not believe that xOTM should be in the business of segregating new superior strategies so that strategies it would otherwise obsolete remain viable. Doing so might even leave us open to charges of nepotism (creating new victory conditions so obsolete strategies may continue to be profitably used).

Also, trying to detect the use of the new strategy by the amount of espionage used is far from perfect. There may be no way to determine whether raw Espionage points are being used to assist a Cultural Victory directly by using the Spread Culture mission or to prevent an AI from doing something that may indirectly affect the success of the game such as flipping
the AI to one's state religion or one of one's Civics to indirectly improve one's chances of winning.

Again, I will point out the No Espionage option in BtS. It entirely removes the Espionage System, replacing it with culturally based substitutes. It can not be used, because it will make winning Cultural Victories easier to do earlier without any addition effort on the part of the player (as opposed to the new Espionage assisted Cultural Victory Strategy).

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[LowtherCastle]

Pretty obvious to me there's only one sensible solution* for BOTM/SGOTM: Modding one or both of these two XML factors:

-<EspionageMissionInfo>
<Type>ESPIONAGEMISSION_CITY_INSERT_CULTURE</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_ESPIONAGE_CITY_INSERT_CULTURE</Description>
...
<iCityInsertCultureAmountFactor>[COLOR="Red"]5[/COLOR]</iCityInsertCultureAmountFactor>
<iCityInsertCultureCostFactor>[COLOR="Red"]300[/COLOR]</iCityInsertCultureCostFactor>
...
</EspionageMissionInfo>

The first factor is the 5% WastinTime mentioned. It basically means you can add 1 city culture for each 20 city culture already existing in the city. The designer's purpose of the espionage culture mission is obviously to allow players to recapture cities stolen from them. I think the 5% value should be left alone in the XML, simply because nerfing it would make it almost impossible to regain your city using this feature.

The second factor is the base cost per city culture, that is, 3 base-eps per 1 city culture. Nerfing, doubling for example, this factor would not make it significantly more difficult to regain your stolen city because your enemy typically doesn't put a lot of culture into it for a long time, if ever. On the other hand, it could significantly slow down the CtE victory because we're talking about increasing the cost of something close to 150,000 culture.

I would increase the cost factor as little as possible, for example, switching it from the current 300 to 500 or 600. At 600, the cost has doubled. That ought to give jesusin a chance. Since we're talking about BOTM/SGOTMs, it doesn't really matter if this value gets tinkered with through time, because no one compares one BOTM with the next anyway.

I don't think BOTM/SGOTM map designers need to be daunted by the prospect of having this mod ded in. I'm not a modder, but the change is simple enough and once someone has set the template, all BOTM/SGOTMs could just use the same mod (added to the current BUFFY etc. in use), if I'm not mistaken.

~~~

In my opinion, this thread should be closed. The main contributors are simply repeating themselves for the umpteenth time, making the thread progressively more unreadable.

~~~

* Edit: Doshin's post below made me realize that I left some ambiguity here. What I meant is that, if there is going to be any change made whatsoever, then the above appears to me to be the only feasible solution for BOTM/SGOTM, considering the differing opinions and the implementation issues raised. I personally am not advocating any change be made--I'm good either way.

.

 

[Doshin]

This:

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

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

I do not believe that xOTM should be in the business of segregating new superior strategies so that strategies it would otherwise obsolete remain viable. Doing so might even leave us open to charges of nepotism (creating new victory conditions so obsolete strategies may continue to be profitably used).

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 also think the thread should be closed, since a good cross-section of the community have expressed their opinions, and the personal gaming philosophies of certain contributors keep getting cast as universal truths. I, for instance, don't think that the "one sensible solution" suggested by LtC is just that, because I would personally prefer to play the game in a (more or less) unmodded state. But that's just me.

I trust that at this point the mapmakers and staff have read this discussion. So, whether I agree or disagree with the eventual solution, I'll know that the decision has been informed by the arguments expressed in this thread, and that you couldn't please everyone.