Domination limit overrun :eek:

[Elear]

So I was running a milk run on small Warlord and with a good start, I was easily on track to destroy the previous #1 record.

I was observing the domination limit through Mapstat and was adjusting the tiles to keep within 10 tiles away on any given turn, and after toying with the limit for almost the entirety of the AD years, I apparently cut it a little close in 960 AD. Mapstat indicated that I'd gain 5 tiles via culture on the next turn, but it turned out to be more like 10, and I lost by domination victory. Perhaps I missed something on the screen, I'm unsure, but it's one of those frustrating things about the process of solidifying a milking position while shifting city locations around.

I'm wondering if there is any clause that would provide for me to reload to the previous turn (950 AD) to avoid this error. Since I have long been in the milking stage anyway, I hardly think it will make any difference whatsoever.

Screenshot says 950 AD, but the victory message comes before it switches to say 960 AD.

-Elear

 

[Marsden]

Sorry, but here's the rule:

Reloading
Reloading a save to try and change game events is not allowed. You may reload if the game crashes, you have started a new playsession. Games with reload rates deemed to be less than 30 minutes per session will not be accepted. Reloading to avoid triggering Domination is no longer permitted, as this is easily avoidable via the Victory Status screen or through use of a MapStat utility.

 

[Donny Brook]

I think I read somewhere on this site that Mapstat can misguide you due to the doubling of culture after 1000 years thing. A city could be at 992 total culture and Mapstat sees that an addition 6 culture points are coming next turn. Therefore, there's no border expansion.

Mapstat fails to recognize that one of the culture builds will hit 1000 years next turn, and double from say 4 to 8. In this case, you add 10 culture points, not 6, and your total culture goes to 1002, not the 998 that Mapstat was expecting. Thus you get an unexpected border expansion.

I pull up the Cultural Advisor at the end of every turn. You can then list your cities by total culture (or culture per turn, etc.). Be aware of those cities that are near 10, 100 or 1000 (or 10,000!) culture points. The "unexpected" expansions would tend to come from those nearing 1000 points, so I really just focus on them.

Then again, maybe you just missed something as you said. Caveat...I'm no expert on Mapstat, I only recall reading something to that effect and it made sense to me. Handling the 1000 year thing would seem like a difficult thing to write into the code.

 

[Elear]

Marsden:

Please note that the following message is not intended to be negative in any way. I hope it contributes beneficially to the discussion around here even if your reply to me is "Yes, Elear, but tough luck" (as I likely expect and according the present rules, whether I agree 100% or not, probably should get).

It may seem to little avail to challenge the rule, but here is my argument against that rule:

Reloading to avoid triggering Domination is no longer permitted, as this is easily avoidable via the Victory Status screen or through use of a MapStat utility.

a) The Victory Status screen is very inprecise and especially unhelpful on smaller-sized maps, where very little changes can affect it before you can adjust your empire. Even 64 percent isn't safe; running on 62 or 63 percent is a significant deficiency to any milking run.
b) You cannot use an external agent to justify the rules. It's already bad enough that there are so many aides out there that are pretty much "must-haves". What about people who don't care to use them or can't? Have external agents become requirements? (Please note when I say this, I do use a variety of additional programs, but I don't think the rules should be written so as to assume all people use them).
c) In the case of those who use Mapstat, as Donny Brook pointed out, there may indeed discrepancies in the calculation process in certain circumstances.

Perhaps I'm not the first to complain, but it seems like such a heartless rule (it's lucky that I had ONLY put 27 hours and it was Warlord level) given the outcome of the game was, regardless, fixed. Thus I'm not challenging the enforcement of the rule, but rather the nature of it.

Perhaps I'm just frustrated that after many fruitless milk runs that failed to score well enough to achieve highly or basically outright failed, I finally had one that would have been submitted, yet failed due to what I consider simply to be a very simple miscalculation, either on my part or Mapstat's. It vastly trivializes the entire rest of the game -- and is the very reason I fear the idea of a Deity or Sid milk run, especially on larger map sizes. On those levels, knowing how much work it takes to get to the domination limit itself after finally finding a good map -- to have a milk run fail due to the domination limit...it seems out of the spirit of the game, especially when categories in the HoF more and more depend on generating good maps and then stellar gameplay. Milking itself is an art, but I see this art in how cities are positioned, city production, worker actions, citizen status...NOT a few tiles. Those few tiles can mean the difference between 200 hours and a worthwhile game, and 200 hours completely wasted. If this could potentially happen again, I am much more hesistant about throwing tons of hours into my work if it could so easily lost and I admit already I'm pretty stunned, even at the loss of ONLY 30 hours. What if I get to the same stage and run into the same problem? Since we already fiddle around so much with tiles to keep off the domination limit, is it really reasonable to say "tough luck" to the remaining Civ3 players when such errors occur? Now if someone continually used reloads because they claimed they kept accidentally overrunning, such a thing would be reasonably disallowed because it would be obvious there is more occuring than just "accidents".

I agree reloading for any other reason should not be permitted, but I find the very vague Victory Status screen and the fact that programs like Mapstat are external to disqualify them as valid reasons for including domination limit overrun as an unacceptable circumstance.

I understand the rule for the reasons it was originally instated but I firmly reject it all the same, and hope the HoF Staff comes to some sort of different understanding in the future. If not, I suppose I will have to fiddle around more and figure out a method to manage the domination limit better in future runs...but that won't take back my frustration and I think everyone reading this has "been there" and can understand why I am saying this.



-Elear

 

[Spoonwood]

I know this might not work so well for smaller map types, and I really haven't done it myself, but...

Keep culture *only* in cities within the outer ring of your empire. In other words, don't have libraries and such at your cultural borders. This way, cultural expansions only happen within your cultural borders that you already have, so no more tiles, right? This sounds really simple for a large or huge map, at least to me. Also, what you say might actually sound like less of a problem for a Deity or Sid game (maybe even Demi-God), since you can get the AIs to do a fair chunk of research for you.

 

[Donny Brook]

Some things used to be allowed and now they are banned. I wonder why the accidental domination limit rule needed to be changed? It seems you have the game well in hand at this point, so there is no material effect on any battle outcomes, trade routes, luxuries, etc.

I agree it's a heartless rule. Yet at the same time, utility programs are allowed, and they provide spoiler info. Seems strange to me, especially when the accidental reload used to be ok back in the day. Were the admins overrun with blatant exploits of the accidental reload trick?

What I also wonder about is the use of private utilities. I'm forever grateful to those who have written CAII and Mapfinder (the two I use) and made them public. But there is definitely spoiler info in at least one of these. What other spoiler info could a devious user garner from his own private program? Personally, I haven't written anything other than a Basic program in about 1984, so no threats from me... But I find it amazing how these utilities can mine so much info from the file, it makes me wonder what else can be "found out" thru nefarious means.

 

[Spoonwood]

It seems you have the game well in hand at this point, so there is no material effect on any battle outcomes, trade routes, luxuries, etc.

Things in hand, sure... but check the tech he researched at the time. For improving score, I'd think it hard to beat getting to that tech ASAP (maybe Currency, at lower levels).

 

[Marsden]

Bartleby has a support group for this, you know.

I'm sorry, but the reload was banned a good time ago, and I agree with some of your post. Plus, there is no victory screen for vanilla/PTW, but I think they were/are expecting a very high percentage of submissions to be conquests. I think it was an attempt to keep people more aware of the of the actual limit instead of expanding until you hit it and then reloading and going on from there.

You're right on the smaller map, the percentage can jump by more than one percent. I don't use mapstat so I can't speak to that ones effectiveness, but why would you have a cultural expansion on your border? I use CAII and that tells me how many tiles I am from the limit to go with the status screen.

I'll talk to the boss, if anything changes it will be announced.

 

[Elear]

Of course And it's no problem: I'm already working on follow-up attempts.

 

[Spoonwood]

As who and at what map size/level Elear? You may PM me if you feel that more appropriate, or ignore my question as you like.

 

[Elear]

I'm essentially running games on various difficulty levels, histographic victories, small maps. (Maya & Dutch exclusively)

I have an assortment of others, too (fast finish games) but I'd rather not say those yet as the dates and conditions are already so difficult, particularly 20k games.

Finally, I'm generating maps for a Huge milk run but it really could take weeks to get anything I care to play (plus, I simply don't have the time to devote to a Huge map until perhaps February or March).

 

[DWetzel]

I have an assortment of others, too (fast finish games) but I'd rather not say those yet as the dates and conditions are already so difficult, particularly 20k games.

Pfft--they can't be THAT hard. Well, maybe some of them can. But for amusement value, I've qualified a couple of different OCC games to the HOF over the last month or so.

 

[Elear]

Oh, I'm talking about #1 slots, which are definitely most competitive for Diplomatic and 20k games. I doubt I can get all #1, but if I purely wanted any slots, I could get them, like you said with your OOC example (nice games, by the way )

 

[Bartleby]

Bartleby has a support group for this, you know.

Tell me about it.

The first time it happened to me, I asked for an exception and I was allowed to reload. All the rest of the times it happened, I took it on the chin.

The problem with counting Domination tiles with MapStat is that it can't see where an expansion will pick up a tile that is "filled in" automatically (the "laws of border dynamics" or some such are described in the strategy forum, IIRC).

 

[Donny Brook]

The problem with counting Domination tiles with MapStat is that it can't see where an expansion will pick up a tile that is "filled in" automatically (the "laws of border dynamics" or some such are described in the strategy forum, IIRC).

I guess that's what I recalled reading about Mapstat. In any event, it wouldn't surprise me if it doesn't handle the 1000 year thing either (although I guess that's just my prediction...).